GEOLOGY 229 



number of deep bays on that side of the inlet. This plain is 

 indented by all -the water-courses traversing it, and in the beds 

 of the principal streams broken lignite is found, evidently fallen 

 from beds of that mineral in the banks above. The presence 

 of lignite in these stratified deposits points to their being Ter- 

 tiary in age, and corresponding with the northern areas of this 

 formation already described as lying undisturbed in the wide 

 valleys of the older rocks. This area in the northern part of 

 Baffin island is, according to the natives, quite extensive, and 

 probably extends in a southwest direction to the lowlands of 

 the northern and western sides of Fox channel. 



Capt. Adams, of the whaler Diana, said that lignite was to 

 be found in similar deposits near Cape Hay, on the east side of 

 Bylot island, and also at Durban island on the eastern coast of 

 Baffin island. There is little doubt that other areas of these 

 Tertiary deposits occur on the Arctic islands, but owing to no 

 lignite or fossils having been found in them they have not been 

 separated from the drift and newer Post Tertiary deposits of 

 sand, gravel and clay of these coasts. 



If Tertiary deposits were laid down on the lands of the 

 western side of Hudson bay, there is little chance of more than 

 small protected areas having escaped the intense glaciation to 

 which the western shores of the bay were subjected. Any such 

 remaining areas are now probably hidden beneath the mantle 

 of drift so universal on the low lying portions of this region. 



POST TEKTIABY. 



Little or no attention was given by the earlier explorers to 

 the markings of ice-striae and other glacial phenomena, and the 

 only records of the movement of the glacial ice noted by them 

 was the distribution of erratic boulders. These observations 

 have been summarized by Dawson as follows : ' Along the Arctic 

 coast, and among the islands of the archipelago, there is a con- 



