6ß GEOLOGICAL AND MINERALOGICAL NOTES. 



Directly under the marine peat is a bed of leaf mould and 

 fresh- water peat, frora three to four and one-half feet in 

 thickness, in which are found numerous logs of pine, 

 spruce and white cedar and the branches of the ground 

 yew ( Taxus canadensis) , the last named remaining in its 

 normal prostrate position. Below the peat are large oak 

 stumps standing where the trees grew on glacial drift. 

 While securing a specimen of one of the larger oak roots, 

 scratched pebbles and grooved stones were found with 

 oak roots growing around theni in their natural position. 

 From these observations it would appear ': — (1) That the 

 ancient oaks grew on the glacial tili which became de- 

 pressed ; (2) that a lake formed on this area in which ac- 

 cumulated the peat and leaf mould upon which grew the 

 pine, cedar, spruce and ground yew ; that (3) this in turn 

 became submerged and the marine peat and salt grass 

 formed above it ; and, lastly, (4) that the seaward slope 

 has become so great that the waves are cutting into and 

 carrying away these earlier formations and thus exposing 

 them to view. 



At Lobster cove, Magnolia, are the remains of numer- 

 ous red cedar stumps. Eed cedar stumps are also found 

 at Mingo's beach, some of which are six inches in diame- 

 ter, only the heart wood remaining. With these are many 

 logs of spruce and hemlock ramified by the borings and 

 containing shells of Petricola pholidiformis, a mollusk 

 abundant in the peat and clay at this beach. 



A section through the peat shows it to be five and one- 

 half feet thick which, taken together with the fact that the 

 surface of the peat is nine feet below high water mark, 

 gives a total depth of fourteen and one-half feet below 

 high water for the bottom of the peat as seen on the beach. 

 In this peat I have collected hundreds of wings of water 

 beetles and a great many fragments of other insects, which 



