9S THE CANADIAN NATTTRALIST. [Vol. vl. 



metamorphic and granitic rocks occur. These sheets of water 

 are usually to be found along the course of limestone bands, or at 

 the junction of gneissic and granitic rocks with the softer Palaeo- 

 zoic strata. The rapidity with which hard limestone beds will 

 waste away, even when covered by soil, is well exemplified at the 

 manganese mine at Markhamville, King's County, N.B. At this 

 place beds of gravelly earth, varying from three to eight feet in 

 depth, have been removed from the limestone ledges in which the 

 ore occurs, in the process of mining. The rock thus exposed 

 slopes to the northward, and in its rounded outlines gives evidences 

 of glacial erosion. In places it is filled with pockets of the ore, 

 which being softer than the enclosing rock, must have been planed 

 off to a level with the limestone during the glacial period ; yet 

 they now stand out above the surface of the ledge to a height of 

 from eight to ten inches. From this it would appear that the 

 surface of the limestone bed has wasted away to a depth equal to 

 the height of these bosses of manganese, since the drift epoch. 



Drift Stri^. — In common with New England, Quebec and 

 Ontario, the rock surfaces in New Brunswick are in most places 

 covered with numerous parallel grooves. In the valley of the St. 

 Lawrence these furrows have a general south-westerly course, and 

 in New England tend to the south-east. The latter course is 

 maintained along the Maine border in New Brunswick, but in 

 the central and eastern part of the Province the stride run nearly 

 due south. The easterly tendency of the glacial grooves along 

 the Atlantic coast seems to be owing to the general slope of the 

 country from the summit of the Appalachian chain to the deep- 

 water maro-in of the continent. The Gulf of St. Lawrence and 

 the New Brunswick coal-field forming an extensive plain at the 

 eastern end of this slope, appear to have governed the course of 

 the strias in the central and eastern part of the province named, 

 giving them a more direct southerly course. As far east as the 

 river Magaguadavic the descent from the table-land of northern 

 Maine towards the Bay of Fundy is comparatively regular, 

 being interrupted only by a group of hills around the Chepetne-^ 

 ticook Lakes on the river St. Croix, but eastward of this stream, 

 in the southern part of the province, inequalities of the surface 

 cause great variations in the course of the striae. These varia* 

 tions seem to have been influenced by the contour of three dis^ 

 tricts in the Southern counties. 1st. The tract occupied by the 

 group of granite hills extending from the Magaguadavic river to 



