NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 225 
the portage valley and Nictor Lake. But, traced so far, it can 
be traced beyond this in the upper course of the Little Tobique 
as far as the right-angled bend of that river. This upper South 
Branch valley represents, I believe, the old head of the Nepisiguit- 
Lake-portage valley-Nictor Lake valley of which I spoke in earlier 
notes (Note No. 33, 45), and the entire valley represents the prim- 
tive course of a river which arose in the Central Highlands and 
flowed into Bay Chaleur waters when all the northern Silurian 
Basin drained that way, if it did not run by an earlier course clear 
across that Silurian Plateau into the present St. Lawrence river. 
This valley should be named for the river and lake still occupying 
a part of its ancient course, the Nictorian. We are not without 
evidence as to the causes which have fragmented this valley as 
we find it at present, but this subject I expect to treat in a future 
note. 
The third remarkable relation of the South Branch to other 
valleys is found in the striking valley which lies between the His- 
torians Plateau and the Chiefs Plateau, and which is a perfectly 
direct continuation of the part of the South Branch valley lying 
north of Paradise Pond. This valley is as distinct, deep and as 
old as its northward continuation in which the South Branch now 
runs. It is, happily for the physiographer (and the canoe por- 
tager) mostly open burnt country, so that all its characters may 
be clearly seen. It is bottomed, and clearly at its northern end 
dammed, with glacial drift, and less than a mile from the North 
Branch, and some 100 feet above it, lies a swamp from which one 
brook runs northward into the South Branch, and another runs 
southward and forms the present head of the Northwest Mirami- 
chi. This latter stream has a gentle slope southward, as will 
later be described (Note 78). All the evidence seems to show 
not only that this valley is an old head of the South Branch, but 
that it emptied into it in immediately pre-glacial times. Its 
extreme head I was unfortunately not able to trace, but I have 
little doubt from the appearance of the country from the neigh- 
boring hills, that its head is to be found in a southerly continua- 
tion of the valley, very probably in the vicinity of Spruce Lake, 
if not farther southward. The true morphological head of the 
South Branch, therefore, and hence of the LFpsalquitch, was on 
the east, and not the west, of the Historians range, and it was 
