366 THE GREAT ICE AGE 



of twenty-four years ago. I give those of to-day from a paper 

 of 1 89 1, 1 relating to Eastern Canada only : 



These conclusions have, in my judgment, been confirmed, 

 and their bearing extended, more especially by the researches 

 of Mr. Chalmers, who has shown in the most convincing way 

 that glaciers proceeding from local centres along with sea-borne 

 ice, may have been the agents in glaciating surfaces and trans- 

 porting boulders in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Taken 

 in connection with the observations of Dr. Dawson and Mr. 

 McConnell in the Cordillera region of the west, and those of 

 Dr. Bell, Dr. Ells, Mr. Low, and others in the Laurentian 

 country north of the St. Lawrence, and in the Province of 

 Quebec, we may now be said to know that there was not, even 

 at the height of the glacial refrigeration of America, a contin- 

 ental ice sheet, but rather several distinct centres of ice action, 

 one in the Cordillera of the West, one on the Laurentian 

 V-shaped axis, and one on the Appalachians, with subordinate 

 centres on isolated masses like the Adirondacks, and at certain 

 periods even on minor hills like those of Nova Scotia. It 

 would further seem that, in the west at least, elevation of the 

 mountain ridges coincided with depression of the plains. In 

 Newfoundland also, it would appear from the observations of 

 Captain Kerr, with which those of Mr. Murray are in har- 

 mony, 8 though they have been differently interpreted, that the 

 gathering ground of ice was in the interior of the island, and 

 that glaciers moved thence to the coasts, but principally to the 

 east coast, as was natural from the conformation of the land 

 and the greater supply of moisture from the Atlantic. 



The labours of Murray in Newfoundland, of Matthew, 

 Chalmers, Bailey, and others, in Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 

 wick, have considerably enlarged our knowledge of Pleistocene 

 fossils, showing, however, that the marine fauna is the same 



1 Supplement to 4th edition of "Acadian Geology," 1891. 



2 Trans. Royal Society of Canada, vol. i. 



