W. Upham — Fishing Banks. 125 



42° 20' and longitude 67° 20'. At the mouth of this gulf, 

 between the northeastern border of George's Bank and Brown's 

 Bank, of corn para tively small area, which lies halfway thence 

 to Cape Sable, N. S., the soundings are from 150 to 170 

 fathoms. 



Brown's Bank is covered by w T ater from 26 to 50 fathoms 

 deep, and on its north side water of 60 to 80 fathoms divides 

 it from Nova Scotia. Three other small plateaus lie within 

 the next hundred and fifty miles eastward. 



Continuing in this direction, the large Western Bank and 

 Banquereau stretch two hundred and fifty miles east-northeast, 

 varying from 50 to 75 miles in width, and separated by a 

 breadth of 25 to a hundred miles of deep water from the 

 eastern part of Nova Scotia and from Cape Breton Island. 

 On the east half of the Western Bank its highest portion is 

 the wave-built broad sand beach of Sable Island, about 25 

 miles long from west to east, heaped in dunes by the winds. 

 Between Banquereau and Cape Breton Island are some half a 

 dozen small banks, of which the Misaine, about sixty miles 

 long, is the largest and extends farthest, northeast. 



Next eastward the now deeply submerged preglacial valley 

 of the River St. Lawrence lies at a depth of 260 to 300 

 fathoms, showing, as Prof. J. W. Spencer has well pointed out, 

 that before the Ice age this part of North America was ele- 

 vated at least from 1500 to 2000 feet above its present height.* 



Beyond this great submarine valley the St. Pierre Bank, 

 covered by only from 22 to 50 fathoms of water, reaches about 

 a hundred and twenty-five miles from northwest to southeast, 

 with a width of 30 to 60 miles. On the north this bank is 

 divided from the Miquelon Islands by water from 61 to 63 

 fathoms deep. 



Soundings of from 80 to 96 fathoms separate the St. Pierre 

 from Green Bank, of which the latter has a length of about 

 60 miles from north to south with half as great width, being 

 in its turn separated from the Grand Bank by water of 64 

 fathoms. Farther east the deep water between Cape Race, 

 Newfoundland, and the Grand Bank is mostly from 80 to 100 

 fathoms, and in one place 115 fathoms. On the northwest, 

 however, Placentia Bay of Newfoundland has maximum 

 soundings of from 125 to 147 fathoms, being thus probably 67 

 fathoms deeper than any outlet from it to the depths of the 

 North Atlantic. 



The Grand Bank has approximately the outline of an equi- 

 lateral triangle measuring from 275 to 30t) miles on each side, 



* ''The high continental elevation preceding the Pleistocene period." Bulletin 

 G. S. A., vol. i, 1890, pp. 65-70, with map of the preglacial Laurentian river. 

 Also in the Geol. Mag., Ill, vol. vii, 1890, pp. 208-212. 



