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BULLETIN OF T HE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
northward to t lie Miramichi and runs in a deep, rather narrow, 
course in an almost unsettled valley which is somewhat, though 
not very different in character from the part above; but the 
ri\ r er bed continues deep and still all the distance with the 
exception of one small rapid at Hell Gate, almost the only rapid 
worthy of the name on the entire river. The plateau here is 
higher, apparently, than anywhere above, and the river is 
evidently cutting across a considerable ridge. Finally Cains 
River flows quietly into the Miramichi. 
We summarize now the physiographic evolution of the river. 
Inspection of a general map will show that the flat country in 
which it rises lies nearly in a continuation of the upper part of 
the Nashwaak valley. The whole appearance of the topography 
of that region, as I have seen it from different directions, together 
with the analogy of the direction of the parallel Taxes-Miramichi 
valley to the northward, makes it seem wholly probable that 
the upper Nashwaak, above Cross Creek, formerly continued 
its course right along the direction where now lie McCallums 
and Youngs Brooks to the present source of the river, and thence, 
probably by the North Branch, (the part above McKinley 
Brook belonging to the Gaspereau), along the present course of 
Cains River as far as Salmon Brook. This combined Nashwaak- 
Cains River valley was subsequently bisected by the working 
back of the present lower Nashwaak, leaving the Cains River 
part as a shallow valley cut but little below the general surface 
of the Carboniferous plateau. In the course of time this stream 
has cut its valley deep down below the old valley, resulting in 
the typical case of a “rejuvenated” valley such as Cains River 
really presents. 
The remarkable parallelism of all the streams of this region, 
and their striking continuity of direction with other rivers to 
the eastward, has already been discussed in earlier notes (Nos. 
50 and 93) ; the facts seem to make it certain that both Cains 
River and Gaspereau formerly continued their main courses 
north-eastward to the sea through some of the smaller North 
Shore rivers, and received the right-angled turns of their lower 
courses by subsequent changes. Thus, Cains River probably 
