254 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



in the blue clay at Toronto, in the clay cliffs of the South 

 Branch of the Saskatchewan, and in other localities where 

 the same disposition may be witnessed, points also to the 

 action of glacial or stranded ice. The phenomena may 

 be explained by coast ice, or the dirt bands of glacial ice, 

 but the entire absence of a sorting of fine and coarse 

 materials, seems to destroy the hypothesis which intro- 

 duces the agency of currents of water, as the forced but 

 symmetrical arrangement does that of floating ice. 



The wide-spread phenomena exhibiting the greater or 

 less action of ice, such as grooved, polished, and embossed 

 rocks, the excavation of the deep lakes of the St. Law- 

 rence basin, the forced arrangement of drift, the plough- 

 ing up of large areas, and the extraordinary amount of 

 the denudation at different levels without the evidence of 

 beaches, all point to the action of glacial ice previous to 

 the operations of floating ice in the grand phenomena of 

 the Drift. 



The long fines of boulders exposed in two parallel 

 horizontal rows, about twenty feet apart, in the drift of 

 the South Branch, are the records of former shallow 

 lakes or seas in that region. They may represent a coast 

 line, but more probably low ridges formed under water, 

 upon which the boulders were stranded. In the shallow 

 lakes of the Winnipeg basin, the boulders brought year 

 by year by ice from the neighbouring shore accumulate 

 upon long, narrow spits, and ultimately form breakwaters 

 or islands. The same process may have occurred with 

 the boulders on the South Branch. The fine layers of 

 stratified mud, easily split into thin leaves, which lie just 

 above them, show conclusively that they were deposited 

 in quiet water ; their horizontality proves that they occu- 

 pied an ancient coast, floor or ridge below the compara- 



