30 THE MODERN PERIOD. 



of the appearance of sound wood in the interior, was quite charred 

 at the surface, and was throughout so soft and brittle that large 

 trunks and roots could be cut through with a spade or broken with 

 a slight blow. Owing to their softness, the beech stumps were worn 

 down almost to the level of the mud, while some of the pines projected 

 more than a foot : even these last were, however, much crushed by 

 the pressure of the ice, which, with the tides, must eventually remove 

 them. The largest stump observed was a pine two feet six inches 

 in diameter, and showing more than two hundred annual rings 

 of growth. I was informed by respectable and intelligent persons 

 that similar appearances have been observed on the opposite side 

 of the La Planche, and in various other places in the Cumberland 

 Basin. It is only, however, in places where the marsh is being cut 

 away by the current that they can be seen, and the stumps, when 

 laid bare, are soon removed by the ice. Similar beds of stumps 

 and vegetable soil are also occasionally disclosed in digging ditches 

 in the shallower parts of the marshes, and there appears little reason 

 to doubt that the whole of the Cumberland marshes rest on old 

 upland surfaces. A submerged forest is also said to appear at the 

 mouth of the Folly River in Cobequid Bay; and peaty soils and 

 trunks and stumps of trees are of frequent occurrence in digging 

 in the marshes of King's and Annapolis counties. It would seem, 

 therefore, that these appearances are somewhat general throughout 

 the marsh country. 



With respect to the age of these submerged stumps, there can 

 be little difference of opinion. They belong to the modern period 

 in geology, and, judging from the state of preservation of the 

 wood, after making every allowance for the preservative effect of 

 the salt mud, not to the very oldest part of that period. Yet 

 their antiquity is considerable. The marshes are known to have 

 existed in their present state for two hundred and fifty years; 

 and since these trees grew and were submerged, all the mud of the 

 marshes must have accumulated, at least in its present position. 

 Here then we have a modern phenomenon involving great physical 

 changes in the relations of land and water, and rivalling some of 

 those geological events of which we have evidence in the older rocks. 



How did this change of the sea level occur? Only two causes 

 can be assigned. It must have been either the rupture of a barrier 

 previously excluding the sea water, or an actual sinking or subsidence 

 of the whole of the western part of the province. The first of these 

 suppositions is that which most readily recommends itself to the 

 popular mind, and we h; ve at no great distance an instance on a 



