18 89-9(\J THE FORMATION OF TORONTO ISLAND. 243 



destructive. The waters, in their agitation, become loaded with sand and 

 other material, which it bears away as the waves recede, and which it 

 deposits at various distances from the shore according to its fineness or 

 coarseness. Some of it will be carried out to such deep water as to be 

 beyond the influence of the waves to bring it back again. This is entirely 

 destructive. But when the waves inpinge on the beach at an angle it 

 causes an onward movement of the material of the beach. This is clearly 

 shown in Figures I. and II. The particles held in suspension are thrown 

 up the incline in the direction of the wave, and when the force is spent 

 it moves back towards the water-line in the most direct course, that is per- 

 pendicular. The lighter parts will be carried higher and moved to a 

 greater distance forward as shown in Figure II. Thus we find the fine 

 sand away to westward, while the heavier portions remain along the bar 

 in front ot Ashbridge's Bay. 



During violent storms, astonishing changes take place in the beach. A 

 summer sojourner at Balmy Beach informed me that, during the great 

 storm of 1885 or 1886, when the Lake Shore Road, near the H umber, 

 was washed away, the whole of the beach from the Heights to the head 

 of Ashbridge's Bay, with the exception of a few hundred feet in front of 

 his own place, was washed away. The same gentleman informed me 

 that large boulders, sometimes weighing hundreds of pounds made their 

 appearance after storms and became permanent landmarks, unless taken 

 by the pleasure-seekers of the locality to form rockeries to adorn their 

 front yards. 



This shows the great transporting power of water when in motion. 

 But proof of that need hardly be cited at this day when some of the 

 greatest disasters to life the world has ever known, have been attributable 

 to the uncontrolled fury of water when broken loose from its bounds, as, 

 for instance, the Johnstown disaster. 



Mr. Sandford Fleming supposed that when the last subsidence of water 

 took place, instead of there being an abrupt cliff at Scarboro', as at 

 present, the land fell off in easy slopes to the water's edge, as shown 

 in Figures III. and IV. Then, owing to the long reach of 180 miles of 

 lake to the east, the immense waves raised by the easterly winds began 

 to produce their abrading effects on said promontory, and the abraded 

 material was carried and deposited to the west, forming a spur, as in 

 Figure V. The same action continuing produced results as shown in 

 Figures VI., VII., and VIII., until we have our present harbor. 



Mr. Hind takes objection slightly to Mr. Fleming's view of the pro- 

 montory extending such a distance into the lake. He bases his objection 



