May 30, 1884.] 
ments in various parts of the country. A 
skilled entomologist at such a centre, with one 
trained assistant whom he might despatch to 
study local problems not far distant, would ac- 
complish more than twice that number could on 
the border of the continent, whence the assist- 
ant must often travel many thousand miles to 
reach a field requiring investigation, and be 
able to remain there only a brief period. The 
state entomologists are not numerous enough 
to affect the question in the least. Illinois and 
New York alone support officers who are doing 
areally creditable work ; and these great states, 
rich, populous, and fertile, would be insuffi- 
ciently served, under this scheme, without the 
aid of their own officials. 
This would require a doubled, perhaps a 
trebled, appropriation for the division. What 
of that? Its work should be measured, not by 
what it has been able to do with insufficient 
means, but by its inherent importance to the 
largest and most wide-spread industry in the 
country. A trebled allowance, multiplied a 
thousand-fold, would not equal the losses year- 
ly sustained by agriculture, reasonably to be 
classed as avoidable by means which the study 
of their causes will reveal. The work of the 
division for the past six years has been admir- 
able, as far as it has gone: it has gained the 
approval of those who know what scientific 
work is, and the appreciation of the great class 
who have seen its practical benefits. Itis time 
to ask, and to grant, the means for a forward 
step. 
RECENT GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 
IN THE CANADIAN NORTH-WEST 
TERRITORY. 
In a former number of Science (i. p. 477) a 
note was given on some points relating to the 
glaciation of that part of the North-West Ter- 
ritory which occupies the angle between the 
eastern base of the Rocky Mountains and the 
49th parallel. During the summer of 1883 
the examinations necessary for the production 
of a proximately exact geological map, covering 
an area of over twenty thousand square miles 
in this district, have been completed, and the 
mapping of the contiguous area to the eastward 
has been begun. A number of new facts of 
geological interest have been brought to light 
during the prosecution of the work, a few of 
the more important of which it is proposed 
here briefly to mention. 
In the article above alluded to, the great 
1 Communicated, in advance of publication of report, by 
permission of the director of the Geological survey of Canada. 
SCIENCE. 
647 
elevation at which Laurentian and Huronian 
erratics occur near the mountains was specially 
noted ; and some of the greatest heights up to 
that time observed were stated as 4,200, 4,390, 
4,660 feet, respectively, above the sea-level. 
In August last, however, several indubitable 
Laurentian bowlders, representing different 
characteristic varieties of gneissic and granitic 
rocks, were found at an elevation of 5,280 feet, 
at a point in the foot-hills about twenty miles 
north of the 49th parallel. The ridge upon 
which these occur lies within a few miles of 
the paleozoic rocks of the mountains, and, like 
many others in this vicinity, is evidently a 
slightly modified moraine, due to the local 
elaciers of the mountains. The bowlders are 
associated with many blocks derived from the 
neighboring mountains. They cannot, how- 
ever, have come from the Rocky Mountains, as 
a tolerably complete examination of the range, 
between the 49th and 51st parallels, has con- 
firmed the statement, previously made in a more 
general way, as to the absence of crystalline 
rocks in the constitution of the range: their 
origin must therefore be sought, with that 
of the immense profusion of similar erratics 
strewn over the neighboring lower country, to 
the east or north-east, in the great Laurentian 
axis. 
In the Cypress Hills (latitude 49° 40’, longi- 
tude 110°), which constitute an isolated, high 
plateau of irregular form, Mr. R. G. McConnell 
has noted some interesting points connected 
with the limit in height of the drift and bowl- 
der deposits. The western end of the hills is 
highest, and is flat-topped and regular in form ; 
while the eastern and lower part has been worn 
down to an irregular, rounded, and rolling pla- 
teau, on which numerous Laurentian and lime- 
stone bowlders, resembling those generally 
scattered over the plains, occur. The highest 
point at which these were found is 4,340 feet 
above sea-level ; while at 4,400 feet, and other 
points exceeding this elevation, no such erratics 
occur. From the observations first referred to, 
it is certain that this, though locally the up- 
ward limit of the glacial deposits, is surpassed 
by that of other places farther to the west; 
and it adds to the evidence already obtained, 
indicating an unequal depression of the plains 
in glacial times. 
In these hills another very interesting dis- 
covery has been made by Mr. McConnell; viz., 
that of the occurrence of considerable outly- 
ing areas of an upper tertiary formation of 
miocene age, consisting, in large part, of rolled 
shingle which has been derived entirely from 
the harder rocks of the mountains. The peb- 
