132 LABRADOR 



the trap is more resistant to ordinary weathering and decay 

 than the formation it cuts, but is less resistant than they to 

 the more mechanical destruction of the sea-wave ; thus a 

 trap-ridge may be seen to terminate in a sea-chasm at the 

 point where the rock has been under the mastering control 

 of the pounding breakers. An easily visited example, one 

 of relative antiquity as it lies close to the highest of the old 

 shore-lines, is situated on a ridge a half mile northwest of 

 Hopedale Mission House, at an elevation of 325 feet above 

 the sea. This chasm, three hundred yards in length, faith- 

 fully follows the line of a trap-dike crossing the ridge. An- 

 other picturesque example is nearly as long, with an average 

 width of twenty feet and vertical depth of seventy-five feet ; 

 it occurs on Long Island at American Tickle. Its excava- 

 tion has been long under way, beginning when the land stood 

 scores of feet lower than at present. The boiling waves 

 still run nearly to the head of the chasm. 



Before the writer lies a photograph which shows the base 

 of a torn and ragged sea-cliff overlooking a fine beach about 

 200 feet above the present sea-level. The boulders of the 

 beach represent the wave-worn, rounded debris of the cliff. 

 In the background is the old, uneven sea-bottom, now cov- 

 ered with a slight vegetation and with moss-encircled lake- 

 lets filling glaciated rock-basins. The scene before the 

 photographer was wild and desolate, yet cheered and made 

 beautiful by the wonderful blues of sea and sky and the 

 no less exquisite purples of the atmosphere. Without the 

 colour, the views might have been depressing ; with it, there 

 was much attractiveness in this spectacle of a primitive 

 world restored from the sea. 



The fact of the massive crustal upheaval of the Labrador 



