SUPERFICIAL GEOLOGY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. 97 



portion of which generally terminates rather abruptly above, and is 

 often surmounted by a few feet of sand, gravel, and boulders much 

 coarser than the rest, and probably, in part at least, due to rear- 

 rangement of the lower material along a coast-line during emergence. 

 The mounds forming Beacon Hill, and those heaped on the north- 

 east side of Spring Ridge behind the town of Victoria, are probably 

 thicker masses of this surface-layer, though it is possible that portions 

 of these, and similar mounds elsewhere, may represent remnants of 

 moraines, terminal or lateral, left at different stages in the retreat of 

 the glacier. They resemble much more closely, however, the deposits 

 of stranding ice, considerably modified by currents. The materials 

 in sections at Spring Ridge are coarse sands and gravels, with many 

 boulders of all sizes. The largest boulders are nearest the surface, 

 with their interstices filled with finer material, which also often forms 

 the superficial layer of the deposit, as though, submergence still con- 

 tinuing, the supply of ice capable of transporting large blocks had 

 failed. 



Extensive banks of coarse sand and gravel have accumulated on 

 the southern or lee side of Mount Douglas, before referred to, giving 

 it a crag-and-tail form. At the head of Cadbury Bay, about 100 

 feet above the sea-level, a road-side cutting shows stratified false- 

 bedded sands and gravels, the inclination of the beds, which is very 

 regular, indicating north and south currents like those of the tides 

 still running in the Strait of Georgia, the southward or ebb current 

 being the stronger, and having most frequently left traces of its 

 action. The boulders near Victoria are very frequently of diorites 

 and granitic rocks, derived probably from the Cascade Mountains of 

 the mainland to the north and east. Large masses of the Cretaceous 

 coal-bearing rocks, and especially of the conglomerates, of Nanaimo 

 are also not unfrequently met with. The boulders, as well as the 

 finer materials, are occasionally found forming accumulations behind 

 rocky ridges. The largest erratic mass observed lies near Cedar- 

 Hill church, and measures 17 feet long, 9 feet 11 inches wide, and 

 7 feet in thickness, though partially imbedded in the soil. 



Mr. Bauerman mentions the occurrence of casts of Cardium and 

 My a in these deposits, an observation which for a long time I was 

 unable to confirm ; but eventually several localities were discovered 

 where molluscous remains are tolerably abundant. These shells 

 were not noted in the lowest portions of the drift. They are gene- 

 rally contained in hard fawn-coloured sandy clay, almost without 

 stratification, and are frequently quite decayed and crumbling, though 

 found with the valves united in the position of life. Granitic frag- 

 ments included in the clay are also very frequently more or less 

 decomposed, and sometimes completely rotten, showing that car- 

 bonated surface-waters here long acted on the mass since its eleva- 

 tion. This action may probably account for the comparative scarcity 

 of the shells, while its continuance for a period somewhat more pro- 

 longed would without doubt have resulted in their total removal. 

 The beds so affected are at a height of only a few feet above the sea ; 

 and this, coupled with their resemblance in texture to many inland 



Q. J. G. S. No. 133. h 



