BOUNDARY OF THE GLACIATED AREA. 187 



ice-action. The islands about its mouth are roches moutonnees, 

 polished and ground wherever the original surface has been 

 preserved. In Sutil Passage, near its entrance, grooving ap- 

 pears to run about south 30° west. A precipitous mountain 

 on Valdez Island, opposite Stuart Island, and directly blocking 

 the mouth of the inlet, though 3,013 feet high, has been 

 smoothed to its summit on the north side, while rough toward 

 the south. The mountain-side above Arran Passage shows 

 smooth and glistening surfaces at least two thousand feet up 

 its face : and. in general, all the mountains surrounding the 

 fiord present the appearauce of having been heavily glaciated, 

 wirh the exception of from one to two thousand feet of the 

 highest peaks. The high summits are rugged and pointed, 

 and may either never have been covered by glacier-ice, or owe 

 their different appearance to more prolonged weathering since 

 its disappearance. In some places parallel flutings high up 

 the mountain-sides evidence the action of the glacier, while in 

 others it is only attested by the general form of the slopes, or 

 detected under certain effects of light and shade. ... At the 

 mouth of the Howathco River, discharging into the head of 

 Bute Inlet, striation shows a direction of movement south 22° 

 east ; but in every case the motion appears to have been di- 

 rectly down the valley, and to have conformed to its changes 

 in course. Glacier-ice may still be seen shining bluely from 

 some of the higher valleys at the head of the inlet, and farther 

 up the Howathco River there are many glaciers in lateral val- 

 leys, some of which descend almost to the river-level. 



Mr. James Richardson, who has had an opportunity of 

 examining many of the inlets north of Vancouver Island, 

 writes as follows :* -'Throughout the whole of the inlets and 

 channels which were examined, wherever the surface of the 

 rock is exposed, the ice-grooving and scratching are very con- 

 spicuous, from mere scratches to channels often several feet 

 in width, and from a few inches to as much as two or three 

 feet in depth. Often they can be distinctly seen with the 

 naked eye from the surface of the water to upward of three 

 thousand feet above it on the sides of the mountains. They 



* "Report of Progress of the Geological Survey of Canada, 1874-'75," p. 8. 



