46 



that its surface and climatal conditions were unfavorable to tlie labors 

 of the husbandman. "While, to a certain extent, this may be true of 

 certain portions, large areas exist there which, undei'laid by the cal- 

 careous slates and limestones of the Silurian and Devonian systems, 

 possess a soil almost precisely similar to that on which the most pros- 

 perous settlements of western New Brunswick are situated, as seen in 

 the counties of Carleton and Victoria ; while through the interior of 

 the peninsula extends a broad area, having no great elevation above the 

 sea, bounded on either hand by lofty ranges, and which, but for ita 

 present comparative inaccessibility, would doubtless have long since 

 been brought into prominence as a desirable country for the farmer or 

 the stock-raiser. In this broad valley, which extends from the Meta- 

 pedia River to the Gasp6 Basin, most of the larger streams of the penin- 

 sula take their rise. On the hill slopes great quantities of valuable 

 timber, spruce, pine and cedar, are found, while the upper portions of 

 the rivers flow through extensive hay swamps, and the conditions are 

 such, apparently, as to greatly favor the successful development of this 

 section so soon as easy means of access are provided. At the present 

 time the population is confined entirely to a narrow strip on either 

 shore, but more particularly to the south side or that bordering on the 

 Bay des Chaleurs, where the value of the rich soils of the Lower Car- 

 boniferous formation has long been known. 



More than forty years ago, Logan and Murray explored many of 

 the streams of the Gasp6 district and scaled the rugged peaks of the 

 Bhick-Shoek range, not only for the purpose of studying their structure, 

 but in order to efiectively carry out a system of triangulation by which 

 the prominent hill features of this almost inaccessible portion could be 

 accui'ately mapped. Since then others have traversed the country in 

 nearly every available direction, and have outlined its physical and 

 geological structure with much care. It is, however, in that portion of 

 the Province lying to the south and east of the St. Lawrence, between 

 Quebec and the American boundary, that by far the greatest amount 

 of detailed geological work has been done, and here, as everyone familiar 

 with the history of Canadian geology knows, some of the most interest- 

 ing and difficult problems peculiar to the science are presented, the com- 

 plete working out of which has not yet been accomplished. Here the 



