THE GLACIATION OF NORTH CENTRAL CANADA/ 



I wish very briefly to place before you a statement of what 

 would seem to me to have been the conditions that prevailed 

 during at least part of the glacial period in the great Central 

 Plains region of Canada, but before going farther I take great 

 pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to Professor Cham- 

 berlin, Mr. Warren Upham, and many other glacial geologists 

 of the United States, whose work is so closely connected with 

 mine, and who have so clearly expounded many of the princi- 

 ples on which my explanations are based. It is an especial sat- 

 isfaction to me to feel that the results of my investigations 

 accord so well with theirs. 



In the preparation of the slides here shown I have freely 

 used the published works of these geologists, and of Dr. Daw- 

 son and Messrs. McConnell, Low, and of our own geological 

 survey, when depicting the conditions that prevailed in those 

 portions of the country which have not come under my own 

 personal observation. 



That portion of Canada, to which I propose to refer for a 

 few moments, lies between west longitudes 85 and 130 , and 

 north latitudes 49 and 69 ; or perhaps it may be more intelli- 

 gibly located as being bounded on the east by the west coast of 

 Hudson Bay, and a prolongation of the same line southward, 

 and on the west by the Rocky Mountains, the average distance 

 between these two lines being about 1100 miles; on the south 

 by the international boundary, and on the north by the Arctic 

 Ocean, which are an average distance apart of 1400 miles, giv- 

 ing a total area of about 1,500,000 square miles. 



This vast region has a remarkably even surface contour, with 

 a mean elevation above the sea of about 1200 feet, and slopes 

 gently from the foot of the Rocky Mountains northeastward to 



1 Read at the Toronto meeting of the British Association, August 1897. 



147 



