HISTORICAL XOTK KS. 5 



with which hu^e pih's (if fallen lock iii'c rciiiovcMl hy tlu; 

 lloatiii^H' ic(! frdiii [\u' liasc of the li'a|> rlill's of the hay of 

 Fiindy. Lrt us siijipose, then, ihc surface of our ]tro\ince, 

 while its i»rojectin!4 rocks wen- still uiicoNcred liy suri'aoe 

 (le})osits, e.\])()se(l for many successi\-e ceiilui'ies to tho 

 iiclion of alternale frosts and thaws, the whole of the 

 unlravelled drift nii^ht. liaNc heeii accuniulaLed on its 

 .surface. T.el it then he suhnier^ed until its hill-tojjs 

 should heconie islands or reefs of rock in a sea loaded in 

 winter and s))rinjf with drift ice, lloated ulonL"' hy currents, 

 which, like the ])reseiit arctic current, would set from 

 N.E. to S.AV^ with various nKjdificatiuns ]»rc)duced hy local 

 causes. We have in these causes anij)le means h)r 

 aeconntinif for the whole of the appearances, includiiiji^ 

 the travelled hlueks and the scratched and polished ruck- 

 surfaces." 



This was written, it may 1)(> ohserved, thirty-five years 

 ago, and with reference to the phenomena presented hy 

 southern Xew lUninswick and Nova Scotia, where there 

 is little if any evidence of glacier action. 



AVhen, in the autumn of IS.");"), my residence was 

 transferred to Montreal, my attention was necessarily 

 devoted to the pleistocene de])osits of ("entral Canada, 

 and I asked Sir AV^. E. Logan, tlum Director of the 

 Geological Survey, to place in my hands, as an amateur, 

 the pleistocene geology of this field, which he readily 

 consented to do, as no one connected with the survey was 

 specially cultivating it at the time. I proceeded, in the 

 first instance, to explore the stratigra])hical arrangement 

 and fossils of the deposits, dividing the former into the 

 three groups of IJoulder Clay, Leda Clay and Saxicava 

 Sand, and raising the known species of fossils in a few 

 years from a very small numher to ahout 200. Notices 



