NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 
189 - 
part by their proximity to the ground, and hence are preserved. 
The new branches at the top, while very short and compact, are' 
able to obtain a sufficiency from the stem, but as they grow longer 
they obtain their supply with more and more difficulty until they 
finally perish, thus producing the advancing bare area behind the 
young tip. The result is probably purely a physical result of the 
attendant conditions, with nothing in it of adaptation. 
72. — The Location of the Highest Land in New Brunswick. 
Read October 6, 1903. 
Every New Brunswicker must have a desire to know where in. 
the Province lies the highest point above sea-level ; and the sub- 
jest is one also of considerable topographical and physiographic 
importance. Yet up to the present time it has been impossible 
for anyone to say where that point is. Such study as has been, 
given to the matter has seemed to show, as recorded in earlier 
notes of this series (Nos. 5, 19, 25, 34), that Big Bald Mountain, 
on the South Branch of Nepisiguit and Mount Carleton, three 
miles south of Nictor Lake, are the two highest mountains of the 
Province ; but it has been uncertain which of the two is the higher,, 
though the evidence seemed to favor the former. Now, how- 
ever, as the result of measurements made during a recent visit to= 
Big Bald in company with my friend. Professor A. H. Pierce, I 
am able to definitely settle the question as to their relative heights. 
Before presenting the new facts, however, we should note the- 
evidence for the published heights of these two mountains. The 
height of 2,675 recently given for Carleton rests upon aneroid' 
measurements made by myself in 1899 igo2 (Notes 25, 34, 
62). The height of 2,700 feet commonly assigned to Big Bald, 
was first attached to it upon the Geological map, published in 
1887 (or 1888). Now this map for the Big Bald region is based' 
solely upon the observations of Dr. R. W. Ells, who was there in 
1880, but it is a curious fact that in his report he gives the height 
of the mountain, presumably as the result of a single anero'd' 
measurement, as 2,330 to 2,430 feet in one place (Report 1879-80, 
32D), and 2,500 in another (35D), but nowhere as 2,700 feet. 
In answer to my question, as to the cause of the discrepancy be- 
