IN AUDUBON'S LABRADOR 



tion to the sea-level remains always the same. 

 Where the land is rising, as it is in Labrador, 

 the formation of salt marshes is impossible, 

 because the plants of the various zones of the 

 salt marshes are very sensitive to conditions, 

 and cannot maintain them as they do where 

 the land is sinking at the same rate that the 

 marsh is building up. In other words, the 

 relation of the salt marsh to sea-level is al- 

 ways the same on a slowly sinking coast, but 

 changes on a rising coast to such an extent 

 that continued salt-marsh growth is impossi- 

 ble. If the position of the lands were stable, 

 ' — neither rising nor sinking, — the building- 

 up of the salt marsh would gradually lead to 

 a stealing-down of land vegetation and its 

 own almost complete obliteration. In a word, 

 then, the presence of extensive salt marshes 

 would always indicate a coast of slow subsid- 

 ence.^ 



The evidence of the rising of the land above 

 the water is very marked here on the Labrador 

 Peninsula. In places, as we shall see later in 

 this narrative, one may find two or more sea 



' For a discussion of this subject, see ray Sand Dunes and 

 Salt Marshes, pp. 206-28. 



62 



