BEVIEWS — ACADIAN GEOLOGT. 39 



name it as above cited. No species of Lagridte are known to fre- 

 quent aquatic plants, while the Donacidce are entirely confined to 

 marshy localities. 



REVIEWS. 



Acadian Geology: An Account of the Geological Structure and Mine- 

 ral Resources of JSova Scotia and portions of the neighboring Pro- 

 vinces of British America. By John William Dawson, E.Gr.S.* 

 Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. 1855. 



The author of this well-timed volume has been favorably known 

 to the scientific world for some years, by the publication of various 

 able memoirs on points connected with the geology of Nova Scotia. 

 These have appeared principally in the Proceedings and Journal of 

 the Geological Society of London, in the Proceedings of the Boyal 

 Society of Edinburgh, and in the Journals of the Legislature of 

 Nova Scotia. In the work now before us, Principal Dawson has 

 gathered together the results of his personal observations during the 

 last ten or twelve years on the geology of the districts cited 

 above. The mass of valuable faets thus eolleeted, is here presented 

 to the public in a very readable form ; and the work is furthermore 

 liberally supplied with a number of well-executed views and wood 

 cuts, besides a large geological map of the entire province of Nova 

 Scotia, Prince Edward's Island, and part of New Brunswick. 

 To be thoroughly appreciated, Mr. Dawson's book should of course 

 be read in Nova Scotia itself, or employed as a guide to the numer- 

 ous interesting localities of which it contains descriptions. But, 

 apart from its local value, the work is not without many points 

 of general interest; and in its masterly treatment of the leading 

 questions which come under review, it may be referred to with 

 profit by all interested in the progress of geological inquiry. Take, 

 for instance, the following description of certain alluvial deposits of 

 marine origin, spread in places along the deeply indented coasts of the 

 Bay of Pundy: — 



"The western part of Nova Scotia presents some fine examples of marine allu- 

 vial toils. The tide-wave that sweeps to the north-east, along the Atlantic coast 

 of the United States, entering the funnel-like mouth of the Bay of Fundy, becomes 

 compiessed and elevated, as the sides of the bay gradually approach each other, 

 until in the narrower parts the water runs at the rate of six or seven miles per 

 hour, and the vertical r'ue of the tide amounts to sixty feet or more. In Cobequid 

 and Chiegnecto Bays, these tides, to an unaccustomed spectator, have rather the 

 aspect of some rare convulsion of nature than of an ordinary daily phenomenon. 

 At low tide, wide flats of brown mud are seen to extend for miles, as if the sea 



* Principal of McGiU College, Montreal 



