SHECATICA AND JACQUES CARTIER 



ter, and destitute of long reaches or natural 

 landmarks as to seem to require an almost 

 superhuman instinct for its pilotage." G. W. 

 Gregory, in "Nature and Origin of Fiords," 

 draws the following conclusions: "Hence, the 

 main fiords of Labrador, like those of Baffin 

 Land, occupy valleys worn by preglacial de- 

 nudation in an ancient and faulted plateau, 

 which has undergone unequal uplift and sub- 

 sidence in recent geological times." These vari- 

 ous passages and inlets of Canadian Labrador 

 resemble the fiards of Sweden, where the land 

 is also but slightly elevated. Their irregular- 

 ity suggests the cracks in a broken piece of 

 glass. John Burroughs, writing of the Alaskan 

 Coast, says: "The edge of this part of the con- 

 tinent for a thousand miles has been broken 

 into fragments small and great, as by the 

 stroke of some earth-cracking hammer, and 

 into the openings and channels thus formed the 

 sea flows freely." 



Here and at several places along the coast 

 dikes of dark trap-rock were to be seen cutting 

 the gneiss. In New England where these dikes 

 have not been under the sea they stand out 

 above the gneiss or granite, for the trap-rock 

 205 



