COUNTRY EOUND HALIFAX. 11 



only old stratified rocks, a little more changed than 

 themselves — while stunted pine-woods and peaty hollows 

 form the principal features of the surface. Anciently 

 submerged, however, as all this country has been, there 

 are everywhere visible traces of those currents or glaciers 

 which about the same period scratched and grooved so 

 large a portion of the northern continents of Europe and 

 America. Scratches, continuous, deeply cut, generally 

 parallel, but frequently crossing each other at angles of 

 ten to twenty degrees, are beautifully seen on the broad 

 naked granite surface of Point Pleasant, on which the 

 fort stands, upwards of a hundred feet above the sea, and 

 at other places in that immediate neighbourhood. These 

 markings, with the accumulated drift and boulders, 

 strengthen more the general likeness of the country to 

 what the visitor may have seen about Stockholm in 

 Sweden, or Helsingfors in Finland. 



Difficult to the farmer, and eminently stony, the country 

 about Halifax really is. In some places, boulders of 

 various sizes are scattered sparsely over the surface ; in 

 others they literally cover the land ; while in rarer spots 

 they are heaped upon each other, as if intentionally accu- 

 mulated for some after use. One ought to visit a country 

 like this, while new to the plough, in order to understand 

 what must have been the original condition of much of 

 the land in our own country, which the successive labours 

 of many generations have now smoothed and levelled. 



When Csesar invaded Britain, stony deserts might 

 exist where the plough now easily cuts the soil ; so that 

 the greater produce is not due alone to the higher skill 

 of those who now cultivate the land, but more probably 

 to the effect of labour and hard toil expended upon it by 

 drudging serfs in former ages. The northern end of 

 Lough Corrib, in Ireland, would probably still bear a 

 comparison with many of these difficult places in North 

 America. The huge walls of stones which the peasantry 



