40 L. W. BAILEY ON THE PHYSIOGRAPHY AND 



channel and descending flow, through the chain of lakes, the main Fish River, and the St. 

 John, back to his starting point, a total distance of over fifty miles, a fact which has made 

 this route a favorite one for summer tourists. To the south of the lakes the land is again 

 high, forming another parallel ridge, as well as a watershed between the two streams con- 

 nected with these lakes, and the more numerous and larger ones which are tributary to the 

 Aroostook. Through its west branch, however. Fish River approaches the last-named 

 stream so nearly that we again have the curious occurrence of two considerable rivers, 

 tributaries of a common trunk, approaching within a distance of five miles of each other, 

 and yet flowing in different directions and by circuitous channels, a distance of not less 

 than one hundred and ten miles to their actual confluence. In the case of the Aroostook 

 itself, the irregular course of the channel is well illustrated in the fact that while the 

 actual shortest distance from the town of Presquile to Andover, New Brunswick, is only 

 thirteen miles, a traveller by rail, who follows the cotirse of the river, has to traverse 

 more than double the distance to reach the same locality. 



If now we pass to the geological structure of the region, it is found that while the 

 rocks exposed along the valley of the St. John above Edmunston, are entirely of slates, as are 

 the beds in the lower part of the valley of the Aroostook — these slates, being quite similar 

 to those which so frequently contain Silurian fossils over various parts of northern New 

 Brunswick — the beds found in the troughs represented by Square Lake and its associated 

 fossiliferous basins, on the one hand, and that of the Aroostook, about Ashland, on the other, 

 are occupied largely by red and grey sandstones, with associated fosssiliferous limestones. A 

 similar contrast, also, is exhibited in the attitude of the beds, for while, along the slate-belts, 

 these are commonly found to be greatly folded and disturbed, the Square Lake rocks, and 

 those of the Aroostook, are generally much less folded, or are even horizontal. Such a 

 contrast would at first suggest that the red beds and associated limestones are a newer 

 and unconformable system reposing upon the slates, but this conclusion is seemingly 

 negatived, not only by their stratigraphical relations, but by their contained fossils, and 

 render it probable that the apparent horizontality and comparatively little disturbance 

 along the lines indicated, are the result of these lines being coincident with anticlinal axes, 

 along which the superincumbent strata have been washed away. The facts which led to 

 the belief that all the rocks of the Lake Sedgewick basin, including the red sandstone, etc., 

 as well the limestones, were older than the slates to the north, and therefore Silurian rather 

 than Devonian, were fully detailed in the paper of last year referring to the subject. I 

 may now give some of the additional facts, obtained with the assistance of Mr. W. 

 Mclnnes, from a study of the district above Ashland, and along the valley of Aroostook 

 River, between the last-named place and Presquile. 



An interesting section of rocks is to be seen in the village of Ashland itself. Among 

 these is a bed of limestone, similar in character to the limestones of Square Lake, and 

 apparently holding similar fossils, but from which, owing to imperfect exposures, no recog- 

 nisable species could be obtained. Above them, to the north, are grey, rubbly shales, while 

 in the opposite direction, on the road to Masardis, and at a distance of about one hundred 

 yards, are grey, buff-weathering sandstones and sandy shales, dipping northward, and 

 holding soft, crumbling, ochreous bands and calcareous layers, which abound in crinoid 

 stems and ribbed shells. Among the forms collected here were an Eatonia and Spirifera, 

 both undetermined, a doubtful species of Atri/pa reticularis, fragments of Orthides and other 



