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The South Shore of the Estuary This region lies south of the St. Lawrence river, extending between the Eastern Townships and the Gaspé Peninsula. The region has two distinct physical zones: a flattish piedmont along the shore about 1,200 square miles in area, which is mostly occupied; and a vast inland plateau of 10,000 square miles, of which only one-third is occupied, the settlements lying along the main roads, rivers and lakes. The old parishes along the shore have been settled for two hundred years or more while those of the plateau, offshoots of the former, have for the most part arisen within the past century. It is a rural area now well tied together by road and rail services. Only a few places deserve the name of towns, yet some of them have been expanding in recent years. Montmagny is located 33 miles northeast of Lévis, at the confluence of the two branches of Rivière du Sud. Its main functions have long been commercial and administrative, but it has large wood-working industries, a silk factory and a stove foundry as well as many smaller plants. L'Islet, chief town of L'Islet County is the site of another stove foundry. St. Jean Port Joli has many wooden handcraft workers. Ste. Anne de la Pocatigre is an important educational centre with a classical college and the agriculture and fishery schools of Laval University. Rivière du Loup, 120 miles northeast of Lévis, is the only city on the south shore of the estuary. An important C.N.R. junction, it developed and has remained an active centre of traffic. The railways employ about 900 workers. A ferry service makes connection with St. Simeon on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. The Trans-Canada highway turns inland here to reach Edmunston and the Maritime Provinces. Trois Pistoles, 30 miles east of Rivière du Loup is a busy sawmill town. It is a railway division point 70 miles down the coast from Rivière du Loup. It has the only deep water pier along the shore and is the main point of departure for the north shore. It has also an important airport. It is an important commercial centre and the site of large sawmills. Mont Joli has the largest airport in Eastern Quebec. It is the starting point of the highway around the Gaspé Peninsula and the point at which the main line of the C.N.R. leaves the shore to pass through the Matapedia Valley into New Brunswick. Priceville nearby, has large sawmills. Metis Beach, 15 miles east of Mt. Joli, is one of the finest summer resorts in Quebec. Matane twenty miles further on is the gateway to the Gaspé Peninsula. It is the end of steel, a navigation centre and has several sawmills. The Matapedia Valley contains the large villages of Saybec, Amqui, and Causapscal; Cabano and Notre Dame du Lac are sawmill towns on Lake Temiscouta; Rivière Bleue and St. Pamphile are villages near the Maine border. The South Shore is composed of two contrasting areas from the standpoint of human as well as physical geography. The former is largely agricultural despite the large sawmills which get their wood from the plateau. The latter, on the other hand, is an area of scattered forest settlements. There has been some settlement of cut over lands, but agriculture is mainly of a parttime subsistence type and the mainstay is still exploitive forestry. Home