124 Report of the Brozun-Harvard Expedition. 



with an elevation of 1,500 feet or more, which forms the water- 

 shed for all the rivers.* Further north the mountains are 

 highest close to the coastline itself, or but a very few miles 

 inland. t They begin at the south with heights of from two 

 to seven hundred feet, increase gradually to a medium height 

 of three to four thousand feet in the vicinity of Port Man- 

 vers, and then rapidly become still higher until the greatest 

 elevations, of probably six to nine thousand feet, are attained 

 at almost the extreme north, between Nachvak and Cape 

 Chidley.:|: The height of these mountains, their immediate 

 contact with the sea, and the absence of forests that might 

 conceal their broken outlines, all contribute to make them the 

 basal feature of a coastal region whose picturesqueness is 

 rarely surpassed. 



There are comparatively few rivers of any extent on this 

 Atlantic side, most of the larger ones draining in other direc- 

 tions. The nearness of the mountain S3^stem to the water 

 on the east prevents the merging of large numbers of moun- 

 tain Streams into one river of any size. A single exception 

 exists in the Qase of the Grand or Hamilton River, which has 

 its rise in the tableland of the interior and flows into Hamil- 



* "The interior country is undulating, and is traversed by ridges of 

 low, rounded hills, that seldom rise more than 500 feet above the general 

 surrounding level. . . . The general level of the interior plateau, . . . near 

 the central water-shed, varies from 1,600 to 1,800 feet." (Low, Annual 

 Report, Geol. Sum. Can., Vol. VIII, 1896, p. 21 L.) 



t "This mountain range appears to be confined to the coast region and 

 probably is under fifty miles in width, the country on the western side 

 sloping rapidly down to the level of the interior plateau." (Low, he. cit., 

 p. 23 L.) 



t These highest elevations are differently estimated by different 

 authorities. Koch {Deutsche Geogr. Blactter, Vol. VII, No. 2, 1884; see 

 Science, Vol. XI, 1888, p. 77fi) gives them as 8,000 to 9,000 feet; Bell 

 (Report Geol. and Nat. Hist. Surv. Can., Vol. I, 1885, p. 8 DD) as 6,000 

 feet. Low (loc. cit.) follows Bell. 



