TOPOGRAPHY. The coast on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence is low and sandy, with numerous spits and lagoons; that on the Bay of Fundy is bold and rocky. The latter is protected from the scouring action of the extraordinarily high tides by a ridge of hard Cambrian rock with small areas of Silurian and Devonian as well as of the older Huronian and Laurentian systems. An other ridge, composed of granite, traverses the province from the southwestern to the north eastern corner. It forms the main divide between the eastern and western rivers, and has an aver age height of 1000 to 1500 feet, with a number of detached monadnocks from 2000 to 2500 feet high. These ridges are regarded as outlying branches of the Appalachian system. They in close between them a large, triangular tract of low, undulating plain, occupying the eastern half of the province, and underlain by the Carbonifer ous system. \Vest of the dividing range is a Silurian plateau much eroded and trenched by the valley of the Saint John River. The geology of the province is somewhat confused, and not yet definitely understood ; but it is probably in many respects similar to that of Nova Scotia (q.v.).
Nearly all the western half of New Brunswick is drained by the River Saint John, which, after forming for a long distance the boundary with Maine, flows through the province in a southerly direction as far as the 46th parallel, then turns to the east, and discharges into the Bay of Fundy, through an estuary extending north and south for about fifty miles. The northeastern part of the province is drained into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence through a large number of small streams. There are numerous lakes. Grand Lake, in the south central portion, is the only one of considerable size. The coast line is 500 miles in extent, and is indented by spacious bays. in lets, and harbors. The chief are: Fundy, Chi,7 necto, and Cumberland bays, the last two being merely extensions of the first ; Passamaquoddy Bay in the south; Verte, Shediae. Cocaigne, P,ichi bucto, and Miramichi bays on the east: and the Bay of Chaleurs, 90 miles long by 12 to 25 broad, in the northeast.