No. 4.] SPENCER — SURFACE GEOLOGY. 227 



with u well in the surface soil to a depth of 40 feet. A small 

 rivulet flows iu a valley a few hundred yards south of the last 

 named well which has a bed 435 feet above the lake. At about 

 a mile west of Jersey ville, the altitude is 468 feet with a well 52 

 feet deep. Again, at about two miles west of the same village, 

 near the county line, the altitude is 460 feet, with a well 57 feet- 

 deep. About a mile north of the last named station is a ravine 

 436 feet with the adjacent hills forty feet higher, and rising in u 

 mile or two to about 500 feet. All these wells are in the drift. 

 From exposures near Ancaster, it appears that the unstratified 

 drift has not an altitude of 400 feet. And as we know that some 

 of these superfici;il beds are stratified clay, and over most of the 

 country just described not a boulder is to be seen, neither on the 

 surface nor in the material taken from the greater portions of the 

 wells, it is probable that the water is only obtained on nearing 

 the more porous boulder clay below. It has also been noticed 

 that two wells, at least, are 100 feet deep before reaching water, 

 therefore we may fairly place this as about the inferior limit of 

 stratified superficial clays. It will be seen that westward of the 

 meridian of Ancaster there is an area of over 100 square miles, 

 where the Niagara floor is known to be removed everywhere to a 

 depth of 100 feet, and in its eastern portion to more than 260 feet, 

 and still nearer Lake Ontario to a measured depth of more than 

 200 feet below its waters. 



III. — THE BURIED RIVER CHANNEL IN THE DUNDAS VALLEY 



AND ITS EXTENSIONS. 



That the Duudas valley is that of an ancient river valley now 

 buried to a great depth with the debris produced in the Ice Age, 

 becomes apparent on a careful study of the region. However, 

 until a key was discovered the mystery of its origin was found to 

 be very obscure. My own labors at studying this region may 

 fairly be stated as the first systematic attempts at the solution of 

 the present configuration of the western end of Lake Ontario and 

 the adjacent valley. Assertions have been made that it was 

 scooped out by a glacier, but this wild hypothesis was only a 

 statement made without any regard to facts. 



From the description of the topography, given in section II, 

 of this paper, it will be seen that the apparent length of the 

 rock-bound valley is six miles with a width of over two 

 miles ; then it widens suddenly to four miles (with concave . 



