462 Canadian Record of Science. 



have been diverted inward over the then or subsequently 

 depressed New England area ; but this cold, and even the 

 added presence of this current, would not preclude the idea 

 of vegetation. Judging from the analogies of to-day in 

 Switzerland, in the Eocky Mountains, and along the 

 Lower St. Lawrence, it would be quite within the 

 range of likelihood that northern temperate and sub-arctic 

 and arctic plants would be found in Canada at this early 

 time, in those places most suited to them, and just as they 

 at this later day occur even alongside of glaciers. Though 

 glaciers may have been near at hand, it does not behoove 

 us to too readily draw conclusions from them as to the 

 climate and surrounding vegetation. There are glaciers in 

 the Eocky Mountains in British Columbia, but they are not 

 associated there with a general arctic climate, nor has the 

 general flora of the mountains an arctic or even sub-arctic 

 aspect. During the deposition of the Leda clays, which 

 took place before, or on, the close of the glacial epoch — for 

 their relative position seems still uncertain — and contem- 

 poraneously with the encroachments of the sea far up the 

 St. Lawrence and Ottawa valleys, the vegetation had a 

 northern temperate aspect. The marine fauna around 

 Montreal, near Ottawa, and elsewhere, had, it is true, a 

 northern, almost boreal, look, implying cold sea currents ; 

 and the presence of boulders in these great river valleys 

 would indicate that glaciers flowed through or into them at 

 this or an earlier period, or that icebergs had then found 

 their way as far inland as these points. The presence of 

 cold sea currents, or of even icebergs, was not, however, 

 associated with arctic or even sub-arctic plants. In the 

 Leda clays we have such species as Drosera rotundifolia, 

 Potentilla Norvegica, P. tridentata, P. Canadensis, Arctosta- 

 phylos uva-ursi, Populus balsamifera, Thuja occidentalism 

 Potamogeton perfoliatus and P. natans — all species occurring 

 now in the latitude of Montreal, and all but one in the 

 latitude of Lake Ontai'io. 



It does not, then, seem to me difficult to imagine the 

 vast Laurentian country in Canada, — broken and rugged 

 everywhere as it now is, and rising often to very consider- 



