21 



CHAPTER III. 



THE MODERN PERIOD. 



MARSHES SUBMARINE FORESTS INTERVALES LAKE DEPOSITS 



INFUSORIAL EARTH LAKE MARGINS PEAT BOGS, DRIFT SAND, ETC. 



Those parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick bordering on the 

 Bay of Fundy present some interesting examples of marine alluvial 

 soils, which, while of great practical value to the inhabitants, are equally 

 fertile in material of thought to the geologist. The tide- wave that 

 sweeps to the north-east, along the Atlantic coast of the United States, 

 entering the funnel-like mouth of the Bay of Fundy, becomes com- 

 pressed and elevated, as the sides of the bay gradually approach each 

 other, until in the narrower parts the water runs at the rate of .six or 

 seven miles per hour, and the vertical rise of the tide amounts to sixty 

 feet or more. In Cobequid and Chiegnecto Bays, these tides, to an un- 

 accustomed spectator, have rather the aspect of some rare convulsion of 

 nature than of an ordinary daily phenomenon. At low tide, wide flats 

 of brown mud are seen to extend for miles, as if the sea had altogether 

 retired from its bed ; and the distant channel appears as a mere stripe 

 of muddy water. At the commencement of flood, a slight ripple is 

 seen to break over the edge of the flats. It rushes swiftly forward, 

 and, covering the lower flats almost instantaneously, gains rapidly on 

 the higher swells of mud, which appear as if they were being dissolved 

 in the turbid waters. At the same time the torrent of red n ater inters 

 all the channels, creeks, and estuaries; surging, whirling, and foaming, 

 and often having in its front a white, breaking wave, or " bore," which 

 runs steadily forward, meeting and swallowing up the remains of the 

 ebb still trickling down the channels. The mud flats are soon covered ; 

 and then, as the stranger sees the water gaining with noiseless and 

 steady rapidity on the steep sides of banks and cliffs, a sense of inse- 

 curity creeps over him, as if no limit could be set to the advancing 

 deluge. In a little time, however, he sees that the fiat, "Hitherto 

 shalt thou come, and no farther,'' h l issued to the great bay 



