104 
THE NATURALISTS' COMPANION. 
is called ‘‘rasse” by the natives, and it 
inhabits the wildest of the mountain 
range of Chinese Tartary and Thibet. 
It is a larger animal than Ovis Ammon, 
usually considered the finest of the sheep. 
This latter is called the blue sheep of 
the Himalayas, and as nearly as large as 
an ox, standing four feet high at the 
shoulders. The coat is hair of a slaty- 
blue color. It has enormous horns, 
which it uses in violent combats. The 
horns are thus Irequently broken off, 
when they are utilized by foxes and 
small animals as roomy and convenient 
dwellings. This sheep ranges the 
southern slopes of the mountains, at an 
elevation of twenty to thirty-five thous¬ 
and feet, where it grazes on the grassy 
patches, which are swept bare of snow 
by the frequent storms. On the other 
slope, the Ovis Vignei, or Ibex, ranges. 
This sheep differs from Ovis Ammon, in 
size and in the corrugations and shape 
of the horns, which have a spread of 
two feet, and also in the color of its 
coat. Its habits are very similar, how¬ 
ever, and in this respedf one race differs 
very little from another. It is an inter¬ 
esting subject for speculation, how our 
domestic sheep has become evolved 
from these wild races, which are so un¬ 
like their cultivated relatives.— Young 
Naturalist. 
AJV AJVCIEJ^-'T RIVER. 
Vessels iTom the Atlantic enter the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence by the Strait of 
Canceau, which divides the island of 
Cape Breton from Nova Scotia. This 
is one of the most singular marine high¬ 
ways in the world. Soon after passing 
the antique French town of Arachat, 
the land closes in, and we find ourselves 
in a narrow waterway, from half a mile 
to a mile in width and fifteen miles in 
length, cut right across the strudfure of 
the rough Paloeozoic country. As the 
ocean steamer threads its narrow waters 
amid wooded bluffs and low green mead¬ 
ows, we seem to be ascending some no¬ 
ble river. And a river this has been. 
A river the principal part of whose 
course is now sunk beneath the blue 
roll of the Gulf waves. 
All arround the southern part of the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence there is abundant 
evidence of recent subsidence. In Baie 
de Vert and Cumberland basin perfedt 
stumps of trees are found rooted 30 feet 
and 40 feet below the tide level. In 
the Post Glacial Period the Strait of 
Northumberland was a dry wooded val¬ 
ley, traced by the upper course of this 
ancient river. The headwaters of the 
stream tumbled from the crags of the Co- 
bequids on the one hand, and from the 
Triassic hills of Prince Edward Island 
on the other, and it empties into the 
Atlantic through a gourge as profound 
as that of Niagara. Themastadon slak¬ 
ed his thirst at its foaming rapids, and 
Paloeozoic man explored its tide for a 
precarious meal. This water-course has 
been the boundry line between Cape 
Breton and Nova Scotia since a time 
running back into the geological ages, 
and has proved an effectual barrier to 
the distribution of several tribes of ani¬ 
mals^ 
Strange that the upper course of a 
river should be lost beneath the sea 
while its lower remain still among the 
water-ways of the continent. But the 
secret is soon told. The headwaters of 
this ancient river of Canceau were situ¬ 
ated within the area of a great synclinal 
fold of the earth’s crust, which for ages 
has been bearing down land and stream 
to make a bed for fresh sedamentary de¬ 
posits ; while its lower course was across 
the corresponding anticlinal, forming 
here the primary ridge of the Nova Sco¬ 
tian peninsula. Francis Bain, 
Prince Edward Island. 
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