LABRADOR. Labrador is the large peninsula of high land that forms the north-east corner of North America. It lies between 50° N. in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and 63° N. in the Hudson strait, and between 55° and 80° W. For centuries after the Norsemen visited it in A.D. 986, it was supposed to be part of Greenland (that country is labelled Labrador in all the maps of the time), until Henry Hudson followed its east coast into Hud son's Bay, and completed the true picture of the great peninsula. At the same time the great straits passing north between Baffin Land and Greenland were discovered. The area of Labrador is con siderably over half-a-million square miles. It has wrongly been considered part of the northern terminus of the great Appala chian range of mountains that forms the backbone of the eastern North American continent. These, running in a north-easterly direction, terminate on the south side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The lofty cliffs that flank the seaboard from 56° to 60° N. Lat. form three ranges, beginning from the south. They are called the Kiglapaits, or dog-toothed mountains, which tower 2,500 ft. over the fjord called Port Manvers, which winds away for hundreds of miles through narrow, but deep channels, that permit of navigation without again touching the open sea for fully two degrees of latitude. The second range is called the Kaumajets, or "Shining Tops," that at Cape Mugford rise per pendicularly from the Polar Current to 3,25o ft., whence again a long winding fjord runs into the hinterland for 6o to 8o miles. The northern range is called the Tongaks, or "Devils," a name given to them because of the sharp peaks, of the Matterhorn type, that have never suffered the rounding-off process of an ice cap, this part of Labrador not having been totally submerged in the glacial age. The heights of the actual cliffs rise well over 2.000 feet, but there are visible from the northern summits, a group known as the four peaks, which many miles back from the sea have been variously estimated at between 5,00o and io,000 feet. A very high mountain, snow capped, and with an inverted sugar bowl summit, somewhat suggesting Mt. Fujiyama, was reported by a Buffalo, N.Y. man, John Thomas, as visible to the south-west from a peak 20 m. S. of the Grand falls. The large triangular piece, that thus remains between the height of land and the south-east corner of the country, slopes gradually to the seaboard. Hamilton inlet, into which tidal waters run for 135 m.,
is bounded on the south side by the Mealy mountains that rise to about 2,000 ft., and there is a great sandy beach between it and a similar bay known as Sandwich bay 5o m. further south. There are 3o rivers in this inlet.
When the whole of North America was one huge ice basin, an enormous load of ice piled up over everything except the tops of the Rockies, and the White and Green mountains of the East, and its fringes pushed far out into the seas on each side of the American continent ; the north-east fringe failed to cover the northern end of Labrador. This is shown by such val leys as that of the Tallek running into Nakvak fjord. Here the ice stream between the lofty cliffs on each side poured out as a river into the Atlantic sea bed. But those rivers of ice failed to cover the tops of the Tongak mountains that reared their hoary heads far above its stream. As a playground for the tourist, as a laboratory for the geologist, as a demonstration by which to solve problems of this earth's configuration in other parts, Labrador, with its freedom from disguise of overlying soils and vegetations, offers an unlimited field of opportunity. So far only few places have revealed above sea-level any detritus of ages during which the ice cap further south was scrubbing away the ranges of sedimentary rock deposited during the aeons of sub mergence under the sea, and which, when once again the land emerged, covered the whole of the basal, ancient Laurentian crust which is nearly all that is left of Labrador. Above the height of land is a vast plateau, with an average altitude of some 2,000 ft., which fades away by gentle slopes to the shores of Hudson's bay. The main character of the plateau is that there is hardly a dif ference of more than 30o ft. anywhere over the entire surface, but that endless shallow valleys crossing over it, connect the beds of huge lakes, that are estimated as covering one quarter of its whole extent, some, like Mishikamau, being over ioo m. in length. The north-west table land between Ungava bay and Hudson's bay and strait is almost level, and approximately 500 ft. above the sea level. This is the only part of the interior that is left by the Indians to the Eskimo.