BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
4U) 
set forth in these notes often rest upon very scanty data ; and they 
are to be viewed, therefore, not as matured conclusions, but rather as 
tentative liypotheses suggested by the known facts and needing the 
test of further investigation. 
The Miramichi is remarkable for the great number and regular 
radiation of its large branches, which, considering its mouth as at 
Beaubair’s Island, cover at least 260° of a circle. As the geological 
maps, or the accompanying sketch (Map No. 2) will show, most of 
its branches rise in^he Central Highlands, How eastward to the Car- 
boniferous plain, uniting as they go, to fall by a single trunk into the 
sea. This Carboniferous plain is a peneplain of three or four hundred 
feet elevation in its \vestern part, where the rivers have cut deeply 
into it, but it dips gradually to sea level towards the east. It is com- 
posed of Carboniferous strata which are mostly nearly level, and hence 
have been little disturbed since their formation. 
For physiographic study the river falls naturally into three por- 
tions ; (1) the Northwest, (2) the Little Southwest, and (3) the Main 
Southwest. 
AVe consider first the Northwest. This river shows two parts 
first, the numerous streams rising far back in the wild, uninhabited 
Highlands amid high felspathic and granitic hills, and flowing east- 
ward in deep valleys over rough beds, converging as they go ;* and 
second, the trunk stream running from north to south, collecting 
their waters to pour them into the Little Southwest. As to the 
origin of the former streams, they must at least go back to the Cre- 
taceous peneplain of which the Highlands are probably remnants (see 
Note No. 49 preceding), and very probably they are much older and 
represent streams which helped in the planation of that peneplain 
before its post-Cretaceous elevation. They run now from their sources 
* As laid down on our maps, there is a most astonishing resemblance between the two 
great western branches, the Main Branch and the Sevogle. Taking tlie Geological Survey 
map, for instance, we note that both rivers enter the north and south part at about the 
same angle. Some miles (though at different distances) up both divide into branches, strik- 
ing off at similar angles. Taking the north branches, both give off small ones to the south 
and then fork into approximately equal streams. Taking the south branches, both fork at 
about the same distance, and these branches are not unlike in the two cases So remarkable 
is this resemblance that we must conclude either there is hei*e some extraordinary coin, 
cidence, or that the two rivers have been laid down from sketches intended to apply to the 
same river. The two streams are little more unlike that would readily be explained by two 
traverse surveys of the same river. The chief difference consists in the greater distance of 
the first branching of the one than of the other from the main river. 
