NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 21 T 
lumbering on the river has been done, though some twelve years 
ago some lumber was driven down it by Lovell Bros., of Bathurst. 
The South Branch Nepisiguit is remarkable for three things ; 
its curiously gradual transition from a deadwater near its source 
to the roughest river of the Province near its mouth ; its remark- 
able hills; and its surprising relations to other rivers. These we 
shall consider in order. 
The river rises in three heads on the northern margin of the 
great central watershed, one branch coming from the west, another 
from the south, and another from the east. These streams unite 
in a great open basin west of Bald Mountain and wander for some 
two miles through headwaters and small ponds in bogs and alder 
swamps. Flowing northward the river then begins, to fall, at 
first gently, and then more swiftly, forming one of the most 
charming of New Brunswick streams, winding over gravel be- 
tween wooded banks, much as does the Little Tobique or Upper 
Nepisiguit. Farther north the basin narrows rapidly by the 
approach of the forested hills, until the river runs in a narrow 
winding notch between steep forested hills, with an increasingly 
swift current over cobbles and small boulders. Issuing from the 
Notch it flows more swiftly* over boulders between lofty naked 
hills, and it receives two streams from the westward, after which 
it makes a big bend to the eastward. It now becomes so swift 
and broken by rapids and falls among boulders that for the next 
two miles it is navigable for canoes only with very great difficulty. 
Near the end of this easterly stretch lies a large pool or pond 
(Paradise Pond), with charming surroundings, the only quiet 
waters on the whole lower river, and in this pond are trout of so 
*The accompanying- map, unfortunately, does not show this winding character of the 
valley through the Notch, and it fails also to show the similar winding of the rocky valley 
below Paradise Pond This is because I depended upon Berton's plan for the river to south 
of the Notch, and I did not discover until too late to make surveys that the map is seriously 
inaccurate in both of these parts, representing as it does the general course of the stream 
as straight when it is very winding. I liave preferred to follow his plan on this map rather 
than to attempt to put in the wdnding from memory. 
Ells’ description of the stream above the Forks is not strictly correct, or at 'east is 
misleading. He says (Report 2) : “ From the frequency of its falls and rapids, it lower 
part for about six miles is difficult for canoes, but above this point no such obstacles exist 
again, (34) “ above which [the forks, 7 miles from the mouth J the stream for some fourteen 
miles winds through a low and sw'ampy hollow betw'een high mountain ranges.” As a 
matter of fact the canoeing is difficult for some miles above the Forks, though steadily 
improving as one ascends, and it only becomes really easy south of the Notch. 
