35 
Both moose and caribou inhabit Tabletop, also bears and beaver, 
but no red deer or wolves. Rabbits, foxes, squirrels, and chipmunks were 
not seen and no partridges, nor owls, nor hawks, and no frogs were observed, 
though toads are common. All the insect pests except sandflies ( brUlots ) are 
prevalent when the weather is warm enough. The only trees are spruce 
and balsam, though there are a few alder bushes. The writer's men were 
quite at a loss for the birch bark so essential for the rural French Canadian. 
Except in two ravines cutting the tableland the timber is seldom 
30 feet in height, though there are trunks more than a foot through and 
with 200 or 300 annual rings. Most of the older trunks seem to be hollow. 
The region is a little world to itself differing in many ways from the 
surrounding country and particularly in the alpine type of plants at and 
above timber-line. These remind one of northern Labrador or the Rockies 
above 7,000 or 8,000 feet, and Include the moss campion -(Silene cicaule ), 
bear berry (Arctostaphylus) , the crowberry ( Empetrum nigrum ), creeping 
blueberries, etc., as well as reindeer moss in appropriate places. 
Individual Mountains 
Tabletop as a whole includes probably 25 or 30 square miles above 
3,000 feet, arranged as a shallow trough running about north and south, 
the higher points rising mostly on the east and west sides of the mass, 
without making definite ranges, however. The peaks on the west side, 
trending a little west of south and east of north, will be referred to first. 
They have some peculiarities in common, the western side, and usually 
the highest point, is of schist, and the eastern of granite; and the slope 
is very steep, often precipitous, toward the west and gentler toward the 
east. Six summits can be distinguished. So far as one can judge from 
the vague mountain forms on the geological map the one at the south end 
of the row corresponds to Richardson peak, 3,700 feet. A through valley 
running northwest and southeast with a depression to 3,350 feet separates 
this mountain from the rest of Tabletop, from which it has the look of a 
dome with gentle slopes. 
An ascent proves that it is elongated from northwest to southeast, 
with a very steep slope southwest, toward the Ste. Anne valley. The 
slope from the eastern valley consists of granite, to within 350 feet of the 
top, when quartzite is found, followed by greenish-grey schist forming 
a narrow ridge at the summit. Aneroid readings corrected for temperature 
make the height 4,090 feet, much above the 3,700 feet of the Geological 
Survey Map No. 175, but the weather was squally and the result may be 
too high. 
To the north beyond the “through" valley one looks down upon a 
broad, wooded dome reaching 3,650 feet where crossed. On its northeastern 
side there are two fairly large lakes enclosed by cliffs, the western one 
within a few hundred yards of the precipitous wall of the valley of lac aux 
Am6ricains 2,000 feet below, yet they drain southeastward toward a 
branch of Magdalen river. Northeast of these lakes there are half a dozen 
ponds and a lake nearly a mile long just below the contour of 3,500, all 
belonging to the Magdalen system and containing trout. 
Northeast of the ravine just mentioned is the “First mountain" of 
the Avriteris notebook (3,900 feet), very precipitous on three sides but 
descending with a gentle slope for 1.} miles eastwards to the high level 
