70 BELT ON PRODUCTION OF LAKES BY ICE ACTION, 



Art. VIII. The Production and Preservation of Lakes bt 

 Ice Action. By Thomas Belt.* 

 {Read Feb. 6, 1865.] 

 During a residence of two years in the Province of Nova 

 Scotia, my attention was directed to the multitude of lakes, great 

 and small, that are spread over the country, sometimes in connected 

 chains, sometimes isolated on the tops and sides of hills, &c- 

 These lakes form a common feature in the northern parts of Amer- 

 ica, and increase in number as we proceed northwards. The larger 

 lakes are shown in maps of the Provinces, but it requires a visit to 

 impress on the mind the number of small lakes and ponds that 

 abound in every direction. Mr. Perley, speaking of Newfound- 

 land, says : — 



" The most remai'kable feature of Newfoundland is the immense and 

 scarcely to be credited abundance of lakes of all sizes. * * These 

 are found universally over the whole country, not only in the valleys but 

 on the highest lands, even on the hollows of the summits of the ridges 

 and on the tops of the highest hills. These ponds vary in size from 

 pools of fifty yards in diameter, to lakes of upwards of thirty miles long^ 

 and four or five miles in width. The number of ponds which exceed a 

 couple of miles in extent must on the whole amount to several hundreds ; 

 those of smaller size are absolutely countless." 



My duties in connection with the management of some mineral 

 properties in Nova Scotia, took me almost daily along the line of 

 an important chain of lakes, which, stretching almost across the 

 Province, had been taken advantage of by the Shubenacadie Canal 

 Company to form a water .communication from the Atlantic coast to 

 Cobequid Bay, by connecting the different lakes with short canals. 

 The works of the canal company exposed in many places the struc- 

 ture of the enclosing strata, and showed that most of the lakes were 

 in true rock basins ; and I had opportunities whilst mining opera- 

 tions were being carried on on the banks of one of the lakes, of 

 studying the disposition of the heaps of boulder clay and gravel 

 piled up on its sides. 



The rocks in which the lake basins lie are chiefly extremely 

 hard quartzites and metamorphosed schists, supposed to be of lower 

 sihirian age, although as yet no fossils have been discovered in 

 them. They are irregularly covered with heaps of boulder clay, 

 mostly unstratified. Wherever the surface of the rock is exposed, 

 it is found to be scratched, grooved and polished ; and other marks 

 * Read before the Geological Society, June 22, 1864. 



