[POOLE] FEATURES OF CONTINENTAL SHELF OFF NOVA SCOTIA 69 



currents which swirl round its beaches, of the diminution it has suf- 

 fered, also of its changed position and to the influence the winds have 

 had in building it up in dunes above the level of the sea. Mr. ]\IcDonald 

 accepts the view of Dr. D. Honeyman that the present shore of Nova 

 Scotia is on the line of the continent's great terminal moraine, and he 

 imputes the origin of the great Banks to the deposition of the Champlain 

 sands washed out of the glacial drift by the recessional floods. 



Thn subject of this paper is necessarily connected with that of 

 the glaciation of the country at large, a matter that has been in part 

 discussed by several local writers, by Sir J. W. Dawson, Dr. Bailey, 

 Mr. Prest, Dr. Honeyman, and in still earlier times by Mr. T. Belt, a 

 recognized authority of his day some forty years ago. All these writers, 

 however, stop short at the shore with but casual reference to what may 

 lie beyond. They are not unanimously of opinion with that of observers 

 soui.h of the international boundary and they leave many glacial ques- 

 tions still open for general discussion, such as whether the ice cap 

 covered the whole country, whether it eflected much or little erosion of 

 the surface: whether it merely removed the loose and disintegrated 

 material, rubbing down to a rounded outline the rocky angularities, or 

 planed away a great thickness of solid strata; whether the period of 

 action was comparatively short or long drawn out, of late date or oc- 

 curred in a remote past; whether the ice sheet was thick or thin, sub- 

 ject or indifferent to the inequalities of the surface over which it flowed. 



With these questions in their relation to the evidence to be obtained 

 from the land surface it is not proposed to deal. It will not be possible, 

 however, to avoid indirect reference to a few of them in the considera- 

 tion of some features of the submarine structure which this paper intro- 

 duces. 



Marine charts of the coast give, for the guidance of the sailor mak- 

 ing a landfall, isobathic lines at depths of 30 and 60 fms., but these 

 lines alone fail to delineate features of the terrace and the foreshore to 

 which it is desired to call attention. By taking the numerous sound- 

 ings given on the charts other isobaths of greater and less depths may 

 be laid down, and although by the infrequency of the observations such 

 are necessarily only approximately correct they are assumed, in the 

 absence of more complete data, to be sufficiently near to have value in 

 the present consideration. 



The soundings on the charts thus used and the isobaths drawn they 

 give to part of the region the appearance of a land surface depicted by 

 contour lines an undulating surface with hills and hollows, ready formed 

 for the flow of rills and rivers to the lowet ground and there to join 

 extensions of the present established water courses coming down from 



