MARSH AND LAKE REGION* AT HEAD OF CHIGNECTO BAY. 99 



as before explained. These lakes and ponds may have been many times 

 drained by the water breaking out in a weaker place. The same thing 

 now takes place in draining the lakes. After the tide has entered, 

 unless the self-erected barrier is dug through, the receding tide, swelled 

 by the fresh water coming down will break out of the lake at some 

 weaker point, and find its way to the river by the path that offers 

 least resistance. 



A lake basin once strongly formed would be made stronger by 

 each tide. As the moss gradually settled the barrier would become 

 higher and the lake deeper. One would expect a heavy flow of fresh 

 water to keep the barrier worn down, therefore the largest lakes 

 should be where there is the least flow of fresh water. This is just 

 what is found. Sunken Island, one of the largest lakes, has no stream 

 of any size flowing into it. At the head of Morice's Mill Pond, Sack- 

 ville, before the dam was put in, there was a small lake reaching from 

 W. W. Fawcett's to the mouth of Beech Hill Stream. Mud extends 

 all over the pond bottom and up the stream to the foot of Beech Hill. 

 The lake is dammed off with marsh mud. The history is evident. 

 The mud has shut off the lake as before described, and the rush of 

 fresh water down Beech Hill Stream has kept the stream open below. 

 When the subsidence of the marsh areas become almost nil the lauds 

 that had kept their drainage open in course of time became covered 

 with salt grasses. The growth of these grasses had been largely 

 checked by the salt water, while the marsh was settling. Now only 

 the highest tides would cover the drained marsh, and the lakes would 

 be practically freed from any incursions of salt water. Moss then 

 sprang up around these fresh water lakes. Year after year this moss 

 reached out and grew higher. Most of these moss plants are of the 

 genus Sphagnum, and growing one upon another they kept above the 

 level of the water, and grew out over it. This moss was always full 

 of water and exposed such a breadth of surface to the air that the 

 greater part of the water was carried off by evaporation. The moss 

 itself, at least in the older lakes, formed an additional barrier against 

 the tide. In digging the Floating Canal many trees of small size were 

 found buried in the moss. When once started the moss grows over a 

 lake very rapidly. Many of the lakes on the Tantramar have become 

 markedly smaller in the memory of men now living. 



Sunken Island is a great lake overgrown with moss, and in this - 

 moss are heaths, etc., and stunted trees. Many of these trees are 

 from 15 to 25 feet high, 10 inches in diameter, and show 60 or more 



