.'IK) DAWSON A.ND PENH A I.I.( >\V — PLEISTOCENE FLORA. 



the upper bowlder clay of Hinde's section is not represented, but only the 



oups III and IV as given in the table. The upper bowlder clay is, how- 

 ever, seen on higher ground in the vicinity. 



Dr. .1. W. Sdencer, who has studied this locality, as well as the whole 

 north shore of Lake Ontario, writes to me that he regards the earthy sand 

 holding wood and fresh-water shells as equivalent to Hinde's " interglacial " 

 beds at Scarboro' heights, and the overlying clay as the so-called " Erie 

 clay," over which, as above stated, is the upper bowlder deposit which in the 

 vicinity of Toronto has many Laurentian bowlders. 



(3.i Many observations have been made on the interglacial beds by Dr. 

 G. M. Dawson, and are recorded with sections in his reports on the 4!lth 

 Parallel and on the geology of the Bow and Belly rivers, and in a paper on 

 borings made in Manitoba and the North West Territories in Vol. IV of 

 the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada ; and he has placed in our 

 hands specimens of peat and wood from those regions. In one locality on 

 the Belly river he finds a bed of interglacial peat hardened by pressure in 

 such a manner as to assume the appearance of a lignite. 



(4.) In addition to the vegetable remains found as above stated in the 

 ■• fores! beds " or " interglacial " deposits, trunks of trees and vegetable frag- 

 ments occur in the bowlder clays themselves, indicating either the partial 

 destruction of the older interglacial bed and the mixture of its debris with 

 glacial deposits, or the enclosure of drift-wood in the latter in the manner 

 now so common in the arctic regions and described by so many arctic ex- 

 plorers/- This raises very interesting questions respecting the origin of the 

 bowlder clay, to be noticed in the sequel. 



< )ne of the most marked illustrations is that of the boring at Solsgirth, in 

 Manitoba, on the Manitoba and Northwestern railway, and at an elevation 

 ■ if 1,757 feet above the sea.f At this place the section i< a- follows : 



Feet. 



1 . Loam 2 



l'. Hard blue clay and gravel ._ 42 



:;. Hard blue clay and b tones _. h> 



1. Hard yellow '.' hard pan'' L2 



.".. Softer bluish clay 16 



6. " " 71 



7. Sand with water __ 



Blue clay with Btonea 186 



'.». Gray clay or Bhale (Cretaceous ?) 



860 

 Fragments of wood, more or less decayed and compressed, were obtained 

 from depths of 96, 107, 120, and 135 feet from the surface. They were thus 

 distributed through a considerable thickness of the clay rather than in a 



i .if in.- Natural History, Geology, and Physics of Greenland, by Profi — rT. R. Jo 



i by tin- I; ">n i Society "f London, i -r . indi ■ " I <■■ Iftw I." 



(•Dr. G M. Dawson, Trans. Roys i iada, vol. IV, 1 IV, p. 91,etseq, 



