312 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND . To this general character of the soil there are but few exceptions: these are the bogs, or swamps, which consist either of a soft spongy turf, or a deep layer of wet black mould, resting on white clay, or sand. In its natural state, the quality of the soil may be readily ascertained by the description of wood grow¬ ing on it ; it being richest where the maple, beech, black birch, and a mixture of other trees, grow, and less fertile where the pine, spruce, larch, and other varieties of the fir tribe, are most numerous. The soil is fertile; and there is scarcely a stone on the surface of the island that will impede the pro¬ gress of the plough. There is no limestone nor gypsum, nor has coal yet been discovered, although indications of its existence are produced. Iron ore is by many thought to abound, but no specimens have as yet been discovered, although the soil is in dif¬ ferent places impregnated with oxide of iron; and a sediment is lodged in the rivulets running from vari¬ ous springs, consisting of metallic oxides. Red clay, of superior quality for bricks, abounds in all parts of the island; and a strong white clay, fit for potters' use, is met with, but not in great quanti¬ ties. A solitary block of granite presents itself occa¬ sionally to the traveller; but two stones of this descrip¬ tion are seldom found within a mile of each other. Volney and some other writers have remarked, that the granite base of the Alleghany mountains extends so far as to form the rocky stratum of all the countries of lying to the eastward of them To this, as a general rule, there is more than one 2