No. 4.] DAWSON — BRITISH COLUMBIA. 243 



ward by a low perpendicular bank of the clays, I have seen the 

 water during the high tides of winter actually above the stony 

 beach, and beating against the clay, with which it was rendered 

 turbid for some distance from the shore. In certain localities 

 the old Indian shell heaps or kitchen-middens, which are abun- 

 dant on this coast, are exposed in section by the sea in similar 

 low banks, and the lower layers of some of these have been 

 observed to be nearly a foot, in some places, below the high tide 

 mirk; showing I think that sub^dence to a small extent has 

 taken place since they were formed. The Indians would scarcely 

 choose for camping a place liable to overflow', and if the shells 

 were merely thrown there, they would have been scattered from 

 time to time by the high tides, and would not have accumula- 

 ted in heaps six to eight feet thick and very wide. 



The land was probably at a somewhat lower level, when first 

 inhabited by the Indians, for the upper layers of the pale clayey 

 drift above referred to, merge in some places quite gradually into 

 a darker coloured and more earthy material, from six inches to 

 two feet in thickness, which forms the soil of the cultivable 

 tracts. This follows the slope of the surface and was probably 

 deposited by the retreating waters, when for a time each level 

 was an oozy sea margin, like that found at the heads of some 

 of the present sheltered bays, in process of transition to land, 

 and including in its mass much decomposed vegetable matter. 

 In the very lowest layers of this darker material, I have noticed 

 in one or two places, at heights of five to ten feet above the 

 present beach line, burnt, stones like those used by the Indians 

 in cooking, and other signs of their presence. 



There is no evidence to show that any movement greater in 

 amount than a tew feet, has taken place for a long time. The 

 growth of very large trees near the .present high water mark in 

 the sheltered inlets, would seem to negative any great elevation. 

 It, would al.-o seem probable that the movement of depression 

 indicated in the extracts from Vancouver and Cooper, may have 

 taken place rapidly, perhaps in connection with some of the 

 small earthquake shocks by which this coast is visited from time 

 to time. At the heads of all the inlets or fjords of the coast, a 

 stretch of low, fl.it, and often marshy ground, shoaling very gra- 

 dually seaward, and then in quarter or half a mile beyond the 

 shore plunging steeply down into deep water, surrounds the 

 mouths of the entering livers. The position of these flats with 



