BELT ON THE GLACIAL PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA. 95 



istecl in the original rock mass, excepting where subaerial denudation 

 has concentrated it on the surface. 



Perhaps in sediments older than the glacial period and which 

 have escaped destruction during it, or in the beds of existing streams, 

 or on the present sea coast, deposits of grain gold may be found, but 

 they will be only the exceptions to the general rule. I have men- 

 tioned one exception. It belongs to the third class : it has been 

 produced by the waves of the sea on the existing coast line. I refer 

 to the gold washings at the Ovens, near Lunenburgh, which, though 

 limited in extent and soon exhausted, for a time largely remunerated 

 some of those employed upon them. From the side of a rocky- 

 promontory, traversed by numerous small auriferous quartz veins, 

 spreads out a bed of glacial drift, throughout Avhich grain gold is 

 sparingly disseminated. The sea is slowly eating into this bed and 

 rearranging its materials. It grinds up the stones to shingle and 

 finally to sand and mud, \vhich it cai'ries off to deeper water, leaving 

 behind the tough heavy gold. This is found at the bottom of the 

 shingle between tide marks, on the surface and in the crevices of 

 the bed rock, where the gold formerly distributed throughout a large 

 mass of drift has been concentrated. Now if the country had been 

 submerged during the deposition of the glacial drift, every part of it, 

 during its subsequent elevation, would at some time have formed a 

 portion of its ever advancing coast line, and been subjected to the 

 action of the waves ; and such deposits as those of Lunenburgh in- 

 stead of being confined to the present shore would have been formed 

 all over the emerging land. 



4. Marble Beds of the St. Lawrence. — In the valley of the St. 

 Lawrence marine beds with sea shells are found at various elevations 

 np to five hundred feet above the sea near Montreal. These beds 

 lie above the glacial drifts, and prove that subsequently to the depo- 

 sition of the latter, the country was submerged to at least the height 

 at which the marine beds are found. From a consideration of the 

 facts stated above, I am convinced that the Atlantic coast of Nova 

 Scotia did not participate in this depression, and a study of the marine 

 deposits themselves leads to the same conclusion. At Montreal sea 

 shells have been found up to a height of five hundred feet above the 

 sea, but lower down the St. Lawrence they do not occur excepting 

 at a lower level. Thus on the Metis river thev are found at a heisrht 



