ROSS ON PARALLEL LIXES OF ELEVATION. 127 



variety of quartz, and other minerals, and the obviously unsedi- 

 mentary character of the trap and basaltic rocks of which it chiefly 

 consists, is well iitted to stimulate curiosity and awaken thought as 

 to its origin. I remarked that it had a corresponding and parallel 

 synclinal or line of depression, along its more southerly side, 

 extending its whole length from St. Mary's Bay to the Basin of 

 Minas (inclusive) ; and that the general direction of the Atlantic 

 coast line of the Province was approximately parallel to it ; as also 

 the Fundy coast of New Brunswick, and the Atlantic coast line of 

 the United States, from Eastport to Baltimore, and from Cape 

 Hatter as to Florida. Further examination showed that lines of 

 elevation (and depression) parallel to these, formed the leading 

 features of the Continent east of the Ohio. Of these the most 

 remarkable are the valley of the St. Lawrence, and the Appalachi- 

 an Mountain ranges. (See plate I. fig. 1.) Travelling afterwards 

 in Newfoundland, I found that the chief lines of elevation in the 

 Peninsula of Avalon had the same general direction. At Sandy 

 Cove, on JDigby Neck, I remarked that the ravine like break in the 

 trap ridge, evidently at one time a sea channel, was not at right 

 anfjles with the rido-e, but runnino: north and south — therido;e itself 

 running nearly N. E. and S. W. I remembered that Trout Cove 

 (now Centreville, five miles further up the Neck) was similar in 

 this respect, and I found that the same was true of Grand and 

 Petite Passages. I found, too, that most of the River basins of 

 Shelburne and Yarmouth counties, as well as some of the river and 

 lake basins in Hants, had the same direction, thus indicating 

 another system of synclinals and anticlinals. The basin of 

 (►Hudson River and Lake Champlain and the basin of the Connec- 

 ticut, seemed correlated with this system. The trap ridge gave 

 evidence of another system of lines of elevation, to the extent at 

 least that produced an immense number of parallel fractures in the 

 trap, having the direction (approximately) " of east and west, and 

 filled by quartz, sometimes nearly pure, sometimes in the form of 

 jasper ; sometimes containing pockets having beautiful crystals of 

 variously colored quartz, and sometimes containing metallic 

 minerals. This system seemed correlated to the Cobequid Range, 

 and the line of depression which forms the great central basin of 

 3 



