NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 87 
central New Brunswick. Near Foreston, at about 875 feet 
elevation, this Branch issues into the open country which is part 
of a remarkable great trough extending from east to west right 
across these Highlands, and causing the Miramichi waters well- 
nigh to intermingle with those of the Shiktehawk. At Foreston 
the stream becomes navigable, at fair water, for canoes, and 
swings northeast as a dark narrow pleasant quickwater stream, 
winding in a flat country between low banks, down to the junction 
with Elliot Brook, a clear stream which represents the northern 
source of the South Branch. It rises, as I am told and as the 
map shows, high up in the elevated country of the Central High- 
lands, in Victoria County, interlocking with Trout Brook and 
the Odell, and flows swiftly and smoothly southeast in an open 
valley. Below the junction the united streams flow southeast, 
preserving the same general character as above, — a smooth 
quickwater stream, winding in a very open country between banks 
of intervale, gravel and low terrace, very charming for the 
summer canoeman ; and so it continues, ever rapidly enlarging, 
and receiving several large branches, down to the Forks (eleva- 
tion near 800 feet.) 
Such is the arrangement of the South Branch waters at the 
present day, but there is every indication that the present stream 
is a composite. Thus the part south of Foreston, as shown by 
its homology with the streams east and west, and the somewhat 
re-entrant direction of some of its branches, probably flowed 
southward, and was turned northward by the formation of the 
Foreston trough. However this may have been, it belongs in 
one of these great north and south lines between lofty ridges 
which can be traced to the Tobique in one direction and the St. 
John in the other, as I shall show in a later note. Again, the 
the Transactions aforementioned, III, 1897, ii, 364, though with some errors which 
are here corrected from a later photographic copy), this branch is named Pipto- 
gobchtik, obviously its aboriginal Micmac name. This I think must be meant for 
Piplogobchtik, meaning simply “ West Branch,” involving an inseparable root for 
“West” (thus Rand, Micmac Dictionary, 279, gives Pebloogotcack for West River, 
Pictou) with a form of kej or ketch, meaning “ a Branch,” and the locative kik. 
It would thus be Piblogo-ketch-kik, that is “ West Branch Place.” It could be 
simplified for use to Pibletch. 
