Page 48 - Annuaire Statistique Québec - 1918

22 PHYSIOGRAPHY

movement, apparently, is that recorded by the Micmac shore line,
whose altitude (20 feet) near the city of Quebec is almost exactly the
same 300 miles down the estuary. On the other hand, on the south
side of the Gaspé Peninsulu, the movement is one of su bsidenc e. A
submerged shelf, several miles wide, surrounds the coasts of the Gaspé
Peninsula. The coast scenery is a,lways attractive, and frequently of
impressive grandeur.

OROGRAPHY;-The mountains of the Province are classified in
three groups, distinct from one another in their character, their geolo-
gical history and their geographical position. They me named respect-
ively the Laurentians, the Appalachians and the Monteregians. They
have also regional and local names.

THE LAURENTIANS :-The vast Pre-Cambrian Canadian Bhield,
consisting chiefly of granites and gneissc'l of Lalll'cntian age, extends
over an area of about 2,000,000 square miles in the Dominion of Canada,
from Labrador in the east to the Arctic Ocean in the north and about
half way across the continent. Tt occupies about fourteen-fifteenths
of the area of the Province of Quebee. The Laurentians skirt the Gulf
and River St. Lawrence from Labrador to neal' the City of Quebec.
Here they gradually recede from. the river and leave a 'rvidening low-
land area between them and the river as far as the Ottawa river. The
highest peaks, about 6,000 feet, are on the Labrador coast. In the front
margin along the gulf and the river St. Lawrence, the elevations vary
.
from less than 1,000 feet to over 3,000 feet .

THE ApPALACHIANs:-The Appalachian mountain system begins
not far from the Gulf of Mexico and ends in the Island of Newfoundland.
In the Province of Quebec the system may be defined as including the
territory lying east of a line running northeast from the foot of Lake
Champlain on the Vermont border to the city of Quebec, and thence
clown the St. Lawrence valley to the gulf of the St. Lawrence, through
the Gaspé Peninsula. ln the Eastern Townships of Quebec, the Appa-
lachians are an extension of the Green Mountains of Vermont. In the
Eastern Townships and on to the Gaspé Peninsula they are named the
Notre-Dame mountains, but portions of them have local names (sueh
as the Ham Mountains, Stoke Mountains, etc.). ln the Gaspé Penin-
sula they are called the Shickshocks. They are in three roughly parallel
ridges, about twenty-five miles apart. In the Eastern Townships they
rise to 2,000 feet, and in the case of Sutton mountain, to 3,000 feet.
Towards the city of Quebee they sink to lower elevations, but again
increase in height, and in the Gaspé Peninsula many of the peaks are
above 3,500 feet. In this Province the Appalachians are parallel with
the Laurentians, the uplift of the former having been exerted against
the deep base of the latter.