172 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. 



Striae were seen only in one place on the North-eastern coast 

 and at another on the South-western. In the former case their 

 direction was nearly S.W. and N.E. In the latter it was S. 70° E. 



No mariilie remains were observed in the Boulder-clay ; but at 

 Campbellton, above the Boulder-clay already mentioned, there is 

 a limited area occupied with beds of stratified sand and gravel, at 

 an elevation of about fifty feet above the sea, and in one of the 

 beds there are shells of Tellina Grcenlandica. 



On the surface of the country, more especially in the western 

 part of the island, there are numerous travelled boulders, sometimes 

 of considerable size. As these do not appear in situ in the Boul- 

 der-clay, they may be supposed to belong to a second or newer 

 boulder drift similar to that which we shall find to be connected 

 with the Saxicava sand in Canada. These boulders being of rocks 

 foreign to Prince Edward Island, the question of their source be- 

 comes an interesting one. With reference to this, it may be stated 

 in general terms, that the majority are Granite, Syenite, Diorite, 

 Felsite. Porphyry, Quartzite and coarse slates, all identical in 

 mineral character with those which occur in the metamorphic 

 districts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, at distances of 

 from 50 to 200 miles to the South and South-west; though some 

 of them may have been derived from Cape Breton on the East. 

 It is further to be observed that these boulders are most abun- 

 dant and the evidences of denudation of the Trias greatest in that 

 part of the Island which is opposite the deep break between the 

 hills of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, occupied by the Bay 

 of Fundy, Chiegnecto Bay and the low country extending thence 

 to Northumberland Strait, an evidence that this boulder drift 

 was connected with currents of water passing up this depression 

 from the South or South-west. 



Besides these boulders, however, there are others of a different 

 character ; such as Gneiss, Hornblende schist, Anorthosite and La- 

 bradorite rock, which must have been derived from the Laurentian 

 rocks of Labrador and Canada, distant 250 miles or more, to the 

 Northward. These Laurentian rocks are chiefly found on the 

 North side of the island, as if at the time of their arrival 

 the island formed a shoal, at the North side of which the ice 

 carrying the boulders grounded and melted away. With re- 

 ference to these boulders, it is to be observed that a depression 

 of four or five hundred feet would open a clear passage 

 for the arctic current entering the Straits of Belle Isle, to- 



