Mesozoic and Ccenozoic Geology and Palaeontology. 285 



throughout British Columbia. These terraces show only the ordinary 

 subserial denudation since they constituted the shore lines of lakes and 

 rivers ; but they are standing monuments of evidence to disprove the ex- 

 istence of a glacial period on this continent, or the existence of a conti- 

 nental ice sheet; for no one can conceive of the movement of such a heavy 

 body of ice across a valley, without disturbing the graveled terraces that 

 border it, upon both sides, at different elevations. The natural towers 

 that stand as an evidence of erosion from the Wasatch times to the 

 present; from the Green River Eocene to the present; from theBridger 

 Eocene to the present; from the White River Miocene to the present; the 

 columnar masses, irregular pyramids, sandstone towers, and turreted 

 outliers of the Bad Lands of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and British 

 Columbia; the monuments on Monument creek; the Garden of the 

 Gods; the buttes in all the mountain chains; the transverse ridges, 

 lone mountains and exalted peaks; and the whole array of canons 

 from Texas and Mexico to Alaska, all alike, tell us, in language un- 

 mistakable, that no glacial sheet ever moved south upon the western 

 plains or mountain ranges. No geologist has ever found a rock or 

 bowlder that had crossed the dividing ridge from one valley to another 

 in all this western region of the United States and British America. 

 No one has ever found any evidence of any general drift action, or 

 general ice action in any part of the territory. Then, why talk about 

 a continental ice sheet or glacial period ? 



Many of the phenomena attributed by glacialists to a continental 

 sheet of ice belong to the ordinary eroding atmospheric causes, others 

 to drifting sand, others to land slides, others to land slips or ava- 

 lanches, which have been precipitated into the bed of the river, pro- 

 ducing a dam that backed the water up until a lake was formed, and 

 the quantity of water became so great as to force its way through the 

 barrier, and cast the increased volume with terrific force upon the 

 valley below. Lyell notices the devastating effects of one of these land 

 slips from the White mountains of New Hampshire, into the Saco 

 river, in 1826, and points out its insignificance, when compared with 

 those occasioned by earthquakes, when the boundary hills, for miles 

 in length, are thrown down into the hollow of a valley. The effects of 

 even extraordinary floods, in river valleys, seem to be overlooked by 

 some glacialists; and, in this connection, it will not be without interest 

 to call attention to one that happened in the Connecticut. 



In the winter of 1780,* well known for being one of the severest ever 



* Hayden's Geological Essays. 



