1864.] GEOLOGY AND BOTANY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 91 



with vegetation, while the opposite slope, which was almost per- 

 pendicular at its base, and which reached high up the mountain 

 sides, was one dense mass of large detiched blocks of reddish 

 granite, or else the original rock from which they had been torn. 

 Oq this side of the chasm scarcely a trace of vey,etation could be 

 seen, as far as the eye cauld reach. 



The two sides of this singular defile are as strongly contrasted in 

 their mineralogical characters as in the features just described. 

 The first or lowest side is composed of a fine compact greyish 

 syenite, much weathered on the surf ice, and covered with vegeta- 

 tion ; the other is of the same material as the boulders I had al- 

 ready found farther up the river, viz.: a coarse-grained feidspathic 

 granite or granulite. There is no mica presant in it, and but lit- 

 tle hornblende. Tt is but little weathered, looking fresh and red, 

 and, as before stated, is almost destitute of vegetation. The direc- 

 tion of the defile, at the point where wa examined it, was nearly east 

 and west, but soon turned off to the northward, when it could be 

 no longer traced from where we stood. I would gladly have occu- 

 pied a longer time in its exploration, but could not well afford the 

 delay. As a point of reference for this vicinity, of which so little has 

 heretofore been known, I have ventured to call this singular range 

 the '• Feldspar Mountains" in allusion to the mineralogical charac- 

 ter of its principal rocks. The loc tlity is about fifteen miles, as near 

 as I can judge, above the Forks of the Nepisiquit River. On my 

 journey to and from the mountain I found the following plants: 

 Kalmia angiistifolia, Rlbes ruhrum^ Epllohium spicatum, Lin- 

 naea borealis, Oxalls acetosella^ and others. 



Below the Feldspar Mountains for a distance of many miles, the 

 country is high and rugged, and presents an indescribably desolate 

 appearance. As far as the eye c m see, the mountain slopes h:-we 

 been stripped of their vegetation by extensive fires, and nothing 

 but the charred trunks of decaying trees is now visible. Moun- 

 tains are seen in every direction, the principal chain pursuing a 

 course parallel to that of the river, about east and west. The latter 

 descends rapidly, gliding almost in a straight line, and without a 

 fall, down an inclined plane of three or four degrees. Boulders of 

 feidspathic and syenitic rocks are at times very numerous ; and from 

 the fact that we passed them only at intervals, according to the 

 windings of the current, T am iiiclined to think that they cross the 

 stream in regular trains, pursuing a uniform general direction, a^ 



