116 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



In contrast with the supposed elev^ations of the Glacial Period, the 

 evidences of depression in the succeeding Champlain Period are clear and 

 unmistakable. Not only do we find along the New Brunswick shore 

 marine clays, as at St. John and St. Andrews, filled with Post Tertiary 

 fossils, but similar clays and associated sands also occupy, more or less 

 completely, the Annapolis valley, indicating a former considerably greater 

 depth to that valley. At St. John the height of the beds above the pre- 

 sent sea level is about 200 ft. ; in Nova Scotia the clays of Middleton, 

 holding marine shells and Ophiuraus, are not more than twenty or 

 twenty-five feet above the tide ; but it is probable that the total submerg- 

 ence Avas much more than this, with the result of connecting AnnapoHs 

 basin eastward with the Basin of Minas and westward with St. Mary's 

 bay the North Mountains and their extension in Digby Neck being 

 reduced to low-lying ridges and islands. 



The evidences of modern siibsidence in and about the Bay of Fundy, 

 as shown by the submerged forests, eroded shell-heaps, etc., need not, of 

 course, be here dwelt upon, but are in accordance with the movements of 

 earlier times, and similarly point to this Bay of Fundy trough as a prob- 

 able line of comparative instability in the earth's crust. 



In presenting the views advocated in this paper the writer is aware 

 of the objection which may be urged against them as being too theoretical. 

 But the facts of observation are only of interest and value as they are 

 brought into correlation, and used in explanation of the events or pro- 

 cesses b}' which they have been determined ; and, as in every branch of 

 scientific inquiry, the " scientific imagination," as it has been termed by 

 Tyndall, must go hand in hand Avith observation and trial, he trusts that 

 the eff'orts here made to discuss some of the probable phases in the 

 development of an important portion of the continent may at least be 

 suggestive of further lines of inquir3^ 



