OIANTM AND PIOMIBS. 



t» 



Strait of Canso seems on insuperable obstacle in the way of 

 their migration from the south. If Cape lireton was partially 

 connected with the mainland, the difficulty would disappear. I 

 have supposed that tiiis was the case in the pliocene period, 

 and that the Strait was opened by glacial action. The absence 

 (?) of remains of Mastodon in Nova Scotia, has been credited to 

 the glacial action in Nova Scotia, from which Cape Breton 

 8een)8 to have been largely exempt. The Mastodon has its 

 specific name ohioticns as Ohio in the United States is regarded 

 as the home of the species. The same friend gave me, along 

 with the tooth of the Mastodon, the tooth of a horse, which 

 has the appearance of a fossil. It resembles one of the teeth 

 of the Eqnus fossiliH or curvidens, which we find associated 

 with the Mastodon and Mannnoth in the pliocene Q.n^\ 2yleistocene. 



65. The next mammal to which we would direct attention 

 is marine. A whale, to which the name Beluga has been given. 

 The species is doubtful. It is probably the same as Vermontari'i 

 (of Vermont). The skeleton of which wo have the greater 

 part in our museum, was found at Jacquet River in the Bay 

 Chaleur, New Brunswick, in a cutting of the Intercolonial 

 Railway, when it was in course of construction. I subsequently 

 visited the locality and found a bed of clay several feet below 

 the surface, similar to the clay found in the vertebrae. In 

 the bed I found abundance of shells, showing that the clay 

 had been formed at the bottom (»f the sea, where the Beluga 

 liad been imbedded. The shells are identical with these, found 

 in other cuttings of the I. C. R. in New Brunswick, and at the 

 Levis Junction, also in the sands of Montreal, and other 

 deposits of the Champlain (post glacial) period. It is interest- 

 ing to observe that Beluga has been an inhabitant of the waters 

 of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, from the time when our fossil 

 Beluga li,ved to the present. I directed attention to this fact 

 at the Fisheries Exhibition, and at Professor Flowers' lecture 

 on the Evolution of the Whale at the Royal Institution, 

 London. In our Canadian Depaitment.of the I. F. E., I 

 exhibited characteristic parts of our fossil Beluga with associated 

 fossils. In our collection we had a magnificent stuffed specimen 





