THE BAY OF FUNDY TIDES AND MARSHES. 251 



haustless fertility ? These are questions often asked by tourists, 

 and which are answered, imperfectly no doubt, in the following 

 pages. 



North of Cape Cod the continental coast line recedes abruptly 

 westward, and then sweeps in a long curve northeastwardly till 

 the head waters of the Bay of Fundy are reached. Turning again 

 on itself, its course is westward to Cape Sable, from which it again 

 stretches away toward the east as the southern shore of Nova 

 Scotia. Thus, between Capes Cod and Sable lies the long, narrow* 

 open Bay of Maine, which terminates toward the north and east 

 in the landlocked Bay of Fundy. In the shallow waters of this 

 larger open bay the tidal impulse, which over ocean depths moves 

 only as a wave of vertical oscillation, is changed into one of trans- 

 lation. As the effect of this transformation the whole body of 

 water moves first landward, and then, sweeping round with the 

 curving coast line, skirts the southern shores of Maine and New 

 Brunswick, till it reaches the narrow strait between Briar Island 

 and Grand Manan. Compressed between these closer limits the 

 water is forced onward with increasing velocity into the Bay of 

 Fundy. Part finds its way into the Annapolis Basin and its 

 tributary rivers, while the main current moves onward till it 

 meets the tongue of land which terminates in Cape d'Or. Here it 

 divides, the northern portion filling Shepody and Cumberland 

 Basins ; while the southern half rushes onward through the nar- 

 row entrance to the Basin of Minas. As it passes Cape Blomi- 

 don this swirling, eddying, foaming torrent reaches its greatest 

 velocity a rate of ten or twelve miles an hour. 



Thus it is that the long, sickle-curved Maine coast gradually 

 gathers up the water rolled upon it twice a day by the rhythmic 

 ocean movements, and, throwing it backward, presses it at last 

 into the funnel-shaped Bay of Fundy and its adjacent basins, 

 covering with a semidaily flood the low and unprotected marsh- 

 lined shores and filling the channels of the tributary rivers for 

 many miles inland to a height of ten, twenty, or thirty feet above 

 their fresh-water levels. Such, in a general way, is the set of con- 

 ditions under which the spectacular and physiographical effects 

 of ordinary tidal phenomena are exaggerated in the Fundy tides 

 far beyond their normal limits. At some points the extreme eleva- 

 tion of the flood tide above low- water mark is as great as seventy 

 feet. In some of the rivers, particularly in the Peticodiac of New 

 Brunswick and in the Shubenacadie of Nova Scotia, the upward 

 flow against the fresh-water current forms a rapidly moving wall 

 or bore several feet in height, the rushing sound of which can 

 be heard at a considerable distance, while in others the two cur- 

 rents meet and mingle so quietly that an observer can hardly tell 

 where the backward flow begins. 



