200 



PEOCEEDINGS 



OP 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



POSTPONED PAPERS. 



1. On some of the Glacial Ph^istomena of Caijada and the Noeth- 

 EASTEEif Peoytn'Ces of the United States during the Deift- 

 Peeiod. By Professor Andeew C. Eamsat, F.E.S., F.G.S., and 

 Local Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. 



[Eead May 12, 1858.] 



Contents, 

 GlaciaHzed condition of the Laurentine Mountains ; and the drift-deposits 



of Montreal. 

 Grlacial drift of the plains ; striae ; and roches moutonnees. 

 Drift and striae in the Valley of the Hudson, including the Canaan Hills 



and the Catskill Mountains. 

 Probable equivalency of the upper clay drift of the Hudson Yalley with 



that of Lake Champlain and of Montreal. 

 Probable date of the Niagara Falls. 

 Drift and other late Tertiary deposits at Niagara. 



Glacialized condition of the Laurentine Mountains ; and the Drift- 

 deposits of Montreal. — In the Straits of Bellisle, the barren coast of 

 Labrador consists partly of low patches of red sandstones, &c. lying 

 almost horizontally on the Lanrentian series — ^that most ancient system 

 of gneiss and granite which forms the eastern extremity of the great 

 Laurentine chain. These gneissic rocks are rounded and largely mam- 

 millated, as if by the action of ice ; and all the distant hills, quite bare 

 of trees, possess the same sweeping contours. The gnarled strata of the 

 lofty Bellisle itself, to the very summit, show unequivocal signs of the 

 same abrasion, their well-worn outcrops presenting none of those 

 jagged outlines that all highly-disturbed beds are apt to assume when 

 exclusively weathered by air, rain, and open frost. Similar forms pre- 

 vail far up the St. Lawrence, on its north shore, easily distinguishable 

 in spite of the forests which, before we reach the Saguenay, rise to 

 the tops of the mountains, leaving here and there unwooded rocky 

 patches. Purther up the river, by the Isle aux Coudres (about 50 

 miles below Quebec), I became more and more impressed by similar 

 appearances. Not a peak is to be seen ; and to the top every hill 

 seemed moutonnee. Like much of Wales, Ireland, and the Highlands 

 of Scotland, the country appeared moidded hy ice. 



