10 
MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 14. 
few feet of stratified white sand. In the sand are pebbles and 
subangular stones of diabase and foreign types. At one spot 
also a patch of hard red till ( ?) was seen at the base of the sands. 
The stones include quartzite, coarse syenite, syenite porphyry, 
and augen gneiss. None of them display striae, although their 
shapes are in a number of cases suggestive of glacier wear. The 
upper sides of those stones which were embedded in the stratified 
sand were in most places glazed and pitted by the sand blast. 
SUMMARY. 
On the accompanying map is shown the direction of glacial 
striae in neighbouring parts of the Maritime Provinces. The 
observations in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton are new; those 
elsewhere are compiled from the most reliable sources available. 
A glance at this map will indicate the probability that the Mag- 
dalen islands were glaciated by ice from the north. Although a 
great eastward movement from a centre in New Brunswick is 
recorded by striae in that province and Prince Edward Island, 
the dominant movement in the region southeast and south of the 
Magdalens, namely, Cape Breton and northern Nova Scotia, 
was southward, with a divergence towards the semi-circular bor- 
der of the shallow basin in which, as already noted, the Magdalen 
islands occupy a nearly central position. It is difficult to see how 
the ice sheet could have advanced southeastward over the high 
tableland of northern Cape Breton and southward across the 
mountainous isthmus of northern Nova Scotia without covering 
the Magdalens, Indeed, considering the fact that the water 
around these islands is only 30 to 40 fathoms in depth, it seems 
likely that the ice also crossed the Magdalens during the epoch 
of eastward movement from the New Brunswick centre. 
While final judgment may properly await more thorough 
field study, enough has been collected in this hurried reconnais- 
sance to make it seem probable, at least, that the islands were 
covered by ice during one or more of the epochs of the glacial 
period. To be sure, a blanket of decayed sandstone covers much 
of the surface. The condition in this respect, however, is not 
