246 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. Vlil. 



evidently lived and grew when the surface was above high-water 

 level, groves of this and other species still flourishing down to 

 the very edge of inundation. But a gradual slow sinking of the 

 land (which seems in places to be still progressing, and is per- 

 haps caused by the undermining of quicksands) has caused the 

 overflow of the tides, and thus killed the forests, of which the 

 only remains now left are these cedars. This wood is perfectly 

 sound, and so well seasoned as to be the very best of its kind. 

 Continued and careful examination of such trees in iy afford 

 import mt information as to the changes of level in these shores. 

 That these have been numerous and great is further shown by 

 alternating beds of marine shells, and of logs and stumps, often 

 in their natural position, which form the cliffs above the bay to 

 the height of 200 feet. But while these remains show that the 

 chauges took place in the latest periods of the Miocene tertiary 

 epoch (?) there is no evidence in the gigtntic forests still living 

 on these cliffs, that any sudden or violent change has occurred 

 since they began to grow — a period estimable rather by thousands 

 than by hundreds of years." 



The testimony of a small change toward depression within the 

 last ninety or one hundred years appears concurrent. 



The various Indian tribes of the coast and interior, like all 

 peoples, have their stories, more or less unreal and grotesqu ;, of 

 deluges, or the deluge. The Okanagtns, for instance, who inh t- 

 bit the southern part of the interior, in along rambling story 

 relating their first arrival in the country which they now inh i- 

 bit, are said to state* that, "after piddling day and night for 

 many suns, they came to certain islands, whence steering through 

 them, they came at last to where the m (inland was, however 

 much smaller than in these days having grown much since.'" 



That they had been made familiar by tradition or experience 

 with change of the sea level is apparent from the statement of 

 Mi. Gibbs.f that on occasion of a slight earthquake shook, the 

 Indians of Whidbey Island, in the Strait of Georgia, in reply to 

 an enquiry if they knew what it was, said that the " earth was 

 rising." 



The most remarkable Indian tradition, however, quite equal 

 in its way and in the circumstantiality of its details, to t ie 



* Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, Vol. III., p. 154. 

 f Loc. cit. p. 359. 



