94 b 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



floating ice, at a time when extensive glaciers debouched in many 

 places on the coast. 

 Bluish clays. I n Virago Sound and Naden Harbour several exposures of beds pro- 

 bably referable to the glacial period were found. They are best seen in 

 a low cliff nearly opposite the Kung Indian Tillage, where they are 

 hard bluish clays, generally in very regular and somewhat thin beds, 

 but occasionally undulating, and sometimes for a small thickness twisted 

 in a remarkable manner, as though by the grounding of floating ice. 

 Such disturbed portions may be bounded above and below by regular 

 horizontal layers. Small stones, at times several inches in diameter, 

 are often imbedded in an irregular manner, and seams of gravel in a 

 few places occur, and are generally associated with the disturbed por- 

 tions of the deposit above alluded to. In one place a few feet of a clay- 

 holding gravel and boulders was seeii at the base, resembling the 

 boulder clay of the east coast of the island. Gravels and sands lie 

 above the clays, their junction forming a distinct line. These beds 

 would appear to have been deposited in much less disturbed water than 

 those of the east coast. 



Facts Indicating Change in Elevation. 



Staised beach. A few facts bearing on changes in elevation of the land subsequent 

 to the glacial period, in the Queen Charlotte Islands, may here be noted. 

 In an article in the Canadian Naturalist (Vol. VIII., p. 241, 1877) the 

 general question of changes of elevation in the coast of British Colum- 

 bia has been treated by me at some length. 



About three hundred yards above the mouth of the ISTaden Eiver, which 

 enters the harbour of the same name, a bank about sixteen feet high, 

 in appearance evidently more recent than the deposits last described, 

 occurs. For about five feet above high-water mark the material is 

 a rather soft sandy clay, holding, besides broken fragments of shells, 

 many large bivalves, with both sides united, and evidently resting in 

 the mud in the position they have occupied during life. The deposit is 

 such as might be formed in a shallow bay, and contains occasional 

 small fragments of charcoal, which appear to prove the presence 

 at the time of its formation of inhabitants. Above this stratum 

 is a second, not dissimilar, but coarser, in which shells are 

 comparatively scarce, and for the most part broken. This is 

 capped with from one to two feet in thickness of a deposit 

 composed altogether of shells such as the Indians ordinarily use for 

 food, mingled with much charcoal, and some stones which have the 

 appearance of those used by the natives in cooking. This layer in 

 fact represents such a clam-heap as may be found in very many places 

 along the coast. The shells in it are comparatively strong, while those 



Evidence of 

 inhabitants. 



