4 Elevation and Subsidence, 



It has lately been ascertained,that one end of the Island of Newfoundland is 

 rising while the other is sinking. In the eastern tropics, Ceylon and all the 

 islands east of it, such as Sumatra, Borneo, the Phillipine Islands and others, 

 are rising — the Maldiva Isles are sinking down, and the eastern coast of 

 Africa with Madagascar are rising, but Australia is going down with her 

 fields of Gold, and in course of time will wholly disappear. 



With such facts in our possession we are forced to admit that elevation 

 and subsidence of land as conjectured by Aristotle and Strabo, are no 

 longer to be regarded as mere fanciful suppositions, but part of the actual 

 and ordinary operations of Nature, and we have only to extend it over large 

 continents, such as America or Asia, to understand how sea-shells may be 

 found, in places far inland, or upon the highest table lands. Thus, if North 

 America should sink 500 feet, nearly all Canada would be submerged. The 

 waves of the Atlantic would then beat against the Queenston Heights, near 

 the Niagara Falls. The precipice beneath Brock's Monument, and the 

 high land which runs thence in the direction of Hamilton, would form a sea 

 coast of no very great elevation. A subsidence of 1000 feet would only leave 

 a few small rocky Islands, to mark the place of this Province, while at the 

 depth of 2000 feet nearly all that portion of North America at present in- 

 habited would disappear. Were it to remain thus submerged for several 

 centuries, and then slowly rise up and become dry land, we should expect to 

 find it covered with all kinds of those oceanic products, the occurrence of 

 which upon land, so long remained an unexplained phenomenon to the great- 

 er portion of mankind. 



We have abundant proof that Canada was entirely covered by the ocean, 

 at a time comparatively recent. At Beauport near Quebec, there are situa- 

 ted between 100 and 300 feet above the level of the sea, great banks of sea 

 shells of the same species as those now living in the ocean. Throughout the 

 level country, on both sides of the St. Lawrence above Quebec, the same 

 shells are found in many places in greater or less abundance. They may be 

 seen in the deep cutting of the Eailway, at Prescott, and have been jiloughed 

 up on the farms in almost every township between the St. Lawrence and 

 the Ottawa rivers. In the Township of Gloucester many perfect skeletons of 

 the "Capelan" and "Lump-sucker" fish, now existing in the Atlantic, together 

 with numerous shells have been found imbedded in small nodules of indura- 

 ted clay. Near the top of the mountain of Montreal, there is a bed of the 

 same shells. In Vermont, near the Province Line, in the same deposit, the 

 skeleton of a small whale was discovered a few years since, and everywhere 

 the water-worn pebbles, beds of stratified sand, and other evidences of the 

 sea may be detected upon the slightest observation. This deposit of sea- 

 shells, sand, gravel and boulders which covers Canada, and constitutes the 

 loose soil of the country, can be shown to have drifted down from the north, 

 And is therefore called by Geologists, the northern or glacial drift. In a 

 .•fiiture number, we shall give it a more extended examination. It prove* 

 that Canada does not rest upon a very secure foundation, but may at anj 

 ■Jime as it has in days past, go down bodily beneath the waves of the sea. 

 5Jte .organic remains of thia deposit, are all, perhaps with one exceptaoo. 



