340 Canadian Record of Science 



house including a small depression near the road lead- 

 ing to the Look-out, and the Cote des Neiges Valley, in 

 all an area about a mile in length by half a mile in 

 width. 



Except at the northern end, which evidently received 

 the full force of the Arctic currents and the icefields 

 which they carried, the outside of the Mountain slopes 

 more or less from the summit, but to the observer view- 

 ing the interior plain, it Mall be seen that the sides rise 

 somewhat steeply from the plain, thus giving it generally 

 a crater or cup-like appearance, except at the western 

 entrance to the Mount Royal Cemetery and the south- 

 western end of the Cote des Neiges Valley, where the 

 rim of the cup has been broken down and carried away 

 by the heavy currents with their floating icefields which 

 evidently flowed through them, the force of which is 

 shown by the worn surface of the rocks where the cover- 

 ing of drift is removed. 



If we examine the bottom of this cup, we find it is 

 a solid bed of Essexite, except where a few fragments of 

 limestone are found which have evidently been subjected 

 to intense heat and changed to a form of marble. 



To the thoughtful observer, viewing the landscape 

 from some point on the Summit, this plain in its centre 

 presents one of the puzzles of the Mountain. Lying as 

 it does, about 200 feet below these summits, the question 

 naturally arises, by what means was this great basin ex- 

 cavated and what became of the tremendous mass of 

 materials which was removed from it. It is scarcely 

 possible that it could have been removed by the action 

 of water, or if it had been that it would have left the 

 depression in the form which it has to-day, since although 

 the fierce currents which swept through it have left their 

 marks deeply graven in the rocks, the channels through 

 which they flowed into it are comparatively small and 

 narrow which would not have been the case if they had 

 been of sufficient strength and volume to remove this 

 great mass even if it were the softer limestone, and much 



