THE MUSQUASH MAESHES. 141 



Oct. 7. I started this morning for St Andrews, a 

 distance of sixty-five miles. The mayor of St John, 

 Mr Wilmot, to whom I had been indebted for many 

 previous civilities, was kind enough to convey me with 

 his own carriage and horses, and to give me the pleasure 

 of his own company over this long and rough road. 



Generally speaking, the same poor metamorphic-slate 

 and igneous-rock country continues along the Bay of 

 Fundy, all the way from St John to St Andrew s. The 

 first ten miles presented only a repetition of the rude 

 district between St John and Loch Lomond ; after which, 

 five miles of rocky barrens, with scattered scrub-pines, 

 brought us to Tilson s at the Musquash Marshes. 



These marshes are formed at the mouth of the river 

 Musquash, which here falls into the Bay of Fundy, and 3 

 like the marsh of St John, are very different from the 

 marsh-lands at the head of the Bay of Fundy. I have 

 already stated generally, of all the New England marshes 

 also of which there are many, at the mouths of creeks, 

 and the head of bays and inlets, along the Atlantic bor 

 derthat they have all one common inferior character. 

 They consist for the most part of accumulations of black 

 vegetable matter, spongy, soft, retentive of water, but 

 very wasteful of manure, and very unlike, in richness or 

 permanent fertility, to those which are formed by the 

 mingling of animal and vegetable matters with the fine 

 mud that floats in the waters of Cumberland Basin in 

 New Brunswick, of the Bay of Minas in Nova Scotia, 

 or in those of the Nile, the Rhine, or the Humber. 

 They have little permanent richness in them at all. 

 Like most other marsh-lands, they may be renovated by 



been good, trade has revived, the imports have increased, and with 

 them the revenue so important a means of still further developing 

 the internal resources of the country. It is to be hoped that better 

 times will induce calmer and sounder reasoning on matters which con 

 cern the most important interests of the province, present and future. 



