BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 
402 
y . — The width of the river channel, as affording exposure for 
evaporation. Log driving, both in itseif and as opening the way 
for increased erosion by flood water and ice, has materially 
altered some of our river channels. The writer recalls a large 
“undriven " brook entering the Serpentine which had not one- 
fourth the width of neighboring “driven” brooks of apparen f ly 
equal volume. 
8. — The extent and distribution of rain-fall. This is the most 
important factor of all, and statistics are not obtainable for all 
parts of the Province. It seems probable that the mean annual 
rain fall is much the same throughout, and that the c tr earns of 
the northern highlands are less subjected to droughts u an llr 
others, and receive the benefit, in hot weather, of more frequent 
showers and electric storms. In August, 1904, after a steady 
twelve-hour rain, a rise took place on Taxes River, altogether out 
of proportion to that of the Miramichi and neighboring brooks. 
Our party, taking advantage thereof to pole up seven miles 
against a murky torrent, was left the following day with merely 
enough water to carry the canoes back over the sand bars. The 
gently-sloping well-forested Taxes valley would not point to such 
conditions. Perhaps some “cloud-burst” occurred over the upper 
waters. 
The various causes above given as affecting the discharge of 
our rivers may so co-operate or offsrt each other in a given case 
that each stream requires separate consideration. In connection 
with the first important factor, that of forest and swamp, we 
append two maps, one of the great New Brunswick wilderness, 
extending into Quebec, which exceeds in area the Maine-Quebec, 
wilderness by nearly 1000 square miles ; and one of the Cain’s 
River wilderness, so called after its principal stream, the second 
largest area of New Brunswick wild land. The third of such 
areas in size is that about the head of Canaan River. Large wild 
tracts also exist in Charlotte County and in Gloucester County, 
east of the Intercolonial. Smaller tracts are found in all 
directions. The regions here referred to contain, up to the 
present year, no railways, no roads, other than those used by 
lumbermen and hunters, and no permanent human habitations. 
