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PE0CEED1NGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



[Apr. 10, 



exposed to the sea, forming low and almost level tracts along its 

 borders. Similar deposits also occur in the hanks of the St. John 

 and Kenebecacis Rivers, above the reach of the highest tides. They 

 not only appear where the currents have exposed the beds, but also 

 remote from those streams. The shells are chiefly imbedded in the 

 sand and marl, which also contain the relics of recent marine vege- 

 tation. In these deposits upwards of twenty genera of recent Tes- 

 tacea and six genera of Crustacea have been obtained. Some of the 

 shells, such as the My a mercenaria, Pecten, Area, &c, are well 

 preserved. The shells of the Solen ensis and Mytili are too brittle 

 to be removed. The claws of crabs and the bones of fishes, although 

 changed, are not destroyed. The shells of the uppermost beds are 

 more decayed than those of the lower deposits, and appear as 

 though the elevation had been slow and gradual, and not sudden 

 like those frequently indicated in districts moved by earthquakes. 

 The strata containing these remains are now from 10 to 40 feet 

 above the level of the tides, which rise 30 feet along this part of the 

 coast at spring-tides. 



The rivers emptying into the Bay of Fundy along this line of 

 coast are broken by falls at their mouths ; but the streams which do 

 not pass through this raised district empty themselves into the bay 

 smoothly and without interruption. It is therefore not unreasonable 

 to believe that the breaking-up of the river-beds was coeval with the 

 elevation of the shelly deposits now removed far above the reach of 

 the waves. 



The next site to be noticed is remarkable for its submergence ; it 

 is called the Great Tantamar Mash, situated 120 miles eastward 

 of the St. John, in the County of Westmoreland, and at the head- water 

 of Chignecto Bay. This marsh is 13 miles long, and about 4 miles 

 broad. Large tracts have been rescued from the sea by embank- 

 ments, or " dikes," thrown up on the borders of the river and its 

 creeks. At the eastern extremity of the Tantamar, there is a sunken 

 tract, composed of peat-bog, floating bogs, with swamps and small 

 lakes, not less than 8 miles long and 3 miles in width. It is the 

 breeding-place of great numbers of wild ducks and snipes. Large 

 trees of different kinds, collections of shells, bones of fishes, <fec. 

 appear at different depths in the alluvium. But besides these, on 

 the northern border of the alluvial deposit, patches of forest-trees, 

 some of which have been felled by the woodman's axe, are now over- 

 flowed by the tides. Relics of the early French settlers, Indian har- 

 poons, and pieces of their bark canoes, and other traces of the 

 aborigines have been dug up at depths of 5 and 10 feet beneath 

 the surface, on the opening of canak and ditches remote from the 

 river. 



The same depressing influence has been at work at Shediac and 

 Bay Yerte. At the latter place the gravestones of persons killed by 

 the Indians in 1755 are now reached by the tide at high water, 

 which washes the base of old Fort Moncton, and rises above its 

 causeway. 



In the County of Northumberland, where it borders upon the Bay 



