284 



ME. O. W. LAMPLTJGH ON GLACIAL 



It is noteworthy that it was in this, the most sheltered part of the 

 section, that the shells were most numerous and best preserved, and 

 that the drifts showed the greatest tendency to stratification. 



The glaciation of the rock-surfaces could not well have been 

 wrought when the gorge was choked with these deposits, and it 

 seems clear to me that it must have taken place before the depo- 

 sition of the shelly clay. As the shells bespeak open water, it is 

 therefore probable that there has been a period of intense glaciation 

 followed by a withdrawal or partial withdrawal of the ice, during 

 which an arctic fauna established itself in the waters of the neigh- 

 bouring fiord, after which the ice has again returned, pushing the 

 sea-bottom up before it, and driving this, mixed with its own 

 detritus, into the position in which we now find it. The distance 

 traversed need not have been more than a few hundred feet, though 

 it is possible that portions may have been carried much further, and 

 in their passage have lost all traces of their marine origin. 



SJiell-bed in SJioal Bay. — The second locality in which I found 

 shells in the drift was in Shoal Bay, or M'Neil's Bay as it seems 

 to be called by the dwellers in the neighbourhood, a little recess in 

 the coast east of Victoria, a short distance beyond the city limit. 

 Here, near the middle of the bay, I noticed shells in streaks of 

 stratified clay amongst grey Boulder-clay on the beach just below 

 high-water mark, close to the foot of the low cliff ; they were 

 badly preserved, and I found no species save those already recognized 

 at Esquimault. 



Part II. The Phaser Valley. 



Leaving Vancouver Island I crossed over to the mainland of 

 British Columbia, and, while walking down the right bank of the 

 Fraser river, I observed marine shells in beds of glacial age some 

 distance from the coast. Following the course of the then unfi- 

 nished Canadian Pacific Bailway, I crossed the Harrison river near 

 its junction with the Eraser. Just beyond, the line makes a detour 

 to the north, to avoid a steep mountain which abuts directly upon 

 the Eraser below the junction of the rivers. This mountain appears 

 to consist of massive igneous rock, but at its foot, along the banks 

 of the Harrison, is a great accumulation of detrital beds, through 

 which the railroad has been carried by a series of cuttings. 



Eig. 2. — Section in Railiv ay -cutting on West Banh of Harrison River, 

 British Columbia. Length about 50 yards, height 30 ft. 



A. Eed clay, with angular stones, resting unconformably on — 



B. Bedded silts with sand, containing crushed shells, sandy at top *. 



In one of these cuttings, where the section was as shown in fig. 2, 

 I noticed some thin streaky layers of crushed shells. These shells 



■'- The lines of shading in this woodcut do not represent the bedding-planes of 

 the silts, which had only a low dip. 



