GLACIATION OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 69 
coincident with the general course of the principal streams of the region. All the glacial 
striæ observed on the northern sides of Lake Superior and Huron point southerly, gener- 
ally with a little westing; but those in the country between Lakes Huron and Erie, with 
few exceptions, point southeasterly. At the Falls of Niagara, the direction varies from 
S. 8° W. to S. 28° W. 
The whole of the above bearings, from the headwaters of the St. Lawrence to the 
eastern end of the Gulf, indicate that the drift proceeded from the north, and the character 
of the boulders, distributed over the surface or deposited in the boulder clay, gives pretty 
conclusive evidence to the same effect. That at all events the more recent glacial drift, 
now seen over the region between Lakes Huron and Erie, came from the north, there can 
be no reasonable doubt whatever, as numberless boulders scattered over that region and 
often enclosed in the clays, can be traced to their sources on the north side of Lake Huron. 
Amongst them the most prominent and unmistakable are blocks both angular and water- 
Worn, some very large, others small, of red jasper conglomerate, derived from that remark- 
able band so conspicuously displayed in a volume of 2000 feet thick in the Thessalon 
Valley, extending thence towards the Mississaugi on the one hand, and towards Lake 
Superior on the other, but which loses its characteristic red jaspers in either direction 
within a limited distance, and is unknown elsewhere at any other part of the country. 
Fragments of this beautiful and very characteristic rock are very numerous over the high 
central plateau of the present province of Ontario, notably near St. Mary’s in the township 
of Blanchard, in Oxford, Zorra, Blenheim and elsewhere. In each case where the surfaces of 
the solid rocks below are exposed (Corniferous limestone), which are nearly horizontal in 
attitude, they were found to be smoothly polished, and very distinctly grooved, the striæ 
pointing southeast. Moreover, nearly nine-tenths of the erratics found over the same region 
are either derived from Laurentian or Huronian rocks, which can only have proceeded from 
the northern side of the great lakes. 
At page 889, Geology of Canada, it is suggested that the great lakes of the St. Law- 
rence are depressions of denudation, not of structure, and that they were scooped out by 
the action of glaciers. “This hypothesis points to a Glacial period when the whole region 
was elevated far above its present level, and when the Laurentides, the Adirondacks and the 
Green Mountains were lofty Alpine regions covered with perpetual snow, from which 
great frozen rivers or glaciers extended far out over the plain below, producing by their 
movements the glacial drift, and scooping out the river valleys and the basins of the Great 
Lakes.” And again, in a very able paper upon glacial and interglacial deposits in Canada, 
by Mr. Geo. Jennings Hind, F.G.S., I perceive that these deposits are arranged into six divi- 
sions, showing alternations of Arctic and Temperate conditions. That such oscillations as 
those described by Mr. Hind have occurred there seems no reason whatever to doubt, and 
his evidences are in most respects sufficiently conclusive; but there are certain proposi- 
tions offered in the same paper which I can hardly reconcile with the observations of 
others, including my own. If the Laurentides, the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains 
must necessarily have reached the enormous altitude suggested by Sir William Logan, it 
must have been at the time that the Great Lakes were exhausted, which would be equiva- 
lent to Mr. Hind’s No. 1 period; but, with the exception of Lake Ontario and, perhaps, 
Lake Erie, which may, as Mr. Hind suggests, have been scooped out by a glacier from the 
