1:26 PROCEEDINGS OF OTTAWA MEETING. 



any acceptable conclusion. The whole course of the supposed outlet should be 

 examined before ii can be asserted that some objections fatal to the theory do nol 

 exist. The lines of bowlders to the northward of Trout lake, which have been re- 

 ferred to, might belong to moraines and nol to lacustrine terraces, which in any 



ease would only prove a former eastward extension of Lake Nipissing. 



Lake Huron is 582 feel above the sea and Lake Nipissing 637 feet, or 55 feel 

 higher. As the -round is low between Lake Nipissing and Trout lake, if Lake 

 Huron were only a little more than 55 feet higher than at present its waters might 

 have flowed down the Mattawa river at the time supposed by Professor Wright, 

 provided the relative levels of the whole region were the same then as now; but 

 this was unlikely to have been the case. 



The valley of the Mattawa appeared to be only large enough for a river of the 

 small size of the present stream. At. the outlet of Trout lake the ground is high 

 and the river passes through a narrow opening. Again, from the outlet of Turtle 

 lake to Lake Talon the stream runs in a very contracted valley, which, speaking 

 from memory, 1 do not think gives indication of having afforded passage to a larger 

 body of water. Further down in the neighborhood of the south branch, the 

 Amable du Fond, the valley appeared to be quite contracted at several points. 



I did not think that the bowlder-covered Held or plateau on which Mattawa vil- 

 lage is built could be cited as evidence in support of the present theory. Many 

 similar fields were to be found along- the Ottawa. The ridge of bowlders, pointing 

 northward, which juts out into the Ottawa river at the mouth of the Mattawa, is 

 of morainic origin and has probably been left, by a glacier which came down the 

 north-and-south stretch of the Ottawa jusl above this locality, or from one of the 

 tributary valleys on the opposite side of that river. Corresponding ridges of bowl- 

 ders, transverse to the current, formed similar points projecting into the ( Mtawa in 

 many places all along its course. Some of them ran completely across the bed of 

 the stream, as, for example, the one near Kettle island, only a. few miles below 

 Ottawa city, which at low water entirely obstructed navigation except at one nar- 

 row gap. All these I regard as having been left by glaciers descending from 

 the north-and-south valleys, which cut through the rocky hills to the northward 

 and fall into the Ottawa at right angles. I have described them in the chapter on 

 Surface Geology written for Sir W. E. Logan, in the Geology of Canada, lsu;;. 



If, in comparatively recent geologic tines, the valley of the Ottawa river, from 

 the junction of the Mattawa to its mouth, had acted as a channel for the convey- 

 ance of a much larger body of water than the present stream, we should see abun- 

 dant evidence of the fact at many places on its course, but such evidence appears 

 to be wanting. Along its lower reaches for perhaps 200 miles above the mouth 

 clay banks of moderate elevation rise from high-water mark, ami from their brink 

 level tracts extend in many places for miles to the southward. The difference 

 between the annual high and low water marks in the* Htawa is a little over 20 feet. 

 I Miring the period of high water the river cuts into the fo.it of the clay banks and 

 so produces irregular widenings of the stream at the flood line. There is no sign 

 of any former erosion oft hese clay Hats by a higher level of water. In the vicinity 

 of the rapids ami falls of the Ottawa evidence also appears to be lacking of the 

 former passage of any larger body of water than al present. 



In reference to the ten-aces around Lake Huron 1 will say. in connection with 

 the question, that along the north shore of that lake old beaches are to lie seen 

 almost everywhere up to a little over fifty feet above its present level , but that 

 they have only been noticed at greater elevations in a few places, such as near 



