Vegetation of Northern Cape Breton. 269 



Pleasant Bay, there are sea bluffs, more than fifty feet high, com- 

 posed entirely of glacial drift, while in some of the brook valleys, 

 e. g., in that of Power Brook, there are accumulations of drift 

 fully as deep. Glacial striae have been observed in several 

 localities (Fletcher '85, p. 77H), but, owing to the rapidity with 

 which most of the rocks crumble when exposed to the weather, 

 such evidences of glaciation are rare. 



The distribution of roads and settlements in northern Cape 

 Breton has been determined largely by the character of the 

 topography and of the soil. Along the east coast a road follows 

 the shore from St. Ann's Bay to Cape North, with branches 

 extending inland a short distance wherever intervales occur. 

 From the head of the Big Intervale at Aspy Bay (Fig. 7), a 

 rough trail crosses the plateau to Pleasant Bay, and leads thence 

 southward over the mountains toward the mouth of the Cheti- 

 camp River, where, in conformity with the better character of 

 the country, roads are again encountered. The southwestern 

 part of the area mapped affords excellent farming and is well 

 populated, but elsewhere the farms, for the most part, are con- 

 fined to the intervales and to the low coastal strip. The agricul- 

 tural possibilities of many of the tracts which have been brought 

 under cultivation would scarcely have been appreciated by any 

 save the Scotch Highlanders, whose descendants constitute the 

 larger proportion of the population of the country. At several 

 points along the coast, as at Cheticamp and Neil's Harbor, 

 the fishing industry supports considerable communities. The 

 mountainous interior of northern Cape Breton is a wilderness, 

 uninhabited and roadless, difficult to travel and little known, 

 seldom visited except by trappers and hunters. 



V. CLIMATE 



In Table I are given the average temperature and precipita- 

 tion records for twenty years at Sidney.^ Although there are 

 known to be certain discrepancies, in a general way these figures 

 doubtless represent the meteorological conditions in northern Cape 

 Breton. For purposes of comparison, climatic data for various 



^ Part of the climatic data here given has been supplied by Director R. F. 

 Stupart of the Canadian Meteorological Service. The remainder has been 

 secured from various sources. 



