16 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



of this natural " Express " from the ocean, whirling past 

 him at some seven or eight miles per hour, whilst the 

 long shelving banks of red mud are quickly hidden 

 by the eager impulsive current. Out, in the open bay, 

 the eddying " rips " over the flats as the rising waters 

 cover them, or the tumultuous seas which rise where 

 the great tide is restrained by jutting headlands afford 

 still greater spectacles. With a strong wind blowing 

 in an opposite direction to the tide, the navigation of 

 the Bay of Fundy is perilous on a dark night, and 

 many are the victims engulfed with their little fish- 

 ing smacks in its treacherous and ever-shifting shoals. 

 It wears a beautiful aspect, however, in fine summer 

 weather — a soft chalky hue quite different from the 

 stern blue of the sea on the Atlantic shores, and some- 

 what approaching the summer tints of the Channel on 

 the coasts of England. The surrounding scenery too is 

 beautiful ; and the twelve hours' steam voyage from 

 "Windsor, Nova Scotia, to St. John, the capital of New 

 Brunswick, past the picturesque headlands of Blomidon, 

 Cape Split, and Parsboro, in fine weather most enjoyable. 

 The red mud, or, rather, exceedingly fine sand, carried 

 by the surging waters, is deposited at high tide on the 

 flats and over the land overflown at the edges of the bay, 

 and thus have been produced the extensive salt marsh 

 lands which constitute the wealth of the dwellers by the 

 bay shores — soils which, never receiving the artificial 

 stimulus of manure, show no signs of exhaustion though 

 a century may have elapsed since their utihsation. The 

 occurrence of submerged forests, the stumps of which 

 still stand in situ, observed by Dr. Dawson, and indicat- 

 ing a great subsidence of the land in modern times, and 



