[BA,L.ï] PRESENT CONFIGURATION OF NEW BRUNSWICK 61 



how Uie predominant features in that dramage were determined. From 

 what haa been .aid it wUl be evident tlrat many of the more unpor an 

 Lams, ineludingtlre St. John, must be older than tlie ndges w nch 

 thev traverse, as also the faet that the antecedent streams would have 

 been determined by the position, course and height of these same a.es 

 of elevation, in other words with their main trunks occupymg valleys 

 whicÏ were eastedy or northeasterly in direction, with then- affluent 

 on either side approximately at right angles to this course But m the 

 Silurian and even in the later Devonian ages these east and west troughs 

 were occupied, as shown by their sediments and fossils, by arms ot he 

 sea and were completely separated, there being no evidence of the exist- 

 2eotm extended land surfaces. Some of the northerly or southerly 

 flowing streams may, even in those early ages, have be^u to^-=-jte 

 their channels, and we have evidence that in some rnstances such wa the 

 case the occurrence for example of marine Lower Carboniferous stra a 

 lying horizontally in the bottom of a gorge-like valley cut transversely 

 across highly tilted Silurian strata a few miles above Fredencton, bemg 

 hardly expMeable upon any supposition other than that of the prevrous 

 erosion of the gorge by fluviatile action, while the occurrence of numer- 

 ous fossil tree trunks in the Devonian sandstones at Lepreau fo crbl) 

 suggests, as first pointed out by Matthew, their driftage to that spot by a 

 Devonian stream of some magnitude. t^„„„l,. 



The course of the streams occupying the northeast-southwest trougl^ 

 would probablv at first have been to the eastward, as would naturally 

 result from the fact that the rim of the great Acadian basin m New 

 Brtswick is on its western side ; and these streams were probably at one 

 time tributary to a great St. Lawrence trunk traversing the Gulf of St. 

 Twr nctts'indicated by the presence of their subnierged channels and 

 possibly by the contour of Prince Edward Island; but a time must Ime 

 !ome when a warping of the surface transverse lo-their general direction 

 determined a water-fhed on the western side of which the streams began 

 tflow in this latter direction. There must also have been determined 

 a ..eneral southerly inclination of the whole Province towards the At- 

 îantie, as otherwise the St. John river and other streams could not have 

 flowed as they now do. The general rise of land, increasing northward 

 which is known to have been one of the incidents connected with the 

 Glacial period, would determine such a slope and there is evidence that 

 southwardly flowing rivers were then greatly increased in volume and 

 in eroding power, and that in many instances streams, resulting from 

 melting ice, originated where this would not now be possible, but while 

 ■ manv of our minor streams and sections of our larger ones are no doubt 

 of glacial or post-glacial origin, there is also abundant evidence to show 



