No. 2.] SPENCER — PREGLACIAL OUTLET OP L. ERIE. 6T 



terraces or abrupt hills ; and on ascending the valley, we find 

 that between the escarpments are great ranges of parallel hills 

 separated by deep gorges or glens, excavated in the drift by 

 modern streams. This rugged character continues until the sum- 

 mit of the Post Pliocene ridges have a height equal to that of the 

 escarpment. As the gorges ascend towards the westward they 

 become smaller, until at some distance south-w^est of Copetown 

 and Ancuster, the divide of the present system of drainage is 

 reached. Some of these streams have cut through the drift, so 

 that they have only an altitude above the lake (which is seven 

 miles distant) of 240 feet, while the tops of the ridges immedi- 

 ately in the neighborhood are not much less than 400 feet high 

 though they themselves have been removed to a depth of about 

 another hundred feet, for the drift has filled the upper portion 

 of the valley to the height of 500 feet above Lake Ontario. 

 Even to the very sources of the streams, the country resembles 

 the rivers of our great North Western Territories (or those of 

 the Western States), cutting their way through a deep drift 

 at high altitudes, w^hich is not underlaid by harder rocks, showing 

 deep valleys rapidly increasing in size and depth, as they are 

 cleaning out the soft material, and hurrying down to lower 

 levels — a strong contrast to the features in most other portions 

 of our Province. 



On the south side of the Dundas valley, a few unimportant 

 streams, mostly dry in summer, have worn back the limestone 

 escarpment, over which they flow, to distances varying from a 

 few yards to a few hundred, making glens at whose head in spring- 

 time some picturesque cascades can be seen. At Mount Albion, 

 six miles east of Hamilton, there are two of these larger gorges, 

 whose waters, after passing over picturesque falls, 70 feet high, 

 and through glens several hundred yards in length, empty into 

 the triangular valley noticed before. On the north side of the 

 Dundas valley, besides small gorges with their streams compar- 

 able to those on the south side, there are several of much larger 

 dimensions ; for example, that at Waterdown, six miles north of 

 Hamilton. Still larger is Glen Spencer which has a canon 

 half a mile long, 300 feet deep, and between 200 and 300 yards 

 wide at its mouth. At the head of this is Spencer Falls, 135 

 feet high, and joining it laterally there is another canon, with a 

 considerable stream flowing from Webster's Falls, which how- 

 ever, is of less height than the other. The waters feeding these 



