PLEISTOCENE SEA-LEVEL 165 
pelled there to yield up their load of rock waste. We 
know, from the extent of Pleistocene erosion in this dis¬ 
trict, that the burden of rock waste was large, and wher¬ 
ever the moraines were built they made an important de¬ 
posit. If the Pleistocene base-level had been the same as 
the present I should expect to find that deposit as a con¬ 
tinuous bar, or string of linear islands, along the outer 
coast of the Alexander Archipelago and at various points 
farther south, but no such features have been described, 
and the coast seems to have an entirely different character. 
This consideration, though connected at present with only 
negative evidence, distinctly favors the theory that the sea- 
level associated with the greatest Pleistocene ice floods 
was considerably below the modern sea surface. 
There is some evidence, on the other hand, of a com¬ 
paratively high sea plane after the glacial maximum. 
Dawson describes an extensive marine deposit, reaching 
a height of 200 feet, on the east side of Graham Island, the 
most northerly of the Queen Charlotte group, and infers 
from its relations that it was contemporaneous with a 
development of local glaciers. 1 At Nanaimo, on the 
inner coast of Vancouver Island, he found shell-bearing 
marine clays, resting on glaciated rocks, at a height of 70 
feet above the sea. 2 In Gastineau Channel is a narrow 
shore terrace at a height of 200 feet, and in an associated 
clay Dali found marine shells. At two, at least, of the 
localities the shells are of species indicating cold water, 
and each locality is on the border of a sound or channel 
which would be filled with icebergs by a moderate devel¬ 
opment of glaciers. If the phenomena all belong to the 
same chapter of Pleistocene history, they record an 
episode similar to that of the Champlain clays of the At¬ 
lantic seaboard. 
1 Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London, vol. xxxvn, p. 281, 1881. 
2 Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London, vol. xxxvn, p. 279, 1881. 
