EARLY DEVONIC HISTORY OF NEW YORK AND EASTERN NORTH AMERICA I "] 



On the backs of all these major fokls rise lesser ones and at Perce the 

 chief fold lias been completely broken down and its parts displaced, as 

 shown in the Murailles, the sea wall at Corner of the Beach and the cliffs of 

 Cap Blanc. This southernmost fold, unlike those farther north, seems to 

 have involved not alone the Devonic rocks but the Siluric strata beneath. 

 We shall observe in noticing specially the geologic structure at Perce, that 

 the coast rocks, part of which are lower Devonic, part Upper Siluric, and 

 part Lower Siluric stand all in slightly overturned attitude, the lower lean- 

 ing over against the higher toward the north and their strata all essentially 

 parallel. This southernmost of the parallel folds carried with it rocks not 

 before disturbed in previous upturnings. The Siluric strata of Cape Rosier 

 and thence westward on the St Lawrence were folded, broken and eroded 

 before the Forillon (axis i) was made. Southward the Siluric rocks 

 may have escaped the folding to which they were subjected at the north 

 till both they and the Devonic rocks above were raised near the end of 

 Devonic time. 



It may hardly do to say that all the bays of Gaspe are the residua 

 of the ancient encroachments of the sea into the old rock troughs but they 

 demonstrate the old topography most efTectuall)\ The entrance of the 

 gulf waters into these troughs has been aided by the depression of the 

 coastal region and it seems quite probable that the present outlines of 

 Gaspe bay and the barachois at Douglastown and Malbay, though indicating 

 and lying in these ancient rock troughs, are of comparatively recent date.' 



' At Gasp^ Basin there are elevated beaches facing the Dartmouth river and aLso seen 

 at Lobster point. The present upward tendency of the land movement is likewise indicated 

 by the shoaling of the Northwest and Southwest arms which in their broad upper reaches are 

 tidal flats through which the currents of the rivers steer an uncertain course. The increase 

 in the sandbars across the upper end of Gaspe bay, the long sandspit of Sandy Beach on the 

 south, the broad triangle of Peninsula on the north and the growing difficulties for vessels 

 in keeping a clear passage through the narrow channel between the two, is evidence of 

 like import. The widening of the great bar of the Barachois of Malbay and the shoaling 

 of its inlet streams have a similar bearing. 



At Perce, I learn from personal inquiry that there has been a slow but general rise 

 of the land in the last 50 years but that within the memory of some of the older inhabit- 

 ants this is a reversal of a downward movement. Just before that date the drying stages 



