Sees Pe ee See Te eee 
T. A. Blake on the Northwest Coast of America. 248 
rock consists of feldspar and laminated hornblende or pyroxene 
and is probably eruptive. 
The most marked geological feature is the absence of rough 
surfaces and angular summits. The rocks are everywhere 
rounded, scooped and grooved. As might be expected, erratic 
boulders, the material of which is foreign to their present po- 
sition, are of frequent occurrence, thus giving us another link 
in the chain of evidence which proves the special agency of 
glaciers in the peculiar configuration of the coast. 
In the outskirts of the city, between it and the hill called 
Beacon hill, at the head of the small inlet which forms the 
harbor of Victoria, an ancient sea beach has been exposed by 
digging a ditch or drain through the alluvial land, the bottom 
of which I should judge to be at least twenty feet above tide 
water. The shells which occur there are, according to Mr. 
Harford, the conchologist of the Alaska expedition, all of exist- 
ing species. The occurrence of this beach proves a compar- 
atively recent upheaval, subsequent to the extensive denudation 
and erosion caused by glacial action upon the underlying rocks. 
From the slight elevations in the rear of the city, a grand 
view of Mt. Baker, seventy miles distant, is to be had. This 
The climate of Victoria is mild and equable. A set of me- 
teorological observations taken there during the years 1859, 
60 and ’61 shows the mean annual tem ; t 
50°Fahr. The coldest weather in 1860, being in January and 
ebruary, when the thermometer indicated a range of from 
47° to 22°, or 10° below freezing, and the warmest in June, the 
throughout the year, and greatest in the winter mon 
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