114 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



represented at the Joggins, together with their very sparing occurrence 

 to the westward on the New Brunswick shore, and entire absence on that 

 of Nova Scotia, would seem to indicate either that the conditions for 

 their accumulation were here less favourable, or that, if ever deposited, 

 they have been removed by denudation. Prof. Dana seems to have 

 regarded the coal-making swamps of the Gulf of St. Lawrence as having 

 been connected, through the Bay of Fundy, with those of Massachusetts 

 and Ehode Island ; but the facts stated above seem rather to favour the 

 idea that a barrier of some kind existed between the two. 



As regards the rocks of the Jura-Trias there is no reason to doubt 

 that the generally accepted view which would make them of estuary 

 origin, and as having been laid down under conditions similar to those of 

 the Connecticut valley, are correct. It is, however, worth noticing that 

 the igneous rocks which here, as elsewhere, form so conspicuous a feature 

 in connection with these beds are wholly confined to the Bay of Fundy 

 depression, being found on both sides of the latter as well as in the island 

 of Grand Manan, but nowhere at a distance from the present limits of the 

 bay. The strata are also faulted in the direction of the axis of the bay. 



Of later Mesozoic rocks nothing definite is known, and hence data 

 are wanting from which conclusions can be drawn, except so far as these 

 are atforded by regions outside the limits of the area now under discus- 

 sion. It has, indeed, been ascertained that a portion, and probably a con- 

 siderable portion, of the strata of the Annapolis valley, which it has been 

 usual to regard as altogether older than the traps of the North Moun- 

 tains, contain in places large embedded blocks of such trap, and hence 

 that these strata, if not contemporaneous with, are moi-e recent than the 

 latter, but no fossils have yet been found by which their real age can be 

 determined, and no satisfactory conclusions with regard to them are as 

 3'et possible. 



It only remains to consider briefly the possible condition of the Bay 

 of Fundy trough in the Quaternary era. 



As to the Glacial or Drift Period, the question here, as elsewhere, 

 involves a decision between the rival theoiies which would, on the one 

 hand, presuppose a general upward continental movement, with a corre- 

 sponding enlargement, both in extent and de])th, of the polar ice-cap, and 

 the consequences incident thereto, and, on the otiier, would advocate a 

 depression rather than elevation in the higher latitudes, with local glaci- 

 ation only and a much wider distribution of ice-laden currents. In the 

 one case the Bay of Fundy would be practically annihilated by an eleva- 

 tion of both its bed and borders, as well as by the filling of the former 

 by ice; in the other view, though retaining its general position and form, 

 the bay would have somewhat wider limits, and, as in some earlier periods, 

 would become a strait opening freely into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, leav- 

 ing Nova Scotia disconnected with the main land. The glacial pheno- 

 mena of the latter would thus be almost wholly local. 



