C4EOGRAPH1CAL DISTRIBUTION OF FOREST TREES IN CANADA. 287 



abundant, and even larger and finer than usual. The most probable 

 explanation of this singular feature is to suppose that when the 

 tree had established itself in the latter regions, Nova Scotia was an 

 island, and that the seeds of the cedar had no good means of crossing a 

 considerable breadth of water. There is evidence that a strait did 

 separate Nova Scotia from New Brunswick where the cedar line passes, 

 but since it became dry land the tree has made little progress towards 

 occupying the peninsula. The white cedar occurs in the western part of 

 Prince Edward Island, and in the form of a few clumps on the eastern 

 side of the Bay of Fundy. 



If these occurrences are due to seeds having floated thither, this fact 

 would show that they are not killed by immersion in salt water, and that 

 no seeds have yet floated to the more distant shores of the cedarless 

 regions above mentioned, or that, if some have chanced to do so, they did 

 not reach suitable ground in which to grow. The cones of the cedar open 

 and shed their seeds before they themselves fall off the trees, and it is 

 possible that the naked seeds, on being blown into the sea, become water- 

 logged and sink. It could then only be by a rare accident that seeds 

 capable of germinating would be carried across any considerable breadth 

 of sea water. When stranded upon a distant beach, they would have 

 little chance of being carried from it to a suitable soil for their pro- 

 pagation, as, owing to their unpleasant taste and odour, they have no 

 attraction for any bird or beast. These suggestions are made in order 

 to show that there may be some simple reason for the absence of the 

 cedar from the greater part of the lands surrounding the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. The currents in the Gulf, and the strong tide which must 

 have passed through the strait formerly separating Nova Scotia from 

 New Brunswick, may have prevented the seeds of the cedar crossing to 

 those parts from which the tree is absent ; but if this were so, it becomes 

 difficult to understand why the white pine, yellow birch, and other trees 

 which are more southern in their general habit than the species in ques- 

 tion, should be found in the cedarless areas. If some one were to plant 

 the white cedar in Anticosti, Newfoundland, Cape Breton, and the 

 eastern parts of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the experiment 

 would be of much interest ; and the writer ventures to predict that the 

 trees would do well. 



To the west of James Bay the white cedar attains a higher latitude 

 than anywhere else, owing probably to the occurrence there of limestone 

 rocks which afford suitable conditions for its growth. From this latitude 

 it drops suddenly to the south of English river, and then turns westward 

 to the head of Lake Winnipeg in both cases running directly across the 

 other tree-lines and from the latter point it continues south into the 

 United States, keeping on the east side of the Eed river valley. The 

 pronounced bend to the south side of English river may have some 

 significance in connection with the last phase of glacial action in this 

 region. 



A remarkable outlier of small white cedars occurs around Cedar lake 

 on the Saskatchewan river near its mouth, and at a distance of nearly 

 290 miles northward from the nearest point on the main boundary of the 



