[bailey] presidential ADDRESS 13 



Carboniferous 



At the opening of the Carboniferous Period the main geographic 

 and physiographic features of Acadia had already been determined. 

 The existence of the latter as a distinct region, well styled the Acadian 

 Basin, had been established, and through the orogenic movements 

 constituting the Acadian Revolution, the position even of its prin- 

 cipal hill ranges and intervening valleys had been fixed. But while in 

 the preceding Lower Carboniferous Era these valleys were still below 

 sea level and tra\ersed, as already stated, by marine currents, in the 

 Carboniferous Period they too, by emergence became for the most 

 part, permanently added to the dry land of the continent. The 

 change was gradual, and except for slight discordance of dip and 

 evidence of erosion the one formation follows upon the other without 

 evidence of great physical disturbance. The valleys within which the 

 coarse red beds of the Lower Carboniferous, with their limestones 

 and gypsums, had been laid down, now became occupied by extensive 

 swamps over which, with imperfect drainage, grew the great forests 

 of ferns and Conifers now represented by our coal beds. The largest 

 of these swamp areas was in New Brunswick, that now occupied by 

 the great central coal-field, embracing an area of about 6000 square 

 miles, and eastward this was probably extended over the greater 

 part if not the whole of what is now the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 thus connecting this Province with Cape Breton and Newfoundland, 

 while smaller areas, representing similar conditions, occur here 

 and there among the southern hills and in the Bay of Fundy 

 troughs. Oscillations of level must have been of frequent 

 occurrence, as was necessary for the formation of successive 

 coal beds and the aggregate subsidence, especially about the head 

 of the Bay of Fundy, as indicated by the Joggins section, must 

 have been enormous. Central New Brunswick with a thickness 

 of coal strata probably nowhere exceeding 1000 feet as against that 

 of the Joggins nearly 15,000 feet, must have been much more stable. 

 The St. Lawrence river must have found its way to the sea by various 

 channels traversing what is now the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and from 

 this must have come to a large extent the materials, sandstones and 

 pebble-beds, which now form the strata which alternate with the 

 coals. Throughout the deposits there are no marine fossils, and the 

 sea must have been wholly excluded. The higher lands were covered 

 with coniferous forests and the lowlands by swamps with luxuriant 

 growth of Ferns, Calamités, etc. The only air-breathing types of 

 life were Insects, Myriapods and Amphibians. The climate was 

 warm and moist, with probably an excess of carbon dioxide in the air. 



