QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 97 B 



found wherever the rocks are well suited for their preservation. It is Giaciation of 



quite certain that all these valleys have been filled with glacier-ice lago. " lpe " 



descending to the sea from the Coast Eange, which here still supports 



many small glaciers. Whether at any time the mass of ice was 



so great as to flow to the sea at right angles to the main direction of 



the range, quite regardless of the contours of the surface, has not been 



ascertained. The outer islands of the archipelago have scarcely been 



examined, but the little group called the Gnarled Islands, lying on the 



southern side of the strait between Dundas Island and Cape Fox, which 



has a width of thirteen miles, are glacier-shaped and show heavy 



grooving from K 50° E. to S. 50° W. It is probable that the ice of the 



Coast Eange has reached at least as far westward as the outer islands 



of the archipelago which fringes the coast. 



The absence from the coast region generally of well marked terraces Terraces. 



has been remarked on in the publication already referred to.* Behind 



Fort Simpson, however, the surface bears a considerable thickness of 



detrital matter, and from a distance this appears to form an ill-defined 



terrace at a height of somewhat over one hundred feet. A few miles 



further southward, at Melta Katla, there is a well-defined terrace-flat, 



much of which has now been bared of trees for firewood. Barometrically 



measured, the height of this was found to be about ninety-five feet 



above high-water mark. 



It will be remembered that it has been shown that at one time Former great 



. glaciers of the 



during the glacial period, a vast glacier filled the entire Strait of coast. 



Georgia, which separates the south-eastern part of "Vancouver Island 

 from the mainland, and that the glacier-ice swept across the low south- 

 eastern extremity of the island, and may even have passed some distance 

 southward to Puget Sound, and westward by the Strait of Fuca.f It 

 still remained to determine whether the ice supply of this glacier was 

 wholly derived from the neighbouring mountainous country, or whether 

 — as according to some theories of giaciation might be supposed — a 

 great ice-sheet entered at Queen Charlotte's Sound, at the north-western 

 end of the island, and passed continuously southward between it and 

 the mainland. It is now found that the latter idea must be abandoned. 

 In several places about the northern end of Vancouver Island, but more 

 particularly on the little islands of the Masterman Group near Hardy 

 Bay, and those in Beaver Harbour, are marks of very heavy giaciation q[* <£* char- 

 from south-east to north-west, in bearings varying from 1ST. 49° "W. to 1( >tte's Sound. 

 JS". 62° W. This not only passes over the islands, but has grooved, 

 polished and undercut vertical and nearly vertical faces of the rock, on 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, Vol. XXXIV.j p. 99. 



t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc-, he. cit, Report of Progress, 1877-78, p. 133 B. 



7 



