No. 1.] CHALMERS — GLACIAL PHENOMENA. 37 



ON THE GLACIAL PHENOMENA OF THE BAY 



CHALEUR REGION. 



By Robert Chalmers. 

 [Read before the Natural History Society of New Brunswick, March 1st, 188L] 



The following notes contain a brief summary of the results of 

 observations made by me at intervals during the last seven years 

 on the glaciation and older drift deposits of a portion of the 

 northern section of the Province of New Brunswick. 



The area specially examined and to which my observations 

 have been for the most part confined, lies along the southern 

 side of the Bay Chaleur and estuary of the Restigouche, extend- 

 ing from the Nepisiguit river at Bathurst, westward, to the 

 junction of the Metapedia and Restigouche rivers, and is about 

 eighty miles in length following the Intercolonial railway, and 

 from five to ten miles in width southward from the coast line. 



To elucidate my remarks on the glacial phenomena of this 

 region ^I propose, before entering into details, to give a short 

 description of the most prominent physical features of the Bay 

 Chaleur and the country surrounding it, the peculiar conforma- 

 tion of which, assuming it were the same during the glacial 

 epoch as at present, seems to have influenced the ice-sheet which 

 once moved over it, in a marked degree, in producing the excep- 

 tional courses of striae which I am about to describe. 



The Bay Chaleur forms part of the northern boundary of the 

 Province, and is about ninety miles in length and fifteen to 

 twenty-five miles in width, stretching longitudinally east and 

 west, and appearing as a broad irregular belt of water, with its 

 sides roughly parallel to each other. Its general trend from the 

 western extremity to its widest part opposite Nepisiguit Bay is 

 about south 60 degrees east ; thence to its mouth, which opens into 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, its course is nearly north 60 degrees 

 east.* In its physical aspect it may be considered merely an 

 enlarged estuary of the Restigouche, Nepisiguit and other rivers 



* All the bearings and courses of stri^ given in this paper are 

 referred to the magnetic meridian, the variation of the compass being 

 about 24 degrees west. 



