4 THE ICE AGE IN CANADA. 



Geology" in 1854-5. The following extract will show that 

 they were formed very closely on the Lyellian doctrine 

 of " modern causes " : 



" If we ask what has been the origin of this great mass 

 of shifted and drifted material which overspreads the 

 surface, not only of the province we are now describing, 

 but the greater part of the land of the northern hemi- 

 sphere, we raise one of the most vexed questions of modern 

 geology. In reasoning, however, on this subject as regards 

 Nova Scotia, I have the advantage of appealing to causes 

 now in operation within the country. In the first place, 

 it may at once be admitted that no such operations as 

 those which formed the drift are now in progress on the 

 surface of the land, so that the drift is a relic of a past state 

 of things, in so far at least as regards the localities in which 

 it now rests. In the next place, we find, on examining 

 the drift, that it strongly resembles, though on a greater 

 scale, the effects now produced by frost and floating ice. 

 Frost breaks up the surface of the most solid rocks, and 

 throws down cliffs and precipices. Floating ice annually 

 takes up and removes immense quantities of loose stones 

 from the shores, and deposits them in the bottom of the 

 sea or on distant parts of the coasts. Very heavy masses 

 are removed in this way. I have seen in the strait of 

 Canseau large stones ten feet in diameter, that had been 

 taken from below low water mark and pushed up upon 

 the beach. Stones so large that they had to be removed 

 by blasting, have been taken from the base of the cliffs at 

 the Joggins and deposited off the coal-loading pier, and I 

 have seen resting on the mud flats at the mouth of the 

 Petitcodiac river a boulder at least eight feet in length, 

 that had been floated by the ice down the river. Another 

 testimony to the same fact is furnished by the rapidity 



