CHAP. XXV. GEOLOGICAL FEATURES OF AXTICOSTI. 79 



largest, probably, in Canada — is about fifteen feet above 

 the ocean. An immense quantity of squared timber and 

 logs, ready cut for the saw-mill, are scattered over the 

 south coast, having drifted down the rivers of the main- 

 land, and particularly of the St. Lawrence. Some of the 

 squared timber may have come from wrecks.' 



Mr. Eichardson calculated that if the whole of the 

 losjs scattered alono; the south shore of the island were 

 placed end to end, they would reach 140 miles, and 

 give about one miUion cubic feet of timber. He 

 concludes his report on this island with the following 

 paragraphs : — 



The strata of Anticosti, being nearly horizontal, cannot fail to 

 give to the surface of the country a shape in some degree con- 

 forming to them. The surface will be nearly a level plain, with 

 only such modifications as are derived from the deeper wearing, 

 in a longitudinal direction, of some of the softer beds ; producing 

 escarpments of no great elevation, with gentle slopes from their 

 summits, in a direction facing the sun, that will scarcely be 

 perceptible. The easily disintegrating character of the rocks 

 forming the subsoil can scarcely fail to have permitted a great 

 admixture of their ruins with whatever drift may have been 

 brought to constitute a soil ; and it is reasonable to suppose 

 that the mineral character of these argillaceous limestones 

 must have given to those ruins a fertile character. It is pre- 

 cisely on such rocks, in such a condition, and with such an 

 altitude, that the best soils of the western peninsula of Canada 

 West are placed, as well as of the Grenesee county in the State of 

 New York. I have seen nothing in the actual soil as it exists 

 to induce me to suppose that, in so far as soil is considered, 

 Anticosti will be anything inferior to those regions ; and con- 

 siderations of climate only can induce the opinion that it 

 would in any way be inferior to them in agricultural capabilities. 



The three months that I was on the island were altogether 

 too short a time to enable me to form any opinion upon 



