Notes on the Geology of Murray Bay, 147 



tical Silurian beds, which have been cut down to the sea level, 

 while their sturdier Laurentian neighbours tower above them in a 

 precipice 200 feet high, (Fig. 3.) On the sides of the bay the 

 Silurian beds in some places reach up the sides of the hills to a 



Fig> S. 



Section near Little Mai Bay. 

 (a) Lower Silurian. 

 (6) Laurentian. 



height of 300 feet, and they are seen here and there in the valley 

 of the Murray Bay River, as far as the lakes whence it flows. In 

 some places rugged and wasted patches of them are seen cling- 

 ing to the sides of the Laurentian steeps, just as they have been 

 left by the waves of the receding sea when it last took its depart- 

 ure from the land, at a comparatively modern period of geologi- 

 cal time. 



From the date of the Lower Silurian to the later tertiary pe- 

 riod, embracing by far the greater part of the earth's geologi- 

 cal history, at Murray Bay, as in many other parts of Canada, no 

 geological records remain. We therefore next turn to the 



Post-Pliocene Deposits, 



On the west side of the bay, the Silurian rocks of White Point, 

 immediately within the pier, and which have already been so 

 often mentioned, form a steep cliff, in the middle of which is a 

 terraced step marking an ancient sea level. At the end nearest 

 the pier the sea has again cut back to the old cliff, leaving merely 

 a narrow shelf ; but toward the inner side this shelf rapidly ex- 

 pands into the sandy flat along which the main road runs, and 

 which is continuous with the lower plain extending all the way to 

 the head of the bay. In this flat the upper portion of the Pleis' 

 tocene deposit seems to consist principally of sand and gravel, 



