PHYSICAL FEATURES OF NOVA SCOTIA.—MURPHY. 131 
large scale, and may also tend to enable other and more definite 
contributors or observers, by adding one range of vision to 
another, to take in at a glance a much more concise percep- 
tion of the extent and general outline of their more prominent 
features. 
The sea board of the south-east coast, between Cape Canso to 
the north-east and Cape Sable to the south-west, is no less than 
230 miles in a straight line, the general trend being about east- 
by-north and west-by-south. Throughout the whole extent of 
this recky coast, say “Tbe Sailing Directions,” are numerous 
“indentations, varying in size and utijity, from the narrow creek 
“in which boats seek shelter, to noble harbours, of which Halifax 
“Gs the largest, most accessible and safest.” 
A well defined low mountain ridge courses with nearly the 
same trend as the shore line, and forms the principal water-shed 
of the Peninsula; its slopes run northerly and southerly from it, 
the latter, or southern slope, being somewhat undulatory, but 
regular in its descent to the Atlantic. 
The south-eastern slope, for nearly its entire length of over 
two hundred miles, has undergone very extensive denudation ; 
the phenomenon of scratching and polishing prevails almost 
everywhere over its surface; the striz are remarkably distinct 
in many places. Point Pleasant and Leahyville, near Halifax, 
are examples. When the drift or boulder clay is removed, the 
scratches and furrows are frequently met with, and they are 
generally in the same direction ; yet, there are some places where 
the striz, or markings, exhibit different courses. Near Morgan’s, 
on the LaHave river, the course is S. 63 W., whilst in a valley 
about five miles east, the course is quite different, being nearly 
north and south. 
The direction of the strike of the gold-bearing rocks is gener- 
ally very regular, and nearly at right.angles to that of the gla- 
cial groovings, the former being nearly east and west, whilst the 
latter is north and south. Subjoined I give the general direction 
of the strike of the slates in our principal gold mining districts, 
with as many notes of the courses of the striations as J am able 
to place before you: 
