94 BELT ON THE GLACIAL PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA. 



deep sinkings have been found in the vicinity. This indeed seems 

 to be a necessary result of the sorting arrangement of water. 



But in Nova Scotia, though denuded auriferous quartz lodes are 

 abundant, no similar deposits have been found with one exception, 

 to the consideration of which I will return. The gold instead of 

 being concentrated at the bottom of the superficial deposits, is either 

 distributed throughout them, or occurs in greater abundance at the 

 surface than below. 



At Lawrencetown extensive washings were projected, in conse- 

 quence of the discovery of spangles and grains of gold in the surface 

 soil. It was expected that it would be found in larger quantities 

 in the lower parts of the beds of gravel, as in other gold producing 

 countries ; but these expectations were not realized. A little gold 

 was found thi'oughout the gravel, but nowhere so abundantly as at 

 the surface. Probably the gold had been originally distributed 

 throughout the drift, and its partial concentration at the surface had 

 been caused by subaerial denudation. The process of denudation 

 may be seen in operation on every hill side. During the severe 

 winter the ground freezes to about two feet from the surface ; when 

 the spring thaws set in this is completely disintegrated, and much of 

 the finer soil is carried off into the rivers by the water from the 

 melting ice and falling rains. The heavier stones and the gold are 

 left behind, and thus are produced the surface gold washings, and 

 the surface accumulations of stones culminating in the well known 

 barrens of the Provirce. Since these gravels were deposited, they 

 cannot have been rearranged by water ; its sorting action would have 

 carried the heavier gold to the bottom of the deposits, as, in other 

 gold producing countries. 



The wreat richness of the a:old washinsrs in Australia and their 

 scarcity and poverty in Nova Scotia, notwithstanding the abundance 

 of auriferous lodes that have been denuded, may be thus explained : 

 In Australia the denuding agent was water, which carried off the 

 ground up rocks but left behind the gold — so that in the gravel beds 

 nearly all the gold but only a small proportion of the original rock 

 mass is left. In Nova Scotia the denuding agent was glacier ice? 

 which carried off alike the stony masses and their metallic contents. 

 The drift-beds left contain only the same proportion of gold as ex- 



