126 W. Upham— Fishing Banks. 



or very nearly the same as the far more irregular area of New- 

 foundland. Its depth of water ranges mainly from 25 to 50 

 fathoms, and its shallowest places are found along the northern 

 edge, on which are the Virgin Rocks, with only from 4 to 10 

 fathoms ; the rocky eastern shoals, stated to be 30 in number, 

 with from 5 to 25 fathoms, but having channels of from 40 to 

 50 fathoms between them ; and, farther east, Ryder's Bank, 

 with only 3^ fathoms, though surrounded by from 38 to 40 

 fathoms of water. The western part of the Grand Bank con- 

 tains an apparently enclosed basin, about fifty miles long, 

 called Whale Deep, which has maximum soundings of from 

 60 to 67 fathoms, with a muddy bottom. Northward from 

 this basin a distance of twelve miles, with soundings from 48 

 to 53 fathoms, divides it from the deep water outside the 

 bank ; and on the south 30 miles, with mostly about 50 fathoms 

 of water, lie between the Whale Deep and the steep descent 

 into the abyssal ocean. 



If this portion of the continental border from Cape Cod to 

 the Grand Bank southeast of Newfoundland could be again 

 uplifted as when the St. Lawrence in preglacial times flowed 

 out to sea between the highlands which now form the Misaine, 

 Banquereau, and St. Pierre Banks, we should behold nearly 

 as much diversity of valleys, ridges, hills, plateaus, and all the 

 forms of snbaerial land erosicn, as is exhibited by any portions 

 of the adjacent New England states and eastern provinces of 

 Canada. During a long time of high elevation closing the 

 Tertiary era and initiating the Quaternary, this region was 

 eroded by rains, rills, brooks, and rivers, cutting such profound 

 chasms as the sublime Saguenay fjord, reaching 800 feet below 

 the sea level and enclosed by precipitous rock walls, 1500 feet 

 high, until the cold climate induced by the increasing altitude 

 covered the land with an ice-sheet which gradually became 

 thousands of feet thick and at last by its weight appears to 

 have brought about the Champlain depression, the return of a 

 temperate climate, and the final melting of the ice. The sub- 

 merged channels of outlet from the Gulf of Maine and the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the less profound valleys that divide 

 the Fishing Banks from each other and from Nova Scotia and 

 Newfoundland, with the distinct stream courses revealed by 

 soundings on all the larger banks, as St. George's, Western, 

 Banquereau, St. Pierre, and the Grand Bank, prove that this 

 region during a comparatively late period of geologic time 

 was a land area, its maximum elevation being at least 2,000 

 feet higher than now. 



That the period of uplift was the late Tertiary and early 

 Quaternary is shown by the age of the strata which, beneath a 

 thin envelope of glacial drift, form these submarine banks. In 



