149 



TESTI?.10NY" OF OTTAWA CLAYS AND GRAVELS TO THE 

 EXPANSION OF THE GULF OF ST. LAWREN^^T^Jg^ 



AND CANADIAN LAKES WITHIN THi^^ ^ 



HUxMAN PERIOD. 



By Amos Bowmax. 



(Read 5 Ik January, 18S8.) 



It WHS my good fortune during the past summer to 

 many of the d.ilighlful excursions of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' 

 Club. The publication of some maps of mining operations in the Cari- 

 boo District, B.C., kept me out of the field of the gold-bearing gravels 

 but not entirely out of the larger Held of surface geology, and of the 

 ancient rivers, which had a history in this country, as in most 

 countries, before the present streams began their work of shaping the 

 hills and valleys as we now know them. 



Our first excursion to which I will make reference, was that to the' 

 Hogs Back, on the liideau Biver, four miles south of Ottawa. Boulder 

 clays were seen on the right bank above the falls; and next overlving, 

 them the leda clays along the canal, continuing to Ottawa City. The.<^e 

 prepared us by laying a foundation for a section of the post tertiary 

 or pleistocene tertiary, sometimes also called quaternary, of the neigh- 

 bourhood, all these terms having nearly the'same meaning. 



The meaning of this [ileistocene history of the country which is 

 most significant to us is that of which we have a faint irlimmerinf in 

 tradition. It has been handed down by difllerent races both savage and 

 civilized ; and is recorded in the sacred writings ; dating from the most 

 remote history of mankind, when writing was first invented to record 

 the ancient tradition". It is that of tlie great flood, or sin flood, of 

 which Noah was the hero, according to our version. In making 

 allusion here to the myth of Noah I do so simjjly to reuiind yovi of a 

 most notable feature of the pleistocene epoch, the record of which i.s 

 so well marked in our suifdce geology that it is capable of being read 

 with ease by any on* ; the iiicniui y of which has so impressed itself 

 upon aboriginal uiankiiid. 



