2o6 The American Geologist. October, 1904. 
which flows west to the sea at Gray's harbor. The altitude 
of Black lake is about i6o feet above the sea level ; and the 
watershed, in a wooded swamp about a quarter of a mile wide, 
close north of the lake, is only 5 to 10 feet higher. The rail- 
way from Olympia to Gray's harbor passes near this lowest sag 
of the water divide. 
Over this low pass a river doubtless outflowed for a consid- 
erable time when the icefields covering the southern half of 
the sound were being finally melted. Below the hight of about 
170 feet, therefore, evidences of standing water ponded 
against the retreating ice margin are to be expected in the 
valleys and along the shores of the sound from Olympia to 
Seattle, or farther north, their northern limit beTng reached 
wherever the melting of tne outer western part of this ice lobe 
in the great valley of the strait of Juan de Fuca coalesced with 
the melting of its southern part so' as to remove the ice barrier 
and admit the sea there along the west side of the sound. 
But much of the modified drift of this region, Its far great- 
er part, is above the limit of lacustrine effects from the glacial 
lake so overflowing to Black lake and river. On tlie hills and 
plateaus bordering the sound, mostly 200 to 300 feet or more 
above its sea level and rising theiice gradually on each side to- 
ward the Cascade range and the Olympic mountains, great 
areas of stratified drift sand and gravel are found, which must 
be attributed to stream deposition attendant upon the recession 
of the ice-sheet, with free descent of these streams, which 
would deposit the greater part of their coarse modified drift 
close tO' their places of discharge from the waning icefields. 
Thus the highlands along this south half of Puget sound were 
overspread by stratified drift progressively from south to north. 
as the ice border was gradually melted back. 
Queen Anne hill, in the northwest part of the city of Seattle, 
rising with moderately steep slopes to a massive, gently round- 
ed top, or rather to two such hilltops, each about 4CX) feet above 
the sea level of the sound, a half mile distant, consists of strati- 
fied sand and gravel, cut in many places 6 to 10 feet deep for 
new streets, and on its steep southern side cut 25 to 50 feet 
in the same modified drift. Much of it is quite irregularly bed- 
ded, and in the deep southern cuts the beds are largely inclined 
lo*^ to 20" northward, dipping toward the center of the hill. It 
