No. l.j CHALMERS — GLACIAL PHENOMENA. 53 



But whatever explanation be finally accepted, it is at least 

 probable, with regard to the Restigouche sands and gravels, that 

 their deposition took placa when the ice-sheet which occupied 

 the Bay Chaleur depression was breaking up and retreating to 

 the hills. The river torrents which would then pour down the 

 Restigouche valley and from the adjacent snow-and-ice-clad 

 summits must have been enormous. Moreover, the physical con- 

 formation of this valley and adjacent district favors the supposi- 

 tion that a portion of the flood which emerged from it would 

 find an opening to the level country below by the Eel river pass, 

 a gap or break in the Dalhousie hills, through which the Inter- 

 colonial railway now runs. A glacial river or flood following: 

 such a course would be very likely to deposit its burden of sand, 

 gravel and stones where we now find the kame referred to. The 

 winding, irregular formation of this kame is proof that the mater- 

 ials of which it is composed were not moved and arranged by 

 regular, steady currents, but rather were brought to their present 

 position by rapidly-flowing waters, such as we might suppose would 

 sweep down from the hills among the dissolving remnants of the 

 ice- sheet. The enclosed hollows favor the same view. The large 

 boulders in its upper portions have probably been carried thither 

 by icebergs at a subsequent period, when the whole kame was 

 beneath the waters of the Bay. 



If we admit that this kame is the result of the transport of 

 detrital material by a super-glacial river, then at the time of this 

 flood the Restiofouche valley and estuarv must have been occu- 

 pied by a dissolving ice-sheet probably 200 or 300 feet thick. 

 From the configuration of the estuary, which resembles a lake- 

 basin with an outlet opening towards the south-east, this body 

 of ice would, when its surface fell below the level of the enclos- 

 ing hills, be unable to move out of this depression, and would, 

 consequently, thin down and melt almost wholly in the situation 

 in which it lay, or with but very little eastward motion. Eel 

 river pass, now only forty to fifty feet above sea level and filled 

 with stratified marine deposits, would then likewise be o#;upied 

 with a portion of the same mass of ice extending eastward prob- 

 ably as far as Heron Island. On the surface of this ice-sheet 

 would be thrown the debris brought down from the hills, as well 

 as the earth and stones exposed in the thawing of the glacier 

 itself This detrital material must have accumulated in large 

 quantities. The strong currents supposed to flow over the ice 



