318 BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
Passing now to the lowermost portion of the river, we must consider 
both its Glacial and its pre-Glacial history. Mr. Chalmers has expressed 
the opinion that much of the lower part of this river is post-Tertiary, a 
conclusion with which I cannot entirely agree. The Narrows is a 
typical gorge eroded out since the Glacial period, and the pre-Glacial 
valley is evident on the north bank. For about half a mile above the 
Narrows the valley is very open and apparently ancient, and possibly 
Nepisiguit Brook was the original source of this part of the river. 
Below the Narrows the same open character is kept, and a marked 
feature of the river are occasional isolated cliffs, marking ancient rock 
ridges through which the river long ago cut its way. The hills 
diminish in height until the Grand Falls is reached, where there is a 
fine fall and gorge. Mr. Chalmers states there is no pre-Glacial valley 
around this fall, a statement quite incomprehensible to me, for below 
the gorge is a large basin, from the north side of which a low drift- 
filled valley starts westward towards the head of the fall. It is true 
I have not followed it through, but the whole appearance at the basin 
is precisely that of a pre-Glacial valley now drift-filled. Below the 
Falls the valley for the most part is very broad and open, but it is 
broken at Chain of Rocks, at Middle Landing, at Pabineau Falls, at 
the Rough Waters, and a few minor points by bad rapids or falls over 
ledges ; and at these points the valley is obviously post-Glacial. But 
these falls occupy only a part of its course, and between them the river 
is very different in character, and has all the appearance of an old 
partially drift-filled valley. The whole country here is a low peneplain, 
and the valley is very shallow ; this shallowness has allowed of its 
easy damming in many places by Glacial drift and its deflection from 
its old course, whence the many falls. In places the river follows the 
contact line of the Lower Carboniferous and the Granite, and probably 
that was its course throughout in pre-Glacial times. I believe that 
this valley, though of course geologically newer than the upper part 
of the river, is much older than post-Tertiary. The course of its lower 
part is in line with the Northwest Miramichi, and both occupy a 
valley created by the rise of the country to the eastward. Indeed it is 
probable that this original Nepisiguit atone time headed near Portage 
River, for Gordon (or Portage) Brook continues it in a straight line 
on one of its bends (wrongly shown on the map), and is largely a 
sluggish stream connected by a low portage with the Miramichi. In 
