98 GEORGE MERCER DAWSON ON THE 



drift-deposits, suggests one means of accounting for the apparently 

 complete absence of marine remains over areas which on other evi- 

 dence appear undoubtedly to have been at one time submarine, but 

 which from their elevation must have been much longer exposed to 

 the percolation of surface-waters. 



The following species have been recognized among the fossils 

 hitherto found : — 



Cardium islandicum. 



Leda fossa. 



Saxicava rugosa. 



Natiea clausa (probably). 



Balanus crenatus (probably). 



In localities where the upper sandy and gravelly layer of the drift 

 is not developed, the change from deep water to littoral conditions 

 appears to be marked by the rather sudden introduction of carbona- 

 ceous matter, changing the clayey deposits from their usual pale 

 tints to dark brown. In some places marine shells, and especially 

 the Cardium above named, appear sparsely in the highest layers of 

 the pale clays ; while in other localities, near the present shore-line, 

 the lowest layers of the shell-heaps, and burnt stones used by the 

 Indians in cooking, coincide with those of the brown earth, showing 

 apparently that the last movement of elevation by which the land 

 attained about its present level was rather sudden, and that habi- 

 tation by a race resembling the present natives followed closely on 

 the termination of the glacial conditions. 



The general appearance of the deposits of this part of Vancouver 

 Island, resting, as they do, on planed and polished rocks perfect in 

 every detail and necessitating glacier-action for their explanation, 

 and yet consisting of water-bedded and often current-driven mate- 

 rials mingled in places with sea-shells, leads to the belief that they 

 were formed along the retreating foot of a glacier which had ex- 

 tended some distance beyond the margin of the land. The with- 

 drawal of the ice may have been caused or accompanied by subsi- 

 dence; and some species of shells must have followed its front 

 pretty closely in its retreat. The somewhat irregularly terraced 

 form of the deposit is probably due to action during emergence ; and 

 the general tendency of many facts is to show that a slight sinking 

 of the coast is at present in progress or has lately occurred. 



Occasional artificial sections at New Westminster, at the mouth 

 of the Fraser river, on the opposite side of the Strait of Georgia, 

 show deposits quite similar in general features to those seen near 

 Yictoria ; but no molluscous remains have been found. These beds 

 pass under the modern flat and wide delta of the river, which ex- 

 tends many miles seaward. Some of the higher parts of the irre- 

 gular terraces about Yictoria, may be correlated in a rough way 

 with the edge of the sloping ground on which ISTew Westminster is 

 built ; and several islands in the southern part of the strait show 

 cliffs of similar materials and about the same height. St.-James 

 Island may be specially mentioned, its white cliffs, probably eighty 

 feet high, forming a prominent landmark. Vancouver Island has 



