90 GLACIAL AiSTD SURFACE GEOLOGY OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 



site Vancouver Island, on the main-land, and farther north towards Alaska. 

 There can be but little difference of opinion in regard to the general char- 

 acter of the former glaciation of the high range in question. The position 

 and direction of movement of the ice-masses was evidently governed by the 

 topography of the country, which at the time of the former greater extension 

 of the glaciers was in harmony with what it now is. There is a strong jjody 

 of evidence, as the writer thinks, to the effect that the ice-markings near 

 Victoria Avere the work of icebergs, and not of a gigantic glacier filling the 

 Straits of Georgia, as advocated by Mr. Dawson. So immense a development 

 of land-ice as Mr. Dawson's glacier would require seems not to be in har- 

 mony with what has been observed in regions farther south, or in the same 

 latitude to the east. The very uniform character of the manifestations of 

 the former presence of ice, over a length of more than a thousand miles, in 

 the ranges extending along the coast from Oregon to Southern California, 

 leads us to infer that so enormous and sudden an expansion of glacier-covered 

 surface as that demanded by an ice-mass fdling the Straits of Georgia is 

 something not to be accepted, unless thoronghlj' demonstrated by a series of 

 carefully conducted observations. Be this as it may, however, it must be 

 manifest to all that we have in this former extension of the glaciers, even 

 adopting Mr. Dawson's views, nothing which can be properly classed with 

 the Northern Drift, as will be more fully explained further on in this 

 volume. 



Neither can the phenomena described by Mr. Dawson as occurring in the 

 interior of Briti.sh Columbia, east of the Coast Ranges, be regarded as indica- 

 tive of anything more than local glaciation on a large scale, even if his ob- 

 servations be accepted as entirely trustworthy. But as it appears that some 

 explorers and geologists see, with the greatest facility, glacial markings of all 

 kinds, and in perfection, where others of at least equal experienije are unable 

 to discover them at all, it may be deemed advisable to wait imtil further evi- 

 dence is obtained before concluding that the Fraser River Valley was the 

 scene of such an exceptionally large development of ice during the Glacial 

 epoch. The relations of the admitted conditions of glaciation in the Far 

 Northwest to those of the northeastern part of North America will, however, 

 be best discussed at a later period in this work. That Mr. Dawson himself 

 perceives the theoretical difficulties which present themselves in connection 

 with the facts which he professes to have ol)served, and that there is some 

 imcertainty in regard to these facts themselves, will, as the writer conceives, 



