No. 1.] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 18T 



Les Eboulements. — At this place the Laurentiaii hills rise to a 

 great height near the shore, and the Post- pliocene beds present 

 the exceptional feature of resting on soft decomposed Silurian 

 shale (Utica shale). This rock might indeed be mistaken for 

 drift, but for its stratification, and it must have been decomposed 

 to a great depth by subaerial action and subsequently submerged 

 and covered by the Post-pliocene beds. Its preservation is the 

 more remarkable that the clay overlying it contains very large 

 Laurentian boulders, which must have been quietly deposited by 

 floating ice. Only a few shells of TelJlna Gnenlandica were 

 observed in these clays. 



The remarkable series of terraces seen at this place, and noticed 

 in part first, rising to 900 feet in height, are all cut out of 

 the Post-pliocene beds and decomposed shale, and even the highest 

 presents large boulders. In examining such terraces it is always 

 necessary to distinguish between the clays out of which the ter- 

 races have been cut and the more modern deposits resting on the 

 terraces. Both may contain fossils, but those of the original clay 

 are in this region mostly of deeper water species than those in the 

 overlying superficial beds. 



I attribute the preservation of the thick beds of Boulder-clay 

 and the decomposed shale at Les Eboulements, to the fact that 

 no transverse valley exists here, and that a point of high Lauren- 

 tian land projects to the North-East, so as to shelter this place 

 from forces acting in that direction. I have observed this appear- 

 ance on the lee or South-west side of other projecting masses of 

 hard rock, and as the decomposed shale must be a monument 

 remaining from the Pliocene elevation of the land, it shews that 

 no powerful eroding force had acted between that time and the 

 period of the N. E. arctic ice-laden currents. 



It is perhaps deserving of notice that the thick beds of soft 

 material at Les Eboulements have been cut into many irregular 

 forms by modern subaerial causes of denudation, and also by 

 landslips, which last have been in part connected with the earth- 

 quake shocks with which this part of the coast has been visited 

 more than any other district of Canada. 



Above Les Eboulements, Bay St. Paul presents features simi- 

 lar to those of Murray Bay, and then the Laurentian land of 

 Cape Tourment comes boldly forward to the shore of the River. 

 Above this the conditions are similar to those observed in the 

 neighbourhood of Quebec. 



(^To be continued.) 



