'^3-] 45 fUpham. 
edge, on which are the Virghi Rocks, with only from 4 to 10 
fathoms; the rocky eastern shoals, stated to be thirty in num- 
ber, 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 contains 
an apparently enclosed basin, about fifty miles long, called 
Whale Deep, which has ranximum 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 thirty 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, ])lateaus, and all the forms of subaerial 
land erosion, 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 profoimd chasms as the sublime 
Saguenay fjord, reaching 800 feet below the sea level and en- 
closed by precipitous rock walls, 1,500 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 appenrs to have brought about the Cham- 
plain depression, the return of a temperate climate, and the final 
melting of the ice. The submerged channels of outlet from the 
Gulf of Maine and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the less pro- 
found 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. 
