124 CAUSELESS GRIEVANCES. 



And my readers will scarcely believe that all this 

 improvement has taken place in a country where public 

 declaimers, and their organs, complain of want of general 

 progress where murmurs, long and deep, are heard at 

 the slow pace with which authorities, provincial and 

 imperial, hasten forward the march of material develop 

 ment. Doubtless the British blood and free institu 

 tions, with which New Brunswick is blessed so largely, 

 are in some measure to blame for such groundless 

 grumblings. If John Bull were carried unknowingly 

 to heaven, he would compare it with some other place 

 he had seen or heard of, and forthwith get up a griev 

 ance ! 



Nov. 1. I had arranged to start this morning in a 

 south-easterly direction to the Bay of Fundy at Quaco, 

 where the red sandstone forms the coast-line, for the 

 purpose of crossing the strike of the beds in the inter 

 vening country, and of tracing, if possible, the connection 

 of the red rocks of Sussex Yale with those of the Bay 

 of Fundy. But, though the previous evening was 

 bright and clear when we retired to our rooms, the 

 ground this morning was covered with snow, and the 

 flakes fell thick and continued to descend during the 

 whole day. It would be impossible to see anything of 

 the country, were I to proceed 5 I therefore made up my 

 mind to stay in my comfortable quarters till the fall 

 should cease, and till the snow which covered the ground 

 should melt. 



It is usual, in this country, for a fall of snow to appear 

 in November, though seldom so early in the month as 

 this, and then to melt off and disappear. When the 

 November snow of last year (1848) went off, it left the 

 fields open for the cattle as late as Christmas-day. On 

 the approach of snow, a curious purple colour appears in 

 the sky in this climate a dark-bluish purple probably 

 caused by some peculiar action of the snow-clouds upon 



