Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/169

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WINDSOR—GRAND PRÉ—WOLFVILLE
131

of Cornwallls, near Kentville, in 1810. Seventy-nine years later he died at Hantsport on the banks of the Avon. Of the twelve languages he spoke, the Micmac tongue gave him the greatest pleasure. He thought it "one of the most marvellous of all languages, ancient or modern." Translations of parts of the Bible, a Micmac Dictionary, and many tracts and hymns put into Malicite were among the achievements of his pen.

Blomidon's aspect from the deck of the little steamer which crosses to and fro between Wolfville and Parrsboro contradicts the impression gained of it from the land—a riven red bluff jutting from the coast, aloof and unshielded. Actually the cape is but the southerly outpost of a curving buttress that receives the brunt of tides and wind as they beat in past Cape Split. Geologists relate that this coast was rended by a volcanic convulsion which deposited a hot flow of lava on the earth whose base is rock of the Triassic period. Minas Basin and Cobequid Bay form a wedge-shaped body of water which divides lower Nova Scotia from the neck of land to the north. Parrsboro is on this farther shore, sheltered by Partridge Island, which, like Blomidon, is renowned for its lashing tides, its stores of semiprecious crystals, and deeds of Glooscap.

The Prince Albert of the Dominion Atlantic Company leaves Wolfville and Parrsboro every week day, but each day at a different hour, due to tidal