No. 4.] SPENCKH — SURFACE GEOLOGY. 231 



at a short distance westward of Dundas. Possibly the Grand 

 river divided and flowed around an island, the western side 

 of which is occupied now by the town of Paris. At any rate, 

 Neith's creek, at that town, formed a lar2;e tributary to the river 

 then flowing down to Lake Ootario. 



From a careful study of the broad valley of the lower portion 

 of the Grand river, it becomes apparent that it was a portion of 

 the outlet of Lake Erie, which paSvsing to the region of Seneca 

 village, turned towards the Dundas valley, although the present 

 river exposes shaly Onondaga rocks, occasionally as it approaches 

 the margins of the old valley. 



Again Mr. Carll has shown that the Alleghany drainage passed 

 near Dunkirk into the Erie basin at a place just opposite to its 

 outlet, as indicated by the present writer. 



Much of the Dundas valley is underlaid by stratified Erie 

 clay, which is known to extend to a depth of 60 feet below the 

 surface of Lake Ontario, according to Dr. Robert Bell. In the 

 upper part of the valley, streams have exposed some deposits of 

 unstratified clay filled with angular shingle, derived from the 

 thin beds of limestone forming the upper portion of the Niagara 

 formation. In the eastern portion of the valley, the Erie clay is 

 overlaid unconformably by brown Saugeen clay or loam (stratified). 

 In the upper portions of the valley the hill" are capped by brown 

 clays or sands. But along some of the hillsides excavated so 

 deeply in the drift, we find old beaches resting unconformably 

 on boulder clay. 



Near the centre of the city of Hamilton, in the wider portion 

 of the Dundas valley, a well was sunk to the depth of over 1000 

 feet. This well revealed a most interesting fact. Though 

 known to me several years ago, I did not apply it until recently to 

 its true bearing, since discovering the origin of the Dundas valley. 

 Mr. J. M. Williams sunk this well, at the Royal Hotel, in Ham- 

 ilton. He told me several years ago that he had to sink through 

 290 feet of boulders, before coming to hard rock, thus causing 

 the outlay of a large sum of money in excess of his calculations. 

 Unfortunately this well-record has been lost by fire. At that time 

 the fact was so fresh in his memory (improved by the extraordi- 

 nary cost of the well) that his statement could be relied on, being 

 experienced in well-borings. The mouth of this well is 63 feet 

 above Lake Ontario, and therefore the hard rocks are absent for 

 a depth of 227 feet below the lake surface See section. Fig. 2. 



