The daily Alaskan., 1914-06-19
BIRTH OF 4 RIVER.
How the St. Lawrence, the Oldest
 In the World, Was Formed.
ITS BED WAS &ADE TO ORDER.

Nature Saved This Historic and Un- changing Stream the Trouble of Cut l ting a Channel For lts Course From 1 the Great Lakes to the Sea.
 What is the oldest river in the worldi The St. Lawrence. It ls also one Of the few rivers that did not have to make it's own bed and has remained unchanged since the very beginning of the American continent
 Try to think of a time when the earth was covered by a mass of water, hot. stpammg and often tremendously disturbed by the throes of a globe be- meath it that was shrinking because 1t was becoming cooler As the globe shrauk every particle Of the outside was naturally pulled in toward the center. and ihc hardening crust which could not be packed any more solidly than it was, had tO wrinkle, sinking down here and bu'ging up somewhere else.
 After a time certain of these rising wrinkles. or folds, the thicker or firm CT parts of the earth's crust. stood the strain and became permanent ridges. The oldest of them that geolOgists know and apparently the first that bulged mp above the universal ocean and remained high and dry was the broad mass on which Canada now rests. It is a part of the original crust of the earth. and we can see it today wherever it is not covered by newer rocks or soil just as it crystallized and cooled out Of the primeyal molten ma. teriaI
 This mass formed a broad V from Labrador down to Lake Huron and thence na~thwestward to Alaska. On account of its shape geologists call 1t the Canadian shield It is the oldest land known and apparently the strong est. for there are no signs of any eX- tcusive changes in it teXcept the wear, ing away of the surfaccJ since 1t first rolled the ocean off its shoulders.
 or the eastern coast Of this primi- tive continent lay a chain of lofty is- lands about on the line Of the Blue Ridge, the White mountains, the Maine coast and Nova Scoti0. Between these islands and the mainland was a trough like space that ran from eastern Que bee sOuthwestward to Ohio. It was two or three hundred miles wide and filed with shallow sea, and just out side the island chain was the great hollow that held the Atlantic ocean.
 Time went on. For ages the strain ing and cracking of the shrinking globe, earthquakes, sun and frost pounding surf running water, blowing gales, ice-aII laborcd 10 tear down the mountains and carry the wrccEage of rocks and dust away into the valleys and seas. In this way vast masses of rock in layers of shales, sanIstones, and whaR not, were laid down in that narrow, troughlile sea between the chain of islands and the continent.
 All these "scdimcntary" rocks were soft and weak as compared with the solid old granites deeply rooted on either side of them, and the trough it. self, a sagging fold, was a line of weakness in the crust As the load of deposits became heavier and heavier the floor of this trough slowly yielded and as 1t sank toward the heated re, zion below the Undcrside melted and grew thinner and thinner.
 That could not go on forever, and soon the continual shrinking of the globe and the enormous pressure of the weight of the ocean became ire, sistible. The Canadian shield was immOvabe, so the rock in the trough began to bulge or Crumple all along its length. Gradually, not all at once, but by slow and varying movements, those folds were squeezed up, which in theiT broken and worn down form we know as tue Appalachian mountains.
 Toward the south there was room for this action to be rather gentle and regular, but in the far northeast the trough was narrow, and the soft rocks were set on edge, overturned and splin. tered against the solid continent
 Very early in the struggle a great fracture of the earth's crust occurred here along a cuTving northeast and southwest line. It left a deep and broad trench between the crushed and displaced rocks of the trough and the granite shore of the Canadian shield Into this trench rushed all the interior waters of the continent, draining away to the sea, and the St. Lawrence river was born! There, no doubt, it will re main as long as the earth keeps its present form.
 At that time there was no gulf or St' Lawrence. The land extended out to a coast line that stretched unbroken from Nova Scotia to Labrador. The present gulf is the result of a sinking of tbo coast region. Most of it is very