1869.] MATTHEW — ON PLANTS IN ACADIA. 149 



In table 1 it will be seen that the valley of Cornwallis, in Nova 

 Scotia, has a summer mean of 65 deg. ; and it is probable that a 

 large area in the interior of Continental Acadia will be found to 

 have, at that period, a temperature equally high. At Fredericton 

 '• 90 deg. in the shade" is not rare, and at Woodstock the mercury 

 is said to rise to 100 deg. Fah't. 



In default of any meteorological tables shewing the climatic 

 changes of the interior of Acadia, I have been somewhat prolix 

 in thus enlarging on the S. W. winds, in order to give some idea 

 of the varying influence which this important agent exercises 

 over the growth of plants. 



Of soils, Continental Acadia possesses a great variety, which 

 have a proportionate influence with the causes already noted 

 upon the range of plants within its borders. 



The Highlands, both North and South, being mainly made up 

 of metamorphic rocks, which are comparatively impervious to 

 water, the drainage of the soil upon them is thereby much 

 impeded. Hence, it happens that, notwithstanding the hilliness 

 of these districts, there are, especially in the southern hills, 

 numerous peat-bogs, interspersed with bare rocky tracts known as 

 " barrens." These barrens extend for many miles along the 

 coast of the Bay of Fundy, where granite and hard metamorphic 

 rocks prevail, and where the natural drainage is imperfect, and 

 the soil scanty and unproductive. The drier portions are covered 

 with a profusion of ericaceous shrubs, &c., such as blue-berries 

 (Vaccmium Pennsi/lvanicum) , Labrador Tea (Ledum lati/oUum), 

 Leather Leaf (Cassandra calycnlata), Sheep Laurel (Kalmia 

 angustifoUa), Rhodora Canadensis, &c. In the swamps, and on 

 mossy slopes, knee-deep with sphagnum, grow the Sweet Gale 

 (Mp'ica Gale), Marsh Rosemary (^Andromeda polifolia), Cran-^ 

 berries (Vaccinium oxycoceus), &c. The larger depressions are 

 occupied by peat bogs, or lakes and ponds, with which such 

 tracts are often studded. There is a striking resemblance in the 

 aspect of these barrens, dotted as they are with numerous little 

 sheets of water, and interspersed with belts and clumps of ever- 

 green trees, to the open tracts in Newfoundland, so graphically 

 described in your late Vice-President's paper on that island, and 

 to the Laurentian region of Canada. 



The arable lands along this coast are chiefly clay flats, usually 

 covered with terraced beds of sand. The soil on the ridges is 

 mostly gravelly, and here the forest growth is of Black and Yellow 



