106 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. vi. 



the slack'Water of the polar current which swept over the land in 

 Post-pliocene times. All the ridges near the coast which I have 

 examined have been worked over to a considerable depth, and 

 some are stratified throu"liout. On the northern side of the 

 gravel ridge, known as Pennfield Kidge, which lies on the eastern 

 margin of the gray clay district in Charlotte County, there is 

 said to be a tract covered by heavy beds of granite boulders with- 

 out any admixture of soil. 



Conclusions. — The observations upon which this paper is 

 founded are too few and imperfect to form the basis of positive 

 conclusions, but I will here summarize the results to which they 

 appear to point. 



1st. The present summer climate of a large part of Acadia is 

 such as to compare with that of the region around Lake Supe- 

 rior, where, according to Prof L. Agassiz and Sir W. E. Logan, 

 glaciers existed during the Drift period. The resemblance in 

 the climatic conditions of the two regions is shown both by their 

 mean summer temperatures and by the distribution of indigenous 

 plants, (this Journal, June, 18G9). The authority of Messrs. 

 L. Agassiz and J. D. Dana may be quoted in favour of the for- 

 mer existence of glaciers in southern New England, which enjoys 

 a summer temperature considerably higher than Acadia. 



2nd. Some of the phenomena of the drift epoch, such as the 

 direction and position of the glacial stria3, and the distribution of 

 the Boulder-clay, do not appear susceptible of explanation on the 

 hypothesis that icebergs and ocean-currents alone produced them. 

 And it seems reasonable to suppose that a great sheet of ice 

 similar to the continental glaciers of Greenland and the Ant- 

 arctic regions, which will explain these phenomena, covered the 

 Lower Provinces during the glacial epoch ; and that while the 

 general course of this mass was southward toward the then exist- 

 ing ocean, the motion of the deeply buried ice in the bottom of 

 the glacier was partly governed by the configuration of the land 

 beneath it. 



3rd. That while the western portion of this icy mass was 

 steadily moving down the Atlantic slope from the table land of 

 northern Maine, and the eastern pushing across the low swell of 

 land which separates the Gulf of St. Lawrence from the Bay of 

 Fundy, the motion of the central portion of the ice-sheet, which 

 could have had but a slight inclination, would have been impeded 

 or nearly arrested by the southern hills of New Brunswick. 



