120 A BURNED BRIDGE. 



to it from the burning woods, and consumed it probably 

 during the night. But we were not long detained. 

 Doffing our coats, and obeying the directions of our 

 companion, Mr Brown, we rigged up beams, along 

 which we guided the carriage across the brook ; and then, 

 yoking the horses anew, were under weigh after little 

 more than an hour's agreeable amusement. Twelve miles 

 farther brought us to Steeves's, through narrow clearings 

 on each side of the road, comfortable-looking farms and 

 farm-houses, and occasional good land. 



While our horses were resting, I engaged a light wag- 

 gon, and drove three miles off the main road to the banks 

 of the North E,iver, to inspect an outcrop of limestone at 

 a short distance from which gypsum was said to occur ; 

 while, within about a mile, salt springs also were known. 

 We found some good farms along this part of the North 

 River, and good land derived from the mixed calcareous 

 and sandstone debris. The limestone was hard, destitute 

 of apparent fossils, and, as subsequent analyses showed, 

 very pure, and admirably fitted for agricultural purposes. 

 It had been quarried for building, but the application of 

 lime to the land was in this district scarcely known. 



The bed of limestone was in contact with, and appa- 

 rently overlying a coarse red sandstone, which effervesced 

 strongly with acids, and which I afterwards found to 

 contain as much as seventeen and a-half per cent of 

 carbonate of lime, and half a per cent of gypsum. The 

 presence of so large a portion of lime in a sandstone, in 

 the states of carbonate and sulphate, must add very much 

 to the capabilities of any soil that is formed from it. 



At Steeves's, where we had stopped to rest our horses, 

 the Petitcodiac ceased to be navigable for canoes, and an 

 Indian portage commenced of twelve or thirteen miles to 

 the navigable waters of the Salmon River, which flows 

 south-westward, and, joining the Kenebecasis, ultimately 

 falls into the River St John. Thirteen miles brought us 



