NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK V) 
a very wide open valley, obviously far larger than the present 
stream could have formed. The great size of this valley is 
attested by the immense “fill” here required for the railroad, 
said to be the largest in all New Brunswick. At the crossing 
it is a pleasant clear-brown little stream running in rips and 
pools over a gravelly and stony bottom, and large enough to 
permit canoeing at moderately-high water. Downward it 
keeps the same character, but rapidly enlarges, having alw-ays 
upland banks often high wdth glacial terraces, and developing 
very pleasant trout pools between rips with considerable drop, 
Thus it continues, a very pleasant canoe stream in fair 
w r ater, and always pretty, down some four or five miles to 
the Salt Springs. 
These springs, a rather remarkable place and one of the 
chief claims of Coal Creek to notice, deserve some description, 
in extension of the brief account, given from report, already 
published in Note No. 79 of this series. The place is too 
prominent to be missed or mistaken. Coming down stream 
towards it, one rounds an abrupt turn, and sees ahead on 
the left a little brook, just below r which is a low open terrace 
bank falling to a muddy beach. Coming nearer, one sees that 
the place is all trodden as bare as a barnyard by the innumer- 
able animals, principally moose and deer, which resort there 
to lick the salt earth. Ascending the few feet to the terrace, 
one finds that it likewise is trodden quite bare except for an 
occasional small island of grass close against some old stump, 
while deeply trodden paths lead radiating away to the woods. 
Evidently the salt soaks from the springs through the soil 
of a considerable area, perhaps a quarter acre. As to the 
springs proper, there is apparently one on the top of the 
terrace near the bank, for a damp depression exists there, 
trodden more completely, if possible, than elsewhere. But 
the visible spring runs out on the beach, and being but a foot 
above low water mark is completely submerged at high water. 
It is only a small affair, a foot across and shallow, but from 
its quicksandy bottom the w r ater is constantly boiling up, 
at some times more actively than others, in a kind of rhythm, 
