Labrador, the country and the people . s old mountain-root land-surface sinking deeply beneath the sea; then imagine piledupon it a thickness of 3000 feet or more of mud, sand, andgravel, along with the lavas, flows, and ash, of sea-coast ormarine volcanoes. Such material, since hardened to formwell-bedded slates, sandstones, conglomerates, tuffs, andtrap-rock, was the raw stuff from which the Kaumajetshave been made. The whole mass, including the well-buried Basement Complex, was long ago hoisted above thesea, warped and slightly folded into great shallow troughsand low arches (Fig. 15). For
Labrador, the country and the people . s old mountain-root land-surface sinking deeply beneath the sea; then imagine piledupon it a thickness of 3000 feet or more of mud, sand, andgravel, along with the lavas, flows, and ash, of sea-coast ormarine volcanoes. Such material, since hardened to formwell-bedded slates, sandstones, conglomerates, tuffs, andtrap-rock, was the raw stuff from which the Kaumajetshave been made. The whole mass, including the well-buried Basement Complex, was long ago hoisted above thesea, warped and slightly folded into great shallow troughsand low arches (Fig. 15). For countless millenniums the newsurface was given over to the patient but powerful attackof frost and other weathering agents and the still moredestructive water-streams new born on that surface. The 104 LABRADOR result has been to wear away all but a comparatively smallpatch of the ancient sea-bottom sediments. Steep-walledgorges and canyons have thus, been sunk, leaving massivetables, mesas, and terraced plateaus that reach down to the. f jQ_ i^_ From a photograph The Kaumajet Mountains, looking north from Mugford Tickle. valley-bottoms in gigantic steps like those in the muchyounger strata of the Colorado Canyon. The result hasbeen to fashion a type of mountain scenery truly wild andimposing and of unusual interest in possessing an architec-tural element quite lacking in the other high mountains ofthe Atlantic coast. This special quality is best brought outwhen a fresh fall of snow lying on the narrow ledges of theeven-coursed cliffs makes evident the nearly horizontalstructure. Examples of the Kaumajets are represented in Fig-ures 15 and 16, drawn from photographs. In Figure 16the old buried surface of the Basement Complex, revealedonce more after its millions of years, probably tens of GEOLOGY AND SCENERY OF NORTHEAST COAST 105 millions of years, of burial, appears above the broad un-stratified band at the base of the Bishops Mitre. A brief note from the revised log of the sc
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Keywords: ., booka, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectnaturalhistory
