444 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vii. 



of south. In this they correspond to the gravel ridges of the 

 lower part of the Penobscot valley. Now these fiord-like har- 

 bours and the lake basins cannot have been made by glaciers ; 

 for in the report quoted^^ there is a record of twenty or more 

 courses of glacial striae, in Penobscot, Waldo, Knox, Lincoln, 

 Kennebec, Sagadahoc and Cumberland counties, which run, on 

 the average, S. 30*^ E. They therefore crossed these harbours 

 and lakes at right angles. But if it be admitted that these 

 hollows were produced, as were similar troughs on the New 

 Brunswick coast, by the scouring action of the polar current, 

 there is reason to suppose that even as far west as Portland this 

 current was compelled to seek a passage tropic-ward, in a less 

 westerly direction than it would have done, had no barrier been 

 interposed. This obstacle to its flow was probably the White 

 Mountains and connected ridges to the northward of that group 

 of hills. 



Typical Localities of Syrtensian Ridges in Southern New 



Brunswich. 



To shew the varied influence of the current in the south- 

 western part of New Brunswick, I add here a brief description 

 of some easily accessible localities near the coast. 



Digdeguash River. — On the northern side of the range of hills 

 through which this stream winds its way before entering the 

 sea, there is a valley about two miles wide and seven long, 

 across which runs, in an oblique line, a series of gravel mounds 

 and ridges. They begin in a bank of gravel of the Lee-shoal 

 type, cast down behind the western entrance of the basin on its 

 northern side, near Falls Brook. To this bank succeed a num- 

 ber of mounds of the form known as " giant's graves," one of 

 which is now used as a grave-yard for the church in St. Patrick's 

 parish. These mounds extend along the flat bottom of the valley, 

 in the direction of a large gravel ridge of a rhombic form lying 

 in the middle of the valley. At the mound below that on which 

 the tombstones are seen, and at the large rhombic mound, there 

 are gravel pits in which the Leda-clay beds which fill the bottom 

 of the valley may be seen, rising up on the lower slopes of the 

 gravel ridges. On the flat top of the rhombic mound are two 

 depressions, lined with a clayey soil : of these the more easterly 



* Sixth Keport on Agriculture, &c., of Maine, p. 260 ; and Second 

 Report on Natural History and G-eology of Maine, p. 378. 



