NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF N. B. 125 



writings, and are sometimes taken to indicate the existence of early- 

 settlements. From the above it would seem possible that such pave- 

 ments may sometimes be of purely natural origin, especially when on 

 river banks and underlaid by yielding bottoms. 



10. — On Attempts at Oyster Culture in Passamaquoddy Bay. 



(Read November 1st, 1898.) 



The distribution of the oyster in New Brunswick waters is peculiar. 

 Along with several other distinctively southern molluscs, it is found 

 abundantly upon our north coast, but not at all upon our southern 

 shore, which is occupied entirely by sub-arctic forms. The causes of 

 this seemingly anomalous condition are in the main well known, and 

 are discussed fully in a paper in the Transactions of the Royal Society 

 of Canada, vol. viii., section iv., page 167, and by Upham in American 

 Journal of Science, third series, vol. xliii., page 203. The evidence 

 seems to show that the oyster did once live all along the coast from 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence to south of Cape Cod, and hence also in the 

 Bay of Fundy, but that it has been exterminated in the latter by the 

 entrance of cold currents allowed by geological changes of the coast 

 line. Hence upon theoretical grounds, any attempts to artificially 

 grow oysters in Bay of Fundy waters may be expected to fail. I have 

 been told that many years ago live oysters were placed in Oak Bay, a 

 branch of Passamaquoddy Bay, but they did not live. Possibly, 

 however, it was in this way the southern starfish Asterias Forbesii, 

 was introduced into the Bay (noted in the Bulletin of this Society, 

 No. IX., page 54), though it may be a relic of the former southern 

 colony. In the fall of 1896, Mr. G. W. Ganong, M. P., placed in one 

 or two fathoms of water on a good beach, near his cottage on the 

 south side of Oak Bay, some seven or eight barrels of dead oyster 

 shells and two barrels of live oysters from the Gulf of St. Lawrence* 

 In 1897 some of the oysters were washed ashore attached to kelp, and 

 were still alive, showing they had survived the winter. In 1898, 

 however, none of those thus washed ashore were alive, though the 

 attachment of the two valves to one another, and the fresh condition 

 of the hinge, showed that some of the shells were those of oysters 

 placed in the water alive. In September, I dredged several times 

 over the place, but brought up only dead shells, though some of them 



