510 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1899. 



witnessed some recession of the ice. Before that time there are 

 indications that the glacier was either stationary or advancing. 

 The alder bushes and scrub evergreens which grow in places on this 

 moraine show, from their leaves and annual rings, an average age 

 of from twenty-two to thirty years. Taking the smallest number 

 noted — twenty-two years — and subtracting from it the twelve 

 years which have elapsed since 1887, there still remains an inter- 

 val of ten years, during which the glacier did not cover a greater 

 area than it did at the time we first observed it. We have no 

 means of knowing whether, during this period, the glacier was 

 advancing or retreating, but there is proof that in 1887 the tougue 

 occupied as low a position as at any time during the past twenty - 

 two years. 



This border moraine of 1887 offers several interesting features. 

 A large part of it is composed of two distinct moraines of nearly 

 equal size. The same characteristic is noted on the great left 

 moraine which, at a certain point, has a marked depression in the 

 ridge. As the amount of morainal material carried down by the 

 glacier is insignificant, these double moraines may mark the limit- 

 ing positions of two periods of advance, one of which took place 

 not far from 1887. 



The average of all the movements of the glaciers of this region 

 has been a marked recession, which is amply proved by the lines 

 of moraines abandoned in the valleys below. At one time, the 

 Illecellewaet and Asulkan Glaciers, which now terminate near the 

 heads of the valleys, extended till they joined and flowed as a 

 common ice stream. To estimate the time at which this took 

 place, or rather to fix a date since Avhich the glaciers must have 

 been separate, the rings of a number of trees in both the Illecel- 

 lewaet and Asulkan Valleys were counted. In the Illecellewaet 

 Valley, at the Second Bridge, several examples were so counted, 

 the oldest of Avhich showed 250 rings. In the Asulkan Valley, a 

 tree with 296 rings was noted, while one splendid example. of 

 white spruce was thirteen feet five and one-half inches in circum- 

 ference. Allowing one ring to a year, this would indicate that 

 the recession of the two glaciers took a much longer time than has 

 been supposed by some. It is probable many hundreds of years 

 have elapsed since they were united and covered the ground now 

 occupied by the railway and the Glacier House. 



