No. 2.] SPENCER — PREGLACIAL OUTLET OF L. ERIE. 69 



Tertiary drift, in the form of a bed of large rounded^boulders 

 mostly of Laurentian gneisses. The country for four miles south 

 of Gait is of similar character, forming a broad valley, in \\hich 

 the present river flows. At this distance from Gait the river 

 takes a turn to the south-westward ; but at the same place, the 

 old valley appears to pass in a nearly direct line with the course 

 -of the present bed (before the modern turn is made to the west- 

 ward). As this portion of the valley now entered, has not to any 

 extent been cleaned out by modern streams, it forms a broad 

 shallow depression in the country extending for a few miles in 

 width. Yet it is often occupied with hills composed of stratified 

 coarse gravel belonging to that belt, which extends from Owen 

 Sound to the County of Brant, and called by the Canadian Geo- 

 logical Survey "Artemesia Gravel." 



It is through a portion of this valley that the Fairchild's Creek 

 flows. Many streams derive their supplies of water from the 

 Beverly swamps, which also feed the Lindsay Creek, that empties 

 over Webster Falls and flows down Glen Spencer through the 

 Dundas valley to Lake Ontario. 



The G. W. Railway, at four miles south of Gait, enters this 

 valley and continues in it or its branches as far as Harrisburg, 

 though the deeper depression is near St. George (a short distance 

 west of Harrisburg). After leaving what I consider its more 

 ancient bed, south of Gait (unless the country between the present 

 bed and Fairchild's Creek was an island), the Grand River flows 

 southward to Paris and Brantford, having a deep, broad valley. 

 At the latter place the valley may fairly be placed at a few miles 

 in width, while further to the eastward the river winds in an 

 old course which had formerly a width of four miles. In 

 the region of Brantford the valley is bounded by a somewhat 

 elevated plateau. At Paris, Neith's Creek enters the Grand River 

 from the west, and has a valley almost comparable in size with 

 that of the latter at this town. At Paris, the Grand River cuts 

 through the plaster-bearing Onondaga formation. Similar rocks 

 appear at various places along the river, at places where the river 

 has cleaned out a portion of one side of its ancient valley. 



x\t the Great Western Railway crossing, east of Paris, the bed 

 of the river has an altitude of -195 feet above Lake Ontario, while 

 at Brantford it is 410 feet (this elevation may not be perfectly 

 accurate) above the same datum. From Brantford the river 

 winds through a broad valley, with a general easterly direction, 



