The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1914-08-13
BIRTH OF A RIVER.
How the st. Lawrence, the Oldest
In the World, Was Formed.
IT'S BED WAS MADE TO ORDER.

Nature Saved This Historic and Un.
changing Stream the Trouble Of Cut
ting a Channel For lts Course From
the Great Lakes to the Sea.
What is the oldest river in the worldi
The St Lawrence 1t is also one of
the few rivers that did not have to
make its 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, steaming and often tremendously
disturbed by the throes of a globe be-
meath 1t that was shrinking because 1t
was becoming cooler. AS the globe
shrank every particle of the outside
was naturally pulled in toward the
center, and the hardening crust, which
than 1t was, had to wrinkle, sinking
down here and bulging up somewhere
else.
After time certain Of these rising
wrinkles. or folds. the thicker or firm
er 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 up above the universal ocean
and remained high and dry was the
broad mass on which Canada now
rests. 1t is part Of the original crust
Of the earth. and we can see 1t today
wherever 1t Is not covered by newer
rocks or soil just as it crystallized and
cooled out of the primeval molten ma
terial.
This mass formed a broad v from
Labrador down to Lake Huron and
thence northwestward to Alaska On
account of its shape geologists call it
the Canadian shield. 1t is the oldest
land known and apparently the strong
est, for there are no signs of any ex-
tensive changes in it except the wear
ing away of the surface) since 1t first
rolled the ocean off its shoulders.
Off 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 Scotia. Between these
islands and the mainland was a trough
like space that ran from eastern Que
bee southwestward to Ohio. 1t was
two or three hundred miles wide and
| filed with a 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-all labored to tear down the
mountains and carry the wreckage of
rocks and dust away into the valleys
and seas. In this way vast masses of
rock in layers of shales, sandstones,
and what not. were laid down in that
narrow, troughIike sea between the
chain of islands and the continent
| All these "sedimentary'' rocks were
soft and weak as compared with the
solid old GRANTEES deeply rooted on
either side of them and the trough It
self, 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
gion below the underside 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
III
fmmovable. so the rock in the trough
began to bulge or crumple all along it,
length. Gradually. not all at once, bu
by slow and varying movements, thos'
folds were squeezed up. which in thei
broken and worn down form we know
as the Appalachian mountains.
Toward the south there was room
for this action to be rather gentle an(
regular, but in the far northeast thu
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 grea
fracture of the earth's crust occurred
here along a curving northeast ant
southwest line. 1t left deep ant
broad trench between the crushed an(
displaced rocks of the trough and tn,
granite shore of the Canadian shield
Into this trench rushed all the interio
waters of the continent, draining ava!
to the sea. and the st. Lawrence rive
was born! There. no doubt. it will re
main as long as the earth keeps it
present form.
At that time there was no gulf of ST
Lawrence. The land extended out t
coast line that stretched unbrokel
from Nova Scott to Labrador. Th
present gulf is the result of sinking
of the coast region, Most of 1T Is yer,
shallow, but a chart of sounding
shows the ancient river bed as chan
} mel winding out between Newfound
land and Cape Breton to the dee
ocean.-Youth's Companion.