BRITISH. COLUMBIA AKD AD J ACES T B KG IONS. 



279 



island, and may even have passed some distance southward to Puget 

 Sound, and westward by the Strait of Fuca. It still remained, how- 

 ever, to determine whether the ice supply of this glacier was wholly 

 derived from the neighbouring mountainous country, or whether (as 

 might be supposed in accordance with some theories of glaciation) a 

 great ice-sheet entered at Queen-Charlotte Sound, and passed con- 

 tinuously southward between it and the mainland. It is now found 

 that the last-mentioned 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 

 on those in Beaver Harbour, are marks of very heavy glaciation 

 from south-east to north-west, in bearings varying from N. 49° W. 

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

 polished, and undercut vertical, or nearly vertical, faces on their south- 

 eastern parts, while the north-western slopes are comparatively rough. 

 These traces precisely resemble those found in the track of the 

 Strait-of-Georgia glacier near Victoria*, and show that here, as 

 there, the ice rode over the low extremity of Vancouver Island. 

 The seaward margin of the continental shore is here also low, and 

 the width of the glacier of Queen-Charlotte Sound can scarcely have 

 been less than twenty or twenty-five miles, and may have been much 

 greater. 



Some additional evidence of the movement of the upper parts of 

 the Strait-of-Georgia glacier has been found at jSTanaimo, on the 

 inner coast of Vancouver Island, sixty miles north-west of Victoria. 

 Hard sandstone rocks which have been bared on the colliery railway 

 show heavy glacial grooving running parallel to the general trend 

 of the coast and Strait of Georgia in such a way as to prove that 

 the entire strait must here also have been filled with ice. Ho 

 local glaciation, which would radiate from the mountains of the 

 district, can account for the facts. In clays resting on these gla- 

 ciated rocks, shells like those formerly observed at Victoria were 

 found, a small collection comprising Saccicava rugosa, Myatruncata, 

 and Leda fossa. The height of the locality is about 70 feet above 

 the sea. 



Between Vancouver Island and the mainland, on both sides of 

 the central region from which the ice spread in two directions to 

 form the Queen-Chaiiotte-Sound and Strait-of-Georgia glaciers, well- 

 stratified deposits of clays and sands occur, in some places forming 

 cliffs 200 feet in height. In the course of the Queen-Charlotte- 

 Sound glacier, Cormorant Island may be cited as an example of 

 these deposits ; and in that of the Strait of Georgia, Harwoocl, Mary, 

 Hernando, and Savary Islands. These deposits resemble those of 

 Victoria, Hew "Westminster, and the islands in the southern part of 

 the Strait of Georgia previously described, but imply for the period 

 of their formation a decreased length in the glacier, from its point of 

 maximum extension, of at least 100 miles. Harwood, Mary, Her- 

 nando, and Savary Islands lie about the entrance of Bute and 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. \xxiy. pp. 94, 96, 99. 



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