96 HAMILTON — ON SUBMERGED FOREST, 



throughout a large proportion of their length, there is a gradual, 

 change going ou in the locus of the channel itself. On one side 

 of it we shall usually find an abrupt bank of alluvial soil ; on the 

 other, a broad expanse of recently deposited mud, sloping 

 gradually from high-water down to lo^v-water mark. This bank 

 is being constantly sapped, and its component materials carried 

 away by the tide which, on the other hand, is as constantly 

 depositing a corresponding quantity on the opposite slope. 

 Thus, where artificial means are not taken to prevent it, the 

 older marsh land is being daily engulphed whilst new marsh is 

 being made ; but, as of course, the upland banks and sandstone 

 cliffs bordering the Bay and its estuaries are constantly being 

 subjected to this same sapping process, the whole area of marine 

 alluvial deposits is steadily and rapidly enlarging. As might 

 be supposed from the great abrading force of the tides of the Bay 

 of Fundy, combined with the effect of winter frosts in this 

 climate, the work of disintegration and removal goes on rapidly 

 among even the firmest materials which go to form the shores of 

 the head waters of the Bay : these are the new red stuidstoue 

 of Colchester, Hants, and Kings, and the soft carboniferous 

 sandstones and shales of Cumberland Counties. Still more 

 rapidly does this process go on where the shore happens to con- 

 sist of a deep gravelly upland soil. To the existence of such 

 soils at several localities on the margin of the channels of the 

 Bay and to their rapid washing away l)y the tides may, I think, 

 be attributed the appearances at Cunii)erland Basin and, else- 

 where, which are supposed to be the remains of extensive sub- 

 merged forests. 



We find all the broader expanses of marine alluvium, or 

 marsh land, about both arms of the Bay of Fundy, dotted with 

 isolated patches of upland. These are called islands, even where 

 they are not bathed by the water on any side ; because of their 

 island-like appearance as they uprear themselves above the sea- 

 like level of the marsh. Some of these ou the shores of Cobe- 

 quid Bay and Miuas Basin show, where sections of them have 

 been made by the action of the tides, beds of new red sandstone 

 covered with a deep layer of soil ; but, for the most part, both 

 there and elsewhere, after going beneath the surface soil, we 



