SHELL-BEDS IIn" BRITISH COLUMBIA. 283 



in the lower portions of the sections, and in the lowest beds seen 

 there were only a few small pebbles, and I could find no shells. 



But although the material of which these beds was composed 

 has, in my opinion, been dislodged and pushed forward by the ice, 

 it is difficult to believe that these shelly clays have been the instru- 

 ment with which the ice has ground and polished the underlying 

 rocks, or that they have formed the moraine profonde when this 

 work was being done. I did find instances of rock-grooving 

 in the district in which the substance which lay directly over the 

 polished surface had almost certainly been the means by which 

 the effects were wrought ; but this was always a hard sandy grit 

 pressed almost to the consistency of rock, whereas in these sections 

 the material which rested on the glaciated surface was usually the 

 most incoherent part of the drift. 



If the neighbouring ground were stripped of its glacial deposits, 

 the fissure, which has probably resulted from the weathering and 

 scouring of a deep master-joint, would be found to cut nearly or 

 quite across the little peninsula separating Esquimault Harbour 

 from Royal Bay. It would be hemmed in on both sides by higher 

 ground, the rocky ridge across the neck of the peninsula east of 

 the village reaching a height of over 100 feet above sea-level, 

 whilst immediately to the west there is hard ground from 50 to 

 70 feet high. In the low cliff on the outer or western side of the 

 peninsula there is a section showing a narrow crevice in solid rock, 

 filled in with hard glacial clay containing no shells, which may 

 form the prolongation of this gully, though a little out of the 

 line. The waters of the harbour have a depth of from six fathoms 

 in the basin to 9 fathoms at the entrance, while just off the 

 coast in Hoyal Bay there is a depth of 30 fathoms, with a con- 

 tinued downward slope into the Straits of Juan de Fuca which 

 separate Vancouver Island from the mainland, where the depth 

 exceeds 100 fathoms. There must at some period in glacial times 

 have been a great thickness of ice in the neighbourhood, as Mount 

 Douglas, which lies six miles to the north-east, is 696 feet high, and 

 shows signs of glaciation to its summit. 



As already mentioned, the rocks forming the sides of the fissure 

 were beautifully striated, grooved, and polished, both on their 

 vertical and horizontal surfaces, the striae running nearly in the 

 direction of the walls, and, where these were vertical, rising 

 along them with a slope of about 30°. This shows that the ice 

 must have moved in from the lower ground now forming the 

 harbour, and have passed up the gully in crossing the peninsula on 

 its way to Eoyal Bay, and in doing so it must have exerted immense 

 pressure on the walls of the fissure. There was an exception, how- 

 ever, to the general glaciation in the steep face of rock abutting on 

 the Boulder-clays on the north side of the dock near its entrance ; 

 for here there were no striae, and the surface of the rock was quite 

 rough and irregular. At this point the gully is wide, and the 

 opposite waU low and hidden ; and it seems as though the pressure 

 had been focussed, as it were, on the narrower part of the gorge. 



