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divide it from llie beacli ;ire of more recent date than those 

 larger masses which line the coast beyond, justify the conclusion 

 that it was so. ('lear and distinct evidence tliat the sea has at 

 one time stood some thirty feet above its present level is thus 

 to be found l)y the most su})erticial observer. But as the gravel 

 line repiesenting the river's ancient edge near its present mouth 

 is seventy feet above that level, a somewhat interesting geological 

 (juestion arises. Was this portion of the river at the time when 

 it stood at this high level tidal, or was it not possibly a land- 

 locked reach of the river, with the river's mouth lying some 

 distance further out than it now does ? Either of these con- 

 ditions would account for the gravel bed, and its superincumbent 

 layer of mud ; but as I have above stated, such indications as 

 we have been enabled to lind incline me to take the former 

 view, viz., that then as now the river was tidal at this i)oint. 

 It is true that above the thirty feet level of boulders at Point 

 Hood, there is no such clear evidence of the sea's fonner 

 presence, but some is nevertheless to be found. The topmost 

 tier of boulders is already partially buried in sand and soil, and 

 from this point the land rises more gradually. In an artificial 

 cutting made some few hundred yards from the beach, and 

 standing some seventy feet above the present sea level, distinct 

 traces of a buried layer of rounded boulders are to be found, 

 boulders in all respects reseml)ling those on the beach. 



Still, whichever view be the correct one, a point which 

 further investigation may yet decide, the broad fact renuiins 

 that from the time when the river stood at the height of this 

 gravel line, it has gi-adiially worn away the pi'esent chainiel To 

 accomplish this, has been no slight, no short-lived task. For 

 we have already seen that for two miles tlu; tidal portion of the 

 river runs through a large greenstone dyke. This igneous green- 

 stone rock id one of the hardest in existence, nevertheless, shice 

 the time when the river stood at the old gravel line, it has worn 



