NEW BRUNSWICK CAVES. 
159 
the late Col. Robert Call, Sheriff of Northumberland county, the 
latter says that, although some thirty years ago he “ went for 
fishing very often to the Big Hole, he did not remember of hear- 
ing anything about a cave ’’ in that vicinity. He adds, however, 
that upon enquiry, he learned that there is a cave there, and that 
in it, it is said, a squaw gave birth to a child in the night of the 
great fire in October, 1825. Again Mr. George Brown, a resi- 
dent of Chatham, and the present owner of the land and fishing 
privileges on the northwesterly side of the Big Hole, while say- 
ing to Col. Call that he knew where the cave is, and had been in 
it, felt confident, though without particular examination, that it 
was small compared with the description given by Perley, adding 
that he did not think it to be more than fifteen feet wide and six 
or seven feet in height, extending inwards quite a distance, and 
narrowing off to a point. Mr. Brown also says that he knows 
of another cave at the Square Forks of the Sevogle, about ten 
miles above the Big Hole, that the fishermen have converted into 
a smoke house, but this is -much smaller than that at the Big 
Hole. Finally Dr. Nicholson, of Chatham, in a letter to Prof. 
Ganong, referring to the latter cave, says that it is known there, 
and that Perley’s description is accurate. 
Caves Resulting from Subterranean Drainage. 
In the case of all the excavations noticed above, the results 
have been due almost exclusively to mechanical action, the wear 
of waves, tides, or river currents, and only in rare instances are 
the holes shut out from the light of day. We may now consider 
some cases which are truly subterranean, and which owe their 
origination not wholly, or even principally, to mechanical wear, 
but largely to the solvent power of water. 
The materials capable of being acted upon by water in the 
way of solution to an extent sufficient to produce noticeable 
cavities are limited to three or four, viz., salt, gypsum, limestone 
and dolomite. 
Where beds of rock-salt occur, their removal, whether the 
result of natural or artificial agencies, necessarily tends to pro- 
