in North- Eastern America. 



11 



distance of thirty miles in a single hour. Such hurricanes sweep 

 smoke and ash and light twigs, and even burning brands, over 

 land and sea, to unknown distances, and thus effectually rob the 

 soil of those quickening materials which the living trees had 

 probably, for half a century, been extracting from it by their roots. 

 It is easy to see how, in these various ways, the rains and winds 

 of heaven must have gradually rendered poorer the naturally 

 poor uplands of this coal measure district ; so that, as I have 

 said, the quality of the soils represented by Xo. V. must be con- 

 siderably below that which the soils on the same spots must have 

 possessed when the rocks, from which they are derived, began 

 £rst to crumble through the agency of natural causes. 



3rd. Passing over the soils Xo. IV. which, if what is above 

 stated be considered probable, may be looked upon as represent- 

 ing in some degree the natural quality of the soils of this region, 

 we may dwell for a little on those richer soils which are indicated 

 by the shading jSTo. III. In regard to these it will be observed 

 that they lie in general along the lines of drainage of the country, 

 and towards the outfalls of the rivers. On the one hand, we find 

 this quality of soil bordering the course of the Washedamoak 

 river, skirting the Grand Lake and its tributaries, and following 

 the Ime of the St. John river, as it crosses this region. On the 

 other hand, the ]Miramichi river and its feeders, for a great part 

 of their descent, flow through soils of this quality ; and so also 

 towards the sea {Northiimlerland Straits, which separate New- 

 Brunswick from Prince Edvrard's Island) into which many streams, 

 rising in the flats and swamps of the higher country, empty 

 themselves, the same better quality of soil prevails. So that 

 generally, we may say, that towards the outfalls of the rivers in 

 every direction the better soils are to be found, — a circumstance 

 very generally observed still in most of the long-inhabited and 

 long-cultivated countries of Europe. And the explanation of 

 this circumstance is easy : — the same atmospheric agencies which 

 have robbed the higher land have enriched the lower. The ever- 

 flowing and frequently-flooded rivers have brought down and 

 deposited in the line of their descent, the materials of richer soils, 

 and have thus gradually — upon rocks of the same geological age 

 and of the same chemical composition — established diversities 

 of soil, which a knowledge of the geological structure alone 

 would not lead us to anticipate, and for which, in fact, this know- 

 ledge does not enable us to account. That here and there such 

 richer soils occur in places which existing rivers appear unable 

 to reach, only reminds us how imperfect our information still is 

 in regard to the actual condition of this new country, and to the 

 modifying causes now in operation in different localities; and 

 how still more imperfect is our acquaintance with the earlier 



