III.—Recent Observations on the Glaciation of British Columbia and Adjacent Regions

Extract

Previous observations in British Columbia have shown that at one stage in the Glacial period—that of maximum glaciation—a great confluent ice-mass has occupied the region which may be named the Interior Plateau, between the Coast Mountains and Gold and Eocky Mountain Kanges. From the 55th to the 49th parallel this great glacier has left traces of its general southward or southeastward movement, which are distinct from those of subsequent local glaciers. The southern extensions or terminations of this confluent glacier, in Washington and Idaho Territories, have quite recently been examined by Mr. Bailley Willis and Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, of the U.S. Geological Survey. There is, further, evidence to show that this inland-ice flowed also, by transverse valleys and gaps, across the Coast Range, and that the fiords of the coast were thus deeply filled with glacier-ice which, supplemented by that originating on the Coast Range itself, buried the entire great valley which separates Vancouver Island from the mainland and discharged seaward round both ends of the island. Further north, the glacier extending from the mainland coast touched the northern shores of the Queen Charlotte Islands.