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CONTRIBUTION TO THE GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY 

 OF THE TOWNSHIPS OF RUSSELL AND CAMBRIDGE, 

 IN RUSSELL. ONT. 



L PHYSIOGRAPHY AND GENERAL GEOLOGY. 



By W. Craig, (Duncan ville ) 



The Townshi|)S of Russell and Cambridge are almost perfectly level- 

 The Township of Russell is bordered on the south, west and north by a 

 rim of slightly higher land. The main portion and all the centre of the 

 township is quite level and continues so into and through the Township 

 of Cambridge. The soil, or drift of the level land, is composed of very 

 fine blue and red clay, covered in some places by two to three feet of 

 brown loam. The blue clay is of considerable thickness, from twenty- 

 five to one hundred feet, and there are no shells in it. It has probably 

 been deposited in deep water and came from the north. At a depth of 

 thirty to forty feet under the clay there is generally found water-worn 

 gravel or hard pan. In one locality the hard pan is composed of small 

 water-worn pebbles and blue clay ground down to a smooth surface and 

 as hard as rock, When this is drilled through water is always found 

 aad rushes up in such quantity that wells cannot be walled up with 

 stone. In other places the gravel is loose and filled with small shells. 

 In on* place, when digging a well at about eighteen feet from the sur- 

 face, in the clay, a bone of some animal was found, supposed to have 

 been a i-ib. It was about eighteen to twenty inches in length, about one 

 inch in diameter and almost round, and in the same excavation at a 

 dej)th of thirty-one feet a cedar limb about three inches in diameter was 

 found lying on two or three inches of small white shells covering the 

 gravel. The red clay has been deposited after the blue as it is nearer 

 the surface. They are both very fine and where exposed in cuttings are 

 found to be stratified in layers of three or four inches. They ai-e 

 splendid brick clays and should be first class for the manufacture Of 

 terra cotta. In the township of Cambridge the clay covei'S the whole 

 township and is covered by loam the same as in Russell ; and on the 

 north side of the township there is an extensive deposit of yellow sand 



