No. 5.] SPENCER — SURFACE GEOLOGY. 273 



that Lake Ontario was excavated by a glacier. Dr. Newberry 

 accepts his statement, but considers that a Pre-glacial valley de- 

 termined the direction of the continental glacier. 



Mr. Hinde also asserts his belief that the buried valley of the 

 Niagara river (by the way of St. David's) as also the valleys at 

 Dundas and Owen Sound, are of glacier origin. We have proved 

 incontrovertibly that Dundas valley is a buried river channel ; 

 also Owen Sound and the St. David's valley are both beds of 

 Pre-o;lacial or luter-olacial rivers. 



Let us analyze the direction of the ice scratches in the 

 neighborhood of the western end of Lake Ontario. I have not 

 seen any (out of very many sets,) which parallel with the axis 

 of either the Dundas valley (except po.ssiZ>/^ one polished surface 

 in the valley), or the axis of the lake, but always at considerable 

 angles. In the region of Kingston, the prevailing scratches are 

 S. 45^ W. (Bell) and some others at S. 85^ W. neither of which 

 directions are parellel with the axis of the lake. Granted that 

 Mr. Hinde observed scratches that were parallel with the axis of 

 the lake, they of necessity would have been at an angle with the 

 submerged escarpment. If any glacier could have scooped out 

 the basins of Lake Ontario, it left the summit edges of the 

 Niagara escarpment as sharp as possible and not planed off. Also 

 if it excavated the deep trough of the lake, it left a summit of 

 soft Medina shales over the harder Hudson River rocks of the 

 escarpment, beneath which are Utica shales. From Dundas to 

 the Georgian bay the face of the escarpment (Niagara) is less 

 abrupt, but even here, there has not been left more than 50 feet 

 of drift at its foot, and this mostly, if not altogether, stratified 

 (excepting in channels now buried.) 



The observations of Professor H. Y. Hinde, on the coast of 

 Labradore, are here interesting. He has shown that pan-ice, at 

 the present time, is polishing the sides of cliffs, and has been 

 continuing its action whilst the coast has been rising several hun- 

 dred feet. Even under the leds-es of ov^erhanoino- rocks the action 

 is now going on (a phenomenon which, if in the lake region, 

 would be attributed to glaciers). Also, he has seen boulder-cla}- 

 being formed at the present time by the action o^ pan-ice (frozen 

 sea water). This, with a thickness of eight or ten feet gets piled 

 up by the action of waves and wind, and consequently in the 

 bays of the coast of Labrador it polishes rock bottoms to a depth 

 of fifteen feet or more, below the surface of the water, and grinds 



Vol. X. s No. 5. 



