[pooLE] FEATURES OF CONTINENTAL SHELF OFF NOVA SCOTIA 81 



Toeky base. All we do know by the soundings and dredgings is of the 

 material resting on the sea bottom whether it be of mud, sand, gravel, 

 boulders, clay or rock. What we would like to know in addition is 

 whether the samples obtained are strictly superficial or from a sub- 

 Etratum not now subject to accretions. Much therefore is still conjec- 

 tural respecting submarine conditions and reliance has chiefly to be 

 placed on seeming analog}' to land structure. 



In the case of the Banquereau, Sable Island and other fishing banks 

 lying off Xova Scotia, we have to ask ourselves, can they possibly be the 

 product only of material dropped by ice floes and bergs borne south by 

 currents from northern regions? If the answer be in the affirmative 

 would it not be reasonable to expect an average uniformity in the re- 

 sulting layers with a tendenc}' to parallel the course of the flow? But 

 the conditions reall}- found are great irregularity in the depth, direction 

 and quality of the deposits and no indication of deposition by currents 

 *below the effect of wave action. It is hence assumed that whatever ad- 

 ditions have been made to the banks by ice carriage they have had no 

 important bearing on the configuration of the sea-bottom. Moreover 

 the evidence of those who frequent these latitudes is that the set of the 

 Labrador current is not over these banks, and further, that bergs rarely 

 are seen bearing earth and stones, and again, that much of the meltiiig 

 of the bergs in the open sea occurs off the banks. 



Bibliography in Part. 



In the Transactions of the Xova Scotia Institute of Science, 



Dr. Honeyman — Vol. VI., Ft- 2, p. 74. Bedford Basin, 1885. 



Vol. VII., Pt. 1, p. 205. 

 W. H. Prest — Vol. VIII., pp. 143, 430. 



Vol. IX., p. 158. 

 Dr. A. H. MacKay— Vol. VIII., p. TG. 

 Patterson G. Trans. E. S. Can. 1894— XII— 7, 1-50. 

 Strait of Canseau, Acadian Geology p. 390. 

 Bras d'Or Lakes, Geol. Sur. Eep. 1874— 5— p. 265. 

 J. W. Spencer, Bult., Geo. Soc. Am. Vol. 1, 1890 pp. 65— 70— Lauren- 



tian R. p. 315. 

 J. W. Dawson— Xotes on Post Pliocene of Can. 1872— p. 41. The 



Can. Ice Age 1893 pp. 71, 74, 269. 

 Dana on Hudson E. Jour. Sc. Ill, Vol. XL. p. 425—1890 Deer. 

 Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. Lon. XXXIX, 1878, pp. 566. 



Sec. IV., 1906. 6 



