168 THE R'K AilK IX CANADA. 



over tlie surface, teariuj^ up the outerojis of tlie liods, ami 

 iiiiiiifliiio' their fra,i,'Mients in a rude and unsortful mass. 



Besides the untravtdled fraifnients, the ih'ift always 

 contains houlders derived from distant localities, to which 

 in many cases we Citn ivnvo. them : and I may mention a 

 few instances of this to siiow how extensive has heen this 

 transport of detritus. In the low c(juntry of Cuml)erland 

 there are few houlders, hut of tlie few that ap[)ear some 

 helon^ t(» the hard ro'-ks of the C.'oheipiid hills to the 

 southward; others m-iy have heen derived from the 

 somewhat similar hills of Xew Urunswick. On the 

 summits of the ('(jl)e({uid hills and their northern slopes, 

 we find angular fragments of the sandstones of the plain 

 helow, not only drifted from their original sites, but 

 elevated several hundreds of feet above them. To the 

 southward and eastward of the (Jobecpiids, throughout 

 Colchester, Northern Hants, and Pictou, fragments from 

 these hills, usually much rounded, are the most abundant 

 travelled boulders, showing that there has been great 

 driftage from this elevated tract. Near tlie town of 

 I'ictou, where a thick bed of a sandy boulder-deposit 

 occurs, this is tilled with large masses of sandstone 

 derived from the outcrops of the beds on higher ground to 

 the north ; but with these are groups of travelled stones 

 often in the lower part of the mass. Xear the steam 

 ferry wharf, in the town of Victou, I observed one such 

 group, consisting of the following, all large boulders and 

 lying close together — two of red syenite, six of gray 

 granite, one of compact gray felsite, one of hard con- 

 glomerate, two of hard grit. The two last were probably 

 Lower Carboniferous, the others derived from the older 

 crystalline rocks. All may have been drifted by one berg 

 or ice-floe from the flanks of the Cobequid range of hills, 



