the solid surface of the globe is commonly called by
geologists the Archaean rock, and the myriads of uncounted
years during which it slowly took shape are called the
Archaean age. But the word 'Archaean' itself tells us
nothing, being merely a Greek term meaning 'very old.'
This Archaean or original rock must necessarily have
extended all over the surface of our sphere as it cooled
from its molten form and contracted into the earth on
which we live. But in most places this rock lies deep
under the waters of the oceans, or buried below the heaped
up strata of the formations which the hand of time piled
thickly upon it. Only here and there can it still be seen
as surface rock or as rock that lies but a little distance
below the soil. In Canada, more than anywhere else in
the world, is this Archaean formation seen. On a geological
map it is marked as extending all round the basin of
Hudson Bay, from Labrador to the shores of the Arctic.
It covers the whole of the country which we call New
Ontario, and also the upper part of the province of
Quebec. Outside of this territory there was at the dawn
of time no other 'land' where North America now is, except
a long island of rock that marks the backbone of what
are now the Selkirk Mountains and a long ridge that is
now the mountain chain of the Alleghanies beside the
Atlantic slope.

Books on geology trace out for us the long successive
periods during which the earth's surface was formed. Even
in the Archaean age something in the form of life may
have appeared. Perhaps vast masses of dank seaweed