PHYSICAL AND CLIMATAL CONDITIONS. 141 



present, and he seems to think tliat this may either liave 

 heen coincident with a lower level of the land snllicient to 

 estahlisli a shallow water channel, connecting the hay of 

 Fnndy with the Gnlf, or witli a higher level raising many 

 of the hanks on the coast of Xova Scotia ont of water. 

 (Jeological facts, which I have illnstrated in my Acadian 

 Geology, indicate tiie latter as the prol)ahle cause. We 

 know that the east-rn coast of America has in modern 

 times heen gradually subsiding. Further, the remarkable 

 submarine forests in the bay of Fundy show that within 

 a time not sullicient to produce the decay of pine wood this 

 de])ression has taken place to the extent of at least 40 feet, 

 and probably to GO feet or more.* We have thus direct 

 geological evidence (»f a foi'mer higher condition of the 

 land, which may when at its maximum have greatly 

 exceeded that al)ove indicated, since we cannot trace the 

 submarine forests as far below tlie sea level as they actu- 

 ally extend. The eh'ect of sucli an elevation of the land 

 would be not only a general shallowing of the water in the 

 bay of Fundy and tlic Acadian bay, and an elevation of its 

 temperature both by lliis and by the greater amount of 

 neighbouring land, l)Ut,as Prof. Verrill well states, it would 

 alsorai.se the banks off the Xt)va Scotia coast, and extend- 

 ing soutii from Newfoundland, so as to throw the arctic 

 current further from the shore and warm tlie water along 

 the coasts of Nova Scotia and northern New F]ngland. In 

 these circumstances the marine animals of southern New 

 England nught readily extend them.selves all around the 

 coasts of Nova Scotia and Cape lU'cton, and occui)y the 

 Acadian bay. The modern subsidence of the land would 

 produce a relapse toward the glacial age, the arctic cur- 



* Acadian Geology, p. 29. 



