12 
implies that the means of transport was floating ice and not a continental 
ice-sheet. Since the blocks are often huge, icebergs seem more competent 
for the work than floe ice. 
These drift blocks from the other side of the St. Lawrence have their 
economic importance, being used for building stone and foundations. 
They are used in building the finest churches of the villages along the north 
shore and they supply beautiful collections of almost every kind of northern 
Archsean rock. The churches at Cap-Chat, Matane, and elsewhere are 
worthy of study on this account. 
Work of Land Ice 
The Labrador Ice-Sheet 
Both Bell and Chalmers conclude that the Labrador ice-sheet did no 
work in Gaspe, and state that the residual soils due to the crumbling of 
rock in place, especially on the north side of the peninsula, show no signs 
of a great ice-sheet having passed over them. Though this is true in the 
main, yet there seems good evidence that the Labrador sheet actually 
crossed the St. Lawrence valley and impinged on the north shore of Gaspe, 
though not rising upon the higher land, much less scaling the mountains. 
At almost every river mouth along the north shore typical blue boulder 
clay with striated stones may be found, and usually some of the enclosed 
stones are granite or gneiss or some other rock that must have come from 
Labrador or the Quebec region. Such boulder clay has, however, not been 
found more than a mile or two inland and never more than about 100 feet 
above sea-level. The Labrador sheet reached Gaspo but was prevented 
from advancing inland. 
Chaleur Bay Lobe 
As already mentioned the Shickshoclc range sinks to only 751 feet 
above sea-level, where the Canadian National railway turns southeast- 
wards from the St. Lawrence valley. Dr. Chalmers suggests that a local 
glacier moved northwards here; and as evidence he refers to “bosses 
glaciated on the south sides, transported blocks and drift from the interior 
and thick beds of undisturbed decayed rock materials on the north 
or lee side of the foothills 1 ,” near Little Metis to the north of the watershed. 
The lowness of the hills near the watershed, where they do not sur- 
pass 1,000 feet, or at most 1,500, makes the supposition of local glaciers 
improbable, and the evidence for a northwestward movement of ice at 
that point does not seem to be strong. On the other hand, several lines 
of proof converge to show that the main Labrador ice-sheet pushed across 
this low pass toward the southeast. 
Morainic materials of various kinds occur at several points on the 
pass and down the valley on a scale that can hardly be accounted for by 
a small local glacier. Kame gravels make the actual summit near St. 
Moise, and typical morainic hills block the valley of the Matapodia 15 
miles farther southeast near Amqui, forming the dam which causes lake 
Matapedia. A small amount of boulder clay containing striated stones 
is found at various places on the hills, and typical blue till with soled 
boulders, etc., occurs at places in the bottom of the valley as shown in 
excavations for a water supply at Sayabec. These glacial deposits are 
too large and widespread to be the result of small local glaciers. 
1 Geol. Surv., Can., vol. XVI, 1904, p. 254 A. 
