SOUTH WESTERN NOVA SCOTIA. — ^POWERS. 307 



The trend of the axes of mountain building, which have 

 determined the outlines of Nova Scotia, turns in Shelburne 

 County from about S 45° W to S 20° W. The axes therefore 

 point away from the land as they dip under the sea, but not 

 at such an angle as given by Suess and de Margerie. 



Probably since the end of the pre-Cambrian at least part 

 of the rocks of the Goldbearing series has been exposed to 

 denudation. At the time the ice sheet advanced over the 

 region in the Pleistocene, long valleys had been formed in 

 the Cretaceous peneplain. The land was depressed at about 

 this time to its present level, drowning the ends of the valleys 

 and making the fiords and islands which now characterize 

 the coast line. The action of the ice was to bevel off the rock, 

 but also to leave a thick veneer of sandy ground moraine and 

 boulders over the entire country. Many islands and penin- 

 sulas consist, above the present sea level, almost wholly of 

 glacial deposits. Along the depressed shore line the sea is re- 

 working these deposits with the formation of abundant beach- 

 es and bars, and in only a few places has the sea cut through 

 the thick veneer and attacked the bed rock. 



Proc. & Trans. N. S. Inst. Sci., Vol. XIII. Trans. 21. 



