ARTICLE I. 
THE PHYSICAL EVOLUTION OF ACADIA. PART I.— THE 
INSULAR STAGE, OR PRE-DEVONIAN DEVELOPMENT. 
By G. F. Matthew, LL. D., F. R. S. C. 
Read December 3, 1907. 
Under the above title the writer proposes to give a brief 
sketch of the physical geography of Acadia at different periods, 
of its geological history. This sketch is based on the observations 
of various field geologists from the time of Dr. Abraham Gesner 
to the present, and much of the data is drawn from the reports 
of the Canadian Geological Survey. While using these report 
the writer has given his own interpretation to the facts recorded, 
which, while they may not in all cases agree with those of other 
observers, are, he believes, the best and most natural explanation 
of the phenomena observed. 
This sketch of the geology is written in a somewhat popular 
vein, and details are as far as possible omitted, as their insertion 
would swell the paper to undue proportions. 
For this occasion I propose to confine myself to the early 
part of the history, namely, the ages preceding the great 
“ Devonian Revolution,” which thoroughly changed the physical 
geography of this region, introducing new faunas and floras, 
and raising up land areas and mountain ranges which did not 
exist before. 
The Laurentian Phase. 
On the north shore of the Bay of Fundy are some low hill 
ranges of great antiquity, whose rocks form the core on which 
the later geological terranes were built, and which had a tendency, 
age after age, to be pushed up or elevated when earth-movements 
were in progress, else they would long since have been buried 
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