Mesozoic and Cenozoic Geology and Paleontology. 141 
the Arctic current was flowing across the lower land. There is noth- 
ing to indicate a glacial period, but, on the contrary, every known 
geological and paleontological fact tells us that it never existed. And 
in the face of all these evidences furnished by scientific investigation, 
without the intervention of any extraordinary or unusual exercise of 
the powers of nature, except the depression and elevation of a coast 
line, which is proven by the deposit of the shells and bones of marine 
animals, it is difficult to understand how any one can conceive of a con- 
tinental sheet of ice rising up from Hudson’s bay, crossing over the 
Laurentian mountains, going down to the depths of the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, and then ascending the mountains of Maine, New Hamp- 
shire, and Vermont, for no other purpose than that of taking a trip 
south; and if the imagination extends that far, it is still more incom- 
prehensible why any one should believe it. 
The submergence and elevation of this margin may have included 
the whole of the Pliocene, and part of the Post-pliocene periods, for the 
vegetable remains, in the peat beds of Brandon, Vermont, and in Nova 
Scotia, and other places which were covered by the drift, and evi- 
dently mark the age next preceding it, have been doubtfully identi- 
fied with both the Eocene and Miocene, and other paleontological 
evidence is wanting, except so far as furnished by the Post-pliocene, 
and probably Pliocene fossils enclosed within the drift itself. 
The submergence and elevation of this coast, preceded the lake drift 
of the central part of the continent, or at least could not have been 
contemporaneous with it, as will be shown in the sequel. Lake Ontario 
is an old river channel with the adjacent low lands covered with 
water. It is about 245 feet above the ocean. It will be readily seen 
that with the coast submerged this lake would fall at the east end 245 
feet, which would bring it within less than one third of its present 
dimensions, and leave the maximum depth of the channel less than 
500 feet. And with the elevation of the coast, as there is no canon to 
the sea, the elevation of the lake would follow to its present level. The 
consideration of this subject, however, belongs to succeeding pages, 
and we will now pass to a brief sammary of the Tertiary of the Rocky 
mountain region or western part of the continent. 
The gradual elevation of the western ranges of mountains through 
the later Cretaceous and all of the Tertiary time, and the formation 
of bays and arms of the sea and lakes, which have drained themselves 
more or less completely, and yet in ever continuing succession, 
have made it possible for the geologist to link the Tertiary with the 
