7^ .1. \V. BPENCEB — ANCIENT SHORE PHENOMENA. 



covered with drift, such as frequently exist, and will be described in another 

 chapter. 



The beaches, in the form of narrow belts of gravel or -and. crossing a Hat 

 country, were in many places used as trails by the Indian aborigines, and 



in some places these trails have been turned into roads, as they arc always 

 dry during the muddy seasons. These ridge-roads have attracted attention 

 as ancient beaches for nearly a century. Hut the water long since withdrew 

 from them owing to the elevation of the continent, which has been accom- 

 panied by their distortion from the water-plain, on account of an increasing 

 rise to the north and east. 



The great geological value of investigating the raised ami ancient coast- 

 lines lies, not only in gaining a knowledge of the former expansions of the 

 lakes and their relationship to each other, hut particularly in being able to 

 make use of them, as old water-levels in order to measure the amount of 

 deformation or warping of the earth's surface caused by terrestrial move- 

 ments, resulting in the development of the basins of the lakes themselves, 

 and other features. Whilst the old shore-lines record a greal amount of 



unequal terrestrial movements, yet these movements have also left n "ds 



in the older sea-dills. 



Chapter II. 



BOTTLDBB l'.\ v EM r.\ P8 \ M> Fi;l SO 



In many localities of the northern pari of our continent, the land surfaces 

 are almost covered with loose boulders, varying from the Bize of cobble 

 Btones to masses commonly three or four feel long. ( Occasionally the blocks 

 have a length ofeighl feet, hut rarely longer. WhilBl some of the bould< 

 are angular Mock- of Paleozoic limestones and sand-tone- of local origin, 

 the greater proportion are Archaean rocks, which have been transported 

 from the Canadian highlands, north of the greal lakes, to a distance of 

 sometimes three or four hundred miles. These crystalline rocks, although 

 bo bard and compact , have the angularities invariably removed. I! lock < are 

 frequently -ecu at altitudes of hundreds of fee; above their original sources- 

 Throughout the lake region, and the country north of the line of the south. 



em limit of the drift, which is open fringed with them, the accumulation 



of'boulders is not uniformly distributed. The country enclosed by that line 

 i- occupied liy sh< 1 1- and ridges of drift materials, through which the bud- 

 jacenl rocks occasionally protrude. Again, these plains and hills have their 

 surfaces moulded by the action of the waves of vanished seas or shrunken 

 lake-, often fashioning the region into a succession of broad terrace flat- and 

 billy coast line.-. It i- upon the surfaces of these moulded features that the 



DOUld* rs are found. \\'hil.-t tie n are \a-t area- where there i- not a Bingle 



