NATURAL HISTORY .AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 219 
Pond was sixty-one feet a mile. Now the mouth of the river is 
about 860 feet above the sea (for I estimate it is about fifteen feet 
below the mouth of Portage Brook,* two miles above), and hence 
the drop in the lower five miles is seventy-four feet per mile (in 
some of the miles much more), a greater drop than any other five 
miles of river in New Brunswick possesses, exclusive, of course, 
of the vertical drop of lofty falls. 
A very notable fact about the river throughout its course is 
this, that it invariably runs over drift. Ledges in places form 
the valley walls, and the river washes against them, but not once 
in its entire course is the valley bottomed by ledges, and the falls 
are invariably over and among boulders. Moreover, in most 
places along the river there are distinct boulder terraces, and these 
are very well marked even in the narrowest part of the lower 
valley. These facts show conclusively that no part of this river 
is post-glacial, but that it all flows throughout its course in a 
pre-glacial valley. 
' We consider now the mountains of the South Branch, and 
first note those about its source. Those from among which the 
three heads of the river descend are somewhat over 2,000 feet 
above the sea, of gentle contours, and forested. They form a 
part of the great central watershed of the Province, a remnant of 
an ancient peneplain which extends both southwest and northeast, 
as will presently be described. By far the most conspicuous one 
among them is Bald (also called Big Bald, our Kagoot), hitherto 
supposed, but erroneously (as I have shown in a previous note. 
No. 72) to be the highest in New Brunswick, which owes its 
prominence not to its height, which is 2,290 feet, and but little 
greater than that of its neighbors, nor even to its elevation above 
the basin of the South Branch, for it is only about 600 feet above 
the river at its base, but to a combination of complete and striking 
bareness, with partial isolation and a bold outline. The view 
from its summit is fine, but is neither so extensive nor so striking 
as that from several other mountains in the Province. To the 
east and south the country is a great featureless plateau, as it is 
also, though with a little more irregularity, to the southwest and 
west. To the northwest in (he distance the country is much broken. 
*875 feet. Note 62. 
