6 REPORT — 1900. 



If the sand deposits of Western Toronto are to be included with the 

 cool climate beds, there must be added : 



Campeloma decisa 

 Pleurocera, two species 

 Goniobasis, one species 



Amnicola limosa 

 Valvata sincera 

 Unio, one species 



These fossils may, however, belong to the lower warm climate series. 

 The molluscs do not give decisive information as to the climate ; but the 

 trees, and to a considerable extent the insects, point to a climate somewhat 

 cooler than at present. 



Dr. Samuel H. Scudder has determined these beetles, seventy-two in 

 number, all of them in his opinion extinct except two. Twenty-five of 

 them were obtained from material sent by Dr. Hinde, the rest from 

 specimens collected at Scarborough and Toronto by A. P. Coleman. A 

 complete account of the new species, with figures, will be published shortly 

 by the Canadian Geological Survey. The new species confirm Dr. Scudder 

 in the opinion expressed when the first set of specimens was described, 

 * that on the whole the fauna has a boreal aspect, though by no means 

 so decidedly boreal as one would anticipate under the circumstances.' 

 The Committee warmly apprecia-tes the kindness and patience of Dr. 

 Scudder in working up this fragmentary and difficult material. 



In all at least seventy-eight species of animals are known from the 

 cool climate beds, seventy of them extinct, and the total number may 

 reach eighty-seven ; while in the lower warm climate beds at least fifty 

 species are known to exist. Only four of the seventy-eight species 

 recognised in the upper beds occur also in the lower beds ; so that 124 

 species of animals, chiefly insects and molluscs, but including also the 

 caribou, bison, and mammoth or mastodon, have been found in the Toronto 

 interglacial formation. If we include the flora, with its numerous fore.^ 

 trees, it will be seen that there are ample materials for reconstructing the 

 life of the time and for determining the climate. That the Toronto 

 formation is interglacial has been proved beyond doubt, and that it 

 represents an interglacial period lasting thousands of years is scarcely 

 doubtful. Two points are of special importance in this connection. In 

 the first place, there was a considerable interval of erosion after the 

 earlier withdrawal of the ice before the warm climate beds began to be 

 deposited, and there was a long time of active erosion after the cool 

 climate beds had been formed before the ice advanced for the second 

 time. These times of erosion, with the long intervening time when the 

 valley of Lake Ontario was filled with fresh water to a depth of 50 

 to 150 feet greater than at present, demand not only a great lapse of 

 time but also important warpings and changes of level in the St. Lawrence 

 valley. In the next place it is striking that none of the scores of species 

 of plants and animals found is characteristic of an Arctic or even sub- 

 Arctic climate. All of them might live in Ontario to-day except a few 

 which require a warmer climate, i.e. they all belong to climates ranging 

 from warm temperate to cold temperate, meaning by the latter the climate 

 of the north shore of Lake Superior or of the lower St. Lawrence. The 

 deposits seem to have been formed, not during the earlier retreat of the 

 ice, nor during its second advance, but during a temperate era, when in 

 all probability eastern Canada was as devoid of permanent icefields as 

 it is to-day. Our investigations go far to prove that between the two 



