GLACIAL MARKINGS ON VANCOm'EE ISLAND. 85 



found pervading the wliole article in question. For instance, it is remarkable 

 that no clew is given to the heights at which the erratic blocks actually 

 observed were seen; neither is there any precise statement of locality in 

 Dr. Brown's connnunications, excepting the three-times repeated information 

 in regard to the granite of which some buildings at Victoria have been con- 

 structed. There is nothing in either of the three papers whose titles have 

 been given which is inconsistent with the idea previously advanced by the 

 present writer, that icebergs have passed over portions of the island and 

 dropped occasional boulders on the surface, at a time when the level of the 

 land was not as high as at the present time by one or two hundred feet. This 

 indeed might seem to be the idea of Dr. Brown himself, who thus expresses 

 himself in speaking of the Victoria erratics: "I am not aware that any rock 

 of a similar description is found «n situ anywhere in Vancouver Island [this 

 is rather different from the former positive assertion that no such rock could 

 be found in place south of Alaska] ; it appears to have drifted in icebergs 

 fioni the north." Dr. Brown quotes Mr. Bauerman as authority for the occur- 

 rence of " true glacial or boulder clay in various portions of Vancouver 

 Island" ; but the truth is, that this geologist, as already mentioned, describes 

 nothing of the kind except at Victoria and its immediate vicinity. And, in 

 addition to this, it is from Mr. Bauerman himself that we have the impor- 

 tant statement of the finding of marine shells in the so-called glacial drift, — 

 a sufficient indication, one would suppose, that here could be no question of 

 glaciers proper, but rather of iceberg agencies. Dr. Brown was evidently 

 at the time he visited Vancouver Island an entirely impractised observer. 

 There is a vagueness about all his geological data, which makes it quite 

 impossible to use them in arriving at definite conclusions in regard to the 

 former glaciation of the northwest coast. 



Mr. G. M. Dawson, in his already quoted paper, gives a much more definite 

 account of his observations on the glaciation of Vancouver Island than does 

 Dr. Brown of those made by himself and party. Mr. Dawson, however, like 

 almost all other geologists who have visited the island, confines his remarks 

 principally to the neighborhood of Victoria. Indeed, he gives no positive 

 statements of any kind in this connection except for localities in the im- 

 mediate vicinity of that citv'. The highest point at which he professes to 

 find glacial markings is on the summit of Mount Douglas, or Cedar Hill, a 

 rocky eminence G96 feet high, but even here he himself admits that there 

 is some uncertainty, for he remarks that " the direction of the glaciation " is 



