NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 61' 



Southwest of Victoria, some forty feet higher and emptying into 

 it, lies Lake Adelaide, a shallow lake with wooded shores. The same 

 description will apply to Ormond, and both are typical of badly-drained 

 granite country. Between Adelaide and Ormond is nothing but a 

 glacial dam of morainic materials only a few yards wide ; indeed in 

 places it is hardly wide enough for the road which was once intended 

 to run over it. Yet Ormond stands about thirteen feet higher (thirteen 

 feet ten inches accoi'ding to Mahood's map) than Adelaide, and drains 

 into New River. The dike between must be composed largely of clay 

 in order to form so efficient a dam. This, however, may not be perfect, 

 for it is said that at the western end of Adelaide, some eighty feet 

 from shore, is a large " bubbling spring," and moreover, that attempts 

 made in the days of lumbering to " flood " Ormond were always 

 unsuccessful. These two facts may lie connected, and mean that there 

 is a high-water communication between the two lakes. 



From this brief account it will appear that these lakes do not differ 

 in any important character from innumerable others in the granite 

 areas of the province, and they possess no special scientific attractions. 



The Lepreau River flows from the eastern end of Lake Victoria, 

 and runs to the eastward eight miles, where it is joined by the North 

 Branch. The country slopes away rapidly in that direction, and is of 

 the roughest granite character, so that the river, in addition to its 

 considerable fall, is constantly obstructed by trains of boulders and 

 ledges which it has been unable to erode away. While it has no marked 

 falls in that interval and very few dead waters (only two or three), it 

 has innumerable rapids, particularly of the kind over and among 

 boulders. Probably no stream in the province carrying an equal 

 volume of water is so difficult for canoe navigation. It required of 

 us, at a time when the water was fairly high, two long days of the 

 severest labor, with twenty portages by actual count, all along the 

 rough bed of the river, to cover this eight miles to the North Branch. 

 The entire country has been burnt over, and so thoroughly that it can 

 bear no second growth. The very soil has been burnt and washed 

 away, and nothing shows but the bare granite boulders, with scanty 

 moss and an occasional low bush, while the great rampikes show how 

 noble a forest once clothed this land. The view from some of the low 

 hills as one looks eastward is the most desolate it is possible to imagine ;. 

 to me the Arizona deserts are less forbidding. It is said that this 

 country was burnt shortly after the Saxby gale, which levelled immense 

 quantities of timber, and this gave the fire tremendous power. It 



