SAND ON THE UPPER TOBIQUE. 77 



before the water could touch the slates which lie below 

 them. They indicate, probably, a change in the direction 

 of the current, by which the water before it reached this 

 spot was made to traverse the red sandstone region, and 

 strew its spoils over the previously distributed debris of 

 the slates. 



Above this point a few small clearances appeared, and 

 among these one upon a little intervale on the left bank, 

 the scene of John Bradley's farming and clearing opera- 

 tions. At the foot of this intervale nearly horizontal 

 beds appeared, for the first time since I left the neigh- 

 bourhood of Fredericton — beds of red sandstone, of which 

 this was only a little apparently isolated outlier. Two 

 miles above, at the Red Rapids, so called from the colour 

 of the rock which forms tliem, the red sandstone basin 

 begins. It consists here of red sandstones and marls, 

 resting on the edge of the slate rocks. These red 

 rocks extend to a distance of thirty miles up the river, 

 being intermixed about half-way up with interstratified 

 cliffs of gypsum. They probably belong, therefore, to 

 the gypsiferous red sandstones, which in Nova Scotia 

 lie immediately under the coal measures. Nearly the 

 whole of the region, however, over which they extend, is 

 a virgin wilderness — covered however, in many places, 

 with varieties of hardwood timber, which are known to 

 indicate good land. When roads shall be opened into it, 

 I infer, from the nature of the formation, that, except 

 where ungenial drift covers the surface deeply, this will 

 prove one of the best farming districts in the province. 



At the Falls, a large clearing existed — a good house, 

 large barns, some land in cultivation, and the ruins of 

 what had been an extensive and costly saw-mill establish- 

 ment. Like many others in the country, this establish- 

 ment had failed and gone to ruin, and the house and land 

 were in the market. The spot was far from the world, 

 and, for want of roads, almost inaccessible, except by the 



