166 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [SEPTEMBER 
them a suggestion of plenty which is a true index of the eco- 
nomic condition of this region, for here are the most prosperous 
and progressive farmers, and the most thriving country towns in 
eastern Canada. Especially characteristic of the marshes are 
the tidal rivers which have helped to build them. As is well 
known, the sea here shows a great range of tides, even to over 
forty feet. The tidal rivers, winding in the most sinuous 
courses through the marshes, at times run full to their bordering 
dikes, loaded with brownish-red mud; but the fall of the great 
tides sends their thick currents tumultuously out, to leave but tiny 
rills between deep gaping gashes of slippery mud gleaming in 
the sunlight. Thus too are extensive flats laid bare about 
Cumberland Basin. The suspended mud gives both to the rivers 
and to the sea a dull-red color which isa striking and a charac- 
teristic feature of the scenery of the marsh country. Not all 
of the rivers, however, are red, for from some of them the sea has 
been shut out by ingenious dams, and in each of these the banks 
are clad with dense green grass to near the bottom of the bed, 
along which winds a small fresh-water stream. 
When one goes upon the marshes from the upland, he is 
likely to think them misnamed ; for instead of the soft bottom 
and the rank growth associated with the word marsh, he finds 
everywhere a soil as firm as the upland itself, and, on the 
reclaimed parts, a growth of the finest grasses, luxuriant but 
not coarse. Indeed, a near view of the reclaimed marsh shows 
scarcely anything different from the best of fine-soiled upland 
grass land. 
The marsh country is beautiful to look upon, and in addition 
there hovers over it the charm of a long and varied history. 
It was a part of the ancient Acadia and inherits the memories of 
3The height of the tides in this region is popularly exaggerated. Careful 
measurements have given for Cumberland Basin a range of 38 feet for neap and of 
45-5 feet for spring tides. Exceptional tides have had greater seni and the great- 
est on record (the Saxby tide of 1869) had a range of about 70 feet. The tides at the 
head of Minas Basin are sapere somewhat higher than in Cumberland Basin. 
Fuller particulars may be found in the Admiralty charts, in a “Report... . on the 
construction of a canal ieee the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy,” 
Ottawa, 1874, and in a Report on a “Survey of tides and currents in Canadian 
tales” by W. Bell Dawson, Ottawa, 1899. 
