MesozoiG and Camozoic Geology and Palceontology. 175 



other hand, numerous bowlders of granite have been carried to the 

 northward from the hills of Annapolis, and deposited on the slopes of 

 the opposite trapi)ean ridge; and some of them have been carried round 

 its eastern end, and now lie on the shores of Londonderry and Onslow. 

 So, also, while immense numbers of bowlders have been scattered over 

 the south coast from the granite and quartz rock ridges, immediately 

 inland, many have drifted in the opposite direction, and may be found 

 scattered over the counties of Sydney, Pictou and Colchester. These 

 facts show that the transport of traveled blocks, though it may have 

 been principally from the northward, has, by no means been exclusively 

 so; bowlders having been carried in various directions, and more 

 especially from the more elevated and rocky districts to the lower 

 grounds in their vicinity. 



The surface of the country was greatly modified by the drift; the 

 ridges of Cumberland, the deep valleys of Cornwallis and Annapolis, 

 the great gorges crossing the Gobequid mountains, and the western 

 end of the North mountains in Annapolis and Digby counties, such 

 eminences as the Greenhill in Pictou county, and Onslow mountain 

 in Colchester, are due in great part to the removal of soft rocks by de- 

 nuding agencies of this period, while the harder rocks remained in pro- 

 jecting ridges. The surface of the rocks are frequently found polished, 

 scratched or striated. The striae at different places have different 

 courses, and sometimes they are found to cross each other as at Gore 

 mountain, where one set is S. 65 deg. E., and the other S. 20 deg. E. 

 At Gay's river, Musquodoboit Harbor, and near Guysboro the direction 

 is from S. to N. At Poison's Lake, from N. to S., and near Pictou, E. 

 & W. Bowlders or traveled stones are often found in places where there 

 is no other drift. For example, on bare granite hills, about 500 feet in 

 height, near the St. Mary's river, there are large, angular blocks of 

 quartzite, derived from the ridges of that material which abound in 

 the district, but are separated from the hills on which the fragments lie 

 by deep valleys. 



The only evidence of organic life during the bowlder period, or im- 

 mediately before it, noticed by Dr. Dawson, consists of a hardened, 

 peaty bed, which appears under the bowlder clay on the northwest arm 

 of the River of Inhabitants. It rests upon gray cla}^, similar to that 

 which underlies peat bogs, and is overlaid by nearly twenty feet of 

 bowlder clay. Pressure has rendered it nearly as hard as coal, though 

 it is somewhat tougher and more earthy than good coal. It has a 

 glossy appearance when rubbed or scratched with a knife, burns with 

 consilderable flame, and approaches in its characters to the brown 



