BOUXDARY OF THE GLACIATED AREA. 185 



Speaking of Vancouver Island and the adjacent region, 

 the Scotch geologist, Robert Brown, uses the following lan- 

 guage : 



The chief rock in situ there is a dense, hard, feldspathic 

 trap, and this is plowed in many places into furrows six to 

 eight inches deep and from six to eighteen inches wide. The 

 ice-action is also well shown in the sharp peaks of the erupted, 

 intruded rocks, having been broken oh* and the surface smoothed 

 and polished, as well as grooved and furrowed, by the ice-action 

 on a sinking land, giving to the numerous promontories and 

 outlying islands which here stud the coast the appearance of 

 rounded bosses, between which the soil is found to be composed 

 of sedimentary alluvial deposits, containing the debris of ter- 

 tiary and recent shelly beaches, which have, after a period of 

 depression, been again elevated to form dry land, and to give 

 the present aspect to the physical geography of Vancouver 

 Island. 



The whole surface of the country is strewn with erratic 

 bowlders. Great masses of sixty to one hundred tons in weight 

 — chiefly of various igneous and crystalline as well as sedi- 

 mentary rocks, sufficiently hard to bear transportation — are 

 found scattered everywhere over the island from north to south, 

 and through the region lying on the western slope of the Cas- 

 cade Mountains.* 



The same observer thus speaks of the glacial phenomena 

 on the mainland in the same vicinity : 



The following section is given to show the general character 

 of the drift at Esquimault Harbor : 



Black sandy and peaty ground, with broken shells 2 to 6 feet. 



Yellowish sandy clay, with casts of shells (Cardium and 



Mya) and a few pebbles and bowlders 6 to 8 . " 



Gravel of scratched pebbles resting on rock 2 to 3 ' 



The rocks are grooved and scratched at the junction ; the 

 direction of the glacial markings is between north to south 

 and north -north west to south-southeast. In a well-sinking, at 



* "American Journal of Science," vol. c. 1870, pp. 320, 321. 



