No. 8.] MATTHEAV — GEOLOGY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 443 



ing across a somewhat sunken tract, which has been sheltered from 

 the rush of ocean waters down the Maga'davic valley by the gran- 

 ite hills enclosing the upper end of the lake. On each side of 

 this knot of hills, but especially to the east, gravel slopes and 

 flats have been carried out by the polar current running through 

 the Maga'davic valley, in such a way as to indicate that the S.W. 

 set of the current in the Bay of Fundy was overpowered in this 

 neighborhood by the S. E. current coming through the hills to 

 the North. A similar change in the direction of the current 

 would seem to have taken place at Saint John, for while the 

 course of the later gravel ridges west of that city (at South Bay) 

 is S. 25° W. the older ones point S. 50^ W. 



This forcing of the current across the Southern Hills of New 

 Brunswick in the latter part of the Syrtensian epoch may have 

 been due to the rise of a submarine barrier at the head of the 

 Bay of Fundy, then a broad strait, diminishing the power of the 

 current running through that passage. Or it may have been occa- 

 sioned by elevation of the sea-bottom of that period along some 

 meridian west of the Penobscot River in Maine. From Prof. C. 

 H. Hitchcock's report on the Geology of Maine it appears that 

 a N. to S. course marks the gravel ridges in the valley of that river 

 and in the southern part of Aroostook county. In the lower 

 part of the Penobscot valley the ridges tend slightly to the west, 

 conforming to the course of the valley ; and I infer from the di- 

 rection of the roads and streams in Washington-county, that the 

 courses of such ridges there approximate to the S. E. course of 

 similar gravel banks and ridges on our own side of the border. 

 There was thus a convergence of the waters of the Polar current 

 (as marked by the Syrtensian ridges) from the centre and west- 

 ern part of New Brunswick toward the mouth of the Bay of 

 Fundy ; and apparently a fan-like spreading of the same waters 

 over the high wilderness tract extending through Hancock county, 

 Maine, to Mt. Desert. It may therefore be inferred that as far 

 West as the Penobscot valley this current was turned out of its 

 natural S. W. course and compelled to go S. or S. E. 



From other data, collected by Prof. Hitchcock in Maine, it 

 would appear that this barrier was still further west — beyond the 

 valley of the Kennebec Kiver. For it will be observed that the 

 axes of the lake basins and harbours in the maritime tract 

 between these two rivers (the Penobscot and Kennebec) and as 

 far as Portland, have a diiection not far from 20 degrees west 



