Robert Chalmers—Glaciation of E. Canada. 213 
angles to the main axes of the mountains.' This fact has been made 
use of to support the theory of a massive ice-sheet moving from the 
Laurentides across the St. Lawrence valley over the summits of the 
Appalachians and down the New England slope to the Atlantic. 
But as will be seen the evidence at hand does not support this view. 
The Archean area has, however, sent sheets of ice down its slopes 
in all directions around its circumference. In the central part, on 
the east side of Hudson Bay, they moved directly westward into its 
basin. In Hudson Strait, according to Bell, the ice had a north- 
eastward and eastward flow. Whether the whole Archean area was 
covered by glaciers flowing outwardly from the centre towards the 
circumference, or with snow fields forming the névé of local glaciers, 
as seems more probable, is a question to be decided by future investi- 
gation. Areas of unglaciated rock surface, doubtless, occur there as 
well as upon other elevated portions of Eastern Canada where 
decomposed rock lies undisturbed except from subaerial action. 
The extent and thickness of the glaciers cannot as yet be satis- 
factorily determined; but they seem to have been largest on the 
southern slopes of the Appalachians and Laurentides. The cause 
of this is not evident; but as regards those of the first-mentioned 
mountains, which are in a part of the country with which the writer 
is most familiar, it may be owing in some measure at least to the 
difference in the steepness of the slopes on either side of it. The 
south-east slope is long, much broken, and has numerous compara- 
tively level areas upon it. As the rate of motion would be slower 
on this slope, the ice would necessarily accumulate in larger sheets 
in depressions and on the level tracts. On the shorter and steeper 
slope of the St. Lawrence the motion of the ice would be more 
rapid, and it would more readily debouch into the estuary or sea. 
Hvidences of the action of icebergs or floating ice are found in 
the St. Lawrence valley and on the Baie des Chaleurs coast, also 
in a number of other places around the shores of the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence. So far as the writer has observed, they are met with only 
on ledges below the 200 to 350 feet contour-line above sea-level. 
Floating ice seems to have played an important part in transporting 
boulders over the submerged areas. 
The views here briefly outlined will doubtless undergo some 
modification, as this region, especially when that part of it known as 
the great Archean area, comes to be studied in greater detail. I 
think, however, the main conclusions herein advanced will stand. 
Newfoundland, although not forming part of Canada, is geo- 
graphically connected with it, and its glacial phenomena may there- 
fore be referred to in this connection. The late Alex. Murray, C.M.G., 
Director of the Geological Survey for many years, states that its 
surface is everywhere glaciated.” He held the theory of a continental 
1 Geology of Canada, 1863, pp. 890-92; Notes on the Post-Pliocene Geology 
of Canada, ‘ Canadian Naturalist,’ 1872; Annual Report, Geol. Surv. Canada, 1886, 
parts I. and M. 
2 Transactions of the Roy. Soc. of Canada, 1882, sec. iv., paper on the Glaciation 
of Newfoundland. 
