159 



of publication* whieli liin worked a change in tiie scientilic world ; 

 formerly unwilling, how it is ready to acc3i)t these facts. Arthur 

 Wallace, returning from a recent visit to the Pacific Coast, writes, re- 

 garding these iinds of human remains in the pliocene tertiary river 

 valleys of the Pacific Coast, that so far from being improbable, and 

 strange, the non-existence of such remains in the pliocene period 

 would be far more remarkable, improbable and strangp, in the light of 

 to-day. 



For further^information on the preglacial drainage of Lake Ontario 

 I refer you to the observations of J. \\ . Spencer, formerly o^ Hamilton, 

 and of the Geological Survey of Canada, published by the Philosophical 

 Society of Washington, ISSl. Mr. Spencer has presented many facts 

 that are interesting on the pliocene erosion, or former valley of the 

 lakes, in the region within reach from Hamilton; and also on the con- 

 nection of the valleys of the Mississippi region where he is at present 

 located. 



It remains for me to trace a little further, and to review the facts 

 regai'ding the pleistocene period, not of erosions or deep cut valleys, 

 but of flood, and filling up of the ancient valleys; of terraces, and of 

 plains to which we owe so much that is beautiful in the wide " level 

 and rolling" expanse which is the paradise of the Canadian farmer- 

 The subject goes beyond ray capacity; the poet and the artist must do 

 justice to this favored land of lakes, of rich agricultural .soil, and of 

 niaole forest, that was only yesterday the bottom of a shallow sea. 

 I have seen many countries, and frankly, I do not believe that nature 

 intent on rearing a vigorous race in all the woiM has given its 

 children another like it. 



Probably a majority of the persons present who have followed the 

 line of facts presented, v/ill have drawn their own conclusions, in 

 advance of what I shall say. If my facts are to bo trusted, the evidence 

 seems pretty conclusive that the sea penetrated into, and occupied the 

 valley of the great lakes fur a time at leist during the pleistocene 

 epoch. It is not my business or jiurpose at present to account for the 

 a1)sence of marine fossils in the valley of the St. Lawrence above 



*\Vliitiipy's Auriferous Gravels, in Meicoiis of the Ikluscum of Comparative 

 Zoology, (.'ambiidc;"', ISSd. 



