THE CLIMATE OF ACADIA IN THE EARLIEST TIMES. 9 



from the poles reach the tropical regions.* These bottom 

 waters would convey away heat from the earth's crust imme- 

 diately beneath them, rendering it rigid and immovable, and 

 fitting it to perform the duty of a buttress to the border of 

 the continent adjoining. The resulting action would be that 

 in any movement of the crust which might occur while the 

 continental borders would rise by expansion, the adjoining 

 ocean abysses, as they became colder and more rigid, would 

 have a tendency constantly to become deeper. Thus in these 

 ocean depths there have been established rivers in the ocean 

 complementary to the surface river — the Gulf Stream and 

 other warm currents — of which Maury wrote in his work on 

 the Physical Geography of the Sea. Thus it has come about 

 that in the border lands of this continent there has been for 

 ages a fluctuation between the influence of the warm seas to 

 the southward, bringing in a tropical and shallow-water fauna, 

 and the frigid waters of these submarine rivers, carrying 

 northern species from the Arctic zone to temperate latitudes. 

 The region in which we live, at a point half way between 

 the equator and the pole, has, stowed away in its rocks, the 

 record of the prevalence at one time of warm-water faunas, 

 at another of those to which the cooler water of northern seas 

 was more congenial. But the warm-water faunas are of rare 

 occurrence compared with the cold-water faunas. 



Volcanic Outbursts in Prk-Cambrian Times. 



The dawn of the palseozoic ages was ushered in in many 

 countries by grand volcanic outbursts. Such was the case in 

 Great Britain, where vast sheets of lava and ashes are found 

 beneath (and included in) the Cambrian rocks. Such, also, 

 was the case in Norway, where the lava streams continued to 

 flow in Cambrian times. Such was the case, also, in our 

 own country, where the Carleton Heights, on one side of 



* In the ocean abyss, just eastward of the Windward Islands, in the West Indies, 

 the lower layers of water are very little above the freezing point, but westward of 

 hese islands, in the Carribean Sea, the surface temperature exceeds 80°. 



