176 THE ICE AGE IN CANADA. 



practicable with care to a carriage, the general direction 

 being nearly north and south. What its extent or course 

 may be beyond the points where the road enters on and 

 leaves it, I do not know ; but it appears to extend from the 

 base of the Cobequid mountains to a ridge of sandstone that 

 crosses the lower part of the Hebert river. It consists of 

 gravel and sand, whether stratified or not I could not 

 ascertain, with a few large boulders. Another very singu- 

 lar ridge of this kind is that running along the west side 

 of Clyde river in Shelburne county. This ridge is higher 

 than that on Hebert river, but, like it, extends parallel to 

 the river, and forms a natural road, improved by art in 

 such a manner as to be a very tolerable highway. Along 

 a great part of its course it is separated from the river by 

 a low alluvial flat, and on the land side a swamp intervenes 

 between it and the higher ground. Shorter and more 

 interrupted ridges of this kind may also be seen in the 

 country northward and eastward of the town of Pictou. 

 In sections tliey are seen to be stratified, and they 

 generally occur on low or level tracts, and in places where, 

 if the country were submerged, the surf or marine currents 

 and tides might be expected to throw up ridges. The 

 presence of boulders shows that ice grounded on these 

 ridges, and it, probably by its pressure, in some instances, 

 modified tlieir forms. These eskers, or "horse-backs," 

 must not, however, be regarded as glacier moraines, to 

 which in structure they generally bear no resemblance. 



Mr. Chalmers has in New Brunswick endeavoured, witli 

 some success, to distinguisli those that belong to river 

 valleys and glaciers from those that are marine. 



The Eev. Mr. Paisley has published in the Canadian 

 Naturalist (1872) a list of shells obtained from a railway 

 cutting on the Tattagouclie river, near Bathurst, in New 



