Page:The Journal of geology (IA journalofgeology11893univ).pdf/355

regard to the underlying Laurentian and Huronian systems. Its present remnants serve to indicate the position of some of the earliest geological basins, which from the attitude of the rocks appear to have undergone comparatively little disturbance. Its extent entitles it to be recognized as one of the most important geological features of North America."^[1] It would, therefore, seem that in Cambrian times a not inconsiderable part of the Archean Nucleus was under water. Outliers of Cambro-Silurian age are also found at several points lying well within the margin of the Nucleus, as for instance in the Ottawa River about Pembroke at a distance of fifty miles, and at Lake St. John at the head of the Saguenay River at a distance of one hundred and thirty miles from its present limit. There is reason to believe that a similar outlier exists in the interior of the northern part of the Peninsula of Labrador, so that the Lower Paleozoic sea must also have covered considerable areas in the eastern half of the Protaxis, where now nothing but Laurentian is to be seen. In that portion of the Protaxis lying to the west of Hudson's Bay strata of Cambro-Silurian and Devonian age extend up from the basin of Hudson's Bay on the east and from the great plains on the west far over the Laurentian Plateau and probably, according to Dr. Dawson, originally inosculated. Strata of Upper Silurian and Devonian age are not known to exist in the eastern half of the Protaxis, of which the typical Laurentian area forms part, with the exception of a small outlier of Niagara age on Lake Temiscamangue at the head waters of the Ottawa—neither do any other deposits of later age occur with the exception of the Glacial Drift. What evidence there is, therefore, would rather indicate that the area, during late Paleozoic, Mesozoic and earlier Tertiary times, was out of water. If so, it must have undergone during this great lapse of ages a process of deep seated decay and denudation, culminating in the extensive glaciation to which it was subjected in Pleistocene times.

During this latter period the whole area was exposed to