No. 6.] MATTHEW — TIDAL EROSION. . 373 





at the bottom of this remarkable arm of the Atlantic, and durin 

 all these years has been spreading its spoil of muddy sediment 

 over the flats and marshes at its head; millions of tons of mud 

 have been thus deposited since these flats began to grow, and it 

 is said that there are now 80.000 acres of marsh-land at the head 

 of the Bay of Fundy produced by this agency.^ 



The growth of these marshes has become possible owing to the 

 slow but steady and continuous sinking of the land in the Bay 

 of Fundy area. Those of Annapolis, Minas and Cumberland 

 Basins along the Nova Scotian shore conceal the buried remains 

 of hardwood and softwood trees. The trunks of these trees have 

 fallen among stumps whose roots are still buried in the soil in 

 which they grew, and are now covered with a great thickness of 

 marsh mud. Although this land surface was once above the 

 sea, the tide now rises over it to the height in some places of 40 

 feet. Similar indications of the sinking of the land are found on 

 the New Brunswick side. In sheltered coves amonsr the islands 

 of Charlotte County, there are places where peat bogs may be 

 seen to extend below low water mark (the rine of tides being 25 

 feet) and Dr. Abraham Gesner in his report on the Geology of 

 New Brunswick (1840-43), mentions the fact that the anchors of 

 vessels were sometimes caught in the buried stumps at the bottom 

 of one of the harbours of Grand Manan. Another indication of 

 depression of the land is obtained from the existence of a sub- 

 merged channel of the Saint John River, outside of Partridge 

 Island at the entrance of St. John Harbour. While these facts 

 shew that a depression has occurred the condition of certain de- 

 posits within the coves near the mouth of the St. John, proves 

 that the slaking of the land was slow and continuous, admitting 

 of the accumulation between tide marks of the sediment carried 

 in suspension by the agitated waters of the Bay. In these 

 marshes and the extensive mud-flats connected with them is to 

 be sought the place of deposit for much of the mud and fine sand 

 of which the sea- bottom in most of the deeper parts of the Bay 

 of Fundy is found to be deficient. 



* P. S. Haliburton. Proceed. N. Scotian Inst. Nat. Sci. Vol. 2, Part 1. 



