GEOLOGY AND SCENERY OF NORTHEAST COAST 113 
part of the continent. During that time, to the westward 
and southward, the sea-bottoms of geological epochs 
accumulated muds, sands, and gravels aggregating many 
miles in thickness — the rock-materials that now compose 
the bulk of the emerged continent of North America. 
During that time, many volcanoes near the Atlantic, many 
others on the Pacific seaboard, were born, lived active days, 
and died, to leave more than a hundred thousand cubic 
miles of lava on plains and broken mountain-land. Dur- 
ing that time, the Appalachian mountain-system, stretch- 
ing from Newfoundland to Alabama, was hoisted to lofty 
heights again and again; each great uplift was followed by 
secular wasting that reduced the ranges to flat or rolling 
plains broken only by remnant hills or low peaks. During 
that time the Rocky Mountain region of the west was the 
scene of repeated mountain-building with a similar wastage 
of its ranges. During that time, the visible rocks under- 
lying the five million square miles of plain country between 
the Rockies and the Appalachians and extending from the 
Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, were deposited on the bottom 
of America’s Interior Sea at a rate doubtless no more rapid 
than is now accomplished on the bed of the Atlantic. And 
yet, for all that immense interval in geological history, no 
bed-rocks have yet been discovered on the Labrador to tell 
us of the earth’s constructive activities in the region. Such 
formations may be found in the future, but it is already 
known that they cannot occupy large areas in the coastal 
belt. The layered rocks of the Kaumajets once covered 
much more territory than now; it may well be believed 
that, formerly, other extended mantles of bedded rock 
in like manner veneered the Basement Complex. But in 
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