176 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. 



above them. To the Southward and Eastward of the Cobequids, 

 throughout Colchester, Northern Hants, and Pictou, fragments 

 from these hills, usually much rounded, are the most abundant 

 travelled boulders, showing that there has been great driftage 

 from this elevated tract. Near the town of Pictou, where a thick 

 bed of a sandy boulder deposit occurs, this is filled with large 

 masses of sandstone derived from the outcrops of the beds on 

 higher ground to the north ; but with these are groups of travel- 

 led stones often in the lower part of the mass. Near the steam 

 ferry wharf, in the town of Pictou, I observed one such group, 

 consisting of the following, all large boulders and lying close to- 

 gether — two of red syenite, six of gray granite, one of compact 

 grey felsite, one of hard conglomerate, two of hard grit. The two 

 last were probably Lower Carboniferous, the others derived from 

 the altered Silurian deposits. All may have been drifted by one 

 berg or ice-floe from the flanks of the Cobequid range of hills. In 

 like manner, the long ridge of trap rocks, extending from Cape 

 Blomidon to Briar Island, has sent off great quantities of boul- 

 ders across the sandstone valley which bounds it on the South and 

 up the slopes of the slate and granite hills to the Southward of 

 this valley. Well characterized fragments of trap from Blomi- 

 don may be seen near the town of Windsor ; and I have seen un- 

 mistakeable fragments of similar rock from Digby neck, on the 

 Tusket Biver, thirty miles from their original position. On the 

 other hand, numerous boulders of granite have been carried to the 

 Northward from the hills of Annapolis, and deposited on the slopes 

 of the opposite trappean ridge ; and some of them have been 

 carried round its Eastern end, and now lie on the shores of Lon- 

 donderry and Onslow. So also, while immense numbers of boul- 

 ders have been scattered over the South coast from the granite 

 and quartz rock ridges immediately inland, many have drifted in 

 the opposite direction, and may be found scattered over the coun- 

 ties of Antigonish, Pictou, and Colchester. These facts show 

 that the transport of travelled blocks, though it may here as in 

 other parts of America, have been principally from the Northward, 

 has by no means been exclusively so ; boulders having been car- 

 ried in various directions, and more especially from the more ele- 

 vated and rocky districts to the lower grounds in their vicinity. 

 Professor Hind has shown the existence of a similar relation be- 

 tween the boulders of New Brunswick and the hilly ranges of 

 that country. 



