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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
wondrous size, beauty, number and voracity that a man doth 
danger his name for truth if he but tell the fact concerning them. 
Below Paradise Pond the river again swings to the north, and 
cuts its narrow valley still deeper (about a thousand feet), between 
tlie great bare rocky hills, and from this point to its mouth it is 
little better than a bouldery torrent, almost unnavigable for 
canoes, and the swiftest river in New Brunswick. In places the 
valley becomes so narrow, and its walls so steep, that great masses 
of granite have fallen into the stream, making falls and rapids of 
the roughest character, necessitating many portages by the 
voyager. Finally it enters the valley of the Nepisiguit, which it 
joins quietly in a great basin. The scenery of this part of the river 
has been well described by Ells, though with some exaggeration 
as to the vertical bluffs : “ immense mountains, whose white 
weathering bald sides, often terminating in vertical bluffs of 
several hundreds of feet, flanked by huge heaps of debris, present 
prominent features of the landscape. The scenery is among the 
grandest in the province. Huge hills extend as far as the eye 
can reach. These are often burnt completely bare, and the 
mountain rock is entirely denuded of soil ; at others small clumps 
of green woods break the sterile aspect of the country, and indi- 
cate the course of some small stream.” (Report 33 D). 
Whether hills are seen from the valley, or the valley 
from the hills, the aspect is the grandest and roughest to 
be seen in New Brunswick. The view along this deep rocky 
valley from Hannay Mountain towards the Nepisiguit, with the 
basin of that river in the distance, comes the nearest to a genuine 
mountain view that I ^ave seen anywhere in this Province. So 
rough is the river that its roar can be heard far back upon the 
hills, where it forms the most characteristic sound of the region. 
The great descent of the river is made more apparent from 
the levels taken by us with the aneroid at several points. The 
sources of the river must lie at about 1.800 feet above the sea, 
for we found the elevation of the river in the vicinity of Bald 
(Kagoot) Mountain to be 1,705 feet (Note 75). Just south of 
the Notch we found it to be 1,597 feet, while at the Forks, near 
Pierce Mountain, it was 1,363 feet. At Paradise Pond it is 1,230 
feet; hence the drop in the two miles from the Forks to Paradise 
