IN KINGS COUNTY, N: S. 301 
least the same magnitude. It is probable that during the 
deposition of these beds the waters of Minas Basin, Digby Basin 
and St. Mary’s Bay were connected and that the present flat 
and fertile valley stretching from the base of the North Moun- 
tain to the low Palzeozoic hills on the south was a shallow strait 
through which twice a day the ebb and flood swept swiftly 
planing down the valley to a uniform level but sweeping up 
here and there long bars of shifting sands. These still remain 
but form minor features in the topography of the valley. 
This shallow strait was sheltered from the rougher waters of 
the Bay of Fundy by the protecting barrier of the North 
Mountain and the deposits in the valley are much finer than 
those of the same age on the Bay of Fundy coast. The North 
Mountain itself was cut up into a line of narrow islands by the 
submergence which brought the bottoms of several of the deeper 
gorges below sea level], and the old shore lines in some of these 
may still be seen. The length of the chain was practically the 
Same as at present since Briar Island the westermost extension 
of the trap ridge then formed two small islands rising some fifty 
feet above the sea as shown by the old shore line about eighty 
feet above the present sea level. 
When the land again arose, the waters left the valley, the 
rivers extended seaward removing the sand and gravel from 
their old channels, wearing them deeper, and the now submerged 
forests grew. 
But again a gradual subsidence followed. The sea slowly 
advanced up the river channels. The fine sediment brought 
down by the rivers was arrested by the tidal currents and 
deposited in their shallow estuaries, and the marine marshes 
were formed. 
This is as we find it at the present day. The changes are 
still in progress. The history of this region which we have 
followed from early Mesozoic times to the present, or as much 
of it as the records known to us reveal, is still being written in 
the changing surface features of the land, the retreating coast 
line, and the strata now forming off our shores. Every change, 
