74 VALLEY OF THE MISSIQUASH. 



Fundy. Of this great projected line, I shall speak in a 

 succeeding chapter. 



The description I have formerly given of the original 

 formation of the Valley of Annapolis, in Nova Scotia, 

 applies, with a little change of names, to this low neck of 

 land, which here forms the boundary between the two pro 

 vinces. Both have been formed since the last consider 

 able elevation of the land ; both were originally narrow 

 straits, through which the sea-waters rushed; and both, 

 when the land was elevated, became the scene of a 

 struggle between opposing tides, which first gradually 

 accumulated a bank, and finally a dividing barrier, at 

 their place of meeting. Over this first and lowest land, 

 a broad Carriboo bog exists in the centre of the Anna 

 polis Valley, from which flow, in opposite directions, the 

 two streams which water it. In this locality it is covered 

 by a marshy lake, from which runs the Missiquash 

 River in the one direction, and a smaller stream towards 

 the Bay Verte in the other. And these streams, as in 

 the Annapolis Valley, flow through alluvial lands of 

 great extent, which, around the head of Cumberland 

 Lake, are of greater richness and fertility than on the 

 Bay Verte side, because they are farther removed from 

 the clear waters of the North Atlantic. 



There is one striking difference, however, between the 

 two valleys. As we proceed from Northumberland 

 Strait towards the head of Cumberland Bay, the Main 

 Valley, bounded on the one side by the high-lands of 

 Nova Scotia, and on the other by those of New Bruns 

 wick, widens very much ; but several long parallel rocky 

 ridges remain, which the ancient sea had not been able 

 to wash away which may have been islands in it and 

 which now rise as long narrow lines of elevated land, 

 varying in height and width, amid the surrounding 

 tracts of marshy and rich alluvial soils. Between each 

 parallel to them and to the central Missiquash Elver 



