BULLETIN

l 0Cr 22 iw

OF THE

Natural History Society

OF

NEW BRUNSWICK.

No. XXIV.

Volume V. Part IV.

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY.

/

SAINT JOHN, N. B. :

Barnes & Co., Printers, Prince William Street.
1906.

CONTENTS

Page.

ARTICLE I.—

New Species and a New Genus of Devonian Plants , 393 - 39S

ARTICLE II.—

Remarks on the Hydrography of New Brunszvick , 399 - 405

ARTICLE III.—

Notes on Cambrian Faunas , 406

ARTICLE IV. —

Notes on a Grindstone Quarry at Stonehaven , Gloucester Co.,

N. B., 407-40S

ARTICLE V. —

Notes on the Natural History and Physiography of New Bruns-
wick, 409 - 474

ARTICLE VI. —

Observations of Weather and Plants, 1905, 481-483

ARTICLE VII.—

Why is the Winter So Mild? 484-486

APPENDIX.—

President’s Address, 489 - 500

Report of Council , 501 - 508

Report of the Ladies’ Auxuliary, 509

Fredericton Natural History Society, 510- 511

Donations to Museum, 51 1

Donations to Library, 512

Notes on New Brunszvick Weather, 513 - 517

Officers and Committees, 518

BULLETIN

0^ THE

Natural History Society

OF

NEW BRUNSWICK.

No. XXIV.

Volume V. Part IV.

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY.

SAINT JOHN, N. B. :

Barnes & Co., Printers, Prince Willliam Street.

1906.

4

•3n°f

PLATE, VIII.

Pseudobaiera McIntosiii, n. sp. and mut, FLABKLLA.

( l (; ft (i ft V
DOfui< /TiO l

VO.(

ARTICLE I.

NEW SPECIES AND A NEW GENUS OF DEVONIAN

PLANTS.

By G. F. Matthew, LL.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.C.

Read February 4, 1906,

Some members of our Society have, during the past summer,
given a good deal of attention to the collecting of minerals and
fossils around the city. Two of these gentlemen, Messrs Wm.
McIntosh and A. Gordon Leavitt, in their quest have visited the
localities for fossil plants, which some forty years ago yielded a
rich flora of Devonian age to the labors of former members of our
Society, and have been fortunate in discovering some new plants
in the Dadoxylon Sandstone. The plants described in this paper
were taken by them from beds about 200 feet below the summit of
these sandstones, and therefore that distance below the prolific
measures of the Lower Cordaite shales which had been worked
by myself and the late Professor C. F. Hartt, and at a later date
by Mr. W. J. Wilson.

I shall first describe a very interesting form obtained by Mr.
McIntosh.

Pseudobaiera, n. gen. PI. VIII.

This genus is represented by certain thick smooth leaves
which in appearance and structure combine the characters of
Filicales and Ginkgoales. The leathery leaves having strap like
lobes, ending in mucronate points recall Baiera, while the general
port of the plant is that of a fern.

The frond is tripinnate and seems related to Eremopteris, and
Triphyllopteris. It is regularly alternately pinnate, the pinnules
deeply cleft into strap-like lobes, which lobes also are alternately
pinnate and decurrent on the mid-rib. Venation obscure, owing
to the thickness and smooth surface of the pinnules.

394 BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

I

In the fertile pinnules the lobes are replaced by obovate
sporangia or seed vessels, alternately pinnate as in the barren
frond, and becoming smaller toward the end of the pinnule.

The plant representing this genus has a general resemblance
to Cyclopteris dissecta, Goepp. (Sphenopteridium)*, as well as to
Eremopteris of Schimper; but both these forms are bifurcate in
the rachis, have more numerous veins and a more flabellate
pinnule — It differs from Sphenopteris in the broad flat pinnules
and absence of a prominent nerve in the lobes. From
Hymenophy Hites by the absence of alation on the rachis and its
sub-divisions.

The fruitage may be compared with Palaeopteris, expect that
the pedicelled group of reproductive bodies of the fertile pinnules
of that fern, are replaced by a single sporangia or pod-like bodv
in this genus.

Pseudobaiera McIntoshi n. sp. PI. VIII. figs, i to 6.

The species is represented by incomplete fronds.

The rachis is smooth but has longitudinal shallow furrows.
Attached to it are pinnae the rachis of which has a somewhat
scabrous, undulate surface, and shows when decorticated a num-
ber of vascular bundles.

The pinnules are set on this rachis about half an inch apart on
each side and at an angle of about 50° to 70° ; they are long-oval
in form, a re about an inch and a half to two inches long and are
about three-quarters of an inch broad, and are slightly arched
forward in the outer half. They are deeply incised into about five
long narrow lobes on each side and a terminal lobe; the side
lobes are directed forward at the ends and are decurrent on the
mid-rib ; the lobes are alternately pinnate, slightly arched for-
ward, have nearly parallel sides, and are truncate-lacineate at th°
ends, where there are from three to five mucronate points ; in the
lateral pinnules the first two lobes on the upper side are frequently
united for one-half their length. The pinnules are thick and

* Zittel’s Palaeontology Vol. hi, Plants, p. 108.

NEW SPECIES AND A NEW GENUS OF DEVONIAN PLANTS. 395

smooth and the venation quite obscure, except near the end of the
lobes, where from three to five veins can be made out, one vein
running to each mucronate point; decorticated examples show
several parallel nerves about the middle of the leaf.

The fertile pinnules are of smaller size and Dear alternately
pinnate, spatulate-oval, (hollow ?) pod-like bodies or sporangia; in
the examples known these bodies do not extend to the base of the
pinnule, but there are one or two barren strap-like lobes.
This pinnule is about an inch and a half long and half an inch
wide and shows about four spatulate lobes on each side. These
spatulate lobes show a branched venation and possibly held seed
vessels which became detached.

From the number of detached pinnules of this species found
scattered on layers of the shale it seems probable that the plant
had a deciduous habit.

Horizon and Locality. This plant was collected from a
thin bed of shale about 200 feet below the summit of the
Dadoxylon sandstone by Mr. Wm. McIntosh, at Duck Cove,
Lancaster, N. B. — Not rare.

The resemblance of this plant in its mode of branching etc.,
to Baiera may be seen by comparing its narrow, upright, pinnate
lobes to the lobes of the leaves of Baiera; compare also the
alternate pod-like fruit.*

The following plants were found to occur with this species —
A species of Cordaites is quite abundant. It is probably a variety
of Cordaites Robbii, Dn, but the Cardiocarpus which occurs with
it is smaller and less fleshy than Cardiocarpus cornutus of the
Lower Cordaite shales. Two abundant plants are an Astero-
calamites allied to A. scorbiculatus, Schoth. and Catamites cf. C.
Cistii. And C. cf. Suckovii also occurs but it is not nearly so
plentiful. The remains of these four plants according to Mr.
McIntosh comprise three-quarters of the collection made by him
from this bed.

Remains of ferns are rarer. There is an Alethopteris differing
from A. discrepans , Dn, the common species of the Lower Cordaite

* See Zittel’s Palaeontology Vol. in Plants,, p. 253.

396

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

shale. A Nairopteris occurs which is net N. polymorpha, Dn., so
abundant in the higher measures. An obscure Spbenopteris and
tw'o forms of Pinnularia (one is P. dispalans, Dn.) occur.

In consequence of the coarseness of the matrix it is difficult
to read the intimate characters of these ferns, but it is evident that
the flora occurring with Pseudobaiera was somewhat varied.

Mutation flabellata, n. mut PI. VIII. fig. 7.

In this form the pinnules were somewhat more than half an
inch apart on the side of the rachis. The pinnules appear to have
been about one and a half inches long and were about three-
quarters of an inch wide ; they were thinner than in the
typical form and the lobes more spreading; also the ends of the
lobes were more frequently and more deeply gashed; the veins
also are more readily seen.

Horizon and Locality. — Found in Plant Bed No. 2 of Hartt's
series. — Scarce.

I have had this form in my collection for many years, but
thought it too imperfect for description. It is now clearly seen
to be related to the plant discovered by Mr. McIntosh.

ANNULARIA Brongn.

Not far above the bed containing Pseudobaiera Mr. Leavitt
discovered a fine example of a plant of this genus. It may
referred to Brongniart’s.

Annularia longifolia.

As a variety or mutation under the name of

mutation Leavitti, n. mut, PI. IX.

Stem about 3 mm. wide. Length between the internodes 30-37
mm.; about 24 leaves in a whorl; length of leaves 30-50 mm.;
width 3-6 mm. ; there is a strong mid-rib and a slender pointed
tip.

PLATE, IX

Annularia longifolia, Brgfc. mut. Leavitti.

NEW SPECIES AND A NEW GENUS OF DEVONIAN PLANTS.

397

This form may be compared with Annularia longifolia
Brongt, as figured by Feistmantel.* The leaves are of about the
same length but are in some cases twice as wide, the length be-
tween the internodes is also considerably greater. It is also
similar to A. longifolia Brong. as figured by Lesquereaux.

R. Kidston makes A. longifolia , Brong. a synonym of A.
( Casurainites ) stcllata, Schlotheim; and in this he is followed by
David White; the latter author figures as A. stellata a much
smaller form than this I have described ; and under the synonym,
includes A. longifolia , Brong. ; his A. stellata for size agrees with
Dawson’s A. latifolia; now I have collected Dawson’s species in
large numbers in the Lower Cordaite shale, but never saw one
com parable in size with the mutation Leavitti; hence, and for :he
reason that it occurs at a different horizon from Dawson’s form,
I must regard it as a different species from Dawson’s, though
only a mutation of the great Annularia of the Coal measures.

Horizon and Locality. From a thin seam of shale in the
Dadoxylon sandstone, a little above the Pseudobaiera bed. Duck
Cove, Lancaster, N. B. Found, by Mr. A. G. Leavitt.

At page 516 of Sir William J. Dawson’s Acadian Geology
Professor C. F. Hartt has given a section of the strata at the
“Fern Ledges” on the Bay Shore in which he gives the
Dadoxylon Sandstone an assumed thickness of 300 feet. Con-
sidering this as the thickness of these sandstones at Duck Cove,
the following would be the relative position of the beds contain-
ing the fossils above described to the section studied by Professor
Hartt.

Fe

Dadoxylon sandstone below the plants above described

about 88

Dadoxylon sandstone including the seams carrying these

plants I2

Dadoxylon sandstone above these beds about 200

Lower cordaite shales (part), containing Hartt’s plant beds 140

440

* Zittel’s Palaeontology Vol. in (Plants), p. 162.

398

BULLKTIN OK THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

*

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.

Plate. VIII.

Fig. i. Pseudobaiera Mclnloshi , n sp. — A pinna with three barren pin-
nules attached, and two detached.

Fig. 2. The same — A frond with a number of barren pinnules, showing
the solidity of the leaf.

Fig. 3. The same — A terminal barren pinnule.

Fig. 4. The same — A lateral barren pinnule.

Fig. 5. The same — A young fertile pinnule with several spatulate lobes
and one barren lobe.

Fig. 6. The same — A fertile pinnule with the pod-1 ke sporangia, and
two barren lobes at the base.

All figures of tthe natural size — From the Dadoxylon sandstone, Duck

Cove, Lancaster, N. B.

Fig. 7. mut. flabellata , n, mut. — Portions of two barren pinnules —
Natural size — From the Lower Cordaite Shales. Fern Ledges,
Lancaster, N. B.

Plate IX.

Annularia longifolia, Brngt. mut .Leavitti, n. mut.— Stem with four whorls
of leaves. Natural size — From the Dadoxylon Sandstone,- Dxk
Cove, Lancaster, N. B. ,

ARTICLE II.

REMARKS ON THE HYDROGRAPHY OF NEW
BRUNSWICK.

By Joseph Whitman Bailey,

Read June 6, 1905.

In view of the careful hydrographic surveys of New England
made in recent years by the United States Geological Survey, it
is noteworthy that New Brunswick, which affords a most inter-
esting field in this respect, has received scant attention. The
questions involved have at least as much economic as scientific
value.

A noticeable general feature is that quick-flowing rivers of
the southerly portion of the Province become so low in the late
summer that navigation, even by canoe, is difficult or impossible,
while nearly all rivers of the northern patt, indeed many mere
brooks, contain a quite copious flow of water. A general division
line between the two classes may be taken as following the valley
of the Southwest Miramichi up to the forks, and thence striking
across country to Andover. While the Nerepis, for instance, may
be nearly if not quite dry above the “deadwater” near its moutn,
the Indian freely poles his loaded canoe up the Quisibis or
Gounamitz, streams of no greater hydrographic area. The basin
of the Magaguadavic at St. George equals, perhaps exceeds, that
of the Nepisiquit at its Grand Fal’s, but how inferior is the low-
water volume of discharge ! Upper Garden’s Creek, in Prince
William, equalling in length some small northern rivers, occasion-
ally becomes quite dry at its mouth, while the Mactaquac and
Pokiok make little better showing. Some small southerly brooks
at times contain running water in their upper parts, while quite
dry below. The writer remembers catching a good string of

399

400

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

trout in the upper reaches of Mill Creek, below Fredericton, al-
though the how between pools was very small, at a time when the
stream bed, near its mouth, was as dry as the railway track which
crossed it.

The conditions for copious summer flow apparently do not
extend westward from Andover across Maine, as the Aroostook,
the main St. John above Allagash, and the Chaudiere River in the
Eastern Townships, become astonishingly low at times. Indeed
the steady supply of water for power at Grand Falls depends
largely on four tributaries of the St. John, the Madawaska, Fish,
St. Francis and Allagash Rivers, all of which have large lake ex-
pansions in their lower or middle courses, ideally situated to
serve as reservoirs. Eastward, in the Gaspe peninsula, those
rivers I have seen appear to have a summer discharge dispro-
portionately large for their limited catchment basins.

Many factors contribute to the general features above noted.

1. — The extent of forest. The forests retard evaporation by
their shade, and control, by their sponge-like mosses and under-
growth, a too rapid flow of surface water. Forest denudation,
principally by fire, has probably been the primary cause of the
marked decrease in the summer flow of the St. John, a decrease
sufficient to greatly shorten, in the last forty years, the period of
steam navigation above Fredericton. A dense growth of spruce,
fir and cedar, very common in New Brunswick, is a better pro-
tection against drought than a growth of deciduous trees.

2. — Lakes, swamps and “deadwaters”. These store up, as
reservoirs, the flow of many brooks, producing the more decided
effect as they are the more remote from the source of the stream.
Madawaska and Fish Rivers are the best local examples. Even
the little beaver-dam may be noted in this connection, and the
obstruction of fallen trees. The lat er often form the nuclei of
extensive drift dams, such as “The Big Jam” of the Horton
Branch of the Tuladie, which became so long and tangled that the
stream-drivers cut a new channel for the river, in preference to
undertaking its removal.

3. — The condition and character of the soil as affecting the
percolation of water. Obviously a soil allowing free percolation

HYDROGRAPHY OF KEW BRUNSWICK

401

to a stream after rain may have the counter effect of absorbing
the stream in dry times. While normally, in the case of ancient
river valleys, the banks become of finer texture as we descend the
stream, due to deposition of the coarser flood-borne material in
the more rapid upper reaches and of the lighter silt below, yet
small tributaries, when nearing the main stream, are often obliged
to assume the torrential character, washing the finer material
from their beds, and leaving collections of gravel, loose stones, or
even bowlders, into which the attenuated summer flow from
above may sink and disappear. Long’s Creek, in Kingsclear,
presents this appearance, and such conditions may have caused
the above noted phenomenon on Mill Creek.

4. — The general geological structure of the region, as bearing
on subterranean flowage. It is quite possible that rain water
falling on the basin of one river may occasionally sink to a level
which carries it under the channel of that river, and into some
lower valley, there to appear as springs. Possibly Nepisiquit
Lake supplies water to the Little Tobique in this manner.

5. — The extent to which a stream is fed by springs as distinct
from surface drainage. Conditions in this respect are connected
with the two next preceding causes. It seems safe to say that
springs are the more numerous in the northern highland'.
Spring Lake, the head of the Little Tobique, is the most striking
illustration. Its outlet is a wide stream of running water, capable
of floating loaded canoes. The navigator virtually sees the
source of his river, so far as it is an open visible stream of any
size, but a few yards before him. I believe Dr. W. F. Ganong
ascertained the temperature of Spring Lake to be only 40° Fah.
in August.

6. — The slope of the river valley. In some cases, notably
those of the Nepisiquit Little Southwest Miramichi. and Rip;ht
Hand Branch of the Tobique, lakes and deadwaters rear the
source offset the unfavorable effect of rapid descent in the lower
river. The Northwest Miramichi, although in the region of
copious flow, has periods of extreme low water, doubtless owing
to its rapid descent and the complete denudation of forest near
its main source.

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

402

y. — The width of the river channel, as affording exposure for
evaporation. Log driving, both in itseif and as opening the way
for increased erosion by flood water and ice, has materially
altered some of our river channels. The writer recalls a large
“undriven " brook entering the Serpentine which had not one-
fourth the width of neighboring “driven” brooks of apparenfly
equal volume.

8. — The extent and distribution of rain-fall. This is the most
important factor of all, and statistics are not obtainable for all
parts of the Province. It seems probable that the mean annual
rain fall is much the same throughout, and that the ctr earns of
the northern highlands are less subjected to droughts u an llr
others, and receive the benefit, in hot weather, of more frequent
showers and electric storms. In August, 1904, after a steady
twelve-hour rain, a rise took place on Taxes River, altogether out
of proportion to that of the Miramichi and neighboring brooks.
Our party, taking advantage thereof to pole up seven miles
against a murky torrent, was left the following day with merely
enough water to carry the canoes back over the sand bars. The
gently-sloping well-forested Taxes valley would not point to such
conditions. Perhaps some “cloud-burst” occurred over the upper
waters.

The various causes above given as affecting the discharge of
our rivers may so co-operate or offsrt each other in a given case
that each stream requires separate consideration. In connection
with the first important factor, that of forest and swamp, we
append two maps, one of the great New Brunswick wilderness,
extending into Quebec, which exceeds in area the Maine-Quebec,
wilderness by nearly 1000 square miles ; and one of the Cain’s
River wilderness, so called after its principal stream, the second
largest area of New Brunswick wild land. The third of such
areas in size is that about the head of Canaan River. Large wild
tracts also exist in Charlotte County and in Gloucester County,
east of the Intercolonial. Smaller tracts are found in all
directions. The regions here referred to contain, up to the
present year, no railways, no roads, other than those used by
lumbermen and hunters, and no permanent human habitations.

&£Li?tS /fii/er* Ia/ i CderuHG

HYDROGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

403

This condition of things, at least as regards railways, will shortly
disappear.

The great New Brunswick or northern wilderness, soon to he
divided by the railway from Campbellton, contains about 11,500
square miles. The mean elevation is probably about 850 feet,
with a maximum elevation of about 2,700 feet at Mount Garleton
near Nictor Lake. It has suffered quite severely from fires,
especially in the region about the middle Nepisiquit and upper
Northwest Miramichi. Some thirty-two of its rivers are more or
less navigable by canoe. There are fourteen salmon streams,
salmon also ascending a few large brooks.

The Cain’s River wilderness, area about 1,500 square miles, is
remarkable as extending to within two miles of Fredericton. Its
mean elevation will not exceed 250 feet.

The purity of our rivers is affected by inequalities of flow, for
where variations are extreme the high floods will cause much
erosion and the feeble summer stream will be ineffective in carry-
ing off accidental impurities. The normal impurities of New
Brunswick streams may be considered under three heads : —

First — Unseen impurities, only determinable by such chemical
analysis as has recently been made of the St. John at Fredericton.

Second — Such impurities as produce color-effects in the
water. This subject has been considered by Dr. Ganong. See
Bulletin No. XVI. of the Natural History Society. Here also
chemical analysis is necessary to a full understanding. I may
add that like contrasts between green and brown rivers draining
almost parallel valleys are found to perfection in Gaspe PeninsuU,
and throughout the Quebec wilderness, and extending at least as
far west as Lake Superior. While the great lakes on the Sr.
Lawrence and Richelieu rivers not only act as settling basins,
but discharge greenish streams of wholly different appearance
from the great majority of their feeders, we observe no such
effect with our Fish, Allagash, St. Francis and Madawaska
Rivers. We cannot even class these streams among our “dear-
waters,” and Fish River, which has the greatest lake extent, is
probably the darkest of the four.

404

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

Some of our wine-colored streams seem toi get clearer as they
descend. The Nepisiquit is clearer at its beautiful Grand Falls
than at the Bogan Pool above, and the rather dark waters of the
Wapsky, Odell and Three Brooks have less effect than might be
expected on the transparent stream of the lower Tobique. Most
of our streams undergo marked color changes, dependant, I
think, to a great extent, on the height of the water. Thus the
usually green Restigouche, fairest of all our rivers, has been
observed by Dr. Ganong to acquire at times the more prevalent
brown or amber tint. It seems natural to expect the strongest
color in a stream, at medium height, when the water is in contact
with much vegetable matter in the swamps and low places, and
when the volume is not so very great as to diffuse the natural
pigments.

Third — Ordinary sediment. Obviously such of our streams
as have thickly settled valleys are the most highly charged with
sediment during floods. It usually produces the color of yellow
ochre, and never, I 'believe, in New Brunswick, thaJt milky white
appearance observable in certain streams of the Laurentides. Other
forms of sedimentation are mentioned in Dr. Ganong’s article.
New Brunswick has no waters so heavily silt-laden in summer
as those of the Missouri, or even of the lower Ottawa.

On rivers without great lake expansions the principal
deposition of silt is usually at their mouth, or marine deltas. Dr.
Matthew observes, in a former bulletin of the Society, that the real
delta of the. St. John is some fifty miles inland. We think no
other river in the world has this feature so plainly marked; al-
though, in a less degree, the phenomenon is very common. We
may mention the Hudson below Troy and the St. Lawrence at
Lake St. Peter, although, in the case of the St. Lawrence, the
deposition is really at the delta of the Ottawa, the main stream,
above Montreal, being far more free from sediment than anv
other of the World’s great rivers. Inland sediment deposits of
this kind seem frequently caused by the submergence and obliter-
ation of ancient deltas by continental subsidences.

A table is added of the approximate drainage areas of all the
principal New Brunswick streams, and of their larger tributaries,
from which their relative mean annual discharges, but not their

THE GNeat N£w Brunswick wilderness

rfipetj

v; cm {' os /. f/,oo .e u t.'

< /.i .:<?(» in a at;

HYDROGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

405

relative low water discharges, may be reasonably inferred. Lack
of accurate topographical surveys of the watersheds makes the
results given merely fair approximations, and where, by different
calculations, some areas have been found to be about alike, I
have recorded them as quite the same, rather than to chance mis-
placing a river in the series.

It is interesting to note that our Grand Falls discharges the
collected waters of about 9100 square miles, an area somewhat
larger than Massachusetts, while the St. Maurice at Shawanegan
Falls, the site of such recent and extensive economic development,
drains about 12,400 square miles, the Ottawa at Chaudiere Falls
about 40,000 square miles, Niagara 241,000 square miles. The
entire catchment basin of the St. John has been hitherto giveti at
26,000 square miles, an estimate that several calculations show me
to be grossly incorrect. Much the largest hydrographic unit
solely in New Brunswick is the system of the Miramichi.

Index of Approximate Hydrcgraphic Basins of Principal New Bruns-
wick Rivers and Larger Tributaries.

River

Sq.M.

River.

SqM.

Magaguadavic ....

. 680

Aroostook . .

2160

Miramichi

. 4620

<D

Mesardis ....

260

above N. W. Branch. . .

• 3975

5

Big Machias . .

225

above Boiestown

IOQO

C

Tobique ....

I560

N. W. Branch .

. I59O

sz

0

Right Hand Branch

410

above Little S. W. .

. 85O

1 '

Little Tobique. . . .

37o

Renous ....

• 575

c n

Jemseg .... ...

1470

Cain’s ....

- 575

O)

Maquapit River . .

330

Nepisiguit. . ....

. 800

0

Allagash .... ....

1450

at Grand Falls .

. 600

5^

Madawaska . . .

1140

Restigouche

. 4740

CC

Fish River

950

above Kedgwick

. 640

a ^

JD

Kennebecasis . . .

850

Metapedia ....

• 1430

*£

Oromocto ... ...

810

Upsalquitch

. 910

<L>

Washademoak ....

775

Kedgwick ....

620

St. Francis ....

700

Patapedia ....

. 300

a )

Big Black . . ...

600

Petitcodiac (at Moncton). . .

. 600

as

Nashwaak ....

575

St. Croix . ....

. 1630

<v

N. W. Branch . .

55°

St. John

21300

n

O)

Green River . . ....

475

above Allagash

. 2950

xz

Meduxnekeag ....

420

at Grand Falls

. 9100

<

Eel River .

230

at Andover ....

. 13200

1 Meruimpticook . . .

200

at Fredericton. .

. 16000

Miramichi, Little S.W. Branch

575

ARTICLE III.

NOTES ON CAMBRIAN FAUNAS.

By G. F. Matthew, LL.l)., F.R.S.C.

Read 6. March 1906.

In the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada will be
found a series of short articles on the Cambrian faunas, two of
whi^h appeared in the second series, Vol. VIII, Sec. IV, page 93,
of that publication. The following is a continuation of that
series :

No. 9. OSTRACODA.

Bradorna (?) robusta. — For want of distinctive generic
characters this species when described was referred provisionally
to Prof. T. Rupert Jones genus Aparchites. At page 461 of th?
article on the Cambrian Ostracoda of Gape Breton (see Can.
Rec. Sci., Vol. VIII, No. 7) we have suggested a possible relation
to the species falling under the genus Indiana. The following re-
marks in this connection may be added.

B. ( ?) robusta in iits large size is parallelled by only two of the
known forms of the Etcheminian Ostracoda, viz. Leperditia ??
rugosa and Bradorna perspicator, mut. maxima. It has much of
the general outline of the former, but is not so wide in front and
has a shorter hinge line ; it possesses a similar marked border fold
behind. But it is a more ventricose shell and is not wrinkled
along the lower side of the shell. This species has a row of some-
what distant tubercles around the ventral curve of the valve a
little way off from the margin ; this ornamentation was not seen
on a specimen from Hanford Brook.

Compared with the second form noted above (mut. maxima)
it appears more rounded at the posterior marginal slope, and has
a less decided hinge line, this line being shorter and somewhat

406

Continued on Page 475.

ARTICLE IV.

NOTES ON A GRINDSTONE QUARRY AT STONE-
HAVEN, GLOUCESTER CO.., N. B.

By Geoffrey Stead, B. A. C. E.

Read April 4, 1905.

At Stonehaven, about 18 miles east of Bathurst on the south
coast of the Bay Chaleur, is a fine quarry where grindstones,
scythe stones etc., are manufactured in large quantities. The
larger grindstones at least are exported to the States where a
single firm uses about 400 per year from this quarry, I believe in
the making of large knives, machettas, etc.

The quarry lies below the level of high water and a dam is
therefore built around the workings to exclude the sea. All
gravel and waste material is then removed from the surface and
a bed of good quality stone is left exposed. A channel two or
three inches wide is cut through the centre of the top layer of
stone and by means then of parallel and perpendicular channels,
blocks of the required size are detached.

The first channel must be cut completely through the bed, the
parallel and perpendicular channels may be only two or three
inches deep when by means of wedges the blocks of stone are
split out.

Making the first deep channel is a tedious process as it is done
by hand with picks, and on seeing this, I remarked that a chi' el
or channeller driven by steam would perform the work much
more quickly and cheaply. The quarrymen, however, explained
that the steam channeller could not be used as it would bind in
the cut, for as the channel is made the sides of the rock creep to-
gether, the total amount of this movement being about an inch
and a half. At times when the channels are being made, the un-
equal strain coming on parts of the bed not yet cut through,
causes large spawls or chips to crack out, thus spoiling many
blocks of stone suitable for grindstones.

407

406

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

I thought it interesting that, though in a small way, yet very
clearly, a pressure and movement in the earth’s crust was here
shown to be still in operation, which has during past ages resulted
in the crumpling and bending of the earth’s crust to form on the
one hand mountain ranges with parallel ridges and valleys, and
on the other hand elevated plateaus and areas of depression.

About St. John we see evidence of the extreme movement hi
the upturned and folded strata on which the city rests. That
movement has occurred here in comparatively recent times was
shown by Dr. G. F. Matthew in describing some faults or dis-
placements in the rocks of the Hospital Hill which must have
occurred since the Glacial Period.

The shrinkage, through cooling, of the Earth’s mass and con-
sequent settlement of the crust of the Earth, is the primary cause
of these movements and it produces great lateral pressure in the
rock strata which is noticeable in the movement of the rock in the
Stonehaven quarry when the pressure is relieved by cutting
through the strata.

In Ohio a level formation is found similar to that in the New
Brunswick coal measures and whereas the amount of stone of
quality suitable for grindstones is large, it is exceptional to find
areas where the beds contain blocks of sufficient size to be used
for that purpose.

Where the strata are level and near the surface, the quarry-
men claim that they can tell where to look for stone as the ground
is generally low and swampy where the most numerous fractures
have occurred, and higher and firmer where the best beds may
be expected.

At Stonehaven the valuable bed lies with its length parallel to
the shore and in an easterly and westerly direction.

The northern side of the bed forms the bottom of, and thins
out under, the Bay Chaleur, and thus the pressure here is relieved
and, as might be expected, the chief movement is seen when cuts
are made across the length of the bed, or in a direction perpen-
dicular to the shore. In other words the pressure upon the sand-
stones at Stonehaven is onlv observable as coming from the E.
N. E., that is from the direction of the mouth of the Bay Chaleu",

ARTICLE V.

NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIO-
GRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK.

By W. F. Ganong.

89. — On a Remarkable Noise Heard During a Forest Fire

at Neguac.

Read January 3, 1905.

While in Tracadie in September last I was told of a remark-
able explosion which occurred back of Neguac two years ago in
July during a forest fire, and which was supposed to be due to
the ignition of gas held in a peat-bog. The information seemed
so well substantiated and the phenomenon itself of so unusual a
character that I sought further information about it from a pro-
minent and observant resident in the vicinity, one to whom I am
indebted for much other valuable information, M. Romain
Savoy, of Riviere du Cache. He writes me that the event is well
known locally, apparently creating much comment at the time,
and that he attempted to investigate the cause, even having the
ground examined where it occurred. It was not truly an explo-
sion, but a great roar, lasting about five minutes, and was heard
but once. It occurred when a forest fire, driven by a warm south-
erly wind, was burning with great force in a dense forest. In
the meantime a heavy cold easterly wind sprang up, (the course of
which could be followed by its accompanying clouds. It was
when this wind, with its cloud, met the southerly wind and smoke
cloud, that the noise was heard ; and M. Savoy’s explanation,
locally accepted, is that it was the meeting of the cold and hot
air which in some way produced an effect resulting in the re-
markable noise.

409

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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

90. — On the Limits of the Great Fire of Miramichi of 1825.

Read February 7, 1905; later re-written.

Some observations upon the extensive burnt country at the
head of the northwest and other branches of the Miramichi, and
a desire to determine the rate of reforestation of burnt forest
lands in New Brunswick, have led me to attempt to ascertain
the precise limits of the great Miramichi fire which occurred in
1825. Two sources of information were obviously available, —
first, contemporary records in newspapers, books, maps, etc., and
second, the testimony of the age of the timber in the Miramichi
valley as known to well-informed lumbermen. The results of
both lines of inquiry were the following.

The earliest account of this immense and calamitous fire,
(which occurred upon October 7th), that I have been able to find,
is dated Miramichi, October nth, four days after the event. It
is a brief but vivid description of the fire, calling, attention to the
need for aid to the sufferers in whose interest it was printed on
the front page of a letter-sheet, evidently intended to be widely
circulated with business and other correspondence.* The account
of the limits of the fire reads thus :

At Douglastown, scarcely any 'kind of property escaped the ravages
of the fire The Town of Newcastle, with all the surrounding settle-

ments, became a total waste* excepting about fourteen buildings. .. .and
four miles thmugh the interior. .. .the greatest desolation took place. The
remote settlements from the entrance of the river upwards, present to
the eye the dreadful havoc of this most calamitous event, particularly
those of the North-West Branch, Baltibog and Nappan, some of which
have scarcely a place of habitation left.

Another contemporary account is contained in a pamphlet
published in the same year (1825) at Halifax, reprinted, in part
at least, in Murdoch’s Nova Scotia (Vol. Ill, page 539). It is
entirely independent of the Rankin account above quoted, and,
so far as the extent of the fire is described, reads thus :

It has since been ascertained that the conflagration extended from the
Northward from the neighborhood of Bay Chaleu-r, where two cottages

* A letter in possession of Mri. Clarence Ward, to whom I am indebted
for ithe use of his copy of the very rare original (recently reprinted in
St. John and Miramichi newspapers),) shows, that it was written by Mr.
Alexander Rankin, apparently an eye witness of the fire.

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

411

in the forest were. consumed, to Richibucto, a distance of 85 miles by land,
— and from that place over the whole extent of the Miramichi and its
North and South-West Branches, the Baltibogue, Nappan and Black Rivers,
and other tributaries, including a tract of more than 100 miles in a direct line,
and containing about 8000 square miles of forest in New Brunswick,
subject ito the ravages of flame and hurricane. In connection with this
may be viewed the burning of a great part of the town of Fredericton,
the seat of the Government of that province,/ on the same day that New-
castle suffered, and the fires in the forests of Upper and Lower Canada,
and the State of Maine, where the River Penobscot was described as
resembling a, sea of fire for thirty miles of its course, and the reader may
judge of the extent of the injury to the wood, and the ungovernable
rapidity with which the flames must have been carried by the winds, to
find them at the same period; desolating parts of America from Brockville
to Miramichi, and from the Saint Lawrence to the Penobscot. In this
extensive range of mischief, the sufferings of fthe parish of Newcastle were
far surpassing all the rest in proportion and miserable consequences.

Mr. Clarence Ward has had the great kindness to go syste-
matically through the fyle of the New Brunswick Courier lor
me, from the date of the fire to the end of the year, and later;
but while he found full accounts of the fire in other respects, he
discovered no definite references to its limits.

The best-known description of the fire, and one practically
contemporary, is that by Robert Cooney, published in his Com-
pendious History of 1832. He was living at the time, as he tells
us, within a mile of Newcastle, and was an eye-witness of all
that he so vividly describes. His references to the limits of the
fire are as follows :

In Miramichi, and throughout the northern part of New Brunswick,
the season had been remarkably dry; scarcely any rain had fallen; and
considerable apprehensions were entertained for the crops. Very exten-
sive fires were observed in a north westerly direction ; along (the south side
of the Baiie des Chaleurs ; in several parts of the District of Gaspe ; in
the neighborhood of Richibucto', and thence in a southerly direction to-
wards Westmoreland (page 65)

On (the sixth, the fire was evidently approximating to us ; at different
intervals of this day, fitful; blazes and flashes were observed to' issue from
the different parts of the woods, particularly up the north west, at the rear
of Newcastle, in (the vicinity of Douglastown and Moorfields ; and along
the banks of the Bartibog (page 66) . . . . suddenly a lengthened and sullen
roar came booming through the forest, and driving a thousand massive

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

412

and devouring flames before it. Then Newcastle, and Douglastown, and
the whole northern is i de of the river, extending fiom Bartibog to the
Nashwaak, a distance of more than ioo miles in length, became eveloped in
an immense sheet of flame, .that spread over nearly 6000 square miles,
(page 69) . .. .the whole cultivated Parish of Ludlow [at the time of the
fire including all Blissfield and Blackville] wais changed into a waste....
Bartibog, Nappan, Black-River, and several other sun minding settlements
became involved in the general ruin. More than four hundred square
miles of a once settled country, now exhibited one vast and cheerless
panorama of desolation and despair, (page 76).

And once again (on page 70) he implies that the fire covered
some 6,000 square miles.

Yet another, and apparently independent account of the fire
is contained in M’Gregor’s British America , published in the same
years as Cooney’s book (1832). The author had travelled exten-
sively in New Brunswick, though prior to the fire, and he appears
to have had some sources of information other than those above
cited, though a part of his description shows the wording of the
letter of October nth. As to the fire limits he writes:

In October, 1825, about a hundred and forty miles in extent, and a vast
breadth of country on the north, and from sixty to seventy miles on the
isouith side of Miramichii River, became a scene of perhaps the most dread-
ful conflagration that occurs in the history of the world (Vol. II, 264).

The following account was obtained and printed in the papers for public
information a few days afterwards : “More than a hundred miles of the
shores of the Miramichi are laid waste, independent of the northwest
branjdh, the Baltibog and the Nappan settlements.” . . . (page 266).

Great fires raged about the same time in the forests of the River St.
John, which destroyed much property and timber, with the governor’s
residence, and about eighty private houses ait Fredericton. Fires raged also
at the same time in the northern parts of the province, as far as the Bay de
Chaleur. (Page 268).

Another independent account, giving the recollections of an
eye-witness some twenty-four years after the event, is contained
in Johnston’s Notes on North Amrica (published at London,
in 1851). The author, while at Chatham in 1849, was tdld of the
fire by a Mr. Rankin, whose recollections of it were very vivid.
Traditions and recollections after a quarter-century has elapsed

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

413

must always be accepted with caution, but they are not without
their value. The account reads thus :

It was an excessively hot summer, and fires were burning ini numerous

places upon the Miramichi and Sit. John rivers and their tributaries

on the 7th of October, it began to blow from (the isouthwest, and the fire
to spread over the country in the same direction. The wind increased
gradually to a hurricane, and the fire advanced with proportionate rapidity.
At one o’clock ini the afternoon it was still seventy miles up the river; and
in the evening it was at Douglastown. It travelled e'ghty-five miles in
nine hours, iso that scarcely on a fleet horse jcould a man have escaped
from it. . . . the most striking thing that he mentioned were, that the
flame as it advanced, was twenty-five miles) lin breadth ; that, coming from
the west, it rushed past the towns of Newcastle and Douglastown,' leaving
a green margin of some miles in breadth between its southern edge and
the river; and that when,, in its easterly course, it reached Burnt-church
River, the wind lulled, (turned around and drove the fire up the river
again. It then came back along the green fringe it had left as it descended,

and by the way licked up the towns of Douglastown and Newcastle

The town of Chatham on the opposite side of the river, in a great measure
escaped, but the Nassua [misprint for Nappan] settlement, six miles behind
was burned to the ground. (Page 35).

Still another account, resting apparently upon recollections of
Sir Howard Douglas, who visited Miramichi a few days after
the great fire, is contained in Fullom’s Life of Sir Howard
Douglas (London, 1863). This work gives also a full account
of the fires at and near Fredericton, and estimates the extent of
the conflagration as 6,000 square miles.

So much for the accounts proceeding from eye-witnesses or
others in a position to know the limits of the fire. Later accounts,
if compiled with a genuine regard for the truth, have a’so their
value. Thus the valuable book, Notitia of New Brunswick , pub-
lished in St. John in 1838 (page 126), makes the fire cover an
extent of '‘one hundred miles along the Miramichi, by eighty-five
in breadth, covering a surface of nearly 8,000 square miles. This
work tells also of the fire at Fredericton, and of others on the
Oromocto and on the Tobique. Gesner, the geologist, who had
travelled over much of this country, makes the extent of the
fire from the Nashwaak to the Bartibog, a distance of more than
one hundred miles, and even makes it continuous with a fire on

41 4 BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

the Tobique, which is probably incorrect ( New Brunswick , 192).

Again Alexander Monro, the surveyor, in his New Brunswick ,
1:855, gives an account of the Province largely independent of
other works, and describes the limits of the fire, which he says
embraced ; —

Almost the entire country, from within a short distance of (the Gulf
shore, and the head of the Tabusintac river, thence nearly to the Falls of
the Nipissiquit, and from that vicinity in the direction of the Tobique
River, and near'tto its head, and in another direction, beginning at the
mouth of the Miramichi River, embracing both its banks, and extending,
in some places, beyond the present limits of the county to the Nashwaak
river, in the county of York, thus comprehending in the whole, nearly
4,000,000 acres of the best lumbering region of the Province. (Page 202)

Evidence from tradition still current is of course of no great
value after so long an interval, (now eighty years) since the fire,
but still it is not without use. A valued correspondent of mine,
Mr. P. H. Welch of Fulton Brook, Queens County, who has long
known the woods of south central New Brunswick as lumber-
scaler and through other occupations, writes me that he always
understood the fire covered about 5,000 square miles. He also
adds : —

About forty years ago I worked with a man, an ox teamster, who was
an eye-witness of the burning [of Miramichi], and worked all over the
Miramichi afterwards, and lie positively stated that it [the fire] com-
menced a short distance east of Nashwaksis and burned everything but
swamps to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or, to be more correct, to Tracadie
Beach.

Mr. Welch also calls my attention to the words of the Ballad
of the Miramichi Fire, composed at the time, and still sung by
the lumbermen, one line of which runs “46 miles by 100 this
awful fire did extend”.

So much for evidence as to the general limits of the fire. We
consider next what evidence may be found as to its actual
occurrence in particular places aside from Newcastle Parish. Its
occurrence back of Chatham, though Chatham itself esceped, has
already been noted. Mr. Welch confirms this from the relation
of his friend the ox teamster, who told him that a spur “crossed

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

415

the main river below Chatham and laid everything waste on the
south side of the river to Bay du Vin”. He also was told by him
that “one wing of the fire crossed the southwest river and ran
towards Gaspereau burning itself out south of Blackville”. Mr.
Welch adds that there is other evidence of its extension in that
direction, and he has given me the limits shown on the accomp-
anying map. Mr. Welch’s statements on this point receive very
satisfactory confirmation from another source. In 1844 Sir
James Alexander made a survey for a military road from
Moncton to Boiestown, and described his observations in hh
book L’ Acadie published in London in 1849. In reference to a
badly burned district he had to cross between Gaspereau and
Cains River, he writes : —

We had reached the scene of the Great Miramichi Fire of 1825, when
the country was ravaged and laid waste from the neighborhood of Bay
Ohaleur to Fredericton (II, 1849).

And the matter receives confirmation from yet another source,
for] Deputy Surveyor Fair weather’s plan of this country, made in
1836, (for the opportunity to see which I am indebted to Mr.
E. Hutchison of Douglastown), shows that all this country be-
tween the Miramichi and the Gaspereau had been heavily burnt,
though of course the evidence is not conclusive that this fire was
contemporaneous with thef Great Fire. Alexander’s statement,
resting as it no doubt did upon the testimony of some of the men
in his employ, would seem, however, to make this clear. The
extension of the fire in another direction is shown on one of the
plans in the Crown Land Office which marks “Outline of Great
Fire, 1825”, between Mullins Stream and South Branch) Sevogle.
Through Mr. Hutchison I learn from Mr. Loggie of the Crown
Land Office that there is no other evidence in that office bearing
upon the present question.

So much for the evidence documentary and traditional. We
consider next the evidence from other sources. Seeking such,
it occurred to me that an observant and well-informed lumber-
man thoroughly acquainted with the Miramichi country, would
probably know, in part from the ages of the trees growing there,

416

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

the approximate limits of the great fire. Accordingly I wrote Mr.
E. Hutchison, of Dougilastown, well-known as one of the lead-
ing lumbermen of the Miramichi, and placed my problem before
him. He has had the kindness to reply fully. He gives it as his
opinion that the extent of the fire has commonly been exagger-
ated ; that Derby, for instance, was partially, if at all, burned, and
that the limits of the fire were about from Portage River south to
the main Miramichi, and from the Square Forks of Sevogle east
to Bartibog, with a tongue to near Grande Dune.

His evidence is derived from the relative ages of the timber
trees cut within and without those limits. When I called his
attention to the positive statements of Cooney, seeming to show
a much greater extent for the fire, he replied that he was aware
of this discrepancy, but that his judgement was based upon the
unassailable testimony of the age of trees standing on the areas
in question, and that, while the matter is somewhat complicated
by the occurrence of local fires, it is possible to trace the limits
of the Great Fire with some accuracy in this way.

He called attention to the well-known fact that Chatham was
not burnt, and adds that the occurence of abundant and large old
logs all along the south side of the Miramichi, including Cains
River, Barnaby River, Black River, and Napan, show that there
could have been no extensive fires at that time south of the Mira-
michi, and that if the, great fire did cross the river at all, it must
have been only locally and without doing any material damage to
the woods.

Further, since much of Derby, together with the basin of the
Renous, Dungarvon, and Bartholomews Rivers have all produced
immense quantities of logs much older than could have grown
since the great fire, there could have been no extensive burning
in that region as Cooney implies. The same is true of the dis-
trict east of the Bartibog.

With reference to the age of these logs he adds. “Black
spruce, which is our principal export, does not make logs fit to
cut much under ioo years, and I have counted 265 rings on a
black spruce. The white spruce and pine grow quite twice :^s
fast.”

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

417

We attempt now to deduce from the collective evidence the
limits of the Great Fire. At first sight the testimony appears
somewhat conflicting, but this, I believe, is because two quite
distinct ideas are associated with the name Great Fire of Mira-
michi. It seems plain that in early October, 1825, a large number
of local forest fires were burning here and there over an extensive
drought-stricken country, which embraced a great triangle with
its apex near Fredericton, and its base on a line drawn from
Felledune to Richibucto, (compare the accompanying map;,
some 6,000 to 8,000 square miles in area. The great northwester-
ly hurricane of the seventh of October fanned these fires to
greater violence, extending and sometimes unking them, so that
they formed irregular patches and net-works scattered over the
area, leaving however, very extensive tracts, especially in the river
valleys, entirely unburnt. It is this general fire, or series of fires,
to which the name Great Fire is sometimes applied. In certain
special sections, however, the fires were of special violence and
extent. This was the case with that which burnt the Cains River-
Gaspereau region, and with those which burnt the great area,
still barren, on the head of the Little Southwest Miramichi, the
Sevogle, Northwest Miramichi and Nepisiguit, the most extensive
area still open from burning in New Brunswick.* Most im-
portant of all these areas, however, partly because of the extent
and violence of this particular fire, and partly because it involved
so great a destruction of life and property, was that embracing
the parish of Newcastle and vicinity, some 400 square miles in
area, extending from the Square Forks of Sevogle and Mullins
Stream easterly to the Bartibog, and beyond in a narrow tongue
to near Grand Dune, and from Tomogonops and Portage River
south to the Miramichi, which it crossed below Chatham to

*It is of course not certain that} this area was burned at that time,' but
certainly it was burned a very long time ago, and apparently no more
recently than the country about the Square Forks of Sevogle, known to
have been burned in 1825. Confirmatory of it are the various references,
in the works cited, to the extension of the fire to, or towards iTobique.
Perhaps at this time also the Graham Plains and Mitchell Plains country
was burned on the Walkemik Branch (Note 87), as well as the burnt
country on the Noith Pole Branch and the Lower North Branch.

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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

devastate Napan and even Black River, though possibly the fires
south of the river originated separately. It is this special fire
which is also called the Great Fire of Miramichi. If we keep in
mind this double use of the name Great Fire, the subject of the
limits become fairly plain.

91. On a New Contour Map of New Brunswick.

Read March 7, 1905.

Up to the present time no contour map of the Province has
been published. Nor, indeed, has any portion of it been thus
mapped, excepting only the peninsula between Oak Bay and the
St. Croix, which is mapped, with contours, on a United States
chart, (see Note 14), the dower St. John valley which is thus
represented on a crude steamboat circular, and certain small
sections of interior New Brunswick thus mapped in the present
volume of this Bulletin (pp. 216, 334). Also a single 200 of 220
foot contour is represented upon the Surface Geology maps. But
otherwise vertical topography is shown on our published maps
only by occasional and approximate hachures. Of manuscript
maps I know but two showing contours,— *-Owen’s fine map of
1841-43, showing the St. John from its mouth to Springhill, and
a map of the Province which Colonel Maunsell tells me he made
some years ago and sent with a report to the Militia De-
partment at Ottawa. The latter map, I learn on inquiry at the
Department, is in its possession, though its authorship is un-
known, while the Report cannot be found. At length, however,
the first published contour map of the Province has appeared. It
is in the latest volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society
of Canada (Vol. X., 1904), illustrating a paper of my own upon
the causes determining the distribution of settlements in New
Brunswick. It is on the scale of sixteen miles to an inch, and the
contour intervals are 100 feet. It is constructed (a) from alt
accessible railway levels, (b) from all barometric measurements
that have been published, (c) from my own observations in
various parts of the Province, (d) from probabilities based on the

The heavy line indicates the area within wthich were the local fires often
collectively grouped together as the Great Fire. The shaded places show
known areas of fire, the definiteness and destructiveness being indicted, by
depth of shading. The Newcastle-Northwest area shows the extent of the
Great Fire proper.

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

419

geological or physiographic construction of the country. Of
course it cannot be accurate in details, and for two reasons. First,
the data are wholly insufficient as yet for a fully accurate map;
and second, the scale is too small to allow correctness in limited
areas of much diversity. For example, the scale is much too
small to allow the topography south of Nictor Lake to be shown
as accurately as we know it ; and this is true in many other places.
Nevertheless, the map, I think, gives a correct idea of the general
contours of New Brunswick.

9 2. The Fact Basis of the Fire (or Phantom) Ship of

Bay Chaleur.

Read April, 4, 1905; re-written Jan 1906.

One cannot be long in the Bay Chaleur country, especially ts
eastern part, without hearing of the fire (or phantom) ship, said
often to be seen on the bay. Until a short time ago I regarded
the fire-ship as a pure fiction, with no basis other than the proie-
ness of humanity to see wonders where they are expected, nr
where others say they exist. But as a result of two visits to that
country, during which I questioned many residents on the sub-
ject, I have had to change my opinion; and I now believe there
is really some natural phenomenon in that region which manifests
itself in such a way as to be imaginable as a vessel on fire.

First we note the literature of the subject. Naturally the im •
aginative writers who have visited Bay Chaleur have seized upon
the story of the fire-ship as a rare treasure, and, adding to the
wildest local tales sundry fanciful imaginings of their own, with
embellishments of banshees, pirates or picturesque historical
personages, have produced weird fantasies such as are preferred to
truth even by grown-up persons. A type of such stories is found
in M;ss E. B. Chase’s Quest of the Quaint (Philadelphia, 19029
which connects the ship with the voyages of the Cortereals,
making it a vessel set on fire by one of them when attacked by
the Indians. From such a treatment there is every gradation,
through many newspaper, guide-book and other accounts up to

420

BULLETIN OP THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

serious descriptions of the phenomenon as something with a .
probable fact basis. The best account of the latter type that I 1
have seen, written apparently by Mr. A. M. Belding, appeared ,
some years ago in the St. John Sun. It reads in part as
follows -

The extent to which a visitor may be impressed by the story of the
phantom ship depends a good deal on the source of the information. Hon.
Robert Young [of Caraquet] will tell you, for example, that frequently at
night before ia storm a large light may be seen on the surface of the bay.

It may be seen in winter, when the ice has formed, as well as in summer,
and ilt is not confined to any one portion of the bay. Sometimes it is much
brighter than at other times and appears to dance along the surface.
Joseph Poirier said he had seen it so bright that the reflection would
appear on the houses at Grande Anise. Rev. Father Allard said he had seen
it several times this iseason. Ini fact it appears to be quite a common

phenomenon, though nobody is able to explain its cause Those who

decline to place full reliance in this interesting story [viz. the fanciful
legend] nevertheless admit that sometimes the mysterious light emits rays
that shoot inlto and athwart the gloom, and might by a particularly well-
nourished imagination be likened to the flame-lit rigging of a ship.

The information I have myself been able to collect from those
who have seen the light is as follows. Of course I have sifted
all testimony to the best of my ability, eliminating all exaggera-
tions and embellishments, whether these be due to the habit of all
humanity to make a story as big and good as possible, or to the
common tendency to gull an impressionable stranger, or to mere
ignorance, superstition or mendacity.

Four years ago Captain Turner of Riverside, Albert County,
a clear-headed sea captain, told me, in answer to my mention of
the fire-ship as a freak of the imagination, that he had himself
seen it and hence knew it to exist. Later, on my first visit to
Caraquet, I was told by a lady in whose word I have absolute
confidence, that her attention was attracted one night by a light
off Caraquet, which looked so much like a vessel afire that she
supposed it to be one of her husband’s schooners, and called him
in alarm, only to find that it was the fire-ship. A prominent resi- I
dent of Miscou, Mr. James Harper, told me he has seen it but
once, in the winter on the ice off Clifton. It was seemingly some

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

421

ten miles away and kept rising and falling, dying down to a very
small scarcely visible flame, then rising slowly into a column
“looking thirty feet high.” It was not in the form of a ship, but
a column, but people told him it was the fire ship. He was told
it preceded a storm, but he took notice and no storm followed.
Mr. Robert Wilson of Miscou, who sails much on Bay Chaleur
telils me he has seen the fire-ship, (or as he calls it, the “burning
ship”) several times. The time he was nearest it was about
eleven years ago off Caraquet on a very dark night. The light
appeared ahead, and finally he came near and passed within ioo
yards to windward of it, so that he saw it with perfect clearness.
It was somewhat the shape of a half-moon resting on the water,
flat side down, or like a vessel on the water with a bowsprit b'it
no masts etc., and “all glowing like a hot coal.” He dared not
run nearer and passed it, keeping his eyes upon it until far beyond.
On other occasions he has seen it, at various distances, and has
come to pay little attention to it. Sometimes it looked somewhat
like a ship, sometimes not, and sometimes it vanished while he
was watching it. Usually it is dancing or vibrating. Again he
has seen it as one tall light which would settle down and rise
again as three, which would again settle, and so on. Recently I
have been told by Dr. J. Orne Green of Boston, whose connection
with Miscou is mentioned below, that Mr. Wilson reports seeing
the light this ( 1 905 ) autumn ; it appeared ahead of his boat ns
he sailed up the bay, vanished as he neared it, and in a few minutes
re-appeared astern. Mr. Andrew Wilson, another leading resi-
dent of Miscou has also seen it, when it resembled a whaleboat,

not a ship, in form. Mr. McConnell, keeper of the light at

Miscou Gulley, tells me that he has seen the fire-ship, about two
miles away, but it did not look to him like a ship, but more like a
big bonfire. Several others have told me that they have seen ;t,
(the great majority of the residents in the region averring that
they have seen it at one time or another), most of them agreeing
that at times it looks like a ship on fire, but that at others mofe
1 ke a round light. All agree that it usually precedes a storm,

and is seen over the ice in winter as well as over the water in

summer. On the other hand, other trustworthy residents of

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422

Miscou, notably Mr. Jas. Bruno and Mr. Ed. Vibert, both of
whom sail much on the bay, tell me they have never seen it, and
do not believe in its existence.

So much for local testimony. But it receives confirmation
from another source. For many years past Dr. J. Orne Green of
Boston, a Professor in the Harvard Medical School, has spent
several weeks on Miscou and has taken a great interest in all that
relates to the region. He tells me that he has himself seen a
light which he was told was the fire-ship. Many years ago when
running at night towards Caraquet he saw a fire off in the bay,
and called the attention of his companions to it, but finally
thought it must be a woods fire on the north side of the bay.
Reaching Caraquet, however, he found the people excited, be-
cause they said the fire-ship was out in the bay. He told them of
his belief that it was a woods fire, but they declared this could
not be, because it had moved. The wind at the time was gentle,
from the southwest, but it w!as followed the next day by a great
northwester. His interest being thus aroused Dr. Green, in later
years, attempted to investigate the phenomenon. He found that
it wras reported not only in Bay Chaleur but also in the Gulf of
St. Lawrence as far south as Northumberland Straits. He came
tc; the conclusion that while the stories were mostly exaggerated
and distorted there was nevertheless some basis for them in fact,
and that there does occur in this region some natural light of the
general nature of “St. Elmo’s Fire.” This was exactly the con-
clusion to which I had come independently, as stated in this note
when originally read before this Society.

Grouping together 'all the evidence it seems plain,— first, that
a physical light is frequently seen over the waters of Bay Chaleur
and vicinity; second, that it occurs at all seasons, or at least in
winter as well as in summer; third, that it usually precedes a
storm ; fourth, that its usual form is roughly hemispherical with
the flat side to the water, and that at times it simply glows with-
out much change of form, but that at other times it rises into
slender moving columns, giving rise to an appearance capable of
interpretation as the flaming rigging of a ship, its vibrating and

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

423

dancing movements increasing the illusion; fifth , its origin is
probably electrical, and it is very likely a phase of the phenomenon
known to sailors as St. Elmo’ s Fire.

I have, of course made efforts to ascertain if any such phen-
omenon is known elsewhere in the world. Professor R. De C.
Ward, Assistant Professor of Climatology in Harvard Uni-
versity, writes me that he knows of no record of a similar
phenomenon, and no development of St. Elmo’s Fire so great
that it could be mistaken for a burning ship. Professor A. H.
Pierce, my companion in my visit to this region last summer,
has, however, called my attention to references to an allied sub-
ject in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, XII,
1905, 108, and again in (the Proceedings of the same Society, XIX,
1905, 80, where an account is given of lights claimed to have been
seen around Tremadoc Bay in Wales ; but the conclusion is reached
that in all probability they have only a subjective basis, though the
statement is also made that lights of unexplained origin were
reported as common on the Welsh Coast over two hundred years
ago. It is also of interest to note that Schmitt’s newly-published
Monographic de l’lsle d’ Anticosti (57) mentions manifestations
of St. Elmo’s Fire observed at that Island.

It is plain that in this phenomenon we have a subject which
invites accurate investigation. It can best be studied by a
scientifically-trained person, a physician or other student accus-
tomed to scientific evidence, resident at Caraquet or Grande Anse.

93. The Origin of the Northumbrian System of Rivers

Read in abstract May 2, 190s.

The most striking physical feature of New Brunswick con-
sists in its abundant great rivers. These are, however, so diverse
in direction, and interlock so complexly as to make the elucidation
of their origin seem well-nigh hopeless. But prolonged study :s
showing that in reality they are derived from three primal sys-
tems, a Fundian system which I have described in an earlier note
(No. 75), a Northumbrian System, which is here considered,

424 BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

and a Laurentian System on which I hope soon to make some
observations before this Society. I need hardly emphasize that i
the present paper is by no means final in its conclusions ; like its I
predecessor it is rather intended as an organization of the avail-
able facts, and for the formulation of an hypothesis to serve as a j
guide for further study.

The system I call the Northumbrian (because lying principal- j
ly in Northumberland County or else tributary to Northumber-
land Straits), includes all the rivers emptying into the Gulf of
St. Lawrence from Bay Chaleur (but excluding the Restigouche)
to Baie Verte, together with certain branches of the lower St. i
John which belong morphologically with them.

Viewing the system as a whole, we find that its valleys pre- j
sent certain resemblances and certain differences, the latter being |
marked enough to make it natural to consider th:m in some four
groups, each distinguished by peculiarities of topography. By
far the largest part of the system falls within the limits of the
great central-eastern Carboniferous Basin of the province, a low
plateau country having a gentle easterly slope and formed of soft :
undisturbed Carboniferous sandstones. It is in this basin that
the rivers all have that parallel southwest-to-northeast course i
which is so characteristic, while the deviations from this direction I
are determined by the crystalline highlands either on the north- i
west or the south of the basin. But we can best consider the ;
valleys in groups.

The first group of Northumbrian valleys embraces those from J
Shediac to Baie Verte, and extending thence into Nova Scotia, j
(compare the accompanying map). This group, however, I !
wish to reserve for further study, and will merely note here that |
I believe the original valleys headed in a line of crystalline high- i
lands (an extension of the “Old Eastern Watershed”) now j
represented by the Cobequid Mountains and the highlands of >
Albert County (this range being now cut completely across by I
Chignecto Bay). They emptied northeasterly ibo the present North- I
umberland Straits and across them and Prince Edward Island to |
the sea, the many inlets of the Island representing the remnants j

/tap of

EA STERN NEW BRUNSWICK
to illustrate

the physiographic origin of

the northuhbrian VALLEYS

by W.TGanony
Jan !9ii

kerns probable valleys

sn?

scale
.16 miles - I inch

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

425

of those did valleys. But the group of valleys has been so pro-
foundly modified by the formation of the Bay of Fundy that much
careful study will be needed to make its original relations clear.

The second group of valleys, however, is much plainer in its
relations. It includes all those from the Petitcodiac-Shediac
valley to the Main Southwest Miramichi. They all have, this in
common, that they lie in parallel courses from southwest to
northeast wholly within the limits of the Carboniferous basin
while the present rivers mostly head in line with branches of the
St. John from which they are separated only by low divides, across
which the original valleys no doubt extended. These divides,
(the “Present Watershed” of the map), lie in a line running
northwest between the Petitcodiac and Shediac, clear to the
Main Southwest Miramichi, which it reaches just to the eastward
of the remarkable right-angled bends of that river, after which
it swings to the north across both branches of tTie Miramichi and
then to the Northeast just east of the Northwest Miramichi
(Minaqua) and Nepisiguit. This watershed, throughout its en-
tire course is now crossed by but a single river, the Miramichi.
The causes of this curious exception I have discussed in an
earlier note (No. 54). In brief it seems due to the presence here
of a great synclinal trough, parallel and homologous with the
deep trough forming Bay Chaleur, the much shoaler trough in
which lie Richibucto and Grand Lake, and the deep trough form-
ing the Bay of Fundy. This watershed is obviously comparatively
modern, and as it runs here parallel with the present coast, and
hence with Northumberland Straits and with Prince Edward
Island, I take it that the three latter all have the same origin, viz.,
low synclinal and anticlinal foldings parallel with the present sea-
coast. However formed, this watershed is of profound im-
portance in the development of the Northumbrian Rivers, since
it not only beheaded all those of the group we are considering,
sending most of their upper courses into the St. John, but also be-
headed those of the next group, both south and north of the Mira-
michi, turning their upper courses northward or southward into
the Miramichi itself. But if the present watershed be modern, we

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

426

ask where was the ancient one, that which existed when the
Northumbrian valleys were first formed? This I believe ran
about as described in my Note on the Fundian rivers, namely in
a line of hills (the ‘‘Old Eastern Watershed”), of which rem-
nants still exist, extending from near Gape Wolf on the Bay
of Fundy, northwesterly across the head of Grand Lake, and be-
tween the Nashwaak and Taxes to join the Central Highlands.
Certainly all the facts known to me in connection with this sub-
ject seem to accord with this explanation. The ancient North-
umbian valleys, therefore, would have headed on this Old Eastern
Watershed ; they extended northeastward including some
branches of the St. John and all of our present North Shore
rivers of this group; while they no doubt in part crossed North-
umberland Strait and Prince Edward Island, the inlets of which
match well with the continuations of our rivers. Between these
valleys are the ancient ridges of erosion, parallel with the
valleys, and manifesting themselves on the coast as the various
projecting and more or less elevated headlands, some of which
can be seen to match with the! elevated and wider parts of Prince
Edward Island.

We consider now the valleys of this group in order. Mv
explanation of their courses is chiefly based on cartography, sup-
plemented by information from other sources; it is not worked
out upon the ground.* But the homologies seem so clear, and all
the facts known to me so consistently in agreement, that I have
no question as to its correctness in general, though I may be
wrong in many details. A careful study on the ground will un-
doubtedly show the influence of glaciation in modifying details
of the river courses, but the greater features of the rivers must
depend upon other causes.

i. The Shedian Valley. This is the least distinct of thie series, but all
consideiations of homology and cartographical evidence seem to indicate
that the present upper part of the Petitcodiac formerly continued its

*In fact this country is all of such low relief, has suffered erosion of its
soft rocks for so long a time, and is mostly so densely forested, that the
tracing of ancient valleys by other than cartographical evidence will offer
great practical difficulties.

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

427

course across to Shediac Harbor, (its present lower course being the result
of capture by a Fundian river), either by the root followed by the present
highway and railway to the southern part of the harbor, or else leaving
the present valley below Salisbury and running across south of Indian
Mountain to the Shediac River. Its head is of course in the Anagance,
which rises on the old eastern watershed,! and it may have relations with
the Kennebecasis still to be worked out.* Its large southerly branches
(which morphologically include the present head of Kennebecasis, or
Salmon River), flow from the Southern crystalline) Highlands precisely as
many branches flow into the same basin from the similar Central High-
lands.

2. The Cocagnian Valley. Headed in or near the present Bennetts
Stream and included the present North River and Cccagne, probably con-
tinuing through Egmont Bay across Prince Edward Island.

3. The Buchtouclnan Valley. Headed in the present Prices Brook, (or
perhaps in Thornes Brook), which is strongly re-entrant to the present
course of the Canaan, follows the upper course of the Canaan, crosses, (by
the general route of the old Indian portage), to the Buctouche, along that
river and probably across to Prince Edward Island, emptying through
Cascumpec Harbor.

4. The Richibuctian Valley. Headed in the present Salmon Creek,
Which is strongly re-entrant to Salmon River, and included all Salmon
River to the old Indian portage, across by its route, and by the Richibucto,
and into the Gulf, north of Prince Edward Bland.

A minor valley probably existed between this and the preceding, em-
bracing a part of Coal Creek and Lake Stream, the upper part of Salmon
River, and emptying by some branch into the Richibucto. Possibly another
emptied by the Chockpish.

5. The Koucliibouguasian Valley. Headed in the present Gaspereau
(captured later by a branch of Salmon River), followed along the course
of Meadow Brook, and the extensive line of open barrens (which exist

*Of course, in still earlier times, the river which preceded the Petitcodiac
and Anagance headed tin the present Kennebecasis, as Dr. Matthew has
pointed out in this Bulletin, XII, 54. But that was when the Carboniferous
rocks were being laid down in a preceding geological and geographical
cycle. As I understand it, all of our present rivers originated in a much
later cycle, after all the rock formations of the Province had been laid
down and were elevated again above the sea. It was, I believe, on this
final elevation that the province possessed that ithree-plain or three-plateau
structure which originated the three primal river systems, the Fundian,
Northumbrian and Laurentian, while subsequent geological movements
and erosions, supplemented by the glacial period, have altered the origin-
ally comparatively simple systems into their present complications.

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

428

here as I am informed by Mr. P. H. Welsh), into the Kouch.bouguacsis
and thence to the sea.

6. The Kouchibouguian Val'.ey. Headed in the upper parts of (Mins
River, (possibly beyond in a part of the upper Nashwaak), crossing to East
Branch Sabbies River, thence to the Kouchibouguac and SO' to the sea.
It is likely that another valley headed in Burnt Land Brook, and included
Muzeroll’s B rooky a part of Cains River and Salmon Brook, and then
either entered the Kouchibouguac or else the Vinian Valley.

We consider now the third group of the Northumbrian Rivers,
those beginning with the Main Southwest Miramichi and extend-
ing to, but not including, the Nepisiguit. I have been able to
study personally several of these, with results recorded in
previous notes of this series, in one of which (No: 54) I have
given an outline (differing somewhat in details from that he**e
presented) of the physiographic history of the Miramichi. These
rivers all have these important features in common, that then-
upper courses are not, as in the preceding g.oup, in the line of
their lower courses, buit instead they head in the crystalline
Central Highlands and flow approximately parallel (though with
interrelationships still to be worked out) from northwest R)
southeast , until, reaching later an;l softer rocks, they swing by
long curves through a right angle, flow for a space across the
Carboniferous basin in the characteristic southwest to northeast
direction, and then suddenly, although still in the same formation,
swing at right angles, some to the north and some to the south,
into a single trunk river, leaving their original lower courses to
be occupied by much smaller rivers emptying northeastward into
the sea. These smaller rivers all turn, near their mouths, towards
Miramichi Bay, as a result no doubt of the fact that this Bay lies
in a synclinal 'trough (already mentioned), down tlhe slopes
of which the rivers naturally tend to turn. The heads of these
rivers in the Highlands, though they have undergone some
changes in detail, are, 1 believe, the original heads, and the old
central watershed and the present one are identical, excepting
that it is now crossed by the South Branch Nepisiguit and the
Main Nepisiguit River, a condition earlier explained (Note 70).
The great curves do not occur exactly at the contact of older with

NATURAL H l STORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

429

newer strata, but approximately so. The presence of these curves
would seem to indicate that the older rivers flowing radially out
of the Central Highlands, here met the ancient Carboniferous
Plain, which, having an even slope northeast, carried the rivers hi
that direction, a feature which speaks for a somewhat ancient
origin of the system. These curves are not in all cases in their
original positions, as I have shown in some of the earlier notes
on these rivers, and as the cartography of others seems to imply.
The reasons for the remarkable turning of all the lower courses of
all these rivers into the single Miramichi are fairly plain and
have already been indicated. It is due to the pre encei of a great
north and south depression beginning in Nepisiguit Bay (which
owes its existence to it), and running south along the present
course of the lower Nepisiguit, Portage River, the Northwest
Miramichi, the several right-angled bends of the Main Southwest
Miramichi, including Cains River, and perhaps even showing in
some of the branches of Salmon River.* This great depression,
which is parallel with the watershed just to the eastward of it,
and with the sea-coast, is, no doubt, either a shallow syncline or a
great fault line,' formed in times comparatively recent. The fact
that north of the main Miramichi it is occupied by a single valley
(which from its Indian name we may call the Minaqua), col-
lecting the streams from the west, while south of the Miramichi
it is not a single valley but rather the turning of the streams into
one another, is probably due to the fact that the syncline, with its
anticline on the east, is 'less marked to! the south and more
marked towards the north.

We consider now the valleys in detail. The upper part of the
first of them, the Main Southwest Miramichi, and its relations
with the Nashwaak and Taxes, are puzzling, and I reserve con-
sideration of them until I have been able to study them upon the
ground. Aside from this, however, the courses of most of the
valleys are fairly plain.

*0<r, continued through the Gaspereau, Grand Lake and the lower St.
John, it form? one of the great lineament lines of Eastern North America,
discussed by W. H. Hobbs, in the report of the Eighth International Con-
gress, (Washington, 1905, 193).

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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

7- The Vinian Valley. Headed in the Taxes, following the Main
Southwest to the mouth of Cains River, then by Black Brook and a part
of Baunaby River (the waters of the two latter streams conning much
closer together than shown upon any printed map, fide MS. plans in the
Crown Land Office),' thence to Bay du Van River, which apparently for-
merly emptied through Lower Bay du Vin, as shown on the map.

8. The Matquantian Valley, — (from the Indian name, Matquanticook
or Black River). Headed in Bartholomews River, (which does not now
head in the Highlands, but which further study will probably show to
have done so), along Bartholomews, a' short reach of the Main Southwest,
it he Semiwagan and Black River, which emptied south of Vin Island
hcross the present position of Fox Island.

9. The Napanian Valley. Headed in the Dungarvon, probably in King-
Brook (though perhaps in the Upper Tuadook, Note 86) and thence along
Dungarvon to the Main Southwest as far as Barnaby River, thence across
to the Napan and Miramichi Bay.

10. The Miramichian Valley. Headed in the present upper Dungar-
von and beyond in) the upper waters of Tuadook and Rocky Brook (Note
86), probably across to South Branch Renous, with Branches as shown on
'•the map, and by Renous, and across to the tidal part of the Little South-
west as shown on the map, and thence along the present Miramichi and
along the north shore of Miramichi Bay, thus forming the axkl river of
the system. The complicated relations of the South Branch Renous and
Dungaivon are uncertain, and perhaps the headwaters of this valley belong
with the present Dungarvon.

Such seems to me the most probable arrangement of these
valleys from such data as I have at hand. It is however possible
that the arrangement may have been different in detail. Thus
a part of Cains River may have run into Bay du Vin River, the
Taxes and Main Southwest into Black River, Bartholomews into
~Napan, Dungarvon forming the axial river. Or (the Dungarvon
may have flowed by Stewarts Midstream. I have no question
whatsoever that a careful study on the ground, or the possession
of accurate contour maps of the region, would enable us to
settle these questions, at least to a high degree of probability.

11. The Tuadookian Valley. — From Tuadook, the Indian name of the
Little Southwest Miramichi'. Headed in the Tuadook Lake region, and
no doubt in the Walkemik Basin (Note 87), the connection of this basin
with the present Little Southwest Miramichi (with a preglacial course
through 'Mains Lake and Brook, Note 54) being much later in origin;
followed the North Branch Renous (Note 85), to McKendrick Brook, by

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

431

the valley of which it swung to Catamaran Brook and the Little South-
west Miramichi. Its course beyond that it obscure, but the general
parallelism, sustained by certain features of the smaller streams, would
suggest a continuation of its course parallel with the present north shore
of Miramichi Bay to French Cove and thence to the sea through Tabustin-
tac Lagoon.

12. The Tabustian Valley. Headed in the North Pole Branch (and
probably in its Half Moon Lake branch, Note 99), followed the North
Pole Branch across its big bend to near its mouth (Note 54) where its old
course was in line with the Little Southwest below, thence along the
Little Southwest, bending gently noith of its present post-glacial angle
(Note 54), thence to opposite Little Sevogle and across to that stream,
along it and across country to Green Brook, thence to Stymests Mill-
stream and thence to Portage River and into the sea by the present course
of the Tracadie (Note 94).

13. The Tracadian Va'ley. Headed in the South Branch Sevogle and
perhaps beyond in the West Branch of the Main South Branch of
’Nepisiguit (as will be shown in a later note), and with another branch
heading in the Lower North Branch (and perhaps beyond in the upper-
most course of the present North Pole Branchy Note 99), and following
Mullins Stream, across country south of the _ Square Forks to the
Eskedelloc iand a part of Tabusintac, across the Tracadie near Head of
Tide (Note 94), and by Little Tracadie to the sea near Green Point, (or
possibly through South River, Pokemouche).

14. The Pokemouchian Valley. Headed in the Main Northwest Mira-
michi, receiving branches as shown on the map; and by the Main North-
west, the East Branch Portage River, across to a basin near Meadow
Brook on the Tracadie (Note 94) and along the Main Pokemouche to St.
Simons Inlet and Shippegan Harbor to Bay Chaleur.

15. The Caraquetian Va'.ley. Headed in the Tomogonops (and pos-
sibly even in a part of the Nepisiguit near Indian Falls), swings to the
south branch Portage River, thence to the source of the Tracadie and
across to the Garaquet (Note 94) and thence to the sea.

Such seem to me the most probable courses of these ancient
valleys, though here again, while believing in the correctness of
my explanation in general, I think it likely that considerable error
may exist in details. Such an arrangement of ancient valleys
would not only bring this whole series of rivers into homology
with those in an identical geological formation south of the Mira-
michi, but at the same time explains the reason for the re-entrant
directions of the rivers flowing into the Minaqua River, a feature

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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

otherwise very difficult to explain, and also the reason for the
peculiar northeast direction of parts of the Bartibog, Tabusintac,
Portage River and Little Tracadie, and for the curious course of
the Caraquet parallel with the coast of Bay Chaleur. The correct
linking of the valleys east and west of the New Eastern water-
shed is rendered very difficult by the changes which have been
brought about by the considerable height of that watershed (at
least 535 feet by railway levels), and also by subsequent changes,
in part glacial, in the courses of the Pokemouche, Tmcadie (Note
94) and Tabusintac valleys. The lower courses of these streams,
no doubt following the slope of the syncline trough forming
Miramichi Bay, have been swung directly eastward across the
low ridges separating the ancient valleys (compare Note 94).
All of the intervening ridges can be traced near the sea; — thus the
Tuadookian-Tabusintian ridge shows in the elevation east of
Portage River; the Tabus intian-Tracadian in the elevated ridge
on which Tracadie Village and its church now stand; the
Tracadian-Pokemouchian, the highest and most important of all,
extends out to form Shippegan and Miscou in one direction, and
southwesterly to cross the Minaquan valley near Chaplins Island,
causing there the wide separation of the mouths of the North-
west Miramichi and the Sevogle ; the Pokemouchian-Caraquetian
comes to the sea in the cliffs of Caraqivt; and the Caraquetian-
Nepisiguitian (the latter mentioned below) in the cliffs at Grande
Anse.

We consider finally the fourth group of these Northumbrian
Rivers, including the small rivers north of the Nepisiguit to Bay
Chaleur. Though short, they all show the right-angled bends on
their issuance from the crystalline highlands, followed by a
northeasterly course showing a certain homology with the valleys
to the south of them. Then in their lower courses they are
swung northward into Bay Chaleur, by the same causes which
turned the rivers to the southward into the Minaqua valley,
namely the elevation of the New Eastern Watershed immediately
on the east. The recognizable valleys are the following ; —

16. J'he Ncpisiguitian Valley. Headed probably tin or near? 44-mile
Brook, and followed the general course of the present Nepisiguit to below

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

433

Grand Falls. Thence, I think, it flowed, parallel with the valleys south
of it, across to the Pokeshaw, which now runs in a remarkably trough-
valley parallel to the coast-.

17. The Pabinean Valley. Headed in the upper part of 40-mile Brook,
pontinuing across to Niine-mile Brook, bending in the latter to enter the
Pabineau, which perhaps at first crossed to near Salmon Beach, but early
formed the lower course of the present Nepisiguit.

Northward of this valley traces of the same arrangement, in-
cluding the bends (now less marked because these rivers radiate
from the highlands rather to the east than the southeast), may
be seen in Little River, Middle River, the Tetagouche and others
nearly to Belledune. Their lower courses no doubt flowed north-
easterly over a plain of Carboniferous rocks now replaced by Bay
Chaleur. North of the source of the Tetagouche, however, the
crystalline Highlands come to an end, though an extension of
them in Silurian rocks forms that notable swelling into Bay
Chaleur centering in Belledune. North of Belledune the rivers
all belong to the Laurentian system, later to be considered.

94. The Physiographic Characteristics of the Tracadie

River.

Read December 5, 1905.

In the northeastern section of New Brunswick are several
considerable rivers, the Tabusintac, Tracadie, Pokemouche and
Caraquet, about which hardly a word is to be found in all our
scientific literature. Yet these streams are of great interest, not
only for what they actually are, but also for their bearing upon
the most important and alluring problem in all the physiography
of this province, the mode of evolution of its three great primal
river systems. It was therefore with the keenest delight I was
able to study the principal one of the series, the Big Tracadie,
during a canoe trip* from near its head to its mouth in August

*1 was accompanied by my friend, Professor A. H. Pierce. We were
portaged from Bathurst via the Bass River and portage roads 'to the mouth
of the South Branch. I discovered too. late for a change of plan that we
might have descended the river with no great difficulty from near its
source, where it ciosses tihe portage road.

434

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

last. Such results as I found of interest are recorded below, and
are further illustrated on the accompanying map.

The development of our knowledge of the river may be briefly
traced. Its name, which perhaps was extended to the river from
the region of its mouth by the whites, is Micmac Indian, meaning,
probably, “camping-ground,” descriptive of the extensive occu-

pancy of Tracadie by the Indians in early times. It is first
mentioned, not as a river but as a place or port, by Champlain in
1604; and thereafter it appears upon substantially all maps down
to the present day. No attempt however was made on the early
maps to represent the river, except by an occasional crude and
conventional sketch, until after it was surveyed in 1838 by David
Sadler, whose large-scale plan in the Crown Land Office, show-

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

435

in g the river from Portage River nearly to the head of the South
Branch (viz. the upper South Branch), is the original of all
later published maps down to the present day. The part above the
South Branch has never been surveyed, but is simply sketched
from intersections of timber-lines ; it is represented very badly
upon all printed maps, but more accurately upon the timber-plans
in the Crown Land Office, from which the accompanying map
if taken. The lower course of the river, from three or four miles
above Portage River, was only sketched by Sadler, and his im-
perfect draft is followed on all printed maps. That part is given
more correctly from land surveys on plans in the Crown Land
office, followed on the accompanying map. The Big Tracadie
was not settled until after 1800, though the Tracadie Settlement,
at the mouth of the Little Tracadie*! is much older. The settlers
are almost entirely Acadian French, who have extended slowly up
the tideway until now their uppermost pioneer settlements reach
tc within two miles; of the head of tide. All of the remainder of
the river is still a wilderness. It has always been noted as a
valuable lumber river, and some lumber of the very finest quality
is still being taken from its headwaters, though locally it is said
to be almost exhausted.

Another notable Tracadie feature, less striking now than
formerly, is its wonderful trout-fishery, especially for sea-trout
in its lower course. For this reason it has been much visited by
sportsmen, and mention of it occurs in several angling books and
especially in the Reports and other writings of M. H. Perley.
Scientifically however the river seems not at all studied. I can
find no mention of it in any scientific writings accessible to me,
even the geological reports containing not a single reference to
the river.

The Big Tracadie River rises in a tiny spring rivulet; close to
the Bathurst Road, as I am told by Mr. Frank O’Connor of Bass
River, who knows the Tracadie thoroughly, and to whom I am
indebted for much important information -about it. It flows
northeasterly, rapidly enlarging, until at the crossing of the

*The history of the founding of Tracadie, with a large scale map of
the mouth of the Big Tracadie, are given in a forthcoming paper by the
present Writer in Trans. Royal Society of Canada.

436

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

portage road (see the map), it1 is a meadowy Stillwater stream,
navigable even at low water for a canoe, winding at the bottom
of a wide trough-like mature-looking valley of moderate depth
(perhaps 40 to 5° feet below the general level of the country).
Mr. O’Connor tells me it preserves this character for several
miles to the northeastward, indeed, to and around its easterly bend.
Now this valley, as will presently be shown, is very much older
in appearance than any part of the 1 racadie below it ; and
furthermore it was obviousily formed by a very much larger
stream than that which now occupies it. It must be a fact, there-
fore, that it does not represent the original head of the Tracadie,
but is part of an older northeast-southwest valley. Our best maps
(die timber-line plan§ of the Crown Land Office, followed by the
accompanying map), show that this valley lies exactly in line
with the present Caraquet valley, and I have no doubt they are
parts of the ancient Caraquetian Valley described in the preceding
note, (No. 93), where also the position of its probable head in
Tomogonops-Portage River is discussed.

The great bend of the Tracadie to the eastward I have un-
fortunately not seen. At the uppermost point I reached in ascend-
ing the stream on foot from the South Branch, viz., just east of
this bend, the stream is of a meadowy, smoothwater, winding,
sand-bottomed type, a character which it holds, as Mr. O’Connor
tells me, all the way from the portage road. But the valley here
is much narrower, steeper-walled and newer in appearance than
is the part above, and also deeper, perhaps 70-80 feet below the
general level. Descending, the country becomes somewhat lower,
and the river becomes gradually swifter and shoal er, rippling in
a clear stream over gravel and small stones, sometimes carving
into high banks of glacial drift or of the greatly-jointed soft
gray sandstone which constitutes the bed rock of the entire valley
of the Tracadie. It continues thus down to the North Branch.
This part of the river has more drop than any other part of the
main Tracadie, and. under present conditions would form difficult
canoeing at low water. But the present character of this, as of
many other New Brunswick streams, is no index to its original
character, Mr. O’Conner has told me from his personal

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

437

knowledge of this river, and I have been told by other lumber-
men of other New Brunswick streams, that the great quantities
of logs now driven at a time down a stream, especially when sup-
plemented by the great rushes of water when the splash, or driv-
ing, dams (of which there are several on the Tracadie) are
opened, cause an extensive tearing awiay of the soft banks, mak-
ing the river-beds much broader and much shoaler than they were
originally. This subject should be kept in mind in studying the
ancient routes of Indian travel, and will explain why several New
Brunswick routes were much used by the Indians where now a
canoe could be taken only with very great difficulty, or even not
at all.*

The North Branch, so far as I have seen it, some two or three
miles up, is also in large part a meadowy, sand-bottomed,
smooth-water stream, up which even now in low water a canoe
could be worked with little difficulty. The valley, which is some
40 to 50 feet below the general level of the country, though small,
is moderately open and mature ; and, since it continues exactly the
direction of the main Tracadie below it, I have no doubt it is
morphologically the head of the Tracadie, while the present main
stream, from the mouth of the North Branch northwesterly to
the great bend, represents a branch which has worked back across
the ancient watershed and captured the head of the Caraquetian
Valley.

Below the North Branch the combined streams form a shallow,
rippling, cold and dear-water river, winding somewhat in an
open and seemingly rather mature valley, washing at times
against high glacial banks or low cliffs of sandstone, the jointed
pieces of which are washed out to form small angular boulders
in the stream. These small sandstone boulders are practically
the only ones found throughout the length of the Tracadie, the
granite or other crystalline boulders of the rivers of the interior
being here quite wanting. Such is the Tracadie down to the
South Branch.

*Possible Indian routes from the Tracadie to Bay Chaleur are discussed
in the paper cited in the preceding footnote.

438

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

The South Branch I have seen only for a mile or two above its
mouth. Mr. O’Connor tells me it rises in three tiny clear lakes,
whence it flows eastward with considerable drop, falling at times
over rocky ledges or swiftly over stones and gravel, with little
Stillwater upon it. As far as I have seen it, is a swift shallow
stream, in a somewhat narrow valley. Evidently this is a new, if
not possibly post-glacial, branch of the Tracadie, draining the
eastern slope of the elevated ridge, some xoo to 150 feet above the
streams, crossed by the portage road. This ridge, I believe ex-
tends southwest to form the watershed between Nepisiguit waters
and Tracadie-Tabusintac waters, and northeastward to separate
Caraquet from Pokemouche waters, reaching the sea in the ele-
vated land and cliffs at Caraquet. It is in fact the separating
ridge between the ancient Caraquetian and Pokemouchian valleys
of the primal Northumbrian system (Note 93).

Below the South Branch the river is of course enlarged, and,
except for occasional bars, becomes readily canoeable even at low
water, despite its shoaling through lumbering. It winds in a
somewhat open valley, with a rippling flow and occasional little
rapids over gravel, sand, and small stones with occasional glacial
or sandstone banks, while gradually pools appear, sand-bottomed
and temptingly trout-haunted in the clear white- water depths.
The banks, as everywhere above, are densely wooded, and the
entire river very attractive. Descending, the stream becomes
gradually quieter, sand-bottomed pools are more frequent,
smoothwater prevails, the banks are of a’der and meadow, the
valley opens out more and more, until a mile or more above
Meadow Brook the river is winding in a pleasant open intervale
basin, which has been partially cleared for camping purposes on
the line of the Bathurst-St. Isidore portage road, which crosses
here. Descending farther, the river begins to grow swift:r again,
gradually coming to ripple over a gravelly and stony bed ; the
valley walls rise rapidly and close in to the river bed, until at
Pokemouche Landing, two miles below Meadow Brook, the
stream enters a deep gap cut sharply into an elevated plateau,
entirely different from anything above.

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

439

What now 4s the origin of the Tracadie down to this point?
Since the entire river runs through rocks of uniform hardness
(the soft gray Carboniferous sandstones )? it is plain that the
parts of the river above and below this meadowy basin, being so
different in their character, must have had very different origins.
Turning now to the maps we notice that the Pokemouche waters
here approach very near to the Traoadie, especially at the bend of
Tracadie a mile above Meadow Brook; further we note that the
Meadow Brook basin lies directly in line with the main valley of
the Pokemouche; and further that the Tracadie above the basin
is parallel with the northerly branches of the Pokemouche, while
(to a slight extent at least) the Tracadie below the basin is
parallel with southerly branches of the Pokemouche. All facts
taken together seem to make it probable that the Pokemouche
formerly flowed across this basin, and the Upper Tracadie was
one of its branches, while possibly the Tracadie for a short dis-
tance (a mile or two) below the basin was another. This idea
falls in perfectly with the theory advanced in the preceding note
that the Pokemouche occupies the eastern end of another of the
great primitive Northumbrian valleys,' — the Pokemouchian

Valley, which, extending across this basin, headed in Portage
River and the Northwest Miramichi. As to the cause of the
turning of the upper Tracadie from the Pokemouche southward
into its present course, it is very likely, as will be shown below,
that this is in some way a result of the glacial period ; and I ven-
ture the prediction that the watershed between the Tracadie basin
and the Pokemouche waters to the eastward will be found to be
formed by a line of glacial drift thrown across the ancient
Pokemouchian valley.

Below Meadow Brook, as already noted, the character of the
valley changes greatly, the valley walls rising rapidly, until at
Pokemouche Landing, two miles below Meadow Brook, the river
enters a remarkable gap in a flat plateau. Descending, the valley
zigzags abruptly, and its walls rise higher and higher, so steeply
withal as to become in places almost of a gorge-like character,
with occasional nearly vertical sandstone cliffs. These features
become more and more pronounced until, about half way between

440

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

Pokemouche Landing- and Lord and Foy Brook, the river is run-
ning at the bottom of a deep V-shaped vallley cut sharply into the
surface of a very flat plateau. Nowhere in New Brunswick
have I seen a valley so sharply cut into so level a country, features
which can be plainly seen since the entire region is burnt to a
barren. Below, the country falls off somewhat and the valley
opens a little down to Lord and Foy Brook, which, itself in a
similar deep valley, enters the main stream in a very pleasant} in-
tervale basin. Below this stream the character of the river re-
mains much the same, the plateau becoming slightly lower but
the valley remaining narrow down to the Little South Branch,
where the entire river swings abruptly to the eastward. Such a
character for the valley suggests a rough river bed, which, how-
ever does not occur. The flow is somewhat swifter than above,
and a few small rocky rapids occur; but for the most part the
river runs rippling over gravel or stones, or smoothly through
swiftwater pools, a remarkably easy and very charming stream
for the canoeman. This part of the river certainly has an at-
tractiveness of its own, especially in the contrast of the pleasing
stream and its dense margin of woods with the wildness of the
great bare, steep, abruptly-winding rocky valley walls, sharply
lined above by their angle with the plateau. But while the valley
is narrow, the bed of the river, which is always over drift, never
quite fills it, and narrow strips of alluvium occur on one side or
the other, with considerable intervale points at the bends.

We consider now the origin of this part of the river. Evident-
ly it has cut directly across a plateau-ridge which is highest half
way between Pokemouche Landing and Lord and Foy; and this
ridge, I take it, extends southwestward with the sources of the
Tabusintac upon its southern slope, and northeastward between
the Pokemouche and Little Tracadie, reaching the sea at the up-
land Green Point, and extending beyond to form the islands of
Shippegan and Miscou. It is thus one of the ancient ridges sep-
arating the Pokemouchian and the Tracadian Valleys of the
original Northumbrian system of rivers (Note 93). But what
sent the Tracadie across this ridge? It was, I think, changes

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

44 J

connected with the glacial period. Although the valley is
obviously not post-glacial, nevertheless its sharpness of angle and
evident newness seems to admit, in view of the softness of its
rocks, of no greater age than the glacial epoch. The entire valley
has the characters and the appearance of those parts of the Nepisi-
guit, and of the Northwest Miramichi, whicn I have described
in earlier notes as “inter-glacial/’ ( or perhaps one should sav,
“sub-glacial”) valleys. I have no doubt these streams are all of
the same origin, and all connected with glacial phenomena, and
the determination of the exact origin of one will give the ex-
planation of them all. lit is very likely that the damming of the
old outlet through the Pokemouche, whether this was by glacial
ice or solid drift, sent the waiters over the lowest point of the
plateau to the southward, which point would naturally lie where
streams on its northern and southern slopes approached one
another at their heads. Thus it is very possible that the com-
parativety straight reach of the Tracadie below Pokemouche
Landing was originally the head of Red Pine Brook, for not only
are they in a direct line, but, as Mr. O’Connor tells me, the source
of Red Pine Brook is here within a mile of the Pokemouche. On
the other hand the part of the Tracadie south of the highest part
of the plateau, at least the part for a mile or two above Lord and
Foy, was very probably in pre-glacial times simply a branch of
the present lower Tracadie below Little South Branch, as was
Lord and Foy itself. But more detailed study is needed to de-
termine these interesting details.

The Little South Branch also runs in a narrow valley, cut
deeply into the plateau. Its direction continues that of the river
below it, of which probably it is the morphological head. Below
it the Tracadie valley down to the tide is very much wider than
anywhere above, wide enough so that the river winds sinuously
back and forth from wall to wall around great int:rvale points,
the windings shown on the map being of this minor character
and not major windings of the valley itself. But the valley wads
are fairly steep '(aside from the places where the stream is
obviously cutting into them and forming cliffs), and the plateau

442

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

holds its height of from 70 to 80 feet for some distance to the
eastward, and then falls off markedly towards the tide mead where
it is not over 30 to 40 feet above the water. The bed of the rivei
is yet smoother than above, consisting chiefly of long smooth-
water pools and smooth-running reaches over sand and gravel,
separated by rippling gravel bars and occasional little rocky
rapids. Finally, growing yet smoother and quieter, it merges
imperceptibly with the tide, the transition being marked only by
stranded and water-logged river drift. Below, allong the tideway,
the valley preserves in general much the same character, though
broadening somewhat, but the walls gradually become higher, the
plateau rising again to some 70 or 80 feet above the water. Then
it sinks again, until, some three miles above Portage River, it has
dropped to 40 feet or less, after which it seems to fall away still
more abruptly, to dip rapidly under the waters of the Gulf of
St. Lawrence. Through all of its tidal part the river winds
considerably, with banks ait times of glacial drift, again of sand-
stone cliffs, but oftenest gently sloping and thus affording sites
for the thrifty farms which are extending gradually up the
tideway. Often, when the banks are high, it has much of a fiord-
eharacter, and everywhere it presents much quiet beauty of
scenery. Near the mouth of this easterly part there comes in
Portage River, in a ripe-looking tidal valley nearly as large at
that of the Big Tracadie. The Tracadie then bends northward
through “The Lake” and finds its way to the sea through a com-
plex of lake, cove, point, lagoon, marsh, ishnd and sand beach,
all thoroughly characteristic of a sinking coast in a sandy region.

We consider now the origin of this part of the river. It
is just possible (that it is of the same age and mode of formation
as the part above to Meadow Brook ; but its much greater size,
appearence of greater maturity and marked difference of di-
rection, all indicate that it is considerable older, and I think it is
a long pre-glacial, though stiff comparatively modern river. It
cannot however occupy an original valley of the Northumbrian
series (Note 93) partly because it is too new in character and
partly because its direction is nearly due east instead of north-

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

443

east. Furthermore I believe a Northumbrian valley can be
traced directly across it, for the Eskedelloc and upper Tabusintac,
the depression in the plateau about the head of tide on Tracadie,
and the course of the Little Tracadie all lie in a line, and that in
the direction proper for the old Northumbrian series (Tracadian
Valley of the preceding note). In its easterly, instead of north-
easterly direction, it is not unique, since the Pokemouche, to some
extent the Little Tracadie, and the Tabusintac, also show this
easterly, or even southeasterly, direction for their lower courses,
though the Northumbrian valleys can be traced in the northeast-
erly direction. These easterly courses I presume are connected
with the formation of the great trough originating Miramichi
Bay, a syncline parallel with Bay Chaleur and Bay of Fundy. It
i« on the slope of this syncline, I take it, these rivers have been
formed, thus acquiring their present directions which represent
a compromise, as it were, between the original northeasterly slope
of the country and the southeasterly slope of the syncline walls.
In pre-glacial times, no doubt, the Tracadie emptied directly east-
ward just north of Point a Barreau, but since the Glacial Period
has emptied through one of the old Northumbrian valleys, a
continuation of that of Portage River, the Tabusintian Valley t»f
the Northumbrian system.

95. On the Height and Other Characters of Wilkinson

Mountain.

Read December 5, 1905.

Near the source of the Walkemik, or Upper North Branch, of
the Little Southwest Miramichi rises Wilkinson Mountain, one
of the highest and most important mountains of New Brunswick.
In my description of this region in Note No. 87, I gave some ac-
count of it, and mapped its approximate position,* but I had not
then been on its summit. In July last I was able to ascend it,
measure its elevation, and make some other observations which
follow.

*As thus mapped iit is somewhat too far from Hougih Lake; compare
the map accompanying Note No. 99 following.

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

444

An aneroid measurement made with all the precautions
described in earlier notes, and checked for weather from the
Fredericton 'and Chatham stations, made it 2572 and 2524 feet
respectively above mean sea level. Its height measured from our
camp, the elevation of which was determined by two measure-
ments checked from the two stations, was 2438 and 2424. The
mean of these four is 2489 feet. This agrees well with a direct
aneroid measurement (910 feet) of its height above Dunn Lake,
of which the elevation* (1572 feet) was determined last year,
and with the fact that it is somewhat higher than the neighboring
Thunder Mountain which I made 2468 feet in 1900. My figures
are certainly conservative and under rather than over the true
amount, so that I have no question this mountain will be found

Sketches of Wilkinson Mountain from a distance. A. From near the
southeast angle of Holmes Lake; Thunder Moun.ain (the double top moun-
tain) ds visible on the left. B. From a bare hill above the big bend on the
North Pole Branch. C. From Little Nalaisk Mountain on the Serpentine.

to reach fully 2500 feet. Like Carleiton and others of our higher
mountains, it suffers in apparent height from the fact that ff
rises from an elevated plateau, itself 2000 feet and more in
height. Thus I made the plateau some three miles northwest of
it over 2200 feet (Note 98 following). It stands at one end. and
Carleton-Sagamook at the other, of the most elevated watershed
in New Brunswick, the very roof of the province, that separating
the Serpentine from the Nepisiguit and Miramichi waters.

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

445

So gradually does the mountain rise above its surroundings
that its summit cannot be seen from anywhere in the near vicinity,
but its form and relations to neighboring hills can be determined
only from a distance, or from its own summit. As to the latter, it
affords unfortunately no good view, because it is densely wooded ;
but from .a precarious perch on a tall tree I was able to see that it
forms the culmination of a marked ridge much higher than any
other land in the vicinity, and of which Thunder Mountain is
the southwestern end. As to its appearance from a distance, it
is in no respect striking or distinctive, aside from its obvious
elevation above all other land in the vicinity. I find happily that
I have preserved in my notes sketches of its form as seen from
three distant points from which it shows clearly, and these
sketches are reproduced in the accompanying cut. The mountain
appears to be formed entirely of granite, for all its boulders are
of that material, and granite ledges occur upon its flanks, as
recorded in Notes 87 and 97.

96. Observations upon the Weather of the Central

Highlands.

Read Decembers, 1905.

During several journeys into the central highlands of the
province, I have taken some note of weather conditions, especial-
ly as to temperature. In working out the details of various
aneroid measurements I have noticed that the temperatures taken
with the readings average, as would be expected, markedly lower
than those at the central stations at Fredericton and Chatham. I
attempted in 1904 to make somewhat exact measurements of
minimum night temperatures, but owing partly to a defective in-
strument and partly to an erroneous method, my somewhat
elaborate results proved worthless. But in July, 1905, I attempted .
to make these measurements with proper methods (hanging the
thermometer always over five feet from the ground in an open
space), and with a carefully standardized instrument (a Hicks
form re-scaled in comparison with a standard thermometer). Un-
fortunately my trip this time was very short, but the temperatures,

446

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

as far as they go, in comparison with those of Fredericton ( 164
feet above sea level) and Chatham (21 feet) here follow. The
localities average about ten miles nonh of Chatham and eighty
miles north of Fredericton.

Date.

Place.

Eleva-

tion

Min.

Temp.

Min.

Fred.

Min.

Chat.

July 11-12

100 feet over Hough Lake

1650

46

52.2

54

12-13

“ “

1650

63

61.4

50.5

13-14

Skunk Lake

1648

66

66.4

64.5

14-15

Above Forks, North Pole Branch

1200

59

60.9

65.5

15-16

Below Forks, North Pole Branch

1175

34

49.4

62.

16-17

Big Bend, North Pole Branch

1127

39

51 9

50.

17-18

Three miles up North Polo Branch

1025

57

53.2

48.

18-19

Below Forks, Lower North Branch —

1070

40

62.1

58 5

19-20

Plateau slope near Kagoot Mt

2000

53

59.9

57.

20-21

Valley between Kagoot and Caribou .

1700

28

48.9

60

21-22

Source South Branch Sevogle

1552

38

50.9

50.

22-23

Forks Clearwater-Sevogle

717

38

46.0

47.

Average

1376

46.7

55.2

55.5

This table shows that while at times the minimum temperature
is higher in the Central Highlands than at Fredericton or Chat-
ham, it averages some nine degrees lower, and at times runs very
much lower. The most conspicuous case of this is in the tem-
perature 28° on the night of July 20-21. That this is no error
of record or instrument is shown by the fact that in the morning
we found outside our tent a cake of ice in the bottom of a cup,
which was itself frozen to the moss on which it rested. I have
noted another striking example of summer frosts in this region.
On the sources of the Northwest Miramichi on August 27-2S,
28-29, 29-30, 1903, the frosts were so heavy as to whiten all the
vegetation around and freeze the water in our pails. Mr. M. I.
Furbish has also sent me a note to the effect that once on August
13th at the Waagan water froze in a pail beside his camp to such
a thickness that the pail could be lifted by the dipper frozen in it ;
and it is said there is frost there every month of the year, a

3S

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK 447

matter of some interest in connection with the agricultural future
of that region. Again Mr. Edward Jack records snow on Sep-
tember 30 on the headwaters of the Little Southwest Miramicbi
(Acadiensis, V. 137).

Another weather phase of some interest, on which, however,
I have only impressions and no figures, is the frequency of
showers in the Highlands. During several trips I have exper-
ienced heavy showers, often to an annoying extent, and they
seemed to me much more frequent than I had ever observed else-
where in the Province. I think it very probable that the Central
region is elevated enough to produce rain from clouds which
would pass over the lower parts of the Province without precipi-
tation. If this is true, it would not be the forested condition of
the country alone which keeps up the summer level of the streams
in the Central Highlands, but the larger water-supply as well.

97. On the Physical Geography of Miscou.

Read in abstract, Dec. 5, 1905.

The northeasterly part of New Brunswick extends a long
angle out into the sea, and, undulating down beneath its surface,
ends in a line of peninsulas and islands of which the ultimate is
Miscou. An island curiously formed and forever in change,
haunt of wild life and center of quiet scenic charm, storied of old,
remote from progress, primitive in population, it appeals to our
interest in many a different way. But we are concerned now
with the method of its origin and the curious facts of its physical
geography.

We note first the development of our knowledge of its scien-
tific phenomena, and begin with its geography. Having been
the center of a valuable fishery from the earliest advent of
Europeans, possessing a very good harbor, and being readily
accessible from the sea, it was early mapped by French mission-
aries and geographers, notably by Denys, 1672, Jumeau, 1685,
Franquelin-deMeulles, 1686, an unknown surveyor of 1755? an^
others, followed more or less accurately by the general maps of

448

BULLETIN7 OF THK NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

the time. But these maps were merely sketches, often extremely
crude, and it was not until the surveys of DesBarres for his
famous “Atlantic Neptune’’ about 1770, that an approximately
correct outline appears. The first survey for cadastral purposes
was made for the Crown Land Office in 1820 by Deputy Sur-
veyor West, whose large-scale map, corrected and extended by
many land-surveys since made, is the basis for all of our present
maps, excepting only the Admiralty charts. A new Admiralty sur-
vey was made in 1838 on which are based all the modern charts.
But no published map down to the present, aside from the very
small-scale and generalized surface geology map, and no plan or
map in the Crown Land Office, has attempted to show the curious
physical features of the island.

Such a map, however, has been made by Dr. J. Orne Green of
Boston, who has visited the Island for many years past for sport
and health and who has made some study of its geography and
natural history. This map, by his kind permission, I have used
along with other data,* in compiling the map accompanying this
paper.

Of scientific study the island has had very little. Some gen-
eral references to its characteristics occur in local books, but the

* In compiling the .accompanying map, I have used the plans in the
Crown Land Office, the Admiralty charts, (especially the large-scale chart
showing Miscou Harbor and surroundings), Dr. Green’s map, sketches
of my own, (notably in the outlines of the upland), and traverse surveys
made by myself of the outline of Grande Plaine, and of Lake Chenire
and Big Lake. During my three-weeks visit to the Island in August-
September, 1905, I was able to examine every part of the shore except the
part between Birch Point and the Mai Baie North Gully, and all of the
important parts of the anterior of the Island except the eastern edge of
the principal upland tract — that from Lake Chenr e south to Miscou
Harbor, which part may be somewhat inaccurate. The geography of the
remainder of the island is of course only approximately correct, and
owing to the failure of the accessible data to accord with one another I
have had to compromise and “fudge’’ somewhat. This is notably the
case in the vicinity of Cowans Lake and its relations with the Queue of
Big Lake. Further I suspect the Crown Land plans I follow for Mai Bare
South are in error, and it should be made considerably larger. In order
not to interfere with the clearness of the map for physiographic purposes
I have omitted most of the names of the less important lakes and other
places, as well as all data and names connected with settlement. These
are, however, given in full on another map of the same sca’e accompanying
my “Founding of Miscou” mentioned on the next page.

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

449

iirst student to visit it was Moses H. Perley who was there in
1849. He gives some account of its physical characteristics, to-
gether with much information about its fisheries and its history,
in his well-known Report on the Fisheries of New Brunswick
of 1850. Among his other observations he describes the finding
of great quantities of walrus bones at Grande Plaine, and this is
the original of the frequently (and sometimes incorrectly)
quoted accounts of those interesting objects, which are more fully
described in a later Note, (No. 98), of this series. No other
student visited Miscou until 1886 when Dr. Robert Chalmers,
accompanied by Dr. G. U. Hay spent some two weeks upon the
island examining its surface geology and botany, with results
mentioned in brief in Dr. Chalmers’ Report on the Surface
Geology of Northeastern New Brunswick of 1888 and shown on
his surface geology map accompanying the report. Aside from
these I can discover no further mention of the island in all our
scientific literature. Dr. J. Orne Green during his many long
visits to the island has made observations upon its natural history,
especially its bird life, but unfortunately the results have not been
published.* Finally, I spent three days on the island in 1904, and
three weeks in 1905, making the observations which follow.

Miscou is a famous center for a special kind of sport, the
shooting of wildfowl, which resort in immense numbers to its
lagoons and lakes ; and many sportsmen have visited it for that
purpose. But I have not noted any references to it in any of the
sporting literature I am acquainted with.

Historically the island is of unusual interest, and much
thereon has been published, all of which I have tried to summar-
ize, with the addition of some new material, in an essay on “The
Founding of Miscou” to appear with an historical map as part of
a Monograph to be published soon in the Transactions of the
Royal Society of Canada. The island has a population of some
500 to 600 English and French, mostly following the rich fishery

*As this paper is in press, I learn that Dr. Green has presented a paper
before this Society upon the game birds of Miscou ; and doubtless it will
appear later in this, or in the next following, Bulletin.

450

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

of which the island is a center, and farming a little incidentally*
They are a simple, healthy, and hospitable people..

Miscou owes its existence to the fact that this part of New
Brunswick consists of a series of ancient, low northeast-southwest
ridges and valleys, most elevated to the southwest and dipping
under the sea to the northeast. The central one of these eleva-
tions (Note 93), probably the crest of an anticline, is the highest,
and hence remains longest above the sea-surface, forming the
long projection which makes the northeastern angle of the
Province. Because of local irregularities this ridge shows as a
series of islands just before it vanishes entirely, Miseou being the
last of the series. Miscou itself indeed is not a single island but
several, joined by bars and bogs. Miscou Harbour, deepening
westward, originated no doubt as an ancient valley tributary to
one of the great rivers which once flowed along our present Bav
Chaleur.

Centering our attention now upon the island itself, we find
that it consists essentially of three larger, with several outlying
smaller tracts of wooded upland, swelling gently and irregularly
above a shallow sea. These upland tracts endlose, roughly, a tri-
angle, and, joined together by festooning bars and beaches which
widen in places to plains, they encircle lagoons and lakes
with moor and salt marsh. We therefore have to consider, the
upland, the beaches and sand plains, the bog-barrens, and the salt
marshes.

The outlines, positions, and mutual relations of the tracts of
upland are well indicated by the accompanying map, on which
their outlines, while mostly merely from sketches, are yet, I be-
lieve, approximately correct. The highest points of the respective
tracts, which in no case exceed 30 or 35 feet above high-tide
level, are approximately indicated on the map. Their surfaces
are gently and smoothly undulating, and, except where cut into
cliffs by the encroaching sea, dip imperceptibly under water,
beach, marsh or barren. They were originally, and are still in
part, wooded with a small-sized mixed forest. Doubtless each
possesses a core of rock, but I was able to find it in only two
places, both on the larger southwestern tract. The most im-

:

<

,

A

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

451

portant of these is the exposure of much jointed and irregularly
bedded soft gray sandstones which form the beach and low
vertical wave-cut banks at the southwestern argle of the island,
the only place on Miscou, according to the residnts, where ledge
rock shows on the coast. The second place is beside the new
highway road a little south of Lake Cienire, where, in a pit dug
to obtain material for a new road, the same sandstones appear.*
I am told also that ledge rock has been struck in a well near
Wilson’s Point, and that it occurs on the beach in the harbor.
Elsewhere, where the sea is cutting into the upland, as just west
of Lac Frye, at Wilsons Point, at Miscou Harbour, at Money
Island, south of Eel Brook, along the old bank-line at Grande
Plaine, it is working against typical, compact, rather fine-grained
glacial drift, which evidently forms much of the surface of the
island, affording a soil of fair quality farmed by the residents.

We turn next to the beaches. The shallow sea about the
island has, according to the charts and the sailing direc.ions, a
bottom sometimes of rock,/ but usually of sand, while close to the
shore it is almost everywhere of sand. Further, excepting for
the rocky shores at the southwest part of the island, the stony
(small sandstone cobble) reefs off Birch and Wilsons Points, and
occasional peat banks at points to be noted below, the beaches
between tides are also of sard, gently shelving and compact,
affording the finest possible beaches for travel, and, perhaps, for
recreation in the future. And in most places the sand is driven
by the waves still higher, until, intermingled with driftwood,
gravel, cobbles and occasional boulders brought from Gaspe Dy
the ice, it is piled in ridges above high-tide mark. Here the wind
drives the drying sand still higher, forming low. dunes, up to six
or eight feet high , which become sparsely clothed with beach
grasses. Such beaches are formed only on flatly shelving shores,
never against abrupt upland; hence on irregular shallow coasfs

*The “Sailing Directions” speaks of a steep sandstone cliff at Birch
Point ten feet in height. Yet as I, have myself observed there is no rock
visible here upon the shore or elsewhere, and the residents say none is
known to them. I think the compact glacial drift forming the bank has
been mistaken for a sandstone ledge.

4 d2

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

they tend to grow between headlands, which act as anchorages for
them, and between which they are beaten in by winds and waves
to graceful inbowed curves, often enclosing salt lakes or lagoons.
Such a barrier beach, now, however, much modified by changes
later to be described, extends from the rocky upland at the
southwestern angle of the island northward in a gentle curve to
the Goose Lake point, enclosing Herring Creek and Goose Lake.
At the Goose Lake point, there is now no upland, but the
character of the place, on which stands the Lighthouse, suggests
that it possesses a core of upland recently above the sea. Fron
this point another beach runs in a curve to the upland North of
Lake Chenire, enclosing between it and the upland a line of low
boggy swamps or meadows which were, as recently as 1838,
salt ponds or lagoons as shown in the Admiralty charts made in
ih'at year. North of Eel Brook, owing to local causes discussed
below, the single dune beach gradually broadens into the re-
markable great sandy plain called Grande Plaine. From the
northern extremity of Grande Plaine the beach extends in a
gentle curve to the upland at the eastward, enclosing Lac Frye,
while to the southeastward smaller beaches between neighboring
tracts of upland enclose two smaller lakes. Then it continues
south, with an open gully, to a peaty headland enclosing the salt
lagoon, Mai Baie North, and from the peaty headland south to
Wilsons Point enclosing, (with a break of the gully), Mai Baie
South. A striking fact about the beaches between Birch Point
and Wilsons Point, however, is that they have not the usual con-
cave form from headland to headland. The explanation is plain
enough. The headland between the two Mai Baies is not of
upland but of peat, which is rapidly being eroded away by the
sea, and the base of the beach north of it is following it inward,
destroying the proper curve. From the upland of Wilsons Point
to that near Pigeon Hill, Shippegan, a very typical barrier beach
runs in a characteristic great curve, cut by a typical gully,
making Miscou Harbor, in its western part at least, practically
a lagoon. And beyond Shippegan a very typical series of these
great beaches may be traced along the coast, hanging in graceful
festoons from headland to headland, all the way to Buctouche.

natural history and physiography of new Brunswick

45a

Thus we see that Miscou Island, while given its general form and
size by the remnants of upland not yet sunken beneath the sea,
has most of the details of its form, especially its system of grace-
ful inward curves, given it by the barrier beaches festooned from
upland to upland.

Such is the present position of the beaches. They are, how-
ever. by no means fixed, but among the most highly plastic and
unstable of geographical features. Aside from the swinging of
their basal ends with the inward moving upland, they show, in
Miscou at least, two other marked movements. The first is in
the position of those breaches or gullys which, ever tending to be
closed by the waves, are ever made anew by the pressure of the
accumulated waters inside. The older maps of Miscou all show
the gullys of Lac Frye, the two Mai Baies, and Miscou Gully
itself, in different positions at different times, and such changes
show their traces on the outlines of the beaches themselves.
Again, at two points on the shore outside the dune beaches
(namely just south of Eel Brook on the west coast, and north of
Birch Point on the northeast coast) I found beds of peat, showing
that the beaches are moving inward as the island sinks, a point
further to be discussed below.

We turn next to that very striking and remarkably interesting
modification of the dune beach, the great beach-plain called
Grande Plaine. Its general position, form and relations to the
neighboring uplands are well shown, in large part from actual
survey, on the accompanying map. It is in effect a multiplication
of the usually single dune-beach up to some thirty or more parallel
beaches, the whole resembling with their crests and hollows a
gently-swelling sea suddenly changed to sand. Towards the sea.
and for part of its breadth, it is open and treeless, clothed only
by the waving beach grass and a few low growths nestling in its
shelter ; but the other half on the land side bears a low mixed
forest, which has obviously advanced on the plain from the
neighboring upland. From the mature forest to the open grass
of the beach there is a definite step, the ibransition being marked
by very pleasing close-turfed swales with park-like avenues and
clumps of scattered trees. This nascent forest proved of such

454

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

ecological interest
that I made a some-
what careful observa-
tional study of it, the
results of which, with
illustrative photo-
graphs, will later be
published.* The plain
really begins about a
quarter of a mile
southwest of Eel
Brook, where the
single dune-beach
becomes gradually
two by a process
seemingly of forking
but in reality the re-
sult of the gradual
addition of an outer
newer to an inner
older beach. At Eel
Brook a third ap-
pears and north of
that other, all by a
similar process of al-
most imperceptible
addition of newer
outer beaches, until
at the widest part of
the plain, there are
considerably over
thirty of them. The
older of all the
beaches is of course
that which connects
the Goose Lake

♦Probably 'in the Botanical Gazette for July, 1906, which paper will con-
tain another map of Grande Plaine, in some respects more detailed than
that in this paper. >

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

455

Point, (though it is actually now being washed away at some
points south of Eel Brook), with ithe upland just north of Eel
Brook, while the next oldest is that which skirts the edge of the
upland, here forming a remarkably regular sea-cut, steep escarp-
ment from one or two up to fifteen feet in height. North of the
widest part of the plain, the beaches, hitherto following the curve
of the present shore line, swing to the northeast, form the western
margin of Lac Frye, and continue straight into the sea, which is
cutting directly across their ends. Here the evidence of the sink-
ing of the island is very plain, for not only are the ends of the
beaches being cut into those abrupt cliffs characteristic of a sink-
ing shore, but driftwood is actually driven into the hollows be-
tween them. Better still is the testimony of the woods, which
here continue directly to the margin of the sea which is washing
them steadily away, while the peaty woods-carpet is exposed on
the beach below high-tide mark.

Such is the general appearance of Grande Plaine. Examining
it more narrowly, we find that it is by no means homogeneous
throughout its extent. Thus, the dune beaches are by no means
of equal breadth, height or distance apart. Because of various
irregularities they show, it is by no means easy to measure
exactly either their distances apart or their heights. The follow-
ing figures express approximately the distance in paces from
crest to crest of the beaches in a section from the sea to the upland
at the widest part of the plain; — 24, 17, 18, 17, 44, 26, 25, 12, 25,
32, 42, 96, 45, 20, 47, 68, (edge of woods), 15, 23, 18, 17, 15, 14.
11, 15, 14, 35, 31, and a few others not measured. In general the
older inner beaches are both nearer together and more regular in
size and height than those farther out. The irregularities in
height are marked, some of the crests rising five, or perhaps, six
feet above the intervening hollows, others only a foot or two.
Furthermore the height-fluctuations are by no means uniformly
distributed. Thus two of the beaches, which are also the widest,
those marked 44 and 96 above, are markedly higher than others,
and these higher ones can be traced for a long distance along the
plain. Variations of another kind are shown in the remarkable
swales, characterized by peculiarities of vegetation which I shall

456

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

discuss iii my paper on that subject, and in the low places where-
standing pools of water occur. Furthermore, the vegetation itself
expresses a marked break in the continuity of the plain-building,
for there is an abrupt break between the older and larger trees on
the inner narrower beaches, and the much younger trees on the
swales and outer, beaches. All these fluctuations show that
the growth of the plain has not proceeded uniformly; and it is
probable that a more careful study than I was able to give the
subject would throw some light upon variations in the action of
geological agencies in recent times.

In viewing the successive beach lines, the question naturally
arises as to whether the inner are at a higher or a lower level than
the outer. It is impossible without accurate levelling to tell this
from a study of the plain at its widest part, but reliable testimony
is available elsewhere, just north of Eel Brook the entire
breadth of the plain can be seen at a glance, and there is no ques-
tion as to the levels ; the inner beaches are much lower than the
outer, to such an extent that the entire plain, has a marked slope
inward. Again, at the northern end of the plain, where the sea
is cutting it directly across, the height of the outer beaches may
be seen to be considerably greater than that of the inner, on which
the forest nowi being washed away by the sea is hardly above the
highest tide level. Further, the fact that the inner margin of the
plain near the upland is in places little more than an alder swamp,
points to the same conclusion. I have no doubt that as a whole
the inner beaches average throughout of lesser elevation that the
outer, precisely as we would expect on a sinking coast.

We consider now the mode of origin of Grande Plaine, in-
volving the explanation of the anomaly of extensive land-building
upon a sinking coast. There can be no question that the growth
of this plain, from the very sharply-marked bank-line of the up-
land out to its present position, has been very ree nt, and also
that it is still in active progress. The residents maintain that the
plain has grown from about the margin of the woods to its
present margin within the memory of men now living. This
must be a great exaggeration, but the occurrence of the walrus
bones within the margin of the woods, with their evidence that

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

457

these animals were slaughtered by man, (Note 98) presumably
upon or near the then beach, shows that there has been this much
growth, (a quarter of a mile), within historic times. Several
questions are involved in the problem of this growth. First, as to
the source of the materials. This is principally sand derived from
the rapidly wearing upland of the island and vicinity, supplement-
ed by a great quantity of drift material, wood, eel grass, etc.* All
of the residents agree that the cove opposite the plain is a sort of
huge eddy in which the drift, worked along the coast by the
westerly winds, meets a tidal current sweeping around the north
end of the Island from the east and bringing its own contribution;
the collective material is there driven by the prevailing westerly
winds upon the beach. Certainly immense quantities of driftwood
are beached here, enough to supply the residents of Grande
Plaine with most of their firewood, and a vast quantity besides.
Great masses of eel grass are also brought here after gales, and,
becoming buried in sand, help the rapid growth of the shore
of the island. Of course, in lesser degree, sand and gravel and
other material are worked into this cove in the same manner.
Second, we consider -the causes which have determined the plain-
building in this particular place. The sharpness of the bank-line
of the upland, (so obviously an ancient sea-margin that even the
residents speak of it as such), shows that comparatively recently
the sea beat directly against the upland, and the change to beach-
building was very abrupt. Although the plain is evidentlv
rapidly growing about its middle and widest part, it is being
washed away at its upper end, so that it is in part material from
the upper end of the plain which is forming its middle portion. In
fact all the phenomena seems to me to agree i-11 showing that the
plain formerly extended, no doubt accompanying a band of

* Although the upland of the island is being everywhere washed away
by the sea, in two other places a certain amount of beach building is in
progress, namely at Birch and at Wilson’s Points. The residents, however,
agree that this active beach-building has been in progress only about two
years, prior to which both places were rapidly washing away. The build-
ing of these places, if not indeed of Grande Plaine itself* must resemble
that of the “forelands” of Nantucket, Mass., as recently described by F. P.
Gulliver, (Report of the eighth International Geographic Congress,
Washington, 1905,1 page 146).

458

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

glacial upland, much farther northward, its position being in-
dicated by the shoals marked on the charts and described in the
‘‘Sailing Directi ons/' At that time the eddy would also have
been farther north. It wias the sinking of the island which
permitted the sea to cut off its northern end and roll it, so to
speak, with the eddy, down the coast, a process still in progress.*
And it will no doubt continue until all of the plain north of the
upland, with Lac Frye (once, apparently, a lagoon like Mai Baie
and perhaps earlier a fresh-water lake) will have vanished, and
a much broader plain will have grown gradually southward, fill-
ing the cove north of Eel Brook. Finally we consider the exact
details of the mode of building of the successive beach lines,
which, clear enough in the cases of the single barrier beaches, is
not so obvious where these form a multiple series. In this beach-
building, I believe, the presence of the drift wood, eel-grass, etc.,
plays an important part. All stages of the process may now be
seen in operation. The sea at ordinary tides throws the drift
wood (largely great trees and cut stumps washed out of rivers
by the freshets, with refuse from the mills, etc.) on the beach
and the highest tides push it yet higher, until finally some com-
bination of great tide and strong storm pushes it entirely beyond
reach of the waves. Then the dried sand, driven landward bv
the winds, collects among the wood, and gradually buries it in a
low dune beach. Meantime the beach grass, succeeding the first
beach plants, takes possession and gradually binds the sand so
that it no longer moves with the wind. At the same time the
beach is growing outward, more drift wood is accumulating,
presently a new dune-core is formed, and so on in successive lines.
That the drift wood does thus form! a core in the beach is shown
by the pieces projecting from the various outer beaches, though
from the inner this has all vanished by decay. It may be that the

♦The abrupt transition between the forested inner beaches and the
swales and outer beaches, a transition shown not only by a difference m
age of the trees but also by the step from narrow! sandy beaches to broad
swales indicates, I believe, an interval between the building of the original
Grande Plaine, and the addition of the new beaches from material rolled
down the coast. I have, perhaps, made this point clear in my paper (above
cited) on the vegetation of Grande Plaine.

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

459

need for some combination of great storm and tide to place the
core of drift wood above reach, of all ordinary tides explains the
fluctuations in the breadth and elevation of the beach lines; die
greater may represent the result of some unusual combination of
these influences. Further it may be that fluctuations in the supply
of the drift wood will explain the variations in the regularity of
the beaches. Thus it may be that the lesser size and greater regu-
larity of the inner beaches may be correlated with the fact that
they were formed prior to the days of lumbering when the sup-
ply of drift materials would be both smaller and more regular
than since the settlement of the country. Further, causes of
minor irregularities in the outer beaches are found in the opera-
tions of the residents nearby whose cattle destroy the beach grass
allowing the dunes to blow to pieces, and whose wood-gathering
teams cut the beaches in various ways.

So much for an outline of the formation of this interesting
place. My study of it was very general, and much remains still
to be made out. It will repay a far more detailed study than I
was able to give it.

A plain-building on another principle is in progress now
south of Goose Light. Formerly this coast was fringed by a
single beach inside of which was a line of ponds, surrounded by
bog and marsh, including several ponds shown on the Admiralty
chart of 1838 .but now replaced by bog or marsh. In recent times,
as a result, I am told, of the destruction of the beach grass by
cattle, this outer beach is being blown by the wind on and across
the old marsh and bog, covering it with a sand plain and forming
new beach lines against the upland. In this way Herring Creek
and Goose Lake have been greatly lessened in size and are now
threatened with total extinction. At first I thought that Grande
Plaine itself had been formed in this way, — by the advance of the
beaches over a flat country carried by the sinking of the land
under the sea; but further study has convinced me of the cor-
rectness of the explanation above given. Near Herring Creek,
both on the north and south of its former outlet, occur the highest
and most typical sand dunes I have found in New Brunswick.

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

460

1 hey are some 20 or 25 feet high, of pure rolling sand, and are
overwhelming the old forests formerly standing there.

\\ e turn now to the consideration of the great moors or bogs,
or, as the residents call them, barrens. They cover well-nigh half
of the area of the island, filling in the space enclosed by the
tracts of upland, and lie to some extent beneath the beaches out-
side them. They are as typical and finely developed raised bogs
or Hochmoore as it would be possible to find, resembling physical-
ly and ecologically those I have described from Charlotte County.*
Because of their greater extent they show more fully the hoch-
moor characters than do the Charlotte moors. Every gradation
in structure is presented, from the typical flat bog (Flachmoor),
luavily wooded and verging to swamp, on the western side of the
island (especially in the ang es both north and south of Eel Brook),
up to the raised, treeless, pond-dotted Hochmoors of the central
and eastern parts. Here they form low elevations, rounded hills
or ridges with intervening hollows and valleys, the whole simu-
lating curiously, especially when tiny ribs or deadwater streams
occupy the valleys, the topography of a country of ripe and low
relief. At the highest parts the mosses seem dead, but about the
ponds they are still in growth. Ihe basis of the moor is of
course sundry species of sphagnum, forming typical rounded
hummocks and polsters, on which grow the dwarfed Myrica,
Ledum, Vaccinium, Rhodora, Kalrnia glauca and other heaths
with the various associates usual upon New Brunswick raised
bogs. Scattered about are the litde is'ands of dwarfed spruce
and the many ponds and lakes. These ponds are of all sizes from
little pools that one can almost leap across up to the large Lake
Chenire and Big Lake, lakes of apparent considerable depth, the
latter nearly three miles in circumference. They stand also at all
levels, from those near the highest part of the bog, down to Big
Lake and Lake Chenire, not much above the level of the sea ; and
it often happens, as on other moors, that two lakes but a few
yards apart differ several feet in level. All these characteristics
however are common to all hochmoors and need no special
description here. There is however a striking peculiarity of Big

*In Transactions Royal Soaiety Canada. III., 1897.

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NKW BRUNSWICK

461

Lake, true also to a lesser extent of Lake Chenire, namely, Its
banks are formed of vertical walls of peat, some six to eight or
more feet above the water, which are being cut away by the lake
itself.* They thus resemble exactly the peat-cliffs bordering the
sea to the eastward. Here, at places shown on the map on the
two Mai Baies, on Miscou Harbor along Muddy Brook, and on
the open sea between the Mai Baies, the moors are being eaten
into by the sea, the peat forming vertical cliffs from one or two
up to eight feet in height. This is particularly striking on the
coast between the Mai Baies, where the sea is rapidly cutting in-
to the low peat cliffs, carving them precisely as it carves a soft-
rocked coast. I suppose there is no doubt that the two Mai Baies
were recently fresh water lakes like Big Lake, and that the en-
croaching sea. will presently eat its way along Eel Brook and
cut into Big Lake converting it into a salt lagoon. The outlet of
Big Lake now falls a foot or two over sand and gravel into the
salt water.

But how did these moors originate, and what influences have
given them their present form? It is, first of all, plain that they
were formed when the island was much larger and much higher
above the sea than now. Sphagnum moors can only form in fresh
water, and they extend much beyond the present limits of the
island, since they occur outside the dune beach on the west of the
island south of Eel Brook, and again outside the dune-beach
north of Birch Point. Further, they must have extended far
off to the eastward to permit thick peat beds now to border
the sea. Their formation implies the presence of a great shallow
impervious basin with a complete rim of upland, a rim now sunk
beneath the sea and represented in the extensive shoals on the
west side of the island, and by the shoals and reefs' off Birch
Point and Wilsons Point (described on the Admiralty charts and
“Sailing Directions”) on the east. Probably the margin of this
basin was formed by glacial upland, not by rock, which will ex-
plain perfectly its total disappearance. The sinking of the land

*Big Lake shows in one or two places sand beaches against the peat-
cliffs. At first sight the peat seems to rest upon them, but examination
shows that they rest against vertical walls of peat.

462

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

permitted the sea to enter the original basin and then to
eat away the bog itself. The ocean has since gradually advanced,
cutting away the peat, entering large freshwater lakes and con-
verting them into saltwater lagoons, and throwing barrier
beaches across their open sides. This process is still in
progress and wild no doubt continue until all the moors will be
removed and the barrier beaches from east and west will meet in
the dine of the upland across where now lies Lake Ohenire.

Salt marshes occur in the very sheltered places in the angles
of the lagoons and along the quiet sait-water streams, as shown
on the map. They are of considerable economic importance for
their wild hay, but they have had little part in the building of the
island. Small areas of freshwater meadow occur in places, as
along Eel Brook bellow Lake Chenire and elsewhere; and there
are some areas of true swamps, but these are not of sufficient
size or definiteness, and especially are not well enough known to
me, for representation upon the map.

Thus we see that physiographicallv Miscou is one of the most
interesting of the parts of New Brunswick. It represents an
area of unstable equilibrium, and owes its characters to delicate
adjustments of level. Nowhere in the Province are topographical
changes in more active progress or their operation so clear.

98. On Semi-Fossil Walrus Bones from Miscou and Else-
where in New Brunswick.

Read December 5. 1905.

The evidence as to the former occurrence of the walrus, or
sea-cowT ( Trichechus rosmarns) in New Brunswick is summar-
ized in an earlier note (No. 80)* of this series. Since it was
written I have been able to study the principal ancient resort of
the walrus at Grande Plaine, Miscou, and to collect there the bones

♦One historical reference to be added to those there given is found in a
document of 1756 which states that the Acadian refugees at Miramichi at
that time had to live an part upon sea-cow. (Raymond. History of the
Saint John River , 121).

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

463

which have been placed in the Museum of this Society.* The
bones occur at the looality marked on the smaher map accompany-
ing the preceding Note (page 456), in which also is discussed
the mode of formation of the remarkable beach-plain on which
they are found. The place is now over a quarter of a mile from
the sea, well within the margin of a sparse spruce wood, and
covered by its mossy carpet. At the place of their greatest
abundance they are scattered over an area of an acre or so, and
are manifest to the eye either through the whiteness of an oc-
casional exposed portion, or else by the mossy hummocks cover-
ing the skulls and larger bones. As a rule they are scattered or
isolated, though at times small groups are found together in their
natural relations, though no skeletons anywhere near complete
can now be found. Most of the bones are much decayed, though
the skulls and lower jaws, with femurs and a few others, have
been fairly preserved through their great hardness. A noticeable
fact about most of the skulls is that they show the large bullet
holes into the brains by which obviously the animals were killed,
while the marks of the axes by which the tusks were hewn out
of the skulls are visible upon all of them. These signs confirm
the testimony of both history and tradition which state that this
was a famous hunting ground for these animals at the first
settlement of the country. The bones lie partly imbedded in sand,
a very poor material for their preservation, and so far are they
decayed that it will be now only a few years before they will all
have crumbled away ; and then this last visible testimony of the
former occurrence here of the walrus will have vanished forever.
For some time to come, however, the visitor will be 'able to make
a selection from the piles which I left beside the path, having col-
lected them in the selection of those I brought away for the So-
ciety, and it is one of these piles which is shown on the accom-
panying photograph. Although this is the principal locality at

*These bones include a very large nearly complete skull, another
cloven skull, two lower jaws, part of a tusk (found at Goose Lake, Miscqu,
and given me by the light keeper), two femurs, two vertebrae and a rib.
These were selected as the best among a large number dug up and
examined.

464

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

Grande Plaine, a few occur elsewhere, — on the edge of the woods
to the southwest, -as I have myself seen, and towards Northwest
Point as reported by residents, though I was unable to find the
latter locality. I have, (however, under the guidance of Mr. Jas.
Bruno, keeper of the Goose Light, seen a few walrus bones un-
covered by the shifting of ‘the beach south of that light.

So much for the Miscou localities. Although I have made
many inquiries I have been able to learn of but a single other
place of occurrence of walrus bones in all New Brunswick. The
(Museum of the Miramichi Natural History Association (see their
Procedings, IV., 58) contains a walrus jaw presented by a resi-
dent of Burnt Church. I am informed, however, by Dr. Philip
Cox that it was found on Portage Island, and also that he had
searched there exhaustively for others but without avail. As the
walrus no doubt formerly resorted all along this coast, and was
probably hunted here as at Miscou, its bones must have form-
erly occurred here. But they have probably all been washed
away by the sea, which is everywhere encroaching rapidly upon
this coast. It is only the remarkable and unique conditions which
prevail at Grande Plaine, Miscou, (where, owing to local causes,
the land is being built out instead of removed), which have pre-
served the bones in that locality.

So far as I can learn, the bones now in the Society’s collection
are the only ones from Miscou in any museum. Dr. Chalmers
collected a number some years ago for the Geological Survey of
Canada, but I am informed they were not preserved and are not
now in the Survey Museum. References to the bones- at Grande
Plaine occur in Perley’s Report on the Sea and River Fisheries of
New Brunswick, 1850, 33, in Ells’ Report on the Geology of
Northern New Brunswick, 1879-80, D, 43, and in Chalmer’s Re-
port on the Surface Geology of Northeastern New Brunswick,
1888, 27 N. A reference to their expected (but unrealized)
occurrence in shell-heaps in the Bay of Fundy is in Boardman’s
Naturalist of the Saint Croix, (Bangor, Me., I9°3)> 242.

Bones of Walrus, Grande Plaine, Miscou, photographed in September, 1904.

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

465

99. On the Physiographic Characteristics of the North
Pole Branch of the Little Southwest Miramichi

River.

Read in abstract January 2 1906.

The Little Southwest Miramichi, one of the largest, and
certainly the most typical, of the wilderness rivers of New Bruns-
wick, is formed by the confluence of five great branches. The
two most important of these, the Tuadook and Walkemik
Branches, are somewhat fully described and mapped in earlier
Notes (Nos. 55, 86, 87) j while a third, morphologically the main
stream, has been also mapped in part (Note 87).* Last summer
I was able to observe the larger part of a fourth of the great
branches, the North Pole Branch, on which I wish here to offer
some comments, illustrated by 'the accompanying rnap.f I also
saw something of the fifth branch, the Lower North Branch,
but must make another visit to it before attempting any descrip-
tion. J

We note first the development of our knowledge of this little-
known stream. Because of its remoteness from all settlement,
especially at its source, which lies in the very heart of the central
watershed in a wilderness still unbroken even by lumbermen and
hunters, it has been rarely visited, not at all studied scientifically,
and mapped very imperfectly. It makes a first, but naturally
crude, appearance in records, however, as early as 1686, on the

*This summer I was able to see also its extreme source, in the two
little plateau ponds beside the portage 'road between Pontage and Gover
Lakes.

fThe map of this branch is compiled from the timber-line surveys in
the Crown Land Office, from observations made byi us, and from sketches
supplied to me by Henry Biiaithwaite. I hope later toi offer the Society a
much larger scale and more accurate map of its head waters.

$1 was accompanied by my friend, Professor A. H. Pierce. We were
taken by team to Gover Lake via Portage Lake (Tobique) over the
poitage road. From Gover Lake we went alone on foot, carrying pro-
visions and outfit in packs, and making occasional side-excursiions, to
Hough Lake and Skunk Lake, Half Moon Lake, Malone Pond, down
the outlet of the latter to Cave 'Brook and the North Pole Branch, down
this to near its mouth,' across by portage road to* the Lower North Branch,
up this to the source of the eastern b'tanch, north over the watershed to
South Branch Nepisiguit and Kagoot. and down the South Branch
Sevogle to Miramichi.

466

BULLETIN OF TFIE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

remarkable Franquelin-deMeulles map where it bears the Micmac
name of Kednattequec* It makes a second appearance, without

*The North Pole Branch 'is called by the Micmacs to-day ICay:dun-at-
que-gak, (meaning unknown), a word whiich might well be simplified for
use to Kednegek (g hard and accent upon the last syllable). The name
North Pole apparently first appears in documents upon Fish s plan of iooo
and Fi'eeze’s plans of 1881, and Mr. Freeze tells me that he found the
name in use among lumbermen when he made his surveys and supposed it
originated in the old pine-timber days from 1840-1860, when much pine
lumbering was done on the river. It was- very likely named because of its

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

467

name, as a crude sketch upon Baillie’s maps of 1832, is shown
at its mouth and named the “North Branch” on Berton’s Survey
map of 1838, and is sketched in its lower courses and wrongly
called “Upper North Branch,” on Wilkinson's map of 1859, un"
doubtedly from data supplied by lumbermen. The very first point
located by survey upon its course was given by a timber-line sur-
vey by Deputy Surveyor Fish, which crossed it west of Long
Lake in 1880 (See the accompanying map). The next year
Deputy Surveyor Freeze surveyed its lower ten miles, the only
part of its course yet surveyed, and in that and the following year
ran the several important timber lines which gave us our first
knowledge of a large section of this wilderness tract and located
several additional points on its course and tributary streams.
These were the data which Mr. Loggie had in making his map
of 1885, and he was followed dlosely, though with some slight
variations, upon the geological survey map of 1887, which repre-
sents the best map yet published of this stream. Since 1881
various additional lines have been run from time to time as the
needs of lumbering demanded, giving additional locations for the
courses of the various streams ; but as no additional surveys what-
ever of the streams themselves have been made, these are
necessarily, both on the Crown Land Office plans and on the
accompanying map, simply sketched between the intersections of
the timber-llines. On the map I have tried to show the less cer-
tain portions by the most broken lines.

So much for cartography, and there is little left to add. Of
scientific study there has been none ; no geologist has visited the
stream, and there is no mention of it in any of the Geological

great extension northward, supplemented perhaps by the coldness of its
water. It is commonly shoitened in use to “The Pole.” Of the other
names on the map, Kill-Heg Brook was given by Freeze, for a wooden
kill-heg or killeck trap found by him there. Skunk Lake, Half-moon Lake,
Devils Lake, Graham Lake, Sable Mountain, Portage Brook, Devils Gulch;
were all given by Henry Braithwaite, presumably descriptive of form or
use or other peculiarity. Malone Pond was given by us because touched
by a timber line run in 1903 by W. Malone. Cave Brook was igiven in
1900 by W. B. Hoyt, descriptively, as he tells me of the physical characters
of the stream. Forks Mountain is a descriptive name of the lumbermen.
Hickey Lakes and Long Lake are on Fish’s plan of 1880 and no doubt are
descriptive and for some early lumberman.

468

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

Survey Reports or in any other scientific publications. Sportsmen
have visited it but little until very recently, and I find but two
references in sporting literature. Mr. Frederick Irland was on
the North Pole Branch ini the spring of 1901, hunting bears with
Henry Braithwaite, and he has described his trip in a charminglly-
written and beautifully-illustrated article in Scribner's Magazine
for September, 1901. And there is a reference to Half-Moon
Lake, with a crude sketch map showing it for the first time, in
Mr. E. Hough’s account of his winter trip in 1901 through this
region from the Nepisiguit to the Little Southwest Miramichi in
Forest and Stream for Nov. 1, 1902. Mr. Braithwaite has hunted
here for many years and has hunting camps at two of three points,
while other guides from the Lower Miramichi are gradually
entering the valley and establishing camps. Much lumbering has
been done on the stream, especially bellow the Forks, in connection
with which a number of portage roads have been built ; but there
is still much uni umbered country near its source, between which
and the Nepisiguit branches remains the only piece of absolutely
virgin wilderness now' to be found in New Brunswick.

As the map will show, the North Pole Branch has not a single
source, but several, radiating fan-like from a junction south of
Forks Mountain. Of these source streams I have seen four,
which are as follows. The most northerly is that on which lies
Half-Moon Lake, a pretty crescent-shaped little woods lake, 2059
feet above the sea,* surrounded by low plateau hills, showing it
to lie in a valley cut a little below the plateau level. The
character of the stream above and below it I do not know, except
that Mr. Braithwaite tells me it has “granite ledges and falls, 150
feet” upon it as shown on the map. Almost directly south of it
on Braithwaite’s trail, but separated from it by a mile of two of
elevated plateau in a clear- water brook, Devils Gulch, running
southeast in a curious little irregular gulch or gorge The rock

*Determined by aneroid checked for weather from Fredericton and
Chatham, as were all other elevations given in this paper. Since, how-
ever, in all cases I was able to obtain! but a single good measurement, and
since single measurements are liable to much error, too much confidence
cannot be placed on them. The elevation of the plateau south of Half
Moon Lake I made over 2,200 feet.

natural history and physiography of new Brunswick

46b

here is granite in great 'angular blocks piled up like masonry, and
the little gorge appears to be not at all of erosion, but of rift,
origin. The course of this stream on the map is also from Mr.
Braithwaite’s sketch. Skunk Lake, 1637 feet above sea level, is a
shallow, largely bog-bordered lake lying in a valley formed be-
tween Wilkinson Mountain* and the Wheeler Mountain mass or
plateau east of it, the same in which Hough Lake also lies and
which is followed by the trail between the two lakes. It empties
northeastward, but I have not seen its outlet. The fourth stream
is that near the head of which lies Malone Pond, a most charming
and typical little woods lake, whose outlet we followed all the way
to Cave Brook and the main North Pole Branch. It leaves
Malone Pond as a small stream, soon swinging to the east and
the south east, rapidly increasing by the accession of many spring
rivulets, and begins at once to develop little gulches or gorges
in the granite rocks similar to those already described for Devils
Gulch. Continuing southeastward it receives the Skunk Lake
branch, and, still rapidly enlarging, developes larger gorges with
much fall, separated by quiet alder-bordered sand-bottomed still-
waters, often showing, as do the gorges themselves, abundant
new beaver works. The stream then swings to the east in the
vicinity of a fine great rounded hardwood mountain. Sable Moun-
tain, and then to the northeast, keeping its general character
though ever enlarging. The aspect of all the gorges gives the
impression not of water-eroded channels so much as rifts in the
regularly- jointed and bedded granite. At one place, where Hoyt’s
timber-line crosses Cave Brook, the stream bed lies in the bottom
of a little gorge with vertical granite walls fifteen or twenty feet
high. One side of this gorge is angularly concave while the
other is an island the angles of which appear to fit into the con-
cave side, showing that here at least the valley is a rift, though
the stream has worn also little caves into the joints of the granite
thus giving this stream its name. Below, the valley gradually opens
somewhat and the gulches become infrequent ; the stream is
gentler and comes to flow mostly in a winding alder-bordered
course through sand-bottomed still-waters. As it swings to the
east it receives the shallow clear swift-flowing Devils Gulch

470

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

Branch, below which it is a large canoeable smoothwater and
Stillwater sand-bottomed stream winding amid meadows and
alder-intervales down to the Forks (1175 feet above the sea)
southeast of Forks Mountain.

The other branch of the North Pole, the larger stream, I have
not yet seen above the Forks. The courses of the streams in the
map are in part from the timber-line maps and in part supplied
by Mr. Braithwaite, who tells me there are granite gorges ledger
and falls on the streams shown cn the map. I am inclined to
think the main stream above Forks Mountain is very sluggish, for
a lumberman has told me there is a deadwater or narrow lake,
four miles long, on the upper part of this stream.

What now is the origin of these source streams of the North
Pole Branch? Turning to the map, three facts are at once ap-
parent. First, to some extent the valleys show evidence of that
northwest-southeast parallelism so characteristic of the valleys of
this whole central region. Thus there is a line of streams from
near Malone Pond southeast along Portage Brook, which, as
shown in an earlier note (No 87), probably connected Dunn, or
Logan, Lake with the North Pole Branch, while both the Half
Moon Lake Branch and the main stream fall in with this
direction. I have little doubt that these valley directions are
actually relics of the original system. Second, there are at least
two valleys, the Hough Lake— Skunk Lake Valley and the Cave
Brook valley, having a direction at right angles to the original
system. These are very likely homologous with the part of the
Tuadook below Crooked Deadwater (Note 86), the origin of
which I cannot explain. Third, taken collectively, the source
streams now form a fan-radiating system collecting finally into
one trunk, draining a great radiating basin or circque, very
similar to that of the Walkemik Basin d- scribed in an earlier note
(No. 87). As in the Walkemik Basin also, the erosion of so
many streams appears to have greatly reduced the elevation of
the parts of the plateau originally separating them, reducing
them for the most part (though with an exception in the case of
the great ridge-like Forks Mountain, which must be still of
nearly the Plateau height), to low ridges and hills. That such

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

471

a basin actually exists north of Forks Mountain, can be seen from
Braithwaite’s trail north of Skunk Lake, where it skirts the slope
of the plateau, and it is implied in a statement made to me by
Deputy Surveyor Freeze in speaking of the high range of granite
hills crossing the stream at Forks Mountain. Presumably the
“Falls” on the map mark the approximate boundary between
plateau and basin. The direction of the upper course of this
branch would also suggest that there it may originally been
emptied into the Lower North Branch, forming the morphological
head of that river. But the causes which have thrown these
streams thus together, and as well the details of the geography of
the basin must await more thorough study than I was ab’e to
give it. It seems to me, however, possible that several of the
smaller streams may have had their directions determined by the
formation of rifts in the granite of the region.

We consider next the valley below the Forks. From above
the Forks down to the big bend of the river, it is a smooth-flow-
ing, clear stream of abundant water, winding over gravel and
cobbles and with occasional little rapids formed by a few small
boulders. All this part forms, in ease of water and charm of
scenery, * nearly as pleasing a canoe stream as any I know. In
but one place did I observe any of the granite gulches so
abundant on the upper waters, and that was at the place about
east of Devils Lake where the stream, close against the western
valley wall, flows through a typical rifted gulch, with low vertical
granite walls on each side, but deep and smooth without a fall.
The entire valley itself while deeply cut (some 400 feet) into the
plateau is mature, wide, drift-bottomed, the river having always
a wide stony flat, commonly of the Rhodora-Hypnum-Black
Spruce type, on one side or the other. Seemingly the valley was
formed by a stream very much larger than that now occupying it,
and in any case it has all the characters of an ancient valley and it
is no doubt one of the original Northumbrian System (Note 93).

Such is the stream down to the big bend ten miles from Its
mouth. From an inspection of the course of this curious bend,
(1127 feet above sea-level) on the map, on which, since it is with-
in the limits of Freeze’s survey of 1881, it is accurately represented,

472

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

one would naturally infer that it is post-glacial, the original pre-
glacial course cutting across the bend along the courses of the
streams and lakes which occur there. And I ventured such a
prediction in an earlier note in describing Mitchell Lake and sur-
roundings (Note No. 87). But this supposition is wholly
erroneous, for the river preserves its ripe, gentle smooth character
all around the bend, and is evidently in an ancient and mature
walley. Its abrupt bend to the north is simply a minor winding
around drift hills in the wide valley. The origin of the great bend
in the valley is of course a question of much interest. Turning
to the map we note that it is directly in line with the valley of
Portage Brook extending up towards Dunn Lake through the
Mitchell Lake Basin (Note 87) ; furthermore, in continuation of
its direction off to the southeastward I' saw a marked high gap in
the plateau and beyond this gap, in the same direction, there is,
as shown on the map, a valley occupied by a brook (Whitney
Brook) . And I myself noted that where this brook enters the Lower
North Branch that valley has a swing in the same direction. I
have not traced it farther, but the direction continued eastward
would carry it through Guagus to Mullins Stream Lake just be-
low which comes one of those remarkable great bends which
characterize all the valleys of this region (Note 93). We may
therefore be dealing here with remnants of a very ancient valley
parallel with the little Southwest Miramichi and the other rivers
south of it, perhaps one of the original Northumbrian system.

But although the course of the river around the big bend is
thus very ancient, it nevertheless seems plain that at some time its
course was across the bend by way of the Hickey Lakes. Such
a valley can be seen from the great burnt hills just above the
bend, and seems consistent with the topography of the section as
far as known.

Below the bend the character of the river changes for a time ;
here its course is obstructed with hugh granitic boulders making
it very rough. This rapid water extends a short distance but
occurs once more a mile or two lower down, where granite ledge
rock forms the valley wall. Except for these two places the
river seems to retain its gentle attractive character, winding in

NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

473

great sand-bottomed smoothwaters, often with intervale banks,
down as far as we saw it, three miles from its mouth. It is a
great surprise to find so smooth a river in so rugged a region,
and there is probably nowhere in the interior of New Brunswick
so great an extent of good canoeing water, an evidence indeed of
the ancient and ripe character of this valley. Just below the big
bend, the valley widens into a basin bottomed by an elevated
boulder-strewn burnt plain strongly resembling the Graham
Plains and probably originating in a similar way. On its western
margin runs the North Pole Branch in a deep trench cut into the
rough materials of this plain, the boulders of which have here
given it its rough bed, while on the eastern margin lies Long
Lake, seemingly with a valley extending northward from it. This
basin seems to have been a catch basin of the glacial period. Be-
low, the valley narrows somewhat but always is mature and
shows a rocky plain elevated well above the river bed. This
plain, without doubt a continuation of that above the bend, and
similar to those to be described on the Lower North Branch,
represents the bed of the glacial rivers which poured their swift
waters down these valleys during the melting of the glacial ice.
It is into this glacial wider bed the present rivers have cut their
narrow and newer channels.

We left this river about three miles from its mouth (finding it
there of 1025 feet elevation) and did not see its lower course. But
I had previously seen its mouth (Note 54) where it has falls. These
are post-glacial, and the original junction with the Little Souths
west probably lies a little to the eastward (Note No. 54) in a line
with the course of the Little Southwest below it, which is really
morphologically a part of the North Pole Branch.

100. The Recognition and Utilization of the Plateau
Structure of Interior New Brunswick.

Read Jan. 2, 1006.

No doubt most people who know anything of interior and
northern New Brunswick think of it as a hilly country only tra-
versable along the valleys. Until recently this was evidently the
idea of those whose business it was to lay out portage (lumber-

474

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

ing) roads and to explore routes for projected railroads; for all
the old portage roads in the interior cling to the valleys as do the
earlier routes surveyed for railroads.

In reality, however, all interior and northern New Brunswick
is a plateau into which the rivers have deeply cut and it is only
hilly where converging streams have carved the plateau to frag-
ments, or where occasional masses of harder rocks have eroded
somewhat more slowly than their surroundings.

This plateau structure is in recent years coming to be recog-
nized in practice, for not only do a/ll the newer portage roads in
the interior mount from the valleys to the plateau, where they find
a drier, more level, straighter and often shorter course from camp
to camp, but it is, as I understand it, by the utilization of the
plateau, making crossings of the valleys on high bridges in their
narrowest parts, that the Grand Trunk Pacific surveyors have
been able to locate a practicable, easy-grade route across the
province.

NOTES ON CAMBRIAN FAUNAS

475

NOTES OF CAMBRIAN FAUNAS.

Continued From Page 406.

curved; the valve also is more ventricose 'toward the ventral and
the posterior sides.

These two fossils are of nearly the same size and a fuller col-
lection of examples might show variations sufficient to unite them
under one species.

The Ostnacoda referred ito art: page 454 of the above named
article as Aparchites conchiformis is identical with Bradorona
( ?) robusta.

This species is of larger size than those referred to the genus
Indiana, and the valves are more angular in outline, showing a
more decided hinge line and a somewhat triangular outline.

Indiana (?) secunda. — This species recorded from the
upper part of Assfse 3 of Band b (Protolenus Zone) under the
name Aparchites sccunda, has been found also in the lower part
of that assise and in the Cambrian sandstone of Band b on Long
Island in Kennebecasis Bay. The species approaches a Bradorona
in form, but is proportionately longer, and although the outline is
too strongly angulated at the end of the cardinal line to be a
typical Indiana, we have thought it better to place it here than in
Bradorona. It is intermediated in form 'between Indiana lip pa
and Bradorna obscrvator, mut. ligata.

10. Trilobita.

A further study of material of die Protolenus Zone enables
me 4o add something ito what is known of the species of

Proitolenus.

Protolenus p aradoxoides. — There are two var-
ieties (perhaps sexual) of this speoies, the type (described in
Trans. Roy. Soc. Can.) with flat narrow cheek, long glabella
and narrow interior margin is the narrow form. The sculpture
consists of numerous scattered tubercles. The other with tumid
fixed cheek and broad interior margin, has a shell densely beset
with small tubercles.

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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

This species is distinguished from P. elegans by the irregular
form and relief of the posterior glabellar furrow and the occipital
furrow, such as may be seen in some Olenidse of the Olenus
Zone.

There is a tubercle at the inner end of each posterior glabellar
furrow and a corresponding pair at the front edge of the 'occipital
furrow ; these paired tubercles sometimes show on three con-
secutive somites, viz., at the inner ends of the two posterior pairs
of glabellar furrows and at the occipital ring. In this view it would
appear that P. bi-tub crculatus should be regarded as a variety of
this species in which the paired tubercles of the posterior somite
of the glabellar are unusually prominent.

Pr otolenus elegans, w d. m. — This species is more
abundant than P. paradoxoides but is of a smaller size. Its sur-
face is minutely tuberculate or granular, or when worn appears
punctate. The cheeks are always tumid and the front margin
depressed. The occipital furrow is cut straightfy and evenly
'across, and the paired tubercles seen on the posterior somites of
the headsbield in P. iuberculatus , are scarcely ever, and but
faintly seen on the heads of this species.

The sculpture is always granular, and the occipital ring direct-
ly' and smoothly transverse.

Collections made from the Parade xides lamellatus subzone
(C.l. c1.) gives a lower range for some species common in the
overlying subzone.

Paradoxoides Acadicus. Two example of this
rare species were found in C.l. c.l. it is distinguished by the deep,
all-across^first and second furrows of the glabella.

Sculpture. — The inner surface of the glabella is nearly smooth ;
the outer surface with a strong lens appears minutely granular, but
in exact focus the sculpture is resolved into very fine concentric
ridges which are crossed by oblique furrows, giving a granular
appearance to the surface. The test is thicker than that of
P. Eteminicus or P. Micmac. The sculpture of concentric ridges
is faintly discer liable on a test whose middle piece is 9 mm. long.

Paradoxides Regina. — - An example of a broad flat
pleura seem to agree best with this large species. It has the

NOTES ON CAMBRIAN FAUNAS.

47?

strong traverse anastomosing ridges on the underside that char-
acterize the species.

Solenopleura Ribbii var. — A middle-piece of a
small Solenopleura occurs. It agrees nearly with S. Robbii
except that the glabella and cheeks are covered with distantly
placed tubercles ; there are about twenty on the glabella and half
that number on the fixed cheek behind the ocular fillet, and there
are a few in front of the fillet.

Conocoryphe Baileyi. — One head of this species,
found. The surface is minutely granulate. The common species
of Conocoryphe of this horizon is C. Walcotti .

Worm and Gasteropod.

Orthotheca Micmac — One example was found with
the usual distinct longitudinal striae.

Capulus sp. — A minnte capuloid shell, smooth, with
faint striae of growth was found — it is on its side and flattened
Haight 4 mm., width 31-2 mm.

»

No. 11 — Cambrian Fauna of Anse au Loup, Labrador.

Some years ago Dr. J. F. Whiteaves sent to the writer a
fragment of the fossiliferous limestone of the well-known locality,
of Anse au Loup on the Canadian coast of Labrador, where
many years ago (i860) Jas. Richardson collected the species
of brachiopods, trilobites, tube worms, etc., which Mr. E. Billings
described, and referred to the “Lower Potsdam” horizon.

I11 these limestones which are 14 1 feet thick and rest upon
sandstones 231 feet thick the following species were found: —

Palseophycus incipiens .

Ar chseos cyathus A tlanticus .

A. profundus.

O bolus Labradoricus.

Obolella chromatica.

O. ? cingulata.

Olenellus Vennontana.

Also an Orflxis and an Orthisina.

Olenellus Thompsoni.
Conocephalites miser.
Bathynrus parvuhrs.

B. senectus.

Salt erella rugosa.

S.-

S.-

pulchella.

obtus'a.

BULLETIN OF TlIE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

1 7 8

Thu piece of limestone sent contained abundant remains of
the Salterdlas with pants of trilobites including those of Olenellus
Thompsoni.

The aspect of t'he surface of layers of this rock is well shown
in the wood cut. Fig. 22, page 17, of the first volume of Billing’s
Palaeozoic Fossils representing Sal ter cl I a rugosa, Bill.

M«r. Billings does not mention that these fossils are preserved
in phosphate of lime, which however is the case. As a result
of the wasting of the limestone from exposure to the weather
these fossils stand out prominently from the surface and are
readily examined.

On examining these “Saiterellas” carefully it was observed
that there was no uniformity in the position of the tube within
tube that Billings had observed for they were sometimes on one
side of the outer tube and sometimes on the other. It is true
that in the majority of cases the ensheathed tubes were similar,
but in one a young A. obtusa was found in one of the rounder
tubes referred A. rugose, and one was led to surmise that the
supposed sheaths were really independent individuals that had
slipped, one within the other and so given rise to the appear-
ance of a tube consisting of sheaths.

A similar condition exists in the tubes of Hyolithes excellens
Billings found in -the upper limestone at Smith Sound, New-
foundland, and of about the sarnie geological age; there this
condition of tube within 'tube is quite common, and the writer
has suggested that the younger1 shell had a habit of taking
possession of a dead shell, for the purpose of a firm support on
the sea bottom. Whatever the cause, this phenomenon is
exaggerated in “Salterella” rugosa, which is more frequently
ensheathed that H. excellens and often shows four tubes, one
within the other.

W hen we come to consider these tubes separately we find that
we are dealing with a form 'which does not differ in any respect
from S. pulchella, Billings. One s-hould nolt overlook Mr.
Billing’s remark (page 18) that this species and S. rugosa are
not in the same bed, and that the two species are not found
together in the same fragments of rock. But while the en-

NOTES ON CAMBRIAN FAUNAS

479

sheathed tubes do occur quite abundantly on one layer and are
not obvious on another closdv above or below instances of en-
sheatbing can be found in layers where the single tubes of
S. pulchella abound.

Mr. Walcott in his studies on the Cambrian Faunas of North
America — Bull. 30 U. S. 'Geological Survey, Plate XIII, fig. 2,
shows a good example of this ensheathing of S. rugosa , showing
apparently no less than ten tubes one with another. This is an
unusual number, and can hardly be attributed to accidental con-
ditions ; the specimen is from Arise ail Loup.

If I am right in my explanation of the cause of the annula-
tions in lS\ rugosa . it will be necessary to retire this name or that of
A. pulchella. In Billing’s publication of the two species X. rugosa
stands first, hut as the name in my view is based on a misappre-
hension of the characters, and is erroneous in its meaning, it
would seem that pulchella should be adopted.

But in fact the whole genus Salterclla of Billings is based on
an erroneous view 'that these shells were species with strong
annulations like Serpuihtes. " Salterclla ” pulchella is really a
smooth shell, and a strong glass is required to make visible the
very fine concentric striae which encircle the shell.

These regular concentric striae, the round tube a little flatten-
ed on one side and the slightly bell shaped aperture show that
in pulchella we are dealing with a species of Orthotheca. Num-
erous examples show that the species was came rated ait the
proximal end by several diaphragms, convex downward. In 110
instance have we found an acute point to the shell Which is always
decollated. If a slender proximal end of rigid substance existed
it must have been fragile, and broke away when exposed to abra-
sion in agitated waters. As Billings remarked, the tube had a
slight curve. This was towards the ventral side.

Air. Walcott has already removed the remaining species of
Saiterelila, S. obusa, to the genus Hyolithes. As Salter had
already named a Theca (—Hyolithes) obtusa , Billings name be-
came a synonym. Walcott therefore gave a new name too the
species, calling it Hyolithes Billingsi . This species, or one closdly
related is found with the Protolemis Fauna in Southern New
Brunswick.

480

bulletin or the natural history society

An interesting discovery in this fragment of limestone from
Anse an Don]) was that of remains of Foraminifera. The
porous surface of the shells is not so well seen as in the speci-
mens from the Protolenus Zone in New Brunswick, but the forms
are quite similar. Orbulina cf.. universa is the most common,
but other species of Orbulina, of larger size are present. Other
species have more than one chamber and so fall into Globigerina,
and are similar in form and size to those in New Brunswick;
one shows two chambers, arranged like those of G. turrit a. In a
number of the globular forms a depression is found on one side,
perhaps marking the orifice of the shell.

The shells of these Foraminifera are in most cases injected
with phosphate of lime, which has preserved their form, and by
its dark color in contrast to the lighter limestone, causes them to
stand out on the surface of the layers like minute black seed.

The shells of the Foraminifera, though generally promiscu-
ously scattered, in some cases seem to be aggregated near the
HyOlithoid shells which also are filled with phosphate of lime.

ARTICLE VI.

OBSERVATIONS OF WEATHER AND PLANTS, 1905.

By G. *U. Hay.

April 1. — A winter of great snowstorms, with very little rain
and continued clear frosty weather which lasted up to about
March 20. The roads at times were almost impassable, especially
in the country near the coast. The branch railway lines in New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia were nearly all closed throughout
February and the greater part of March, and the trunk lines were
kept open with great difficulty and delays to travellers. From the
first to the 20th March the weather was clear and cold, thawing
in the middle of the day but freezing hard at night. During the
last ten days of March the temperature was milder, the heat of the
sun causing a rapid disappearance of the not very solid masses of
snow, and averting the threatened disaster of a spring flood, which
heavy rains would certainly have caused. The average tempera-
ture for the month was 29.3 0 F. A flock of wild geese passed
over the city March 26.

Wild Garden, Ingleside.

April 14. — Alder catkins discharging pollen when slightly
shaken. The first fortnight of April has been chilly and damp in
contrast with the clear bright days of March. The earth is
bare and brown without any trace of green, and snow lingers in
the woods and sheltered places. The welcome notes of the early
songbirds are heard morning and evening.

April 22. — The week has been cold with hard frosts at night,
and high winds from south and south-west. Slight snow falls on
the 17th and 22nd, but the snow quickly disappeared.

First ploughing on the 27th. North-west winds an<3 sunshine
alternating during the last week of April with the ground needing
warm rains. Hepatica triloba coming in bloom on the 28th and
first mayflowers appearing.

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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

May 2. — Hepatica fully in bloom; catkins of the populus
tremuloicles shedding pollen. Heavy showers, May i, with cold
north-west winds on the day following. First grain sowed.

May 6. — Flowers of red maple in full bloom. A few straw-
berry and white violet blossoms seen. Copious rains on the 6th,
and on the 9th. Farmers busy planting on the 7th.

May 1 2. — Frosts on the night of the 8th and again on the 12th
when ice one-fourth inch thick was formed, followed by a mixed
hail, snow and rain on the 13th.

May 14. — Quite cold. A few blue violets in bloom, white vio-
lets and strawberry blossoms in abundance ; with dandelions, triili-
um erythrocarpum, caulophyMum, trillium grand iflorum, coming
in blossom.

May 22. — Wet, cold and backward weather the past week.
Trees in leaf : betula papyracea, (rowan, acer spicatum. I11
flower : marsh marigold, sanguinaria canadensis, anemone nem-
orosa, uvularia sessiifi folia, bluets, erythronium amenicanum,
vaccinium canadense, dirca palustris.

May 29. — Beautiful weather the past week but the evenings
still cool. Amelanchier in full bloom, also trillium erectum, trillium
grandiflorum. Upland trees all out in leaf except oak, acacia and
great toothed poplar. Prunus Pennsylvania coming into bloom.

June 6. — In bloom : Bog-bean, butter-cup, caraway, also

clematis verticillaris, iris versicolor, actea alba. Heavy frost on
the night of the 6th, which did much damage on low grounds.

June 11. — Three nearly ripe strawberries picked along rail-
way track. The different varieties of pyrus baccata, caragana
arborescens (not native) and apple trees in full bloom.

June 14 — Lilacs coming in bloom. Petals of clematis verticil-
laris and trillium grandiflorum falling.

June 21. — During the past week and nearly all the month up
to date the weather has been cold and wet, but grass and foliage
have grown abundantly. The weather, June 15 and 16, was very
bright and warm, giving promise of summer which was not ful-
filled for a week at least. A fire in the grate all day from the 18th
to the 2 1st had to be kept up. Lilacs and honeysuckles in full
bloom the past week.

OBSERVATIONS OF WEATHER AND PLANTS

483

The months of July and August were very pleasant and sunny
except at the coast where fogs reigned for many days at a time.
September was wet and chilly much of the month, with frosts
during the early weeks. Quite a severe frost and keen weather
on the 19th, followed by rains. A week later, real autumn days,
bright and pleasant, set in and continued during the month of
October. Rarely has a finer October been seen in New Bruns-
wick. There was very little rain-fall during the latter part of
September or during October and November, and the lakes and
streams were correspondingly low.

The first snow fall of any importance was on the 10th of
December, which gave good sleighing for a fortnight or more,
but there was no severe cold during the month.

ARTICLE VII.

WHY IS THE WINTER SO MILD ?

By G. F. Matthew.

Read February 6th, 1906.

The unusual character of the current winter season has caused
a good deal of comment, and certainly there will be few living
who can recall such another. Coming after the severe and con-
tinuous cold of tlie previous winter and its accumulated snows,
the contrast is very striking. In place of deep snow banks, heavy
ice, and the continuous cold of last winter, we have been treated
to but one honest snow storm and to repeated periods of mild
weather, with some rather heavy rains ; so that now the snow has
disappeared and the doe on the rivers has become unsafe.

While not professing to be a weather prophet, one might sug-
gest a peculiarity in the weather of the past summer and fall as a
probable factor in the present conditions.

It will be within the recollection of some of you that the St.
John river during the past season was unusually low — not only
for a short time in the later summer as is usually the case, but
continuously through the summer and throughout the autumn.
We had no autumn rains that were of any weight and consequent-
ly there is no “fall freshet.” Usually the water in the river at
■the autumnal period rises sufficiently to cover the lower or marshy
part of the intervals, and not infrequently to cover the “high
marsh” as well, while occasionally there are autumns in which
the “fall freshet” rivals that of the spring.

The level of the water in Kennebeccasis Bay and other expan-
sions of the St. John river is governed not by the rains on the
lower affluents of the main stream, but by the rain-fall of the
basin of the St. John as a whole. The level of the water in
these lakes at the mouth of the main river affords an excellent
gauge of the rain-fall in northern Maine as well as for the
principal part of the province of New Brunswick, because it is in
such close sympathy with the rain-fall of the upper St. John.

Now all dwellers on the shores of Kennebeccasis Bay will

WHY IS THE WINTER SO MILD ?

485

have noticed how unusually low the water was in that part of the
Kennebecoasis river ail through the summer, and through the fall
as well. Old residents on its shores have told me that 'they do
not recollect having witnessed a similar occurrence of continuous
low water in the river. This conditions of things indicated a
scarcity of rain throughout northern Maine and New Brunswick
during the period in question. But if there was a 'lack of rain
there was more sunshine and in the autumn less evaporation, be-
cause the ground was dry. Consequently during the whole period
the earth in this region was storing up an unusual amount of
heat, to remain there until (the winter set in.

During the winter this region has been giving off ‘the latent
heat thus stored up, and tempering the winter winds. lit is in
fact a heat barrier which may be compared to a heating register
in front of a window which stops the cold draft from the 'window.
In the same way this warm region arrests the north winds and
throws them upward, or modifies their biting severity. More than
that, as the extra amount of latent heat here, produces upward
currents in the air over this region, there is more than the usual
tendency to indrafts from the south, and southerly winds should
be more prevalent than under ordinary conditions. Not only so
but the west and east winds would be influenced as well.

Many of you are no doubt aware that a “northeaster” is a
combination due to an under current from the north and an over-
head drift of air from the east, or off the ocean ; 'the former wind
dry and cold, the latter laden with moisture ; 'that origin of the
northeast rains is not unfrequently well shown by clouds arising
in the southeast and rain actually beginning from that quarter,
before the “northeaster” sets in.

The point I wish to make in this connection is that the ten-
dency of the air in the super-heated region of Maine and New
Brunswick to rise more strongly and more frequently than usual,
would, tend to convert the northeast winds into east and southeast
winds and so bring rain in place of snow. A similar result
might be looked for at the opposite point of the compass, for there
would be a tendency for south and southwest winds to take the
place of southwest and west winds, again bringing warmer air
from those directions.

486

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

You will no doubt infer that the latent heat stored up in the
soil during die summer is gradually dissipated in the winter ; the
question therefore arises, is the unusual store of last summer now
reduced to the normal amount at this season of the year ? I think
not, for it is well known that the frost this winter has penetrated
but a short distance into the ground, and in consequence there is
a considerable pant of the summer store of heat still remaining.
This, as it escapes, will have a tendency 'to melt the snow from
below, and almost imperceptibly reduce its quantity; while the
rays of the sun, becoming every day more powerful, will cut away
the snow-banks from above, even when snowstorms come, as
they no doubt will, to cover the bare earth.

In considering the influence of the unusual amount of latent
heat stored up during the past summer in Maine and New Bruns-
wick, in modifying our usual winter conditions, I have made no
reference to the last summer’s climate beyond these boundaries ;
that is a lrger question with which I am not prepared to deal,
but those who may look farther afield will probably find that the
summer changes in the surrounding regions were not dissimilar
from those that prevailed in Maine and this province.

To sum up the matter, I may say that the mild winter of this
year appears to me to be largely due ito the unusually long dry
season of the summer and autumn of 1905.

The following notes on mild and cold winter’s in this province,
are from the pen of Rev. W. O. Raymond, a well known writer
on its history.

OLD-TIME WINTERS IN NEW BRUNSWICK.

487

Old-Time Winters in New Brunswick.

The idea which commonly prevails that our winters are mild-
er than they were in the days of our grandfathers seems to have
little foundation. The fact that the present winter has proved an
uncommonly mild one is more than offset by the fact that last
winter was the most severe of any in the memory of those now
living. It is not likely that there has been any material change
in the climate of St. John since its discovery by Ohamplain.

James Simonds, who may be considered as the pioneer of
English settlers at St. John, writes of some of the winters of his
day. Under date March 6, 1769, he says: “Have had but little

snow this winter, but few days that the ground has been covered.”
Again on Feb. 18, 1771, he writes: “There has not been one

day’s sledding this winter, 'and the season is so far advanced there
cannot be much more than enough to get ithe hay from the
marsh.”

Extracts from the diary of Rev. Frederick Dibblee, the first
rector of Woodstock, N. B. also show that mild winters were not
uncommon a century ago. On December 25, 1803, he writes :
“A fine Christmas, there is not an inch of snow. Ice closed last
night.” By way of contrast we find that the next winter sleighs
had been to Fredericton prior to the 22nd December and found
good travelling all the way, which was a thing quite unusual on
the upper St. John, the current being in places quite rapid. The
winter of 1807 was remarkable for mildness. Mr. Dibblee writes
on the 8th. of January : “River open, only five cold days to date,
we never had such weather.” This was followed a few days
later by a snowfall of 18 inches, but on February 19 he writes:
-After amazing heavy rains the ice ran today, nothing but a
little ice left on the roads and scarce any snow in the woods.”
Coming down to more recent times we have evidence of mild
winters. A worthy resident of Lower Norton, Kings County,
Azor Hoyt, writes in his diary on the 10th February, 1824 “a
violent storm, with heavy gale of wind for 36 hours, broke up the
river, sweeping away bridges, stacks of hay, timber and fences.”

488

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

A few days later he writes, under date February 16th: “River

opens ; carrying off hay from the marsh in my boat.” On Decem-
ber 25th, 1829, Mr. Hoyt writes : “A green Christmas, very

warm, grass quite green.” The ferry at Hampton was in use a
good part of die winter. The next winter was even milder. The
last of December the river (Kennebeceasis) remained open, with
warm weather, and on January rst, 1831, a warm rain brought
the river up over its banks. On March 20 Air. Hoyt writes.
“No frost in the ground, warm all February and March.”

The winter of 1839-40 wais remarkable for its mildness. About
the end of December the Woodstock Times says : “The weather

continues highly favorable, and the ground is still bare. The
river flows as free as Arno’s tide.” There was a green Christ-
mas. The winter of 1847-8 was also unusually mild. The St.
John river closed about the 20th November, but warm weather
and heavy rains caused the lice to run out about the 10th
of December. This gave opportunity, for Lady Cotebrooke to
make her famous winter trip from S't. John to Fredericton in the
Carleton Ferryboat, which bore her name — the “Lady Cole-
brooke.” The boat left St. John on the afternoon of Tuesday,
the 14th December, and arrived at Fredericton early the next day.
On her return trip she brought a number of students from the
university to spend their Christmas vacation, among them Dr.
W. P. Dole, who wrote a very interesting account of the trip for
the St. John Globe under date 51th February, 1889.

N. B. — As bearing on the question of seasonal changes and
the condition of the weather in New Brunswick, attention is
directed to the “Notes” of the Director of the St. John Observa-
tory for the past year which will be found at the end of this
Bulletin, and also to Dr. G. U. Hay’s notes on the Weather and
Plants on a previous page.

president’s address.

489

APPENDIX.

Summary of the President's Address.

A rule of the Society, usually honored by its observance, is
that the President shall annually deliver an address. During the
term of years in which you have so kindly entrusted me with the
position which I occupy I have tried to discharge that duty
though quite conscious of the fact that I must fail in the effective
presentation of any special subject along the lines of the particu-
lar studies of an organization which has in it several eminent
students of natural science.

It is recounting an oft-repeated tale to refer to the three sum-
mer outings which we had in the year just past. I was not able
to get to (the first, that on Mr. Banks’s domain, at which several
of our members came into pleasant contact with nature at least
consciously — for the first time — and enjoyed most heartily
inspection of some of her treasures ; but I was fortunate as re-
gards that at Mr.. Hay’s summer cabin near our river, and that
at the pleasant shack of Messrs. Leavitt and McIntosh in the
Nerepis Valley. Those who participated in these delightful out-
ings— not a small number by any means — cannot fail (to remem-
ber how eagerly they quaffed the wine of delight which nature
so generously held out to them as she enticingly urged them to
follow her over hills and along pleasant slopes and Into charming
glens, how readily they looked and listened under sheltering trees
as their wise teachers unravelled before their wondering eyes
some intricate piece of nature’s handiwork and illuminated them
with knowledge of the life which seemed no part of their lives,
and yet which existed all about them. Those of us who are not
in the very centre of this learned society, who can scarcely even
be called gleaners in ithe field of science, and whose best contribu-
tion to scientific work is the close attention which we give,
the hearty admiration which we bestow upon, the workers who
are able to go to the very core of things, who by close study and
patient investigation wrest from Mother Earth some of the secrets

490

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

which she discloses to her (true (worshippers, owe much to the
gentlemen who plan and 'who effectively provide such delightful
outing days as wre had in the year. If there he any pensiveness at
all, of which I am doubtful, it can be only in ithe hearts of those
who are not so able as they once were to crawl into dark caves,
to jump over running brooks, or to climb the steep hills that are
sometimes encountered in the expeditions, which, when one
comes up against them suggests a hope that, as in the ballad of
■the Pied Piper, some mysterious music will open them for us
and we shall get to the other side without trouble to ourselves.

In observations which I had the honor to address to the Natural
History Society a year ago reference was made among other
things to (that theory of matter — the monistic theory — which dis-
penses with the idea of a creative force in, or rather outside of,
the material universe, which finds in matter itself and in mat-
ter alone all the forces which are sufficient to create worlds, the
men and animals which live in them, the trees and plants which
cover them, a theory which “has excluded from the story of the
earth all questions of miracle, all questions of supernatural
agencies in the building o i the 'mountains and the shaping of
continents which practically teaches that it is an arrange
ment or re-arrangement of the atoms of the universe and their
relation to each other which makes not alone the material man
but also the intelligence which man displays and the intellectual
forces which apparently so strikingly differentiate the matter of
which he is made up from the matter in 'the blocks and stones
and insenate things which he can use for his own purposes, which
things in a general way are supposed to be made for his
use.

According to this theory the universe is one great whole
and the moral and spiritual life of man is a part of this cosmos ;
there are not two different separate worlds, the one physical and
material, the other moral and immaterial. This may be held to
suggest or to suppose a purpose in nature which has not yet been
discovered by man, which makes him but a simple element in
natural processes, of no special account in the great drama of
creation, of no more importance in the general scheme — what-
ever that scheme may be, if there be a scheme at all — (than the

president’s address.

491

moth whose existence is but that of the summer day; or else it
may suggest that there is no purpose whatever in the universe,
and that the atoms do nothing but continuously arrange and re-
arrange themselves in new forms and shapes and conditions and
affinities as do the clouds in the sky. You may recall Shelley’s
poem in which he describes the cloud, (the nursling of the sky,
passing through the pores of the ocean and 'shores, changing but
never dying, so that when the pavilion of heaven is bare the
atoms of which it is composed come from the caverns of rain,
from the earth and water, into which they had receded and build
up in the blue dome of air the cloud’s own cenotaph, and having
done 'this these atoms in the ever changing state of things as
quickly unbuild it again. This might be a poetically descriptive
picture of the changing portions of 'the universe, a presentation
in our atmosphere in a short 'hour of what is done in myriads of
years in the creation and dissolution of worlds in the infinity of
space. But you may say that (this is fanciful rather than exact.

In his address before the British Association at its meeting in
South Africa last August, Prof. Darwin, the President, intimated
his belief that the stars have a life history, they pass in order
from youth to age; the inexorable sweep of time is operative
upon them as upon fragile human bodies ; like human bodies, al-
though at an indefinitely slower rate, they grow, they attain
maturity and decline. But to say this reveals us nothing. “A
real beginning of creation evades our keenest scrutiny of material
things and their relations,” says a writer in a recent issue of the
Monthly Review. So long as man shall last, says Prof. Darwin,
“he will pursue his search into the intricacies of nature and will
no doubt discover many wonderful things, which are still hidden.
We may indeed be amazed at all that man has found out but the
immeasurable magnitude of the undiscovered, will, throughout
all time, remain to humble his pride. Our children’s children will
still be gazing and marvelling at the starry heavens1 but the riddle
will be never read.”

At tlie close of 1905 this is the last word of oosmical science.
We know or we think we know that the Pleiades were formerly
a nebulous formation in which there were no stars, that they
will in the future become a stellar system freed from the frag-

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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

mentary nebulae still attached to them, and we can apply this
knowledge to the heavenly system, speculating if we choose upon
the fact that the whole universe is subject to the law of evolution,,
that just as there is a struggle upon our humble earth for the
eventual survival of the fittest so there is such a struggle in the
world outside and beyond us, and that similarity stands out again
in their constructive career, and the process goes on and on, be-
yond all human conception of time and space.

Interesting as may be the study of methods or theories or
suppositions as to the life of the bodies of which we have any
knowledge and which make up the universe which we know,
this reference to it does not cover any determination on my part
to discuss it at any length now. Having stated this I may say
that my simple and yet chief desire is to make a few observations
along another line. If we refer the origin of all organized matter
to a single substance divided into atoms, or into ions much
more minute than atoms, and if we accept even in the most
modified form the theory that in the protoplasm of this organ-
ized matter is the principle of life, that from this substance, out
of it, through it, by it, proceeds 'in some way the simple cell which
has developed into man with his high intelligence, marvellous
capacity for thought, and filled with hopes of an immortal exist-
ence, in what position are we to reject the idea .that in everything
that grows, in everything which has life, whether vegetable or
animal, there is a consciousness of that life; sensations, feelings,
and, of course some form of thought. Dr. Hay in an address
which he delivered before us on the occasion of one of our sum-
mer outings, called attention to the well known capacity of some
members of the plant world to seize upon insects for food, and
to the sensitiveness of other plants to the touch. In the past
summer he interested us particularly in a branch of a tree grow-
ing upon his grounds, which showed what might almost be as-
sumed to be an intelligent and an ingenious and surely success-
ful effort on the part of that branch to get out into the sunlight
and to secure in a way a very pleasant site for its occupation.
In another number of a journal which I have already quoted —
the Monthly Review — W. T. Clark Nuttafll says that it is impos-
ible to refuse to acknowledge plants as sentient beings or deny

president’s address.

493

that they are capable of experiencing sensations, and that the
more we study plants the more impressed we are with the con-
viction that we have in 'them a line of development paralileil to our
own, but one situated in a lower plane, whose scale is pitched in
a lower key. I quote a few paragraphs from Mr. Nubtall’s
attractive article.

“Of late years the student probing deeper and deeper into the
mysteries of plant life has been increasingly struck with the
analogies that exist between the plant and the animal kingdoms.
Over and over again in his researches among plants animal-like
characteristics confront him in so persistent and surprising a way
that the conviction is forced upon him that, beneath the wide
divergences that undoubtedly exist between the two kingdoms,
there must be some fundamental term common to both. The liv-
ing plant and the living animal, remote as they appear to be in
their highest developments, must still be bound together by some
subtle link. And reflection shows him that that lank can be noth-
ing else than the possession of the indefinable quality, life. That
which he calls ‘life’ he realizes must be of the same nature and
quality in both kingdoms, and the distinction between them lies,
he is beginning to assert, merely in variation as to the quality and
intensity of that possession. Indeed it has been suggestively re-
marked that ‘life sleeps in the plant, but wakes and works in the
animal.’

“Now when we look down the long vista of the animal world
from the highest ito the lowest our glance passes from man to
apes, past birds and reptiles, fishes and frogs, on by worms and
insects and jelly fish, and past the animal communities that we
call coralis and sponges, until finally we come to the end of the line
and find the simplest form of animal life to be merely a mass (of
living protoplasm enclosed by a more or less definite wall, though
still exhibiting certain characteristics of an animal.

“And when we change our point of view to the plant world a
similar vista of complex forms successively simplifying meets our
eye as we range from chestnut and lily, pines and ferns, to
mosses, liverworts fungi, seaweeds and green algae, Until alt
length we come to the simple plants which are also merely a mass
of living protoplasm invested with a cell wall, though still en-

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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

do wed with definite plant-like characteristics . Thus then do the
vistas of animal and plant life converge towards one another.

“ In a problem such as this we can only deduce conclusions by
inference and presume similarity in those of our own kind. We
can say that others have similar feelings to our own because (they
act in a similar way to us under similar circumstances — we can
never directly test their feelings. And as we work backwards
from man there is no single place at which we can stop and say :
“there is no -sensation here.” For wherever there as life there
is adjustment to environment — response to external stimuli —
and there is no point in the sequence of animal life at wbidh we
can assert that the response of any individual is purely that of
an automaton.

“And it is this question, the question, ‘Are plants sentient?’
that plant students are asking more and more closely to-day
about the whole plant kingdom in general. For some of (the
forms of plant-life exhibit so close an analogy to animals in their
apparent possession of sensation that, since the sequence of life
is unbroken in the organic world, it seems an arbitrary distinction
to allow the attribute in one part of the sequence and deny it in
another. Some observers, indeed, go even further, and are be-
ginning to wonder whether or not it is not possible ithat plants
■may be actually guided by some form of intelligence, an intelli-
gence diffused indeed, and not gathered up into a brain focus,
but nevertheless present in some general form. Certain of those
who are well-fitted to judge, even make definite affirmations on
the point. Thus Professor Shaler, of Harvard University, recent-
ly declared that : ‘ we are in no position to say that intelligence
cannot exist among plants, for in fact, all that we can discern
supports the view that throughout the organic realm the intelli-
gence that finds its fullest expression in man is everywhere at
work.’

“But whether we are justified in presuming intelligence in
plants or not, the contention that plants are actually endowed
with sensation has been considerably furthered of late by some
researches that have been made at Graz by Prof. Haberlandt, a
German botanist of some repute. He has been studying the sub-
ject specially among the high flowering plants, and as a result

PRESIDENTS ADDRESS.

495

of has investigations foe claim's ito have found definite organs of
sense in certain cases. That is to say, foe has found and examined
a number of plants, as we might examine animals, for organs for
the reception of the 'sensations of touch, and he asserts (that he
has found complete analogy in many instances between plants
and animals in their sensitiveness to contact.”

It is not necessary for me to follow Mr. Nuttall in the observa-
tion which he makes upon die possession of organs such as that
of touch in at least some plants as, for example, the Passion
flower, the sensitive plant, the Venus fly trap, in plants which
are what we call climbers, whose tendrils are as sensitive at least
as the tentacles of the sea-urchin. Tendrils are, he says, like our
finger tips, reaching ont into the world to place the individual in
its environment. During their time of growth they move in
continuous circles round and round seeking with sensitive surface
for some support for the plant in its upward climb, and once they
come into contact with a solid body the measure of their twining
is the measure of their sensitiveness. In addition to this, and
the many instances which Mr. Nuttall gives of the sensitiveness
of plants, he declares that they are able to transmit a stimulus
from one part of their structure to another part. In animals this
is, of course, done through the nervous system ; the plants have
no known nervous system. The idea is now refuted or out-
grown 'that it can be through the cellular system, as each cell is
distinct of itself, and his conclusion is that the protoplasm of a
plant, continuous through the entire plant, is die medium of
transmission, the contents of each cell being connected with
those of the adjacent cells by very fine strands which pass
through the walls of die cells in every direction. Hence, he
says, a plant possesses a complete inner structure of protoplasm
hidden within its outer walls, and we have no difficulty in under-
standing that a stimulus can be carried from one part to another
just as nerves carry sensation, for after all what is our nervous
system but protoplasm modified in a very special way.

In regard to this, it is well to remember that this view some-
what differs from and disagrees with the recognized theory that
there is a central organ — the brain — which diffuses consciousness
throughout- die system, that in whatever part of 'the body sensa-

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BULLETIN OF TIIE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

tion — whether by touch or otherwise — is aroused intelligence of
it is transmitted to the brain, the central office — which informs
the whole body of what it has just received, and thus ithe entire
system is made conscious of the occurrence. Indeed some of the
older naturalists made a distinction — which may yet exist —
between sensation and consciousness, holding that while man
and the higher animals had consciousness the lower animals were
cognizant of sensation only. This is easily interpreted into the
idea that consciousness is the capacity to express sensation.
Certainly so far as an intelligent statement may be made of these
things we can easily believe that Dr. Hay’s tree in its effort to
get into the sunlight, vegetable though it is, shows quite as much
intelligent consciousness as is displayed by the clam or ithe oyster
in its environment. Probably a good deal more.

One word more in regard to consciousness only. What is it ?
Are we fully conscious of all of our own consciousness ? Mr.
Mallock lately made the observation that “if we call a man’s self
those faculties and processes which are going on in his own
organism, he is as ignorant of the larger part of himself as he is
ignorant of what is happening in the moon or the milky way.
It is enough, in illustration of this, to mention the case of memory,
in which each of us is a crowded register of things which we
have never noticed, and of which it betrays its custody under
rare conditions only.” The common wild rabbit or hare of this
country changes its coat in winter, and there are some who be-
lieve that it does so in order that by its resemblance to the snow,
by its mimicry of nature, it will protect itself from its enemies.
Is it conscious of toe change, does it put forth a conscious effort
to bring this about ? Look at .that curious insect which is so like
the branch of a tree or shrub upon which iit feeds, and which
we are again told assumes its color and marking so that it may
escape its enemies? Is it conscious that it is thus protected?
Consider the lilies of the field. Do they, or did they, know
that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like unto them?
But I must end my questionings ?

We get back to the fact that as observation is more close and
more definite regarding the life upon our planet, to the atoms,
the substance, of which the universe is composed, there seems

president’s address.

497

to be a force, a creative, life-making power in the original ele-
ments which as beyond the animal and the vegetable world,
which was in the nebulae and before it, and which is yet in
existence; and whatever changes take place by chemical combin-
ations, by differentiation, variation, or whatever word may be
chosen to express the idea, or by whatever process these com-
binations may be brought about, the same principle obtains in
all; and it is not difficult to assume that there is an elementary
property in the atoms of the universe which gives birth to all the
life that the universe contains, built up from (the arrangement of
these atoms. But this does not explain the whole mystery. The
tree grows and so does the man; so does not the rock crystal or
the diamond, and no one attributes consciousness or sensation to
these latter, and yet they are of the elemental substance.

It is well to remember that even in the limited sphere of our
own earth the work of creation is not ended, and that apparently
there are new creations constantly coming into notice, some of
them probably supplementary to, or taking the place of the old. Dr.
Matthew easily tells us of transitions of life on this earth in the
animal kingdom which have taken millions of years to bring
about, and of geologic eras of such duration, one succeeding the
other, that no one would attempt to estimate their age. Doubt-
less we are living ii.n one which some men in the distant future
may speculate upon with no consciousness whatever of the
thoughts and hopes and fears and reasoning of the men who live
today.

In a paper upon orchids which lately appeared in an English
magazine, the writer argued 'that the orchid is a comparatively
modern adornment of our earth, and he supported his view with
two reasons 'for holding it, one that the insects — bees and the like
— which are necessary to its reproduction — did not come upon
the earth until after the carboniferous era; the other that while
yellow, white and red colors early developed when the
efflorescence of plants began to Change from its original green,
these colors were well established before blue made its appear-
ance, that the blue orchid is yet rare, because sufficient time has
not elapsed for its diffusion or its development.

Assuming then, that new forms of living matter are still

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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

conning on the stage of existence by some process of development
or expansion, it is not difficult to speculate upon the possibility,
even the probability, of existing forms disappearing as, of
course, some forms do disappear through various causes. There
are both animal and vegetable growths, once abundant, which
exist no longer except as fossils or in some state of preservation
in the earth’s crust, and there are abundant evidences of the
previous existence upon earth of a life of which we cannot now
have adequate conception. It is easy to assume (that these died
out because of changed conditions of temperature or other clim-
atic causes in the regions in which they flourished, through ex-
haustion of the soil, or in some similar and not unnatural way
which no longer flitted them for their environment.

There was a time when the investigations which are carried
on by such organizations, as ours, when men who carried them
on, were regarded with grave suspicion by those who believed
that the knowledge thus acquired might prove dangerous or was
useless of itself; and when some discovery was made which con-
flicted with generally accepted facts, fears were excited in timid
minds that the whole fabric of society might be destroyed. That
fear may be said to no longer exist generally, even though there be
some who yet look with suspicion on the work of the scientific
investigator into the doings and the order of nature. These in-
vestigations have greatly enlarged the sum of human knowledge
and increased the sum of human happiness. Reading lately an
essay of Mr. W. Hamilton Mabie, I came across a paragraph in
which that writer observes that it is difficult now to realize how
completely nature was lost to men during the middle ages, how
comparatively untouched human life was by association with the
countless aspects of sea and sky. For several centuries the great
mass of men and women were so estranged from nature (that they
forgot their kinship. Of course, in every generation there were
men and women to whom the beauty of the world did not appeal
in vain, but their perceptions were limited by lack of the larger
insight and larger vision. The popular ballads of these days were
not lacking in pretty bits of description and sentiment, but nature
is subordinate ; the sublime background, against which all mod-
ern life is set, is invisible Mr. Mabie observes that it is difficult

president’s address.

499

to imagine a time when men had no eyes for the landscape, and
yet, he adds, that is is a notable fact that Petrarch was the first
man of his period to show any interest in that great vision which
a lofty mountain opens, and which has for ithe men of today a
delight so poignant as to be almost painful. After relating the
incident upon which this statement is founded he goes on to re-
mark in a paragraph which we all here will appreciate :

“The redemption of nature from the shadow of sin which,
to the mediaeval mind, rested upon and darkened it, has been very
slowly accomplished ; but the poets, the naturalists, and the
scientists have taught us much, and our hearts have taught us
more. Nature has become not only an inexhaustible delight, a
constant and fascinating friend, but the most vital and intimate
of teachers ; in fact, it is from the study of nature, in one form or
another, that much of the advance in educational efficiency has
come ; not the improvements in method, but the freshening and
deepening of the educational aim and spirit. Nature, through the
discoveries of science, has restored balance to the mind, and
sanity to the spirit of men by 'Correcting the false perspective of
abstract thinking, by flooding the deepest questions with new
light, by bringing into -activity a set of faculties almost disused,
and by adding immeasurably to the resources of the human spirit.
In the Middle Ages attention was concentrated upon the soul, and
men learned much from the eager and passionate self-questioning ;
but it was a very inadequate and distorted view of life which they
reached, because one of the great sources of revelation was left
untouched. In modern times the world of nature has been
searched with tireless patience, great truths relating to man’s
place in the sublime movement of the universe have come to light,
and the distorted vision of the inward world has been corrected
by the clear vision of the outward world. The study of nature
has yielded a new conception of the nature of the divine will ex-
pressed through law, of the divine design interpreted by the order
and progress of the phenomena of the physical universe, of the
marvellous beauty of the divine mind which Tennyson was think-
ing of when, looking long and steadfastly into the depths of a
slow-moving stream, he cried out in awe and wonder, AVhat an
imagination God has.’ ”

Men are saner, healthier, wiser, since they began to find God

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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

in nature and to receive the facts of nature as a divine revelation.
The soul -has looked away from herself and ou't into the marvel-
lous universe, and learned from a new teacher the wonder, the
beauty, and the greatness of her life.

In my address last year I began with a reference to the
need ‘which we have for better and more comfortable quarters.
This year I dose by saying that want still exists, but there is
at least a faint glimmer of hope that the difficulties under which
we labor will not last forever. Not only do we want more com-
fortable quarters but we need improved facilities for the illustra-
tion of the subjects which are discussed in the lecture room.
Those of you who were fortunate enough to hear Mr. B-urdett’s
lecture upn meteors and shooting stars must have been struck by
the ingenuity which he displayed in exhibiting his illustrations,
but it sharply revealed our poverty. It is worth an effort on our
part to overcome these difficulties ; for the work of 'this society
is a most useful one — useful in its direct effects and in its in-
fluences. In an address - which he delivered before the new
students of Harvard University in October last President Eliot
inquired as o what are the solid and durable satisfactions of life,
and after pointing out some of these he emphasized the fact that
large mental enjoyments should come to educated people, the
great distinction between the privileged class who can look across
the ample pages of the "Book of Knowledge and the large class
who have not that opportunity is, that the former lives mainly
by the exercise of the intellectual powers, and gets therefrom a
much greater enjoyment out of life. His address was to young
men entering upon a college career, but some of his observations
are applicable to us all, old and young, men or women. The use
of our intellectual power, the steady exercise of our reasoning-
faculties, the constant acquisition of knowledge will increase our
happiness and add -to our zest of life, no matter how severe our
labor or how many hours we have to give to the procuring of
our daily bread. We may not ‘be students of any particular
university, but the doors of the great university of nature are
never closed ; its halls are broad, its lessons fruitful, its studies
simple or severe as we make them for ourselves ; its diplomas are
written upon hearts and minds in indelible ink, the records of
success in faithful labor in the earnest search for Truth.

REPORT OF COUNCIL

501

FORTY-FOURTII ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

COUNCIL OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

OF

NEW BRUNSWICK.

The Council of the Natural History Society of New Bruns-
wick desire to lay before the members a summary of the work
done during the year ending December 31st, 1905.

Membership.

During the year the membership has been increased by the
admission of two ordinary and nineteen associate members, and
one corresponding member, making a total of 200.

The following shows the numbers, classes and total enrolled
membership

Honorary, 4

Life, 6

Corresponding, 25

Ordinary, 55

Associate, 106

Junior, 4

Total, 2C0

Treasurer's Report.

Income —

Balance from 1903-4, $241 93

Interest on Investments, 85 52

Bulletins Sold, 50

Mounting Paper Sold, 25

Government Giant, 200 oo

Membership Fees, 202 od

Rebate on Ins. Prem., 1 14

Collected] on Field-day — 'Oliver’s Cave, 3 50

$734 84

502

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

Carried, forward $734 84

Expenditure —

Maintenance of Museum, $138 30

Library Books and Binding, 13 16

Printing and distributing Bulletin XXIII, 160 00

Sundries, 170 44

$481 90

Balance Bank of N. B., $252 94

The above balance of $252.94 includes $33.00 held in trust for the
Ladies’ Association, and $40.00 for Botanical work as set forth in the 1903
report.

The Society holds mortgage of $1,500x0 on Hazelhurst property.

The Society holds mortgage of $900.00 on Cheyne property.

The Society holds special deposit in the Bank of Nova Scotia $100.00.
The Society holds special deposit in the Bank of Montreal Building Fund
$12.56.

The collections are insured for $3,500.00.

Respectfully submitted,

A. Gordon Leavitt,

T rea surer.

January 16, 1906.

Lectures.

Ten regular meetings, including the annual and one special
meeting, were held during the year.

The following are the dates of the meeting and the titles of
the papers rea d :

January 3. — (a) Birds that Hunt and are Hunted, by Mr. A. Gordon
Leavitt.

(b) Additions to the list of New Brunswick Plants, by G. U.

Hay, D. Sc.

(c) The Curious Phenomenon of a Forest Fire near Neguac,

Northumberland Co., by W. F. Ganong, Ph. D.

January 1 7. — Annual Meeting. Election of Officers.

February 7. — (a) The Magdalen Islands : Their People and History,

by) Mr. W. F. Hathieway.

(b) Physiography of Grand Lake and its Affluents, by Mr. W. S.

Butler.

(c) On the Limits of the Great Miramichi Fire in 1825, by W. F.

Ganong, Ph. D.

REPORT OP COUNCIL.

503

March 7. — (a) Pain, by G. G. Melvin, M. D.

(b) Archaeological Notes, by Mr. S. W. Kain.

(c) On the Contour Map of New Brunswick, by W. F.

Ganong, Ph. D.

April 4. — (a) Notes on Our Insect Collection, by Mr. William
McIntosh.

(b) Notes on a Grindstone Quarry at Stonehaven, Gloucester Co.,

by Geoffrey Stead, C. E.

(c) On the fact basis of the Fire or Phantom Ship of Bay

Chaleur, by W. F. Ganong, Ph. D.

(d) Notes on Our Fishes, by Mr. C. F. B. Rowe.

May 2. — (a) The Natural History and Physiography of New Bruns-
wick, by W. F. Ganong, Ph. D.

(b) Bird Notes, by Mr. J. W. Banks.

June 6. — (a) The Hydrography of New Brunswick, by Mr. J. W.
Bailey.

(b) Geology of Rockwood Park, by G. F. Matthew, D. Sc.

(c) Report from the Royal Society of Canada, by G. U.

Hay, D. Sc.

October 3. — Vegetation of the Earth in remote times and its Relate to
Climate, by G. F. Matthew, D. Sc.

November 7. — Gypsum Deposits of Albert Co., by L. W. Bailey, Ph. D.
December 7. — The Physiographic Characteristics of the Tracadie River;

On the Height and other Characteristics of Wilkinson
Mountain; On Walrus "Bones from Miscou Island, by W.
F. Ganong, Ph. D.

Elementary Lectures.

A series of Elementary Lectures or Talks was given in the
rooms on Tuesday evenings, not occupied by the regular meetings
of the Society, during the months of January, February and
March, for the benefit of the Ordinary and Associate members,
and for pupils of the public schools. These lectures proved very
interesting and were fairly well attended.

The following were the dates and the titles of the papers
read : —

Dr. G. F. Matthew gave two lectures on the Elements of New Brunswick
Geology, January 10 and 24.

January 31. — A Preliminary Talk on Plant Life, by Mr. Thomas' Stothart.
February 14 and 21. — The Trees of New Brunswick, by Dr. G. U. Hay.

504

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

February 28.— On Bird Classification, by Mr. A. Gordon Leavitt.

March 14.— On] Types of Insects', by Wm. McIntosh.

March 21 and 28. — On Fishes, Reptiles and Frogs, by Mr. Chas. F. B.
Rowe.

Publications.

The twenty-third Bulletin of our Society has been issued and
copies sent to the members of the local legislature of New Bruns-
wick and to other Societies. It contains many articles of interest
on the natural history of this Province. Dr. W. F. Ganong con-
tinues in this issue his notes on the Natural History and
Physiography of New Brunswick in addition to papers by other
members.

Ornithology.

The numbers refer to the list of birds printed in Bulletin
No. 1, 1883.

Species which occur in St. John and Kings counties :

1 15. — White Gyrfalcon *( Hier falco gyrfalco candicans) now
Falco islandus).

The only evidence of the occurrence of 'this bird in this
vicinity given consists of reports from persons who were certain
they had seen it, but it now affords me much pleasure to record
the taking of a beautiful female, on January 13th in the vicinity
of the ’'one mile house/’ St. John County, by A. L. McIntosh.

This specimen is extremely dark and would, no doubt,
answer the descriptions given of (Falco rusticolus obsolete) by
Cowes, Ridgway and others, but, at present, I prefer to follow
Mcllwraith who claimed that there was but one species, and not
two and also two sub-species.

197. — Ruddy Duck (Erismatura rubida) Ordinarily considered
a rare bird.

I reported a male and female in Bulletin XVI (Page 74), a
female in Bulletin XVII (Page 170).

Note — During October 1905 I saw in the country-market
eighteen specimens of this bird, most of which came from French
Lake, Sheffield.

179. — Pintail (Dafila acuta).

REPORT OF COUNCIL

505

The list says : “This species was not uncommon here some

eight or ten years ago, but the only known recent instance of its
occurrence anywhere in the Province is of a female and young
brood seen on the Tobique River in September, 1879, by Mr.
Carnell.

Note — A male and female seen at O’Neill Bros, stall in the
City Market, September 26, 1905, a female at Dickson’s stall. on
October 10, 1905, all came from points on the St. John River, but
I could not learn the exact locality.

During the last few years quite a number of specimens have
been observed in the market and city stores and it seems in order
to now consider this bird as quite common.

A. Gordon Leavitt.

Library.

The work of cataloguing the library has progressed favorably
during the year. The books have all been re-arranged and many
of the publications in pamphlet form placed, in suitable cases. Up
to the present -time about half of the books in the library have
been numbered and recorded on the list but much remains yet 1o
be done. I had hoped to present at the meeting a complete cata-
logue of our library but other interests have made it impossible
for me to devote much of my time to the library of late, and the
work is still incomplete. Many valuable books including the
transactions of the important scientific societies in America and
abroad, as well as the various government reports, have been
added to the library during the year and our shelves are now co
overcrowded that further accommodation becomes a matter for
the Society’s consideration.

I would draw your attention to the fact that some of our
books have been in the hands of members for many months and
although a general appeal at our Society meetings and also
through the daily press have been made, they have not been re-
turned. A more thorough system in regard to the distribution ol
our own Society’s bulletin is urgently needed, as many of our
valuable exchanges were overlooked during the past year, and

506

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

many copies of the bulletin are distributed and 'this Society has
no record of where they go. I wish to express my appreciation
of the valuable assistance rendered by the Assistant Librarian,
Miss Hoyt, in the work of the library during the past year.

W. Leonard Ellis, Librarian.

Field Meetings.

Three very pleasant Field Meetings were held during the past
season, one at the Summer Camp of Mr. J. W. Banks, near the
shore of Dark Lake, whence aj visit was paid to Oliver’s Cave *n
the vicinity; a second to Ingleside on the 5th of August; and a
third to the summer camp of Messrs. A. G. Leavitt and Wm.
McIntosh — Camp Nature, — 'above Nerepis Station on the 26th of
August.

These meetings gave the large number of members who at-
tended them a very pleasant outing and opportunities for social
intercourse and visiting and gaining information about the inter-
esting localities visited. Talks on the natural history features of
each neighborhood — geology, botany, birds, and insects, — were
given by the various leaders of the sections, and all the members
felt that the time was well spent and voted the Field Meetings a
great success.

G. U. Hay, Chairman.

Entomology.

Your committee begs to report that Messrs. McIntosh and
Leavitt have devoted nearly all their spare time to collecting dur-
ing the past year.

Insect collecting has been carried on unremittingly during the
past seven years, resulting in the accumulation of a very large
number of specimens and a vast amount of valuable data, with
the result that henceforth we will be able to speak with some
degree of certainty regarding the insect life of this section.

A number of species new to science have been discovered. A
list of these will be published at an early data. A number of wall-
cases have been prepared ; in these are shown all the more com-
mon insects of St. John and Kings Counties, and the common

REPORT OF COUNCIL.

507

names are given where such exist. This coll eat ion will be
enlarged during the coming year.

Wm. McIntosh, Chairman.

Botany.

The Botanical Committee reports the discovery of a number
of plants new to the province, some of which are from Miscou
Island, reported by Dr. W. F. Ganong. These are held over for
next year’s report.

G. U. Hay, Chairman.

Geology.

Members of our Society have been engaged in active field-
work during the summer, and have been in various parts of the
province. Messrs. Leavitt and McIntosh have been studying and
collecting in the Nerepis Hills, where the late destructive forest
fires have laid bare large areas of granitic and other rocks. They
have also been collecting fossils from the well known Devonian
plant ledges in Lancaster, and have found some fossils of much
interest to the geologist.

Professor Ganong has pursued his studies on the geology and
physiography of Gloucester county, tracing the pre-glacial river
valleys of the southeastern part of the county, and studying the
recent geology of Miscou Island.

Dr. L. W. Bailey has been engaged in the search for fossils
in the pre-Carboniferous rocks of York and Carleton Counties,
and in obtaining information relative to the economic minerals of
New Brunswick. Fossils collected by him were studied by Dr.
H. M. Ami and were mostly of the marine animals called
“graptolites.”

Members of the staff of the Geological Survey have also been
working in Charlotte county on the metamorphic slates of that
portion of the province. These were Dr. R. W. Ells and Mr.
Hugh Fletcher. The geology of this region is very complicated
and difficult.

Dr. G. F. Matthew has been busy arranging and labelling the
type collection of Devonian fossil plants, collected by the late

508

BULLETIN OF TIIK NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

Prof. C. F. Hartt and described by the late Sir. Wm. Dawson.
No other flora of such richness and of so great antiquity has since
been found, so that the value of these types has been enhanced
rather than impaired.

G. F. Matthew, Chairman.

General.

The rooms were open as usual to visitors on Tuesday, Thurs-
day and Saturday afternoons of each week. Upwards of three
hundred persons availed 'themselves of ithe opportunity of inspect-
ing the various rooms. During the year the librarian, W. L.
Ellis, M. D., devoted a great deal of his time to the re-catalogu-
ing and re-arranging the books. All paper-covered works have
been arranged according to the subjects treated of and placed in
receivers ; this with a handy reference makes them easily avail-
able. Dr. Ellis deserves the hearty thanks of every member for
the excellent manner in which the work has been done. It is to
be regretted that owing to the lack of space many valuable works
have not yet been arranged to the best advantage.

Throughout the year the Ladies’ Association heartily co-
operated in all the work of the Society, giving their assistance
on all occasions.

The attendance at the various lectures was most gratifying
and the interest manifested gives good encouragement for the
future. On several Saturday afternoons in the lecture room some
of the teadhers of the public schools gave talks to their pupils
on Bird and Plant Life.

The curator, Miss Hoyt, has been untiring in her efforts to
promote the interests of the Society. The Council wish to ex-
press their thanks to those gentlemen, who have prepared and de-
livered addresses before the Society ; to the donors to the museum
and library; to the daily press for inserting the preliminary
notices of meetings.

REPORT OF THE LADIES’ ASSOCIATION.

509

REPORT OF THE LADIES ASSOCIATION OF THE
NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

The Ladies’ Association submit the following report for the
past year:

At the annual meeting held in November, the following
officers were re-elected unanimously : President, Mrs. G. F.

Matthew; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. G. U. Hay and Miss A. D.
Jack; Secretary, Miss E. McBeath.

The membership is still increasing and there are now over
one hundred names on the list.

The subject of holding a Fair illustrating the History of
Nations was discussed and approved by the members, the pro-
ceeds of which shall go towards a fund for a building that shall
properly accommodate the Museum and Library and contain a
suitable lecture hall.

It is hoped that the work will not be confined to the members
only, but will become a matter of civic interest, and that our
proposed new building may contain rooms suitable for the
Historical Society and the Woman’s Art Association.

The following course of lectures opened with a re-union on
Thursday, January 5th. There was a large attendance of
members.

January 12. — Emerson and Nature, by Mrs. Emma S. Fislce.

19. — Scenes in Rome and Naples, by Mrs. George Murray.

26. — Glimpses of a Quaint Old German Town, by Miss Homer.
February 2. — Children’s Day — Nuts, by Missl Et'hejl Jarvis.

9. — Notes on China, by Mrs. James R. Warner and Miss Purvcs.
16. — Scenes from the Life of Huxley, by Mrs George F. Matthew.
23. — Some Relics of the French Occupation of Acadia, by Miss
Aliice D. Jack.

March 2. — Children’s Day — Our Feathered Friends, by A. Gordon Leavitt.
9. — The Land of “Kai-ora,” by Miss Olive.

16. — Voices from the Meadow, by Mrs. George U. Hay.

23. — Reunion of Members.

Edith McBeath, K. M. Matthew.

Secretary. President ,

510

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

FREDERICTON NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

The Fredericton Natural History Society is now entering
upon the twelfth year of its history. Its meetings are held in
the High School building, in the evening of the second Mon-
day in each month, except in the vacation season. During
the past year the programme for the monthly meetings was as
follows:

1905.
Jan. 9.
Feb. 13.

Mar. 13.
April 10.
May 8.
Oct. 9.
Nov. 14.
Dec. 12.

1906.
Jan, 8.

The Weapons of Birds, by Mr, Wm. Moore.

The Annual Meeting. The Origin, Growth and Purposes of the
Society, by the President.

Vegetable Ferments, by Dr. John Brittain.

Some Queer Fishes, by Dr. L. W. Bailey.

The Hydrography of New Brunswick, by Mr. Joseph Bailey.
The Gypsum Deposits of New Brunswick, by Dr. L. W. Bailey.
Photography, by Mr. L. B Kidner.

Lantern Views on Geology and Astronomy, by Dr. Bailey and
Mr. G N. Babbitt.

The Wild Animals of New Brunswick, by Mr. Wm. Moore.

To stimulate the younger members of the community to
study natural history, the Society has offered prizes for each
of the years 1904 and 1905. The 1904 prizes were awarded as
follows:

Collection of, and Notes on Weeds; 1st prize, Miss Queenie Harrison, of
Nashwaaksis; 2nd prize, Miss Mattie Moore, of Scotch Lake.
Collection of Insects; 1st prize, Master Kenneth Campbell, of Kingslcear.

In the early part of 1905 the Society purchased a reflec-
toscope at a cost of $150. It has since been used to great
advantage in throwing upon a screen representations of the
pictures of natnral objeets, or views of the_ natural objects
themselves

DONATIONS TO THE MUSEUM.

511

The list of officers of the Fredericton Natural History So-
ciety is as follows:

}Vi

Vice-Presidents.

L. W. BAILEY, Ph.D., LL.D., President.
Mr. G. N. BABBITT
Mr. G. A. GOOD,

B. C. FOSTER, M.A., Treasuree.

G. A. INCH, B.Sc., B.A., Secretary
Miss ELLA THORNE
Mrs. B. C. FOSTER,

Mrs. G. A. INCH,

Mr. WM. MOORE.

Additional Members
of the Council.

DONATIONS TO THE MUSEUM, 1905.

Date.

Donor’s Name and Description of Gifts.

January...

February. .
March

April

June

October . . .

November

December

Mr. James Manchester, Pres, of Bank of New Brunswick, Part of Bishop’s
Memorial Tablet recovered from the ruins of the Cathedral at St. Pierre
Martineque.

Miss Alice Rising1, A case of Chinese Insects.

Dr. William Matthew, Collection of Minerals

Mr. Duncan London, Several relics of the stone age. also Iron lance of the
French period.

A G. Leavitt, Fossil shells snd Minerals found at Nerepis.

Mrs. Charles Lowe, Specimen of young alligator.

Master Armstrong, Birds nest,

Duncan London, Fragments of earthen pots and stone implements.

A Friend, Book of pressed seaweeds.

A. G. Leavitt, Specimes of Rocks,

Rev. C. J. Berrie, A plant that had grown and choked a water pipe.

Prof. W, F. Ganong, Bones of a Walrus.

Prof. W. L. Bailey. Specimens of Gypsum.

Mrs. Gilbert Murdoch, Nest of Trap Door Spider.

Mrs. S. L. Gorbell. Specimen of Gulf weed.

512

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

DONATIONS TO THE LIBRARY, 1905.

Donor’s Name

Residence

Works.

Academy of Natural Science

Academic Imperiale des Sciences

American Entomological Society

American Museum of Natural History

Australian Museum

Amherst College

Archaeological Society

Boston Society of Natural History

Boston Free Public Library

Buffalo Society of Natural Science

Bureau of Ethnology

California Academy of Science

Cincinnati Society of Natural History

Colorado Scientific Society

Connecticut Academy of Science and Art

Cornell University Library

Comite Geologique

Canadian Institute

Carnagie Institute

Davenport Academy of Natural Science

Director Royal Gardens

Department of Inland Revenue

Entomological Society

Ethnological Survey.,

Feuille des Junes Naturalistes

Field Naturalist Club

Gray Herbarium

Geological Survey

Geological Survey

Geological Survey

Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba

Indiana Geological Survey

Iowa Geological Survey

John Hopkins University

Linnsean Society

Literary and Historical Society

Liverpool Biological Society

Loyd’s Museum

Manchester Geological Survey

Minnesota Academy of Natural Science

Minister of Mines

Missouri Botanical Gardens

Maryland Geological Survey

National Museum Library

New York State Museum

Natural Science Association

New York Academy of Science

New York Public Library

Ottawa Literary and Scientific Society

Philadelphia Museum

Public Museum

Queens Quarterly

Rochester Academy of Science

Royal Academy of Science

Royal Colonial Institute

Royal Geographical Society

Royal Society of Canada

Smithsonian Institution

South Dekota School of Mines

Texas Academy of Science

Tuft’s Collage

University of Toronto

University of California

U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey

U. S. Fish Commission

U. S. Commission of Agriculture

U. S. Geological Survey

Wilson Bulletin

Wisconsin Natural History Society

Philadelphia

St. Petersburg

Philadelphia

New York

Sydney, N. S.W

Amherst, Mass

Ontario

Boston

Boston

Buffalo

Washington

San Francisco

Cincinnati

Denver

New Haven

Ithaca, N, Y

St. Petersburg

Toronto

Washington

Davenport

Kew, G. B

Ottawa

London, Ontario

Manila

Paris

Ottawa

Cambridge, Mass. ..

Perth, W. A

London G. B

Ottawa

Winnipeg

Indianapolis

Des Moins

Baltimore

New South Wales. . .

Quebec

Liverpool

Cincinnati

Manchester

Minneapolis

Sydney, N. S. W. ..

St. Louis

Baltimore

Washington

New York

New Brighton

New York

New York

Ottawa

Philadelphia

Milwaukee

Kingston

Rochester

Stockholm

London

London

Ottawa

Washington

Rapid City

Austin

Mass

Toronto

California

Washington

Washington

Washihgton

Washington

Oberlin Ohio

Milwaukee

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NEW BRUNSWICK WEATHER.

513

NOTES ON NEW BRUNSWICK WEATHER FOR YEAR

1905.

By D. Leavitt Hutchinson.

January. — Highest temperature recorded in New Brunswick,
49.7 on 8th, at Grand Manan ; Lowest — 39.00 on 15th, at St.
Stephen.

Exceedingly cold weather ; temperatures much below zero
were frequently recorded, that of the 15th ranging from 120 to
40° below zero, and in some localities probably lower. The snow-
fall also was exceptionally heavy, the storm of the 25th and 26th
beng the fiercest for many years, completely demoralizing railway
and other traffic. Owing to the absence of thaws, the accumula-
tion of snow was unusually deep, especially at Sit. John, where
the snow on the streets had greater depth than had been known
for over thirty years ; sleighing was good throughout the month,
but roads badly drifted. The heaviest gale occurred on the 19th,
with velocity of 50 miles an hour from southwest at St. John.

February. — Highest temperature, 44.7 on 13th, at Grand
Manan, lowest — 25.5 on 20th, at St. Stephen, Steady cold inter-
rupted with but a few hours of thawing temperatures, high winds,
abundance of snow in drifts of almost insurmountable magnitude,
which blocked highways and railways and seriously interferred
with movement of supplies, were the principal features of the
month. Owing to almost no rainfall, springs and wells in rural
districts were dry for weeks and cattle watered by melting snow.
The highest wind velocity registered at St. John was fifty miles
an hour from northwest during the gale of the eleventh, and the
total wind velocity for the month was slightly over two thousand
miles less than for the same month last year.

March. — Highest temperature 61.5 on 30th, at Chatham; low-
est — 25 0 on 151th at Sussex. March weather was comparatively
mild and very dry with an unusual amount of brght sunshine, no
storm signals were displayed and no gales occurred. The last
snow fell on the nth, and the exsessive snow covering gradually

14

BULLKTIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

melted away leaving a few paJfcdhes of ice, but mostly bare and dry
ground. T(here was little movement of river ice, but it ihas rapid-
ly weakened ; the total movement of wind for the month was
fifteen hundred miles less than for the same month la-st year.

April. — Highest temperature 73 ° on 26th at St . Stephen,
lowest 1 90 on 2nd at Dalhousie. The weather of the month was
remarkably fine and mild. Precipitation was in all districts great-
ly below the average. Freshets were unusually light and lumber
drives much hindered for want of rain. No storm of importance
occurred ; 'wind velocity at St. John measured three thousand
miles in excess of April, 1904.

May. — Highest temperature 81 0 on 26th, at Chatham,
lowest 1 1° on the 12th at Moncton. Cool, cloudy and wet weather
were the prevailing conditions during the greater part of the
month. A heavy frost occurred on the 13th., with temperature
well below freezing. Towards the close of the month vegetation
in most districts was backward but making good progress.

June. — June was comparatively cool and backward wiith rain-
fall above the average in most localities. A heavy frost was
general throughout the province on the 7th, and considerable
damage done to vegetables and fruit. The highest temperature
was 920 at Chatham, on the 16th, and the lowest 27.5 on 7th at
Moncton.

July. — Highest temperature 920 ait Chatham, on 7th, lowest,
350 at Dalhousie on 27th. The weather was, for the most part,
fine and very warm. Near the Bay of Fundy, owing to the preva-
lence of fogs, it was somewhat cooler, with less bright sunshine.
At St. John, southerly winds predominated and some slight dam-
age was caused by lightning on the 27th.

August. — Highest temperature 91 0 on the 12th, at Chatham,
lowest, 31 0 on 15th at Sussex. August weather was decidedly
dry with almost continuous sunshine except near the Bay of
Fundy district, where fogs were very prevalent during the first
half of the month. light frosts were generally reported on the
14th. Rivers, lakes and wells were unusually low owing to the
drought, and forest fires caused destruction of much property in
many parts of the province. A general and heavy rainfall was
much needed. At St. John southerly winds prevailed during
three hundred and ninety-three hours.

NEW BRUNSWICK WEATHER.

515

September. — Highest temperature 83° on 10th at Chatham,
lowest, 270 on 30th at Sussex. An exceedingly dull and cool
month, with excessive rainfall and few fine days ; moderate gales
occurred on the 13th and 26th. The total wind movement for the
month at St. John was 2000 miles hiss than for the corresponding
month last year. The heaviest and first killing frost was report-
ed on the 15th. Trees retained their leaves but were gradually
changing colour. At St. John five and a quarter inches of rain
fell between the 4th and the 7>t)h.

October. — Highest temperature 81 0 on 1st at Chatham, low-
est 15 0 on 23rd at Sussex. An exceptionally fine, mild and pleas-
ant month with rainfall far below the average; no gales of im-
portance occurred and the total wind velocity at St. John was
i,iOO less than for the same month last year.

November. — Highest temperature 58° at St. Stephen, lowest,
— 13 0 at Sussex. In general mild weather prevailed, especially
during the first half of the month, while during the latter half,
although several mild, bright days occurred, the night tempera-
tures were much lower. The precipitation, (Which fell mostly as
rain, was a little above the average. The snowfall was unusually
light in all districts, and excepting a light covering in extreme
northern localities the ground was bare of snow. At St. John the
total wind velocity for the month was fifteen hundred miles in
excess of the same period last year. The most important gales
occurred between the 15th and 17th and the 28th and 30th. St.
John river frozen over on the night of 14th.

December. — Highest temperature 55 0 at Fredericton, lowest,

• — 210 at Sussex. The weather was remarkably fine and mild,
and, although the snowfall was comparatively light, sleighing was
good during the greater portion of the month. In all localities,
temperature averages were much above last year, and severe cold
spells, as well as continued high winds, were notably deficient. A
most important storm moved into this section on the ioth, attend-
ed by the heaviest snowfall of the season, with a wind velocity of
48 miles an hour at St. John, the total wind mileage at St. John
was some nine hundred miles less than during December, 1904.

516 BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

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53

February. .

Mareh ....

1

<

L

May

June

1

August . .

September

Octobee . .

November

December

METEROLOGICAL ABSTRACT FOR 1905.

517

ST. JOHN OBSERVATORY.

Longitude, 45.17 N. Longitude, 66.4 W.

Months

Barometer

Thermometer

Cloudiness :

0 = Clear

10 = W holly Clouded

Precipitation :
Rain & Melted Snow

Thunder Storms

OB

ix

o

fc

Mean

Highest

Lowest |

Mean

Max.

Min.

January. . . .

30.03

1

30 77

29.22

15.8

47.5

1

—11.0

5.0

5.77

°

1

February . .

29.93

30.65

; 29.11

16.5

37.5

3.3

5.4

2.63

o

0

March

30.05

30.57

!

1 29.58

29.1

51.3

1.0

4.0

1.44

0

2

April

29.77

30.17

29.31

40.6

63.5

25.0

6.0

1.51

0

3

May

29.92

30.43

1 29.48

47.7

68.5

29.6

6.2

1 3.30

0

0

June. . . .

29.92

30.26

29.54

54.8

75.6

39 7

6.3

3.94

1

6

July .

29 94

30.19

29.55

60.8

79.6

50.0

6.2

2.88

4

1

August ....

29.94

30.28

29.58

59.9 !

75.3

46.3

6 2

2.03

1

9

September. .

30.02

30.44

29.52

55.2

68.5

36.5

6.6

7.70

1

10

October. . . .

30.04

30 56

29.53

47.2

68.3

26.6

4.1

1.13

0

4

November. .

29.89

30.38

29.21

36.9

52.3

12.2

5.7

5.24

0

1

December .

30.00

30.76

28.91

27.5

50.2

2.8

5.7

5 20

0

2

The mean height of the barometer was 29.95. The highest reading 30.77,
and the lowest 28.91. The mean temperature for the year was 41.0, which is
0.8 lower than average for the past thirty-three years. The maximum temper-
ature was 79.6 on the 10th of July; the minimum — 11.0 on January 15. The
total precipitation was 42.77, which is 3.21 inches below the average of thirty-
three years. First frost occurred on 11th of October, and the last- on the 7th
of June. Aurora was observed the 24th of June, 5th of July, 26th of Septem-
ber and 14th of November, and at 9.30 p.m. of December 18th a meteor of
unusual brilliancy was observed.

D. LEAVITT HUTCHINSON,

Director, St. John Observatory.

518

BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES OF THE NATURAL
HISTORY SOCIETY FOR igo6.

Patron. »

His Honour the Lieutenant Governor.

Officers.

President — Hon. J. V. Ellis.

Vice-Presidents— G. U. Hay, Ph. D., G. F. Matthew, LL. D.

Treasurer — A. Gordon Leavitt, Esq.

Secretary — W. M. McDiarmid, Esq.

Librarian — W. L. Ellis, M. D.

Curators — Messrs. S. W. Kain, Wm. McIntosh, J. W. Banks.

Additional Members of Council— Messrs. J. Roy Campbell, H. G. Addy
M. D., W. F. Burditt.

Ladies’ Association.

President — Mrs. G. F. Matthew.

Vice-Presidents — Mrs. G. U. Hay, Mrs. H. G. Addy.

Secretary — Miss Edith McBeath.

Standing Committees.

Archaeology — S. W. Kain, A. C. Smith, M. D., Miss A. D. Jack.

Botany — G. U. Hay, W. F. Ganong, J. Brittain, J. Vroom.

Entomology — W. McIntosh, A. G. Leavitt.

Geology — G. F. Matthew, W. L. Bailey, G. Stead, Wm. McIntosh.
Finance — A. G. Leavitt. J. R. Campbell, W. F Hatheway
- Lectures — G. U. Hay, H. G. Addy, G. F. Matthew, J. A. Estey, W. F.
Burditt.

Library — W. L. Ellis, Wm. McIntosh, Mrs. W. F. Hatheway, Mrs. G.
U. Hay, Miss E. McBeath.

Microscopes— W. L. Ellis, G. W. Melville, H. W. Mowatt.

Ornithology — A. G. Leavitt — Wm. McIntosh, J. W. Banks, Mrs. G. U.
Rooms — H. G. Addy, Airs. G. F. Matthew, Mrs. G. U. Hay.

Hay. Mrs. Lord.

Press — G. U. Hay, A. G. Leavitt, Wm. McIntosh, W. L. McDiarmid, G.
F. Matthew.

Publications — G. F. Matthew, S. W. Kain, G. U. Hay, A. G. Leavitt, W.
L. McDiarmid.

Astronomy and Meteorology — W. F. Burditt, J. R. Campbell, Wm. Mur-
doch. Mrs. G. U. Hay.

NOTICE

The Bulletin of this Society contains articles relating to New Brunswick
that are of interest to students of Natural History and the related Sciences.

In it are articles by Prof. W. F. Ganong on the Mollusca, Echinodermata

and on the Natural History and Physiography of New Brunswick On

Physiography and Hydrography of N. B., by Drs. G. U. Hay, Prof. L. W.

Bailey, J. W. Bailey and Dr. G. F. Matthew On the Culture

of the Stone Age by Prof. L. W. Bailey, Dr. G. F. Matthew

and Mr. S. W. Kain On the Crystalline and Volcanic Rocks

by Dr. W. D. Matthew On the Geology and Palaeontology

of the Cambrian Siburian and Devonian, and on Fossil Footprints by G.

F. Matthew On Tidals and Magnetic Phenomina by Prof. A. W. Duff

On Insects by Wm. McIntosh On Artesian and Fissure Wells by

G. F. Matthew and S. W. Kain On Surface Geology by Geoffrey Stead

On the Land Snails by Mr. G. W. Bailey On Earthquakes by S.

W. Kain On Ichthyology and Shrews by Dr. Philip Cox On the

Recent Flora by Dr. G. U. Hay and J. Vroom.

The Bulletins are issued annually and are sold at 50c each. Some of the

earlier numbers are out of print.