446 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vil. 



side of I'Etang River arc the striae (No, 30 of the table), run- 

 ning S. 60^ E. and S. 80° E. : the course of the striae and 

 ridges therefore diverge at this place as much as 120 degrees. 



CarJeton and Lancaster. — The entire independence of the 

 force which produced the striae, and that to which the gravel 

 ridges owe their origin, is also to be inferred from the relation 

 of the striae and ridges west of the city of Saint John. Carleton 

 Heights, with the hills along the Narrows and Falls of the 

 Saint John River, formed a lee, behind which several gravel 

 ridges, more or less connected with each other, have been piled 

 up. West of the Heights back of Carleton, a lee-shoal, much 

 worked over by the sea, extends S. 25^ W., and is slightly 

 overlapped by a small weather-shoal jutting out from a lower 

 hill beyond. Sandy flats back of Sand Cove separate this hill 

 from another weather-shoal, which rises gradually to cover the 

 rounded ridge terminating at Sheldon Point. The western end 

 of this ridge shews a well-defined lee shoal cut across obliquely 

 by the sea, and exhibiting one of the most instructive sections 

 of the surface deposits to be seen near Saint John. Toward 

 Sheldon point the Boulder clay may be seen resting on striated 

 ledges of Huronian rock ; and succeeding the clay westward, are 

 beds of boulders and gravel, shewing by their overlapping layers 

 the action of a westward moving current. The swelling outline 

 of the bank is seen to be due to the thickening of the layers on 

 the axis of the old shoal, and the whole is covered by beds of 

 Leda-clay with characteristic fossils. 



These various gravel banks are parts of a series exteoding 

 along the seashore west of St. John Harbour, and are separated 

 from a more continuous and higher ridge to the North, by a 

 valley filled with Leda-clay and salt-marsh accumulations. The 

 upper part of this higher ridge which has been cut down to a 

 nearly uniform level by the action of the sea, exhibits along its 

 eastward face a distinct raised beach extending for many miles to 

 the westward of Saint John. At two points where the ridge has 

 been cut into in making excavations, the changes which it has 

 undergone may be easily perceived. Originally there was a 

 series of rounded ridges, not unlike those of the southern series 

 along the shore as they now appear, but containing proportion- 

 ately a much larger share of detrital matter, due to a greater re- 

 tardation of the current caused by the group of gneissic hills 

 north of Saint John and about the Narrows of the river, than 



