J50 



It liad two i-L-.niirkable features; the ice or glacial period, tlie record 

 of which is seen in tlie boulder clays and later the great subsidence, 

 or flood, and lake period, the record of which is seen in the leda clays. 

 The bool^ of the boulder clays is more ragged and torn than that of the 

 leda clays, yet it is quite readable, especially to those who have wit- 

 nessed the action of glaciers, or solid ice streams. At the Hogs Back 

 we saw simply Itoulders mixed irregularly in clay lying upon a smooth 

 bed rock. In the valley of the Eifie ground we saw only boulders. 



The principal difficulty in reading the simple record of the boulder 

 clays, arises from the fact that our ice streams often became confluent 

 by overflowing the dividing ridges, and the boulder clays are necessarily 

 covered in most localities hereabouts by the later deposits of clay and 

 sand. At the Quyon Creek, and at very many other places when 

 looked for, the polished bed rock and tumbled clay containing boulders 

 can be seen underlying the jliills and benches, and the flat expansions 

 into conntry flelds of the leda clays. One of the these ice streams 

 which came down the valley of the Gatineau left its debris in a ter- 

 minal moraine behind Hull, directly opposite the Parliament Buildings, 

 But this an old story, which you have all read on the shores of Lake 

 Deschenes and elsewhere. 



I must not omit to mention the fact, well known to all geologists, 

 that the gravels and other deposits of the glacial or flood period have 

 yielded along with their shells, and their fossil fish, and mammalian 

 bones, undoubted fossil human remains, from many, and scattered pai'ts 

 of Euroi)e and America. They are chiefly arrow heads and utensils less 

 perishable than bones, in washes of the streams, not unlike those ex- 

 hibited in the Geological Survey Museum. It is not strange therefore 

 that tradition has taken cognisance, however vaguely, of the period of 

 the floods. 



The fact of the humble ancestory of mankind has been firmly 

 established in recent years, by scientific proof that is no longer 

 disputed. We may confidently look therefoi-e in the gravels of the 

 tertiary ^streams if we can find them, and identify them, for the 

 evidences of mankind and his com})anions of that period. 



Our excursion to Kings Mountain, twelve miles west of Ottawa, 

 took us to the top of the leda clavs and higher ; to the levtd of the 



