VARIETIES OF INTERVALE LAND. 49 



roads along which we passed, and a good dinner by the 

 way, and agreeable companions, full of information new 

 to me, made the day glide on very pleasantly, till we 

 reached the month of Eel River, a distance of fifty miles 

 from Fredericton, where we took up our quarters for the 

 night. 



Of the intervale land there are three varieties at least 

 along the river St John. The best is that which is just 

 above the present high water, or usual flood level, of the 

 river. It is generally a free rich loam, easily tilled, and 

 producing large returns of hay, a crop here so highly 

 valued. The next is a ledge from eight to twenty feet 

 above the former, which is usually of a lighter quality, 

 and less valuable — sometimes sandy, gravelly, and almost 

 worthless. On these dry worthless sands, and as a 

 token of their worthlessness, springs up the fragrant 

 everlasting, Gnaphalium 'polyce-plialum^ with which I had 

 the opportunity of becoming very familiar before I 

 quitted the province of New Brunswick. 



At a higher level still, the third intervale land occurs ; 

 and besides the sand and gravel of which it not unfre- 

 quently consists, it carries stones or boulders, occasionally 

 in considerable numbers. 



These different intervales are in reality successive 

 terraces, rising to difi'erent elevations above the existing 

 bed of the river, but showing the different heights at 

 which the water has stood since the stream began to flow 

 in its present channel. 



I have alluded in the commencement of this Chapter to 

 the emigration from the province, which to some had 

 been the cause of much anxiety. I heard at this place 

 of the first striking example of the height to which the 

 emigration fever will run. About eight miles from the 

 mouth of the Eel river lies the Howard settlement, 

 situated on a tract of good second-rate upland, in the 

 VOL. I. D 



