164 THK ICE AGE IX CANADA. 



Helle-Esle, to the bay of Fiiiidy ; and that heavy ice 

 carried by this current might, at the time of greatest 

 dei)ression, ground on I'rince Edward Island, or be carried 

 across it to the southward. If the Laurentian boulders 

 came in this way, their source is probably 400 miles distant 

 in the strait of Belle Isle. On the north shore of Prince 

 Edward Island, except where occupied l)y sand dunes, the 

 beach shows great numljcrs of pebbles and small boulders 

 of Laurentian rocks. These are said l)y the inhabitants 

 to be cast up l)y the sea or puslied ui) by the ice in spring. 

 Whether they are now being drifted l)y ice direct from 

 the Labrador coast, or are old drift being washed up from 

 the l)ottom of the Gulf, which, north of tiie island, is 

 very shallow, does nijt appear. They are all much rounded 

 by tiie waves, dil'lering in this respect from the majority 

 of the boulders found inland. 



The older boulder-clay of Prince Edward Island, with 

 native boulders, must have been produced under circum- 

 stances of powerful ice-action, in which comparatively 

 little transport of material from a distance occurred. If 

 we attribute this to a glacier, then, as Prince Edward 

 Island is merely a slightly raised portion of the bottom of 

 the "ulf of 8t. Lawrence, this can have been no other 

 than a gigantic mass of ice tilling the whole basin of the 

 gulf, and without any slope to give it movement except 

 toward the centre of this great though shallow depression. 

 On the other hand, if we attribute the boulder-clay to 

 floating ice, it must aave been produced at a time when 

 numerous heavy berg? were disengaged from what of 

 Labrador was above water, and when this was too 

 thoroughly enveloped in snow and ice to afford many 

 travelled stones. Farther, that this boulder-clay is a 



