SOME LOCAL DETAILS. 171 



This general statement appears to me to apply throughout 

 the maritime provinces, though there are many local 

 complexities, owing to the peculiar orographical and 

 geographical features of the region. 



The following notes relate to a few special features 

 referred to in my previously published papers, and to the 

 occurrence of marine fossils in the maritime provinces. 



The travelled and untravelled boulders are usually 

 intermixed in the drift. In some instances, however, the 

 former appear to be most numerous near the surface of 

 the mass, and their horizontal distribution is also very 

 irregular. In examining coast sections of the drift we 

 may iind for some distance a great abundance of angular 

 blocks, with few travelled boulders, or both varieties are 

 equally intermixed, or travelled boulders prevail ; and we 

 may often observe particular kinds of these last grouped 

 together, as, for instance, a number of blocks of granite, 

 greenstone, syenite, etc., near each other, as if they had 

 been removed from their original beds and all deposited 

 together at one operation. On the surface of the country 

 where the woods have been removed, this arrangement is 

 sometimes equally evident ; thus hundreds of granite 

 boulders may be seen to cumber one limited spot, while in 

 its neighbourhood they are comparatively rare. It is also 

 well known to the farmers in the more rocky districts that 

 many spots which appear to be covered with boulders 

 have, when these are removed, a layer of soil comparatively 

 free from stones beneath. These appearances may in some 

 instances result from the action of currents of water, which 

 have in spots carried off the sand or clay, leaving the 

 boulders behind ; but in many cases this is manifestly the 

 original arrangement of the material, the superficial layer 



