1855.] DAWSON — SUBMERGED FOREST. 121 



here rise in all about forty feet, the mud becomes mixed with sand 

 and gravel, with occasional large stones, probably dropped by the 

 ice. At this level appear erect stumps and many prostrate trunks 

 of trees. The stumps are scattered as in an open forest, and occupy 

 a belt of 135 paces in breadth and extending on either side for a 

 much greater distance. I saw more than thirty stumps in the limited 

 portion of the belt which I examined. Between the lowest erect 

 stumps and the water-level at low tide is a space of 170 paces, in 

 which I observed only fragments of roots and prostrate trunks, which 

 may, however, be the remains of trees swept away by the ice from 

 the portion of the shore on which these fragments now lie. 



On digging around some of the stumps, they were found to be 

 rooted in ground having all the characters of ordinary upland forest- 

 soil. In one place the soil was a reddish sandy loam with small 

 stones, like the neighbouring upland of Fort Lawrence. In another 

 place it was a black vegetable mould, resting on a whitish sandy 

 subsoil. The smallest roots of all the stumps were quite entire and 

 covered with their bark, and the appearances were perfectly conclu- 

 sive as to their being in the place of their growth. I have no doubt 

 that the whole of these stumps have been deeply covered with the 

 marsh-deposit, and have been laid bare by the encroachments of the 

 tides on this somewhat exposed point. In a few places the lowest 

 layer of the mud originally deposited over the forest soil could be 

 observed. It is a very tough unctuous blue clay, with a few vege- 

 table remains resembling roots of grasses. This may have been the 

 first deposit from sea-water, while the forest was still sufficiently 

 dense to prevent the access of coarser sediment. 



All the stumps and trunks observed were pine and beech (Pinus 

 strobiis and Fagus ferrvginea), and it is worthy of notice that these 

 are trees indicative rather of dry upland than of swampy ground. 

 The pine-wood is quite sound within, though softened and discoloured 

 at the surface. The beech is carbonized at the surface, and so 

 brittle and soft that trunks of large size can be cut with a spade, or 

 broken across by a very slight blow. Owing to this softened condi- 

 tion of the beech-stumps, they are rounded at top, and scarcely rise 

 above the surface of the mud ; while some of the pines project more 

 than a foot. Even these last, however, are much worn and crushed 

 by the pressure of the ice. The largest stump observed was a pine, 

 two feet six inches in diameter, and exhibiting about 200 lines of 

 growth. 



These appearances cannot be explained by driftage, for the trees 

 are rooted in a perfect woodland-soil ; nor can they be accounted for 

 by landslips, for the stumps are separated from the nearest upland 

 by marshes nearly a quarter of a mile in width, and the upland is 

 low and gentle in its slope. The popular explanation is that the 

 tides have at some former period been dammed out, or their entrance 

 obstructed by a narrowing of the mouth of the Bay. This theorv is 

 countenanced by the present state of the tideway of the St. John 

 River, in which a ledge of rock so obstructs the narrow entrance, 

 that, while at low tide there is a considerable fall outward, at half 



