SOME LOCAL DETAILS. IGf) 



sub-inarine and not a sub-aerial deposit, seems to be 

 rendered probable by the circumstance that many of the 

 l)0ulders of sandstone are so soft that they crumble 

 immediately when exposed to the weather and frost. 



Tlie travelled boulders \yin<i on the surface of the 

 l)Oulder-clay evidently belong to a later period, when the 

 iiills of Labrador and Nova Scotia were above water, 

 though lower than at present, and were sulticiently bare 

 to furnish large supplies of stones to coasu-ice carried by 

 tlie tidal currents sweeping up the coast, or by the .arctic 

 current from the north, and deposited on the surface of 

 I'rince Edward Island, then a sliallow sand-bank. The 

 sands with sea shells probaldy l)elonged to this period, or 

 perhaps to the later })art of it, when the land was 

 gradually risii'g. Prince Edward Island thus appears to 

 have received lioulders from both sides of the gulf of St. 

 Lawrence during the later Pleistocene period ; but the 

 greater inunljer from the south side, ])erhaps because 

 nearer to it. It thus furnislies a remarkable illustration 

 of the transport of travelled stones at this period in 

 difterent directions, and in the comparative absence of 

 travelled stones in the lower boulder-clay, it furnishes a 

 similar illustration of the homogeneous and untravelled 

 character of that deposit, in circumstances where the 

 theory of Hoating ice serves to account for it, at least as 

 well as that of land-ice, and in my judgment, greatly 

 better. 



In these respects the Pleistocene of Prince Edward 

 Island bears considerable resemblance to that of the lower 

 grounds of Nova Scotia, where local material is prevalent 

 in the lower part of the deposit, and travelled boulders 

 from different directions occur in the upper bed. 



