ON THE COAST OF MAINE. 329 



considerable deposits of clay, extending to rather over one hundred feet above the low 

 water mark. The stratification of the clay is quite evident, and affords the most unques- 

 tionable proof of subsidence. It is obviously difficult to reconcile the ideas of a coast 

 covered with ice about Eastport, but l)econiing more and more freed as we pass to the 

 northward towards Calais. Such irregularities seem, however, to exist in the region where 

 similar con<litions continue to the present day, as upon the shores of Greenland and Spitz- 

 bergen ; the ice attaining the sea at parts of the shore, and leaving great stretches quite 

 uncovered. There is something in the arrangement of the interior country along this shore 

 which may have affected the peculiar distribution of the ice. The considerable chain of 

 lakes lying to the north of Eastport marks a valley which develops on that part of the shore, 

 and may have guided a great mass of ice from the interior to the coast, in such a fashion as 

 to sweep the shore from Machias to Eastport, while leavhig the west coast of Passama- 

 quoddy Bay quite inicovered, and free to receive the sediment of the sea during the time 

 of depression. 



Near Calais there are some, though rather fliint, traces of local moraines. It is highly 

 probable that during the closing stages of the ice time this valley, from Calais north, had its 

 local glacier. For some miles above Calais the clays keep their place in the river valley, 

 but of their development in this direction I have no information. From Calais to McAdam 

 Junction, and thence to Bangor, the view of the drift phenomena was hastily gained from 

 the railway train. The following observations on the distribution of the erratic materials 

 along this route may not be without value. 



The underlying rock in the section between Calais and McAdam, has been planed down 

 until there are only slight reliefs derived from the bed rock. The amount of ice action 

 indicated in this section seems greater than that of any part of the coast of Maine, and is 

 owing to the fact that the materials composing the Ijed rock are of far more imiform hard- 

 ness. It is probable that the vast accumulations of the St. Lawrence basin, which have forced 

 their way in part to the east and southeast, forming with their deljris the great masses of the 

 Banks of Newfoundland, did not give complete relief to this ice sheet ; a part found its way 

 over the low barrier at the head of the Bay of Fundy, and swept its shores with a stronger 

 ice stream than that which worked on the coast of Maine. The secondary ice period was 

 sufficiently strong in this section to give us moraine matter almost as al)undant as the great 

 ice time in Massachusetts. For the first ten miles from the sea there are extensive clay 

 beds. After that we come upon ordinary boulder drift. The distribution of this deljris is 

 quite unlike that in the regions to the southward. Over the whole surface is a rather thin 

 sheet of pebbles, somewhat affected by water action at various points ; strongly marked 

 moraines, extending in an east and west direction, show the action of the reti-eating ice. 

 This structure is best seen near Barlow's Mills, where the ridges seem quite contintious, 

 having a height of about fifty feet, a horizontal section of three hundred feet or more. 

 The intervals between several of these ridges was not over some hun<lreds of yards. 



From McAdam to the Saint Croix, the surface slopes gently downward, with only slight 

 indications of local moraines. The valley of the St. Croix has a singular want of bounda- 

 ries. At the point where the railroad ci'osses there is scarcely a trace of containing walls. 

 The stream evidently has a fair amoimt of cutting power, and has been at work since an 

 early geological time, so that we must suppose that it has Ijeen able to excavate the usual 

 amoimt of matei-ial in forming its valle}'. We can best account for the present want of 



MliMOTKS EOST. SOC. NAT. HIST, VOL. 11. 83 



