blossoms, the Kalmia, (K. angustifolia), a beautiful tiger lily, the oderiferous shrub called sweet fern, (Comptonia asplanifolia), an Hypericum, and a blue Campanula. July 9th. From Burlington, I crossed the Green Mountains of Vermont, composed of chlorite schist, gneiss, and other crystalline rocks, passing by Concord and Montpelier, to Hanover. Here we paid a visit to Professor Hubbard, at Dartmouth College, and then returned through New Hampshire to Boston. Since we had left that city in May, we had travelled in little more than two months a distance of 2500 miles on railways, in steamboats, and canoes, in public and private carriages, without any accident, and having always found it possible so to plan our journey from day to day, as to avoid all fatigue and night travelling. We had usually slept in tolerable inns, and sometimes in excellent hotels in small towns, and had scarcely ever been interrupted by bad weather. I infer, from the dismay occasionally expressed by Americans when we pursued our journey, in spite of rain, that the climate of the States must be always as we found it this year-wonderfully more propitious to tourists than that of the "old country," though it is said to be less favourable to the health and complexion of Europeans.

I ventured on one or two occasions in Canada,

when I thought that the inns did not come up to the reasonable expectations of a traveller, to praise those of the United States. I was immediately assured that if in their country men preferred to dine at ordinaries, or to board with their families at taverns, instead of cultivating domestic habits like the English, nothing would be more easy than to have fine hotels in small Canadian towns. This led me to inquire how many families, out of more than fifty which we had happened to visit in our tour of eleven months in the United States, resided in boarding-houses. I found that there was not one; and that all of them lived in houses of their own. Some of these were in the northern and middle, others in the southern and western States; some in affluent, others in very moderate circumstances: they comprised many merchants as well as lawyers, ministers of religion, political, literary, and scientific men.

Families who are travelling in the U. S., and strangers, like ourselves, frequent hotels much more than in England, from the impossibility of hiring lodgings. In the inns, however, good private apartments may be obtained in all large towns, which, though dear for the United States, are cheap as contrasted with hotels in London. It is doubtless true that not only bachelors, but many young married couples, occasion

ally escape from the troubles of house-keeping in the United States, where servants are difficult to obtain, by retreating to boarding-houses; but the fact of our never having met with one instance among our own acquaintances inclines me to suspect the custom to be far less general than many foreigners suppose.

It was now the fourth time we had entered Boston, and we were delighted again to see our friends, some of whom kindly came from their country residences to welcome us. Others we visited at Nahant, where they had retreated from the great heat, to enjoy the sea-breezes. The fire-flies were rejoicing in the warm evenings. Ice was as usual in abundance; the iceman calling as regularly at every house in the morning as the milkman. Pine-apples from the West Indies were selling in the streets in wheelbarrows. I bought one of good size, and ripe, for a shilling, which would have cost twelve shillings or more in London. After a short stay, we set sail in the Caledonia steam-packet for Halifax.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Linnæa borealis.

Halifax.-Glacial Furrows in Nova Scotia.-Difference of Climate of Halifax and Windsor. Tracts covered with Kalmia. High Tides of the Bay of Fundy.-The Bore. - Recent Deposits of Red Mud hardened in the Sun.-Fossil Showers of Rain.- Footprints of Birds, and Casts of the same.- ·Cracks caused by Shrinkage. Submerged Forest. Recent Glacial Furrows at Cape Blomidon.-Loaded Ice.-Ice-Ruts in Mud.

July 16. 1842.- WHEN I went on board the Caledonia at Boston, I could hardly believe that it was as large as the Acadia, in which we had crossed the Atlantic from Liverpool, so familiar had I now become with the greater dimensions of the steamers which navigate the Hudson and other large American rivers.

We soon reached Halifax, and I determined to devote a month to the geology of Nova Scotia. About three miles south of Halifax, near "the Tower," I saw a smooth surface of rock, formed of the edges of curved and highly inclined strata of clay-slate. This surface was crossed by furrows about a quarter of an inch deep, having a north and south direction, and preserving their parallelism throughout a space 100 yards in breadth. Similar

phenomena are observed in other parts of this peninsula, on ther emoval of the drift, which occurs both stratified and unstratified, and much resembles that of Scotland. I may mention here, that afterwards near Pictou (at Dixon's quarry), I observed polished a surface of quartzose grit of the coal measures, with distinct furrows running nearly E. and W. or E. 15° N., magnetic; while in some other places I saw them having nearly the same direction as at Halifax.

Nova Scotia is usually known to strangers by its least favourable side, -its foggy southern coast, which has, nevertheless, the merit of affording some of the best harbours in the world. We left Halifax for Windsor in a drizzling rain and fog, and were told that we should probably find fair weather on the other side of the hills. Accordingly, when we had travelled about thirty miles, and crossed a low chain called the Ardoise Hills, we found the sun shining on a region sloping towards the Bay of Fundy, where a rich vegetation clothes the rocks of red sandstone, marl, and limestone.

Great was the contrast between the climate and aspect of this fertile country, and the cold barren tracts of granite, quartzite, and clay-slate which we had passed over on our way from Halifax. The sterility of that quartziferous district had not been relieved by any beautiful features in the scenery, the