EAMSAT ^DRIET-PEEIOD OF CANADA. 207 



Trenton limestones and the Oneida conglomerate, — liiglily disturbed, 

 cleaved, and partly metamorphosed and foliated. The contours of 

 the hills indicate the moulding effects of ice. The rounded surfaces, 

 wherever they have not been too long exposed to the weather, are 

 grooved and scratched ; and these well-de&ied indications are found 

 alike on the sides and the summits of the hills. In company with 

 Mr. Hall and Sir Wm. Logan, I ascended the Canaan TTills from the 

 N.W., descended into the opposite valley, crossed the Richmond 

 Hills above the Shakers' Tillage, and, descending iato the Richmond 

 Valley, walked to Pittsfield. It is a remarkable circumstance, re- 

 corded by Dr. Hitchcock, and partly confirmed by Sir Charles Lyell, 

 and which I also saw, that on both slopes the observed striations run, 

 more or less, across the trend of the hills, which at this point strike 

 about N.N.W. The directions of the striae are between E. 10° S. 

 and S.E. ; a larger proportion approaching the first than the second 

 direction. Why they should run across the hills and valleys at all 

 has not yet been explained ; for, while quite admitting the value of 

 Mr. Darwin's explanation*, it yet does not appear to me to meet a 

 case where the hills are so steep and the valleys so very deep. The 

 difficulty is iacreased by the fact that the average strike of moun- 

 tain and valley is from N. to S., which is also the general direction 

 of glacial striations over most of North America ; and it is difficult 

 to understand why, if floating ice produced these marks, an excep- 

 tion should have been made in this case, where we might expect the 

 N. and S. run of the submerged valleys would have acted as g-uides 

 to the icebergs, which would then have floated from north to south 

 as they did in the adjacent valley of the Hudson. The drift is often 

 40 feet thick and upwards, and is mostly local, many of the boulders 

 being of the Birdseye limestone, which crops out in the valleys. 

 Smaller drift, with these boulders, creeps up the flanks of the hills 

 almost to their summits, — this effect, as stated by Sir CTiarles 

 Lyell t, having probably been produced in the manner indicated by 

 Mj*. Darwin, who, in a similar instance, considers boulders to have 

 been floated up on the ice of successive winters, by little and little 

 during a slow submergence of the country J. 



The CatsTcill Mountains. — On the west side of the Hudson, the 

 Catskni Mountains rise, in their highest peaks, about 3600 feet above 



* Phil. Mag. August 1855. 



t Proceedings of the Eoyal Institution, vol. ii. p. 95. 



I If before the submergence of the country the cold were sufficiently intense, 

 it is possible that each minor range forming the sides of valleys may have been 

 so completely covered with thick snow and ice, that, always pressing downwards 

 from the snow shed, the striations were formed E. and W., or transverse to 

 the trend of the ranges ; but in that case both in the valleys and on the sides and 

 summits of the hills, when fairly submerged, we might expect north and south 

 striations formed by the grating of bergs during the deposition of the northei-n 

 drift. In the case of isolated hills the striae ought also to radiate from their sum- 

 mits. I observed none of these appearances, but had not sufficient time to 

 search for them in detail. It is clear that the E. and W. striations across the 

 range were not made by a general terrestrial glaciation during, or after, the re- 

 elevation of the country, for then the boulders, &c. transported from low to high 

 levels would aU have been swept down again into the hoUows. 



