Mesozoic and CcBnozoic Geology and Paloiontology. 219 



tic current would cliug to the Northern hind, or be thrown so rapidly 

 to the west that its direct action might not reach such summits. 



Nor would I exclude altogether the action of glaciers in eastern 

 America, though I must dissent from any view which would assign to 

 them the principal agencj'" in our glacial phenomena. Under a condi- 

 tion of the continent in which onl}' its higher peaks were above the 

 water, the air would be so moist, and the temperature so low, that per- 

 manent ice may liave clung about mountains in the temperate latitudes. 

 The striation itself shows that there must have been extensive glaciers, 

 as now, in the extreme Arctic regions. Yet I think, that most of the 

 alleged instances must be founded on error, and that old sea-beaches 

 have been mistaken for moraines. I have failed to find even in our 

 higher mountains any distinct sign of glacier action, though the action 

 of the ocean breakers is visible almost to their summits; and though 

 I have observed in Canada and Nova Scotia many old sea-beaches, 

 gravel-ridges, and lake-margins, I have seen nothing that could fairly 

 be regarded as the work of glaciers. The so-called moraines, in so 

 far as my observation extends, are more probabl}^ shingle beaches and 

 bars, old coast-lines loaded with bowlders, trains of bowlders or " ozars." 

 Most of them convey to my mind the impression of ice-action along a 

 slowly subsiding coast, forming successive deposits of stones in the shal- 

 low water, and burying them in clay and smaller stones as the depth 

 increased. These deposits were again modified during emergence, 

 when the old ridges were sometimes bared by denudation, and new ones 

 heaped up. 



We now have, in all, exclusive of doubtful forms, about one hundred 

 species of marine invertebrates, from the Post-plioGene clays of the 

 St. Lawrence valley. All, except four or five species, belonging to the 

 older or deep water part of the deposit, are known as living shells of 

 the Arctic or boreal regions of the Atlantic. About half of the species 

 are fossil in the Post-pliocene of Great Britain. The great majority 

 are now living in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and on the neighboring 

 coasts; and more especially on the north side of the gulf and the coast 

 of Labrador. In so far, then, as marine life is concerned, the modern 

 period in this country is connected with that of the bowlder clay by 

 an unbroken chain of animal existence. These deposits in Lower 

 Canada afi'ord no indications of the terrestrial fauna ; but the remains 

 of Elephas primigenius, in beds of similar age in Upper Canada, show 

 that during the period in question, great changes occurred among the 

 animals of the land ; and we may hope to find similar evidences else- 



