OF THE BASIN OF MINAS. 241 
Horton Mountains to Truro. There was then no strait at 
all. The Basin opened broadly into the Bay of Fundy. 
Cobequid Bay was much wider than at present, and pene- 
_ trated eastward beyond Truro. One of the Acadian prov- 
inces, Prince Edward Island, was wanting. 
Within the whole bay thick beds of red sand were de- 
posited, and similar strata were at the same time accumu- 
lating in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, off the northern coast 
of Nova Scotia, and especially over the area now occupied 
by Prince Edward Island. These beds now form a 
coarse friable red sandstone which is almost entirely bar- 
ren of fossils, for it had afforded only a few reptilian 
‘remains in Prince Edward Island. Acadia must at 
that time have been peopled with animals, and covered 
with vegetation ; but the conditions for the preservation 
of the remains of either were very unfavorable. The bay 
was then open to the full sweep of the tide, which may at 
that time have acted with even much greater force in the 
region of the Basin of Minas than at present, because the 
tidal wave, not being obliged to pass, as at present, 
through the narrow Strait of Minas, would have had an 
Opportunity of exercising its full force, rising higher and 
higher as it rushed up the ever-narrowing head of the 
bay, but it may have been that at that time the isthmus 
which unites the peninsula of Nova Scotia with the main 
land was submerged, in which case the extraordinary tidal 
phenomena of the Bay of Fundy could not have resulted. 
The sandstone beds show, in their oblique lamination, 
the action of strong and shifting currents. There was not — 
e Same opportunity presented for the preservation of 
such footprints as may have been left on these sands, as 
existed in the quiet estuary of the Connecticut, or the 
Present Basin of Minas. At intervals during the deposit 
AMERICAN NAT., VOL. I 31 
