Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/433

Rh The valley by which we ascended to the highlands showed evident signs of having once been occupied by a small glacier, moraines and mounds were stretched across it, the trough of the valley being worked down to the gneiss; the softer strata of sand- stones and basalts were eroded, except on isolated mounds and knobs. These sandstones varied in colour from brick-red to dull white, split easily, and showed a great deal of ripple-markings ; a long and careful search produced no trace of fossil remains. To the northward, in the direction of Cairn Point and Rensselaer Harbour, stretch a series of ice-rounded gneissoid hills, of a general red colour. On the south rises a flat-topped range, called, by Dr. Hayes, Dodge Mountain, after one of his companions. This same range forms the northern escarpment of Foulke Fiord, and a similar formation occurs on its southern shores, notably at Cape Alexander, where the mer-de-glace descends to the sea on both of its flanks and isolates it from the mainland. From the station I reached, the inland ice was at least five miles distant, and to the northward a stretch of hills at least ten miles in width lay between it and the coast. At that season this border-land was almost free from snow, and gave one a fair opportunity of examining the surface. At the points visited by me, the evidence was conclusive that at some time or other the greater part of the land, now free from the mer-de-glace, had been subjected to the grinding-down process of ice-action ; the moraines in the valleys, erratics perched on the slopes of the polished gneiss hills, the destruction of the softer strata in the valleys, all told the same tale. A very suggestive evidence appeared in a well-defined moraine stretching across a valley that debouched on the shore not far from where our ships were anchored. This moraine ran across the valley at an elevation of 300 feet; at the time of our visit an impetuous torrent of melted snow had cut a section fifty feet deep through it, showing that it was composed of gneiss, basalts, and sandstones; the interstices between the blocks were filled with fine sand, and amongst the sand were imbedded multitudes of the shells of Saxicava rugosa (many with both valves still connected), Mya truncata, and sparingly Cardium islandicum and Tellina calcaria. This un- doubtedly, to my way of thinking, had been formed by the submerged snout of a glacier, and the question naturally arose whether at some former period the mer-de-glace had not a greater extension than at present, or whether the marks of ice-action over 3