GEOLOGY AND SCENERY OF NORTHEAST COAST 103 
heights above sea-level of from 2500 to 3500 feet for moun- 
tains starting up out of the depths of the Atlantic. This 
second mountain-group covers about 300 square miles. It is 
called by the Eskimo the “ Kaumajet” or Shining Moun- 
tain, a name forming the exact equivalent of the Hindoo 
“Himalaya,” and recalling the considerable list of names of 
peaks, as Mt. Blanc, the White Mountains, Mauna Kea, etc., 
covered with perennial or evanescent snow-fields. 
So far as known the Kaumajets have a unique history in 
the topography of the coast, and it is of special interest not 
only in the discussion of the wonderful mountain-forms of 
the present day, but because of an ancient record,—a 
geographic fossil long preserved beneath rocky leaves but 
now visible, for the book is open and may be read. It will 
be remembered that the Basement Complex was worn 
down to an almost-plain before the earliest known fossil- 
bearing rocks of eastern America (the Cambrian formations) 
were formed. Let us imagine this old mountain-root land- 
surface sinking deeply beneath the sea; then imagine piled 
upon it a thickness of 3000 feet or more of mud, sand, and 
gravel, along with the lavas, flows, and ash, of sea-coast or 
marine volcanoes. Such material, since hardened to form 
well-bedded_ slates, sandstones, conglomerates, tuffs, and 
trap-rock, was the raw stuff from which the Kaumajets 
have been made. The whole mass, including the well- 
buried Basement Complex, was long ago hoisted above the 
sea, warped and slightly folded into great shallow troughs 
and low arches (Fig. 15). Forcountless millenniums the new 
surface was given over to the patient but powerful attack 
of frost and other weathering agents and the still more 
destructive water-streams new born on that surface. The 
