76 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



whirl, and hiss of that vast mass of water, as it 

 surged past, told of the limitless strength of old 

 ocean, far away at Fundy's mouth, heaving and 

 pushing its way into bay and channel, b*asin and 

 cove, with woe and destruction for anything op- 

 posing its mad progress. 



Cape Split and Cape Sharp seemed monu- 

 ments to the passion and cruelty of this tide. 

 Sharp, on the northern side of the channel, rears 

 its mangled face, and tells of ages of horrid con- 

 test with tides and storms, grinding ice below, 

 and cleaving, wedging ice above. Split, on the 

 southern side, is a perpetual reminder of the 

 Micmac legends of the deeds of Glooscap. A 

 huge fragment of the palisades — cliffs which 

 reach from Blomidon seven miles along the 

 Minas Channel to Split — appears at a distance 

 to have broken from the projecting end of the 

 cape, and to lean outward over the bay, its sharp 

 sides rising to a toothlike point. A broad sec- 

 tion of cliff next to it is also separated from the 

 mass of the palisades by a deep cleft. The Mic- 

 mac story runs that Glooscap, angry with the 

 monster beaver for building a dam from Blomi- 

 don across the Minas Channel, freed the end of 

 the dam on the northern or Parrsboro shore, so 

 that the released waters, rushing towards Fundy, 

 swung the dam round violently, thus forming the 

 palisades, and leaving the broken end showing 

 at Cape Split. 



