220 " THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. X. 



tioD of the city of Hamilton and the Burlington bay, at least its 

 western portion. With this definition, the width at the "Bur- 

 lington heights" (an old lake terrace 108 feet above present level 

 of the water) would be less than five miles. At a mile and half 

 westward of the heights, the valley suddenly becomes narrowed 

 (equally on both sides of its axis of direction, by the Niagara 

 escarpment making two equal concave bends, on each side of the 

 valley, whence the straight upper portion extends, the whole 

 resembling the outline of a thistle and its stem), from which 

 place it extends six miles westward to Copetown, on the northern 

 side; and three and a half to Ancaster, on its southern side. 

 The breadth between the limestone walls of this valley varies 

 somewhat from two to two and a half miles. The summit angles 

 of the limestone walls on both sides are decidedly sharp. 



Duudas town is situated in this valley, its centre having a 

 height of about 70 feet above Lake Ontario, but its sides rise in 

 terraces or abrupt hills — many rounded and resembling roches 

 montounees. 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 interglacial and modern 

 streams. This rugged character continues until the summit 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-west of Copetown 

 and Ancaster, 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 imme- 

 diately 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 On- 

 tario. 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, which 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 por- 

 tions of our Province. 



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



