GLACIAL DRIFT ON THE MAGDALEN ISLANDS. 
5 
able that they were borne hither by floating ice when these islands 
stood at a lower level, though none were found in the sand beach 
of the recent period. As stated already, no boulder clay was 
found on the four largest islands of the group, viz., Amherst, 
Grindstone, Entry and Alright.”^ 
Chalmers thus corroborated what Richardson had said 
concerning the uniform covering of residual deposits, the lack of 
boulder clay, and the doubtful significance of the foreign stones, 
adding only the conception of a Pleistocene submergence of 
about 100 feet, with floating ice as the possible agency which 
had brought the crystalline boulders. 
Dr. John M. Clarke in his “Observations on the Magdalen 
Islands”^ says: “The soil of the islands is essentially residual. 
The islands have never been subjected to glacial action. One 
finds on the sand spits and on the lower rock platforms especially 
of the northern islands plenty of ice-borne boulders, for the most 
part dropped where they lie, and now glazed by the blown sand, 
but there has been no disturbance of the soil by ice erosion. 
Hence the softer red rocks, which are largely feldspathic, have 
undergone deep decomposition in place, and, under the vegetable 
mould at the top, the soil extends downward often for 5 or 6 
feet, carrying all the structure of the stratification and passing 
by evidences of less and less decay into the disintegrating layers 
of the sandstone and thence into the solid rock.”® 
Regarding foreign boulders and pebbles such as Richardson 
and Chalmers described, Dr. Clarke says; “These boulders are 
ice borne, dropped where they lie by icebergs and floe ice of no 
recent date. It is very noticeable that these ice-carried blocks 
are much more abundant in the northern islands. Coffin and 
Grosse isle, and that here nearly every example, whether on 
or in the soil, is a dreikanter, while on the southern islands such 
blocks are seldom angled by this etching. This fact is naturally 
explained by the much more exposed situation of the northern 
islands.”^ Sand-blasted crystalline boulders are said to occur 
^ Op. cit., p. 55. 
* New York State Museum Bulletin No. 149, Seventh Report of the Direct- 
or, 1910, 53 pp. 
®Op. cit., pp. 18-19. 
* Op. cit., p. 21. 
