No. 1.] MATTHEW — GEOLOGY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 03 



iSioating southward on the Arctic current along the Atlantic coast, 

 add the distributing power of bergs to that of glaciers. 



The degree of cold necessary to bring such an icy covering 

 down to the latitude of St. John (N.B.) does not seem more 

 improbable than the contrary amount of heat which in the pre- 

 ceding age enabled palms to flourish in New England and per- 

 haps in Acadia also. 



In an article on the Arctic and western plants of this region, 

 which I had the honour to read before you two years ago, it was 

 shewn that the mean annual summer temperature of this city was 

 nearly two degrees lower than that of Thunder Bay on the north 

 shore of Lake Superior. Undoubted indications of the former 

 existence of glaciers on the north shore of that lake were seen by 

 Prof. L. A2:assiz ; and Sir. "W. E. Lo2;an also alludes to similar 

 instances observed by him. He considers glaciers to have been one 

 of the chief agents in excavating the great lake basins.'^ If, during 

 the glacial period the isothermal lines of the continent moved 

 southward at an equal ratio in the east and west, we might readily 

 admit that glaciers existed here as well as on the great lakes of 

 the St. Lawrence basin. 



Rigid as ice under ordinary circumstances appears, it is now 

 well known that it possesses a certain amount of plasticity. 

 Rendu, Agassiz, Forbes and others, who have carefully studied 

 the Alpine glaciers, have clearly demonstrated the existence of 

 this property in glacial ice. It enables the ice to accommodate 

 itself to the inequalities of the surface on which it rests, and to 

 slide down the ravines and narrow valleys of the mountain side, 

 bearins," alouirwith it trains of boulders and loose masses of stones 

 and earth. The rate at which glaciers move is very variable, 

 being governed by the slope of their beds and the obstacles met 

 by the moving ice, but it may be roughly set down at from nine 

 inches to a yard daily for the majority of the Swiss glaciers. 

 Glacier motion is analogous to that of rivers. Where the sheet 

 of ice is broad and the slope moderate, the motion is slow, but 

 where the ice passes through narrow gorges the rate of motion is 

 accelerated. Another point of resemblance to rivers is the motion 

 acquired in passing around curves, the strength of the current 

 being thrown — both in the case of glaciers and rivers — on the 

 outside of the curve. The momentum of ice in motion causes it 



* Report of Progress, Canadian Survey, 1863, page 889. 



