REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I913 75 



cellent reasons, a translation of M. Termier's summation of his 

 observations in the field is herewith attached: 



This excursion led us across the region of the primitive rocks, 

 some of them much folded, some only undulated or even nearly 

 horizontal, and which lie between the St Lawrence river and the 

 Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. I call this country the Appalachian 

 region of Canada ; for it is the prolongation, in Canadian territory, 

 of the primary folded region known as the Appalachians which 

 plays so important a role in the eastern United States. The same 

 folded belt extends farther on to the north, to form Newfoundland ; 

 it then buries itself beneath the waters of the Atlantic, and Marcel 

 Bertrand believed that he had seen it, in the ocean depths, joining 

 the folded Armorican belt. 



The interest of this excursion, to my mind, was twofold : strati- 

 graphic and tectonic. Under guidance of the best authorities, the 

 whole primary series, almost complete, and often rich in fossils, to 

 discern the folds of this series ; to follow them and fix their date, 

 in a folded belt not less than 600 kilometers in width and the length 

 of which we failed to cover in more than 500 kilometers ; it is that 

 which occupied and enamored us for eighteen days. 



The Appalachian region of Canada parallels the southeastern 

 border of Laurentia, pressing and molding itself against it. It is 

 well known that Laurentia (of Edouard Suess), still called the Can- 

 adian Shield, is an immense domain of the earth's surface lying as 

 though frozen down since Cambric times. All the beds belonging 

 to it which are not earlier than the Cambric, are horizontal. 

 They may be faulted and eroded ; they are not rearranged nor 

 folded. This anchored Laurentia comprises the greater part of 

 Canada. At the south it reaches well into the United States ; at 

 the west to the Rocky mountains ; on the northwest to the Mackenzie 

 river; at the north as far as the mountains recently discovered in 

 Ellesmere, Grinnell and Grant Lands ; on the northeast it extends 

 beneath the Atlantic, and the ancient north Atlantic continent, of 

 which Greenland and Iceland are only the debris, seeris to belong 

 to it. Quebec is a point on the southeast margin of Laurentia. To 

 the northeast of Quebec this margin coincides with the valley of the 

 St Lawrence; it trends down-river toward the east, then toward 

 the southeast along the coast of Gaspesia passing between this 

 shore and the south coast of the island of Anticosti, and regaining 

 its direction toward the northeast, passes along the Straits of Belle 

 Isle, to lose itself at once in the Atlantic. To the southwest of 

 Quebec the southeast border of Laurentia crosses the valley of the 

 St Lawrence, then, little by little, taking a south-southeast direction 

 and even an almost due south course, coincides with the long depres- 

 sion of Lake Champlain. Wherever it can be seen, the southeast 

 border of Laurentia is a great fault. The two regions separated 

 by the fault are in striking contrast : contrast in the aspect of the 

 paleozoic lands, here perfectly horizontal, there folded, twisted, some 

 times crushed; contrast in the relief of the ground, much more strik- 



