284 L. W. BAILEY: GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE ST. JOHN RIVER. 






remote ages upon the present aspect of the river has probably been only an indirect one, by — 
contributing to the causes which subsequently determined the nature and direction of its 
flow. Among the effects which can with probability be referred to such early-acting causes, 
may be especially mentioned the parallel lake-like troughs which mark its southern course, — 
such as those of the Long Reach, the Belleisle and the Kennebecasis, the latter thirty miles — 
or more in length, and having in places a depth of over 200 feet. The fact that these are 
in each case excavated out of primordial strata, in valleys bordered by hard Huronian rocks, | 
and that these valleys have been deeply filled by lower-carboniferous sediments, only to be — 
again carved out to their present form and depth, bear striking testimony to the antiquity 
as well as to the varied phases of the river’s history. 
