Topography of Coal Formations, 269 



rapid degradation, together with the presence of lime (in the 

 form of sulphate and carbonate), combine to make the lower 

 carboniferous beds of New Brunswick eminently adapted for 

 agricultural purposes." 



Thus the major portion of central and eastern New Bruns- 

 wick is composed of these beds, which furnish topographical 

 aspects familiar to the eye of the geologist. This, as before 

 pointed out, is especially observable along the route already 

 indicated, from the capital to St. Stephen on the St. Croix 

 River ; the chief feature being the extreme flatness of the 

 land, which is overspread by forests, broken here and there 

 by swamps or clearings, and scattered settlements, or else 

 burned lands, more or less overgrown by the usual second 

 growth of larch, pine, maple, willow, alder, poplar, and under- 

 shrubs. 



Harvey's Settlement, as before stated, is an extensively cul- 

 tivated patch, surrounded by enormous forests, stretching in a 

 north-easterly direction ; the only prominent feature being 

 the rounded hill of trap, named Bald Mountain, which towers 

 some hundred feet above the pine tops. 



This mound of igneous rock fringes the great coal basin of 

 central New Brunswick, and is a regular geological feature of 

 the sub-carboniferous strata. It would further seem that these 

 trap beds form the line of junction between the latter and the 

 ordinary coal measures. The view from any commanding 

 position in this neighbourhood is peculiarly characteristic of 

 the region. A vast sea of pine tops is observed stretching far 

 and wide; and either rising in undulating ridges according to 

 the nature of the ground, or spread out in an interminable 

 sheet of dark green, broken here and there by little gaps and 

 clearings. Indeed, one might fancy these primeval forests 

 stretching from shore to shore, not over two centuries ago, 

 before the white man set foot in them, and teeming with wild 



* See " Bailey's Observations on the Geology of Southern New Bruns- 

 wick," Government Report, p. 104. 



