Mont Royal (Montreal)
| Mont Royal | |
|---|---|
 Eastern slope of Mont Royal |
|
| height | 233 m |
| location | Montreal |
| Mountains | Montérégie hill |
| Coordinates | 45 ° 30 '30 " N , 73 ° 35' 23" W |
 |
|
| Type | Mountain range |
| rock | Gabbro |
| Age of the rock | 125 million years |
The Mont Royal (English: Mount Royal ) is a striking mountain range on the Île de Montréal in the southwest of the Canadian province of Québec and at the same time an important landmark in the middle of the city of Montreal . He is the namesake of the city and one of nine elevations of the Montérégie hills (derived from the Latin Mons Regius ). These shape the plains between the Appalachian Mountains and the Laurentine Mountains . The ridge comprises three peaks: the actual Mont Royal (also called Colline de la Croix) with 233 m , Colline d'Outremont with 211 m and Westmount with 201 m .
geology
Contrary to popular belief, Mont Royal is not an extinct volcano , but it was created through volcanic activity. It is the remnant of a severely eroded volcanic complex that was active 125 million years ago. The ridge was formed along with the rest of the Montérégie Hills when the North American Plate pushed westward over the New England hotspot . Through a process known as intrusion , magma penetrated the underlying sedimentary rock . The Mont Royal consists predominantly of gabbro , which is composed of pyroxenes , olivines and plagioclase feldspars . During and after the main phase of the intrusion, dykes and tunnels invaded the gabbro. The surrounding softer sedimentary rock then eroded, leaving the resilient igneous rock . The mineral montroyalite found in Montreal is named after the mountain range.
history
The first European to climb the mountain was the French navigator Jacques Cartier . After discovering Hochelaga , a village belonging to the Saint Lawrence Iroquois , he was taken up by the residents and named the hill after his patron, King François I. In his diary he wrote:
“Et au parmy d'icelles champaignes, est scituée et assise ladicte ville de Hochelaga, près et joignant une montaigne… Nous nommasmes icelle montaigne le mont Royal. »
"And in the middle of these fields is and is the named city of Hochelaga, near a mountain ... We called this mountain the royal mountain."
The city name Montreal is derived from Monte Real , an Italian name that the Venetian cartographer Giovan Battista Ramusio used for the mountain range in his 1556 depiction of Hochelaga.
The city's founder Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve erected the first Christian wooden cross on the south side of the summit in 1642. Nowadays, the 31.4 meter high steel Mont-Royal Cross from 1924 stands on the summit , which is illuminated in different colors. Not far from the summit cross is the Mont Royal transmission tower , which reaches a height of 63 meters.
From 1884 to 1918, a funicular ran from Avenue Duluth up to the main summit, the Funiculaire du Mont Royal . Between 1914 and 1918, on behalf of the Canadian Northern Railway , a predecessor company of the Canadian National Railway , the 4.8 kilometer long Mont-Royal Tunnel was built , which enables more direct access to the Montreal Central Station . Today it is used by the AMT suburban railway lines to Deux-Montagnes and Mascouche . Since the 1970s, the building regulations of the city of Montreal have limited the height of new buildings to 233 meters above sea level so that Mont Royal remains recognizable.
Parks and cemeteries
Facing along the mountain ridge, the city center, the 190 extends hectares large Parc du Mont-Royal , one of the largest green areas of the city. The wooded park was laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted , who had already made a name for himself with the design of New York's Central Park . The park was opened in 1876. In the middle of the park is the artificial lake Lac aux Castors .
The side of Mont Royal facing away from the city center is dominated by two cemeteries, the Mont-Royal cemetery in the Outremont district and the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery in the Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district . A north-eastern continuation of the Parc du Mont Royal is the Parc Jeanne-Mance . The southwestern peak is in the municipality of Westmount and is named after it. In contrast to the other two peaks, it is built over, with the exception of the 20 hectare Summit Park on the hilltop.
Attractions
The entire city center can be overlooked from two terraces in the Parc du Mont-Royal. On one of these terraces is the Chalet du Mont-Royal , a striking Beaux-Arts-style building . At the north end of the park is the George-Etienne-Cartier-Monument , a monument erected in 1919 to commemorate the eminent politician George-Etienne Cartier . The monument is also the site of the Tam-Tams .
Outside the parks and cemeteries, there are other attractions on the slopes of Mont Royal. These include the St. Josephs Oratory , McGill University and its teaching hospitals (including the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Hôpital général de Montréal ), the Stade Percival-Molson , the Université de Montréal , the École polytechnique de Montréal and the residential area of Westmount and Outremont.
Web links
- General information about Mont Royal (French, English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Pierre Bédard: Origine du mont Royal. (No longer available online.) In: Excursion géologique au mont Royal. Archived from the original on December 3, 2011 ; Retrieved August 24, 2011 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Montroyalite Mineral Data. Mineralogy Database, accessed August 24, 2011 .
- ↑ Montréal en questions. Center d'histoire de Montréal, accessed on August 24, 2011 (French).
- ↑ Information cartographique, Île de Montréal. (No longer available online.) Natural Resources Canada / Ressources naturelles Canada, September 17, 2007, archived from the original on June 6, 2011 ; Retrieved August 24, 2011 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Croix du Mont-Royal. SkyscraperPage , accessed August 24, 2011 .
Venues for the 1976 Summer Olympics
