[bailey] the bay of FUNDY TROUGH 115 



While the subject is too lengthy for full discussion here, the present 

 writer feels compelled to express his dissent from the views lately put 

 forth upon this subject by Mr. Chalmers, of the Geological Survey, as 

 favouring the second of the two hypotheses refem-ed to. While fully 

 admitting the facts brought forward by that gentleman in support of his 

 conclusions, the writer believes that these have all to do with the closing 

 portion of the Glacial Period, and that a far greater array of facts in 

 favour of a previous condition of general or continental glaciation can 

 easily be brought forward. Thus, the vast numbers and the enormous 

 size of the granite and Cambrian boulders strewed over the whole penin- 

 sula and upon its highest summits ; the fact that here, as elsewhere, the 

 chief movement of the boulders has been in a southerly direction ; that 

 among the boulders occurring on Digby Neck and Briar Island are some 

 wholly unlike anything to be found in Nova Scotia, but closely resembling 

 those in southern New Brunswick, while blocks of the characteristic North 

 Mountain traps occur all along the south side of St. Mary's ba}', as well as 

 on the Atlantic shore of Yarmouth and Shelburne counties, show a general 

 movement southward, such as could only be possible if the whole penin- 

 sula were covered with a single icy mantle, and this a portion of a still 

 greater ice sheet coextensive with the northeastern portion of the conti- 

 nent itself. When to these evidences of continental glaciation we add 

 the wonderfully perfect illustrations of moraines and kames, some of the 

 latter thirty miles in length, with which the interior of the southwestern 

 counties abound ; the course and parallelism of the numerous fiord-like 

 indentations of the southern coast, accompanied, as they frequently are, 

 by evidences of glacial ploughing, which are phenomenal in their char- 

 acter ; the similar direction and parallelism of the transverse troughs, 

 such as Digby Gut, Sandy Cove, Petite and Grand Passages, which more or 

 less completely divide the North Mountain range, and which again show 

 evidences of glaciation to and below the present sea level ; the pheno- 

 mena, as a whole, appear to be of such a character as to demand some 

 more general and some more energetic source than that of such ice as 

 would gather around a few low islands, or even from the entire province. 



That evidences of a northward transfer of drift are to be found in 

 the Annapolis valley, in the occurrence there of numerous boidders 

 derived from the South Mountain granite, is, of course, not to be denied ; 

 but, in the writer's opinion, these bouldei-s belong onlj' to the closing era 

 of the Glacial Period, their northward transfer being the natural result 

 of the higher lands, such as the South Mountains, being the last to become 

 freed of their burden of ice, and, therefore, for a time left in the condi- 

 tion of mers de t/lace, from which ice streams might descend in any 

 direction. In partial confirmation of this view it may be of interest to 

 note, that, according to the statements of farmers occupying the Anna- 

 polis vallej'. the granite boulders in question are never met with at depths 

 of more than ten or twelve feet below the present surface. 



