WAS THERE A "CORDILLERAN GLACIER" IN BRITISH 



COLUMBIA? 



J. B. TYRRELL 

 Toronto, Canada 



In August, 1888, the late Dr. G. M. Dawson, then assistant 

 director of the Geological Survey of Canada, pubhshed in the Geo- 

 logical Magazine a paper entitled "Recent Observations on the 

 Glaciation of British Columbia and Adjacent Regions," in which 

 he states that 



the examination of this northern region may now be considered to have 

 established that the main gathering-ground or mve of the great Cordilleran 

 Glacier of the west coast, was included between the fifty-fifth and fifty-ninth 

 parallels of latitude in a region which, so far as explored, has proved to be of 

 an exceptionally mountainous character. It would further appear that this 

 great glacier extended, between the Coast Range and the Rocky Mountains, 

 southeastward nearly to latitude 48°, and northwestward to latitude 63°, 

 or beyond, while sending also smaller streams to the Pacific Coast. 



In a subsequent paper^ published in the American Geologist 

 for September, 1890, he writes of his conclusions derived from his 

 geological explorations in British Columbia as follows: 



Having thus surrounded the area of this great glacier, it was proposed to 

 name it the Cordilleran Glacier in order to distinguish it from the second and 

 larger ice-cap by which the northeastern part of the continent was at the 

 same period more or less completely covered. 



The Cordilleran Glacier, as thus defined, had, when at its maximum 

 development, a length of nearly 1,200 miles. The main gathering-ground 

 or neve of the mer de glace was contained approximately between the fifty- 

 fifth and fifty-ninth parallels of north latitude, that part of the ice which 

 flowed northwestward having a length beyond these limits of 350 miles , 

 that which flowed in the opposite direction a length of about 600 miles. 



In another place in the same paper he says : 



The width of this (CordiUeran) zone is about 400 miles, and on one 

 side of it Ues the wide area of the Great Plains, on the other the Pacific 



'"On the Glaciation of the Northern Part of the Cordillera," by George M. 

 Dawson, Am. Geo!., September, 1890, pp. 153-62. 



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