108 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
penetrated 650 feet of the Lorraine, 100 feet of Utica, 550 feet of Tren- : 
ton and 160 feet of Black River limestones, to the Archæan. 
From a series of borings recorded by Mr. E. Coste in a paper 
“On Natural Gas in Ontario,” read before the Mining Association in 
Montreal in March, 1900, some further evidence as to the thicknesses 
of the several formations in the Paleozoic series of Western Ontario 
is obtained. Thus from a hole put down in the township of Willough- 
by, in the Niagara peninsula, which reached a depth of 3,030 feet, after 
passing through the Onondaga and the underlying formations to the 
Medina, representing a thickness for these overlying formations of 520 
feet, the thickness of the underlying Medina sandstone and shales was 
found to be 963 feet, that of the Hudson or Lorraine shales was 717 
feet, of the Utica shale 160 feet, and for what was regarded as the 
Trenton limestone 670 feet, beneath which was a thickness of 19 feet 
of sandstone regarded as belonging to the Calciferous formation, which 
rested on the Archean. It is possible, however, that in the part styled 
Trenton may be included the Black River and the Chazy limestones and 
that the portion regarded as Calciferous sandstone may represent the 
Chazy sandstone. Otherwise there must be a considerable interval in 
which the Black River and Chazy are not represented in this section. 
From the record of another boring in the township of Bertie not 
far removed from this place, which reached a depth of 3,257 feet, the 
thickness of the Medina was found to be 996 feet, of the Larraine 730 
feet, of the Utica 171 feet, and of the underlying limestone, regarded as 
Trenton, 685 feet, resting on 45 feet of what was supposed to be Calci- 
ferous sandstone, to the top of the Archean. The remarks as to the 
composition of the lowest limestones in the Willoughby boring may also 
apply to this case. 
Several deep borings were also made in the south-west peninsula 
in the township of Colchester south, county of Essex. One of these 
reached a depth of 2,420 feet. After passing through the Onondaga, 
Guelph and Clinton, the Medina was reached. This formation was 
here found to have a thickness of only 285 feet. The Lorraine shales 
had a thickness of 350 feet and the Utica shales 235 feet, while the 
Trenton was penetrated to a depth of 270 feet, apparently without 
reaching the base of the formation. 
Many other borings have been made in this portion of the province 
for gas and oil, but as the greater part of these rarely penetrated strata 
lower than the Guelph or Clinton, they furnish no information regard- 
ing the thickness of the Utica or lower formations. 
The difficulty found in measuring the thickness of the several 
formations in the Ottawa basin is very considerable. The rock ex- 

