R CB PACIFIC EDUCATIONAL JOURNAL OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. All Drafts or Money Orders should be made payable to the Order of the Manager. I Tel in the Postoffice at San Francisco as Second-Class Matter. PAYOT, UPHAM & CO. ducational Booksellers and Stationers MESSRS. KOHLER & CHASE, 137 and 139 Post Street, San Francisco. GENTLEMEN:-We are convinced, and do not hesitate to state, that among all the instruments have used in this country, we found the DECKER BROS. Pianofortes as ranking among the very best as to beauty 1 brilliancy of tone and equality of touch. ZELIE TREBELLI, THE PACIFIC EDUCATIONAL JOURNAL. Official Organ of the Department of Public Instruction. The Bay of Fundy is situated between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, two of the maritime provinces of the Dominion of Canada. It is over two hundred miles long and varies from a hundred miles in width at its mouth, to only a few miles at the head, but in its relation to the tidal wave of the Atlantic, the mouth may be considered nearer three hundred in width than one hundred. The reader will remember that in Part I, it was shown that the tides in the Atlantic came from the southeast and the mouth of the bay looks towards the southwest, hence when the tidal wave reaches Cape Sable, the most southerly point of Nova Scotia, the western terminus is not far from Portland, Maine, and hence all, or at least the greater part of this wave, enters the mouth of the bay. The most important inlets, or arms of the sea, on the northwest of the bay, are, in order from the mouth; Passamaquoddy Bay, on the border between Maine and New Brunswick, St. John Harbor, sixty miles within the main bay, Chignecto Bay at the head, which last divides into two long but very narrow inlets, known as Cumberland Basin and Shepody Bay. Into the head of Shepody Bay empties the Peticodiac River, in which there is a remarkable bore at every flood tide, the water rushing up the river with great velocity and with considerable force and noise, though at ordinary flood tides, the bore does not reach a greater height than eight or ten feet, but this is exceeded at the time of the Spring tide. On the southeast side of the Bay of Fundy are the following important inlets, in order from the mouth, viz.: St. Mary's Bay, Annapolis Basin on the opposite shore from St. John Harbor and the Basin of Minas, separated from the waters of the main bay by a long and lofty promintory, known as Cape Blomidon, and connected therewith by a narrow strait, known as the Minas Channel. Around the waters of this broad and beautiful inland bay, or basin, were once located the peaceful towns of the simple French Acadians, one of which, Grand Pre, has been immortalized in Longfellow's "Evangeline." It will be foreign to my subject to give an account here, how ruthlessly the inhabitants of this region were, at the order of the English Government, driven forth to die as exiles in foreign lands. The width of the bay between St. John and Annapolis Gut, or Digby Gut, as it is sometimes called, a very narrow strait which connects with Annapolis Basin, is forty miles. Thirty miles further up the bay, the width is reduced to thirty miles; the mouth of Chignecto Bay is only fifteen miles wide, the mouths of Shepody and Cumberland Basin respectively, not over four miles wide. On the opposite side, the width of Minas Channel, between Cape Sharp over two and one-half miles. and the opposite shore, is not All these facts have a most important bearing upon the question of the tides. Another fact needs to be remembered here, which sets the tides of the Bay of Fundy in contrast with other tides in the vicinity. The head of the Cumberland Basin is separated from the head of Baie Verte, an inlet of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, by a narrow neck of land only fifteen miles wide. Indeed, as a late writer on the Geography of New Brunswick observes, "If the aboideaux, built across the streams at the head of these bays, were removed, their tidal waters would be separated by an undulating ridge not more than three and one-half miles wide." Now, on the St. Lawrence Bay side, the height of an ordinary full flood tide is only four feet, about the same as in the open ocean, while on the opposite side the tide ordinarily reaches 60 feet and often seventy feet, with an occasionally higher one, as was the case a few years ago, at the time of the "Saxby Gales;" so called when a hurricane of unusual force aided both moon and sun to pile up an unusually heap of waters, even for this region of remarkable tides. The writer is not in possession of the exact figures in this case and therefore, to avoid exaggeration, refuses to give any more guesses. Now, the high tides here are easily accounted for. The tidal wave of the Atlantic, low, it is true, but of mighty extent, comes at every flood from the southeast, and crowds into the open funnel of the bay. As the wave advances, the funnel becomes narrower, and the water pressed in between the bold, rocky, unyielding cliffs on both sides, rises proportionately higher and higher. At St. John, the ordinary tide reaches 30 feet (the writer once saw it several feet above the wharves, which are at least 40 feet high), and so on up the bay, it becomes higher and higher, until in the little bays and inlets at the head, the remarkable height before mentioned, is reached. There are two remarkable phenomena here, the description of which will close this article. At the city of St. John, the wide and deep Saint John River, especially noted for its picturesque and romantic scenery, enters the Harbor of St. John through an exceedingly narrow gorge, only 600 feet wide. The narrowness of this gorge will be better appreciated when it is understood that the river is nearly 500 miles long and is navigable about 200, while the width of it before entering the narrows, including the expansion of the Kenebecasio, which here debouches into the main stream, is over four miles, and the depth so great that any ship of the Royal Navy would find ample depth in sailing many miles up the stream. Within this narrow inlet from the harbor, hemmed in on both sides by sharp and jagged rocks, are two falls, or perhaps more truthfully, two inclined planes, with very uneven beds, down which at low tide, the waters rush with great violence, seething and foaming against the sharp-pointed rocks which obstruct them, both at the bottom and at the sides. The descent on the whole is about twenty-six feet. Now, a very remarkable phenomenon is seen here at every flood tide. The opening is so narrow that the tide cannot rush into the St. John as it does into the Peticodiac, in the form of a bore, but when the height of the water in the harbor has reached that in. the river above the "Falls," so called, the water, which but a while ago rushed out with great force, returns with equal force, and there is a fall inwards, which becomes greater as the water in the harbor nears its highest point. Woe betide any craft, large or small, which would attempt the passage of the rushing waters, for as absolute destruction would meet it as in trying to run the rapids of Niagara; yet strange to relate, these falls are passable four times out of every lunar day, namely: At about three and one-half hours on the flood-tide, and at about two and one-half on the ebb, when steamers and sailing craft can pass under the large suspension bridge, which here span the gorge 100 feet above low water mark. The period'alloted each time is short, not much over fifteen minutes, and all vessels must be at hand in time, and just at time-not a single minute too soon or too late or positive destruction awaits them. These falls are grand when viewed from the lofty suspension bridge at low water, when, as the poet has it : While with foam, the whole abyss |