20 
bulletin of the natural history society. 
scattered individuals of very perfectly formed trees; while the 
glades are more or less carpeted by a close mat of Bearberry, 
Hudsonia, Reindeer Moss and low Blueberries. From a distance 
this scenery is most attractive, but it does not improve upon 
acquaintance, because of the thinness of the carpet and omni- 
presence of the sand. 
Fox Island I was able to study only hurriedly, and my sketch 
map must be very imperfect. Fox Island differs markedly from 
Portage Island in the great irregularity of its beach lines, which 
in many places are simply complexes of irregular flat mounds 
or low dunes to w^hich it is impossible to assign any prevailing 
direction. Yet at times the beach lines are distinct, and then 
frequently they run not parallel with the axis of the island but 
across it, as the lines on the map will indicate, though in other 
places a parallelism is plain. The cross direction of the beaches 
may simply be relics of ancient gullies, but more probably they 
indicate that the present island is a remnant of a much larger 
plain which must have extended out much to the westward, 
where it no doubt included the great shallow flats between it 
and Bay du Vin Island, now submerged by the subsidence of 
the region. Turning to the charts we find that off to the north- 
east of the Island, in the direction some of the beach lines point, 
there lies a great shallow bar,* with only four feet of water upon 
its highest part at low water. This also may have been formerly 
a part of the Fox Island Beach Plain, though it is also possible 
this bar is a remnant of a former sand island destroyed by subsi- 
dence and erosion. In the former case the main channel out of 
the Miramichi must have run north of the bar. across where 
now is the newest part of Portage Island, while the present 
channel inside the bar was later gouged out as the northern 
channel was filled by the extension southward of Portage Island. 
In any case, it seems fair to conclude that Fox Island is a rem- 
nant of a former much greater beach plain, reduced to its present 
dimensions by erosion and subsidence. The irregularities of the 
beach lines, however, indicate that this plain was somewhat 
*The fishermen, under the spell of the universal wonder-spirit, say this bar is exactly 
the same size and shape as Fox Island. 
