The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1914-07-17
BIRTH OF A RIVER.
How the st. Lawrence, the Oldest
In the World, Was Formed.
ITS BED WAS MADE TO ORDER.

Nature Saved This Historic and Un-
changing Stream the Trouble of Cut
ting a Channel For Its Course From
the Great Lakes to the Sea.
What is the oldest river in the world I?
The st Lawrence 1t is 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, steaming and often tremendously
disturbed by the throes of globe be-
meath ii that was shrinking because it
was becoming cooler As the globe
shrank every particle of the outside
was naturally pulled in toward the
center, and the hardening crust, which
could not be packed any more soidly
than it 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 geoogists
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
nf nj
wherever it is not covered by newer
rocks or soil just us 1t crystallized and
cooled out of the primeval molten ma.
terial.
This mass formed broad Y from
Labrador down to Lake Huron and
thence northwestward TO Alaska On
account of its shape biologists call it
the Canadian shield 1t is the oldest
land known and apparently the strong
est, for there are no signs Of any ex-
tensiye changes in it Except the wear
ing away of the surfacel since it first
rolled the ocean off its shoulders.
Off the eastern coast of this primi-
tive continent lay 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 d trough
like space that ran from eastern Que
bee southwestward to Ohio 1t was
two or three hundred miles wide and
filed with Il 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, troughlike 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 line of
weakness in the crust. As the load OF
deposits became heavier and heavier
the floor of this trough slowly yielded,
and as it 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
sistible The Canadian shield was
immovable, 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
broken and worn down form we know
as the 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 great
fracture of tne earth's crust occurred
here along curving northeast and
southwest hAe. 1t 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 Of 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 sinking
of the coast region Most of it is very
shallow, but chart of soundings
shows the ancient river bed as q chan
mel winding out between Newfound-
land and Cape Breton to the deep
Scean.-Youth's Companion.