PHYSICAL AND CLIMATAL CONDITIONS. 89 



" The facts available for this northern part of the con- 

 tinent and the Arctic islands thus rather point to a 

 movement of ice outward in all directions from the great 

 Laurentian axis or plateau, which extends from Labrador 

 round the southern extremity of Hudson bay to the 

 Arctic sea, than to any general How of ice from north to 

 south, from the vicinity of the geographical pole." 



The same writer, in his more recent paper on the 

 Eocky mountains, refers to the facts, that while the 

 Oordilleran glacier discharged to the northward, the 

 McKenzie Kiver valley is shown to present similar 

 phenomena, and that the absence of drift in the northern 

 part of the Yukon district and along the arctic coast as 

 far as the McKenzie river (Dease and Simpson) shows 

 that this region may have been land enjoying a moderate 

 climate at the same early l^leistocene period in which 

 tlie mountains of British Columbia were covered with ice.* 



The observations of Dr. G. M. Dawson in the Oordil- 

 leran region of British Columbia, already mentioned, are 

 so important in this regard,-|- and are presented in so 

 compact and clear a form, that I may be excused for 

 quoting from his account of the great Cordilleran glacier 

 of the west, which may be regarded as a specimen of 

 those great local glaciers which accumulated in Pleistocene 

 times on all the high mountains near the coasts of the 

 continents, or which were surrounded by submerged 

 plains capable of affording vapours to be precipitated 

 upon their summits. Let it be observed in this connec- 

 tion that the plains east of the Rocky mountains were 



* See also observations of Mr. R. G. McConnell, Bui. Geol. Soc. 

 America, Vol. I., and I. C. Russell, in the same volume. 



t Later Physiographieal Geology of the Rocky Mountain Region in 

 Canada, Trans. R.S.C., 1890. 



