SUPPLEMENT TO ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 



1. INTRODUCTORY. 



When in 1868 it became necessary to prepare a second edition of my 

 Acadian Geology, I was surprised to find that the new material 

 on the subject had increased to such an extent as to swell the work to 

 thrice its original bulk, in spite of all my attempts at condensation, 

 and of the omission of many details accumulated in my notes. Now, 

 after the lapse of nine years, in writing a supplementary section to 

 bring the book up to the present state of knowledge, I find myself 

 troubled with a similar superabundance of matter. 



It is so far gratifying to me that I have little to retract in the 

 department of theoretical geology. That position of moderate unifor- 

 mitarianlsm, with due allowance for intermittent actions which may 

 well be termed cataclysmic, which I have attempted to define 

 in the concluding paragraphs of my book, and which pervades 

 its general tone and the treatment of the varied subjects discussed, 

 may now be considered as the attitude of the great majority of 

 geologists. The battle of the glacialists is perhaps hardly as yet 

 decided, but victory evidently leans to the side of that eclectic doc- 

 trine of marine submergence and ice-drift with local land glaciation, 

 which I maintained in 1868, as I had previously done in 185o. The 

 questions relating to the origin of coal and the land conditions of 

 the Carboniferous age, presented in 1868, were answered by the 

 collection of facts shown perhaps more clearly in Nova Scotia than in 

 any other part of the world, and the force of Avliich is now felt 

 everywhere, and supported by evidence abundantly obtained in other 

 countries. The reality and extent of the Devonian flora, though 

 belief in them is still resisted with a pertinacity almost personal by 

 some European botanists, are now generally accepted by geologists. 

 The exten.sion downward of the Paheozoic fauna in America, as far 

 as the Lower Cambrian, and the distinctness of this older fauna frum 



