VII. THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE GASPEREAU VALLEY, 

 NOVA SCOTIA. BY PROFESSOR ERNEST HAYCOCK, Acadia 



College, Wolfville, N. S. 



^(Received for publication 18th Dec., 1901.) 



A line drawn across the eastern portion of King's County 

 from the Bay of Fundy to the southeast county line, a distance 

 of about eighteen miles in a southeasterly direction, will cross 

 three distinct bands of country which, with slight local variations, 

 run parallel with the coast and represent the soil and surface of 

 that part of Nova Scotia bordering this bay on the southeast and 

 draining into its waters. 



From the shore the surface of the land rises for about four 

 miles in gentle undulating slopes to the crest of the ridge, which 

 marks the boundary of this northernmost band. At short 

 intervals the brooks have cut deep trenches at right angles to 

 the coastline, and these, from their steep sides and generally 

 abrupt character, are locally known as vaults Thus the surface, 

 though sloping but gently seaward, is very uneven and the 

 drainage good. The soil is dark grey, thin und stony, scarcely 

 concealing, in many places, the underlying rock, and largely made 

 up of its more resistant constituents. Where not boggy the land 

 is thus subject to drouth, and adapted to pasturage rather than 

 to tillage. 



The underlying rock is an ancient lava-flow, or a mass formed 

 by successive lava-flows, and the peculiar features of the soil and 

 surface arc the natural results of the chemical and mechanical 

 action of subaerial forces upon its gently sloping sheets. 



From the crest of the ridge the surface drops suddenly away 

 to 'an undulating plain but little above sea-level, about .seven 

 miles wide, made up of alternate strips of level marsh and 

 smoothed and rounded ridges. When one leaves behind the 

 rough roads, lined with the rail fences of stony pasture and 

 hay lands or flanked by steep slopes with their scanty covering 



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