44 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. X. 



surface above the level of high tide in the Bay Chaleur, eighteen 

 feet. Hence fully seventy-five feet in thickness of this mass of 

 drift, including the whole depth of the "stiff sandy blue clay " 

 and its underlying sands and clays lies below the level of the sea. 



Stratified clays holding marine fossils appear to overlie the 

 series just described on the north side behind the " Club House," 

 attaining a height of fifty-five feet above the river, and these, in 

 turn, are overlain by fine sand and gravel to a thickness of fifteen 

 to twenty feet ; but nothing like true till appears here. 



I am without information as to whether boulders or fossil 

 shells were found in the '' stiff sandy blue clay " of this group of 

 deposits when the borings were made, and its origin and relation 

 to the later beds are therefore uncertain. If we suppose it to be 

 stratified clay (Leda clay) then we would have to admit that a 

 marine deposit upwards of 100 feet in thickness was formed 

 here, thirty miles above the river's mouth, where the Restigouche 

 is not more than 500 to 600 yards wide. This would occur too 

 at a time when the hills on both sides would be some hundreds 

 of feet above the sea ; for even at the period of greatest sub- 

 sidence in the Post-Pliocene epoch they must have reared their 

 summits high above the waters which occupied the valley. I can 

 therefore hardly imagine a bed of this kind, of such a depth, 

 being deposited here under these conditions, more especially as 

 the stratified marine clays of other localities in the Bay Chaleur 

 region, so far as observed, are comparatively thin. Further, this 

 *' blue clay " and underlying deposits evidently occupy a rock- 

 basin or trough in this part of the Restigouche valley ; for 

 borings made across the river's bed at Campbellton, thirteen 

 miles further down, revealed the fact that the rock-surface there 

 is not more than twenty-five to thirty feet below tide level. 

 From these and other considerations, I lean to the opinion 

 that the deposit referred to, or at least a portion of it (for, per- 

 haps its characteristics and exact position were not noted very 

 accurately) may be "till," and that it is probably the ground- 

 moraine of the ice-sheet filling a hollow at the junction of the 

 Metapedia and Restigouche rivers, and resting on the pre-glacial 

 river sands and mud. Additional details regarding these beds 

 will be given, however, when I come to treat of the later surface 

 deposits of the district. 



The " till " is found in the river's bank, east of Campbellton 

 village, having a thickness of thirty feet above tide level, and 



