186 THE ICE AGE IN NORTH AMERICA. 



Esquimault Barracks (for the boundary commission), the lower 

 gravel was reached at forty-two feet, after going through a 

 sandy-blue clay without shells or bowlders. The section in the 

 cliff between Albert Head and Esquimault is as follows : 



Blue drift clay, with bowlders; junction with rock 



not seen 70 feet. 



Fine sand and gravel, passing- upward into coarse 



quartzose gravel 100 to 120 feet,* 



I saw at Seahome (near Belliugham Bay), in the cuttings 

 made for a tramway, the finest instances of fluting and groov- 

 ing — evidences of glacial action — that I have ever seen on this 

 coast. They were ninety feet in length, running north and 

 south, according to the theory of Professor Agassiz. f 



Vancouver Island, which trends parallel with the shore 

 of the continent northwest by southeast, is nearly three hun- 

 dred miles in length and from fifty to seventy-five in breadth. 

 In character it seems but a continuation of the Coast Range 

 of mountains, with numerous peaks rising from four to seven 

 thousand feet above the sea. The shore-line of the continent 

 upon the northeastern side of the Strait of Georgia is formed 

 by a continuation of the Cascade Range, with a general ele- 

 vation of from three to eight thousand feet, and is penetrated 

 in numerous places, to a distance of from twenty-five to 

 seventy-five miles, by inlets or fiords some miles in width. 

 Dr. George M. Dawson describes the glacial phenomena in 

 Bute Inlet (which enters the Strait of Georgia about oppo- 

 site the center of Vancouver Island, in latitude 50° 30') in 

 the following language : 



This chasm, forty miles in length, and running into the 

 center of the Coast Range, is surrounded by mountains, which 

 in some places rise from its borders in cliffs and rocky slopes 

 to a height of from six to eight thousand feet. It must have 

 been one of the many tributaries of the great glacier of the 

 Strait of Georgia, and accordingly shows evidence of powerful 



* "Quarterly Journal of London Geological Society," I860, p. 202. 

 f "American Journal of Science^" vol. c, pp. 322, 323. 



