NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 425 
enter a higher country, evidently the same elevated mass, 
crossing both rivers in a northwest-southeast direction; then 
both cross an open trough, probably synclinal, occupied by 
Mountain, Blue Rock and Layton Brooks; then both enter a 
longer distance of still higher country, likewise extending con- 
tinuously northwest-southeast between the two rivers and 
beyond in both directions, probably a great anticline. There 
is, however,' this difference, that the Gaspereau is a much newer 
looking, and apparently much younger, river, with steeper and 
more cliff-like walls. 
But the relation between the two valleys does not end here- 
Although the river at Meadow Brook turns abruptly and per- 
manently southward, its original direction, as the map will 
show, is continued by Meadow Brook, which flows directly 
back against its course. I have seen this stream for only a 
quarter of a mile, in which distance it has high rocky banks 
like the Gaspereau; and Mr. Welch tells me it keeps this char- 
acter for a mile up, above which point the banks become low 
and the country open to the lake. This alignment of river 
and brooks in comparison with the course of Cains River and 
Salmon River, (which latter, as the next note will show, formerly 
headed in Salmon Creek and flowed in the opposite direction), 
suggests that the Gaspereau originally continued its course 
along the general direction of the Meadow Brook valley, (across 
the sharp angle now lying between them), thus falling into 
harmony with the parallelism exhibited by the other rivers of 
the region, as I have described in my Note on the Northumbrian 
system (No. 93). In this case it probably continued its course 
across country to the valley now occupied by the Kouchibou- 
guacis, and thence into Northumberland Strait forming the 
Kouchibouguacian Valley of the Northumbrian system. The 
analogy of the great right-angled bends of the Miramichian 
streams on the northeast, however, would suggest a possible 
later course into Cains River, either through Six-Mile Brook, 
or else the West Branch of Sabbies River. As to the causes 
which turned it southward into its present course, they will be 
noted later. 
