NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 429 
direction to Nashwaak in York County. They are from one 
to three miles wide, and nearly continuous, only from one-fourth 
of a mile to two miles of quite flat country separating them. 
They are skirted on the south side with heavy growth such as 
hemlock and spruce and hardwood, while the north side for 
their full length is covered with a dense growth of dwarf spruce 
and princes pine, mixed with little ridges of dwarf birch and 
short knotty poplar. This heath chain crosses the head of 
Richibucto River, Big Forks, Little Forks, Sabbies River, 
crosses the Gaspereau just where it takes its turn to the south, 
follows the course of the Gaspereau to its head, and crosses the 
head of Newcastle Stream and Little River to near Nashwaak. 
They contain a good many little lakes, up to a mile across, 
which give origin to streams; and Mr. Welch adds other details 
of minor interest. Since these barrens lie on the height of land 
giving origin to streams flowing in both directions, they cannot 
occupy an ancient valley, a precursor of the later Gaspereau, 
as^ one’s first thought would have it; and they are probably 
nothing more than an unusually well-developed series of the 
barrens which everywhere occupy the remarkably level, and 
therefore badly drained, surface of the Carboniferous plateau. 
And, as Mr. Welch remarks, they were doubtless at one time 
open shallow lakes, of which the present small lakes are the 
remnants. 
Supplement to Note 125. — The Ancient Indian Portage 
from Gaspereau to Cains River. 
In the earlier Note on Cains River (No. 118, in Bulletin 
XXVIII, page 210), I called attention to the great interest of 
this old Indian portage route, one o fthe most important in all 
of New Brunswick,* and described its Cains River end together 
with its course across country; and I added a brief comment 
upon its Gaspereau end. But on our visit in 1911 I was able 
to examine the latter place far more carefully than before, and 
to glean new information, the results of which are contained 
on the accompanying map and in the following remarks. 
*The information we possess about this portage is recorded in the Transactions of the Royal 
Society of Canada, V, 1899, ii. 251, and XII, 1906, ii, 93. 
