44 THE ICE AGE IN CANADA. 



particular place the striae point west of its mass. This, I 

 have no hesitation in saying, is the dominant direction in 

 the St. Lawrence valley, and it certainly points to the 

 action of the arctic current passing up the valley in a 

 period of submergence. Further, it is the boulder-clay 

 connected with this S.W. striation that has hitherto 

 proved most rich in marine shells. 



If, however, we pass from the St. Lawrence valley up 

 the valleys which open into it from the north, as for 

 example the gorge of the Saguenay, the Murray Bay river, 

 or the Ottawa river, we at once find a striation nearly at 

 right angles to the former, or pointing to the south-east. 



At the mouth of the Saguenay, near Moulin Bode, are 

 striae and grooves on a magnificent scale, some of the 

 latter being ten feet wide and four feet deep, cut into 

 hard gneiss. Their course is K 10° W. to N. 20° W. 

 magnetic, or N. 30° to 40° W. when referred to the true 

 meridian. In the same region, on hills 300 feet high, are 

 roches moutonnees with their smoothest faces pointing in 

 the same direction, or to the north-west. This direction 

 is that of the valley or gorge of the Saguenay, which 

 enters nearly at right angles the valley of the St. 

 Lawrence. At the mouth of the Saguenay the Lark 

 Shoals constitute a mass of debris and boulders, both 

 inside and outside of which is very deep water ; and many 

 of the fragments of stone on these shoals must have been 

 carried down the Saguenay more than fifty miles. 



In like manner at Murray bay there are striae on the 

 Silurian limestones near Point au Pique, which run about 

 N. 45° W., but these are crossed by another set having a 

 course S. 30° W., so that we have here two sets of 

 markings, the one pointing upwards along the deep valley 

 of Murray Bay river to the Laurentide hills inland, the 



