36 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vox. VI. 
often cross-bedded, sometimes containing boulders two feet in diameter, 
the equivalent of the Iroquois beach gravels at the Desjardins canal a 
mile or two northeast. Below this there were two feet of brown 
unstratified clay followed by eight feet of blue till containing few stones. 
Considerable quantities of rather decayed wood occurred in the brown 
layer, probably an old soil, the upper weathered portion of the blue till 
beneath ; and specimens kindly examined by Professor Penhallow were 
determined as Larix Americana and a Picea, probably nigra. The 
workmen in the cutting found.a number of bones, so far as could be 
ascertained, in the same layer of brown clay; and it was stated that 
shells were obtained in the clay a little distance off. 
That indefatigable collector, Col. Grant, writes that several partly 
decayed bones of an elephant were found buried in the blue Erie clay 
at the base of the cutting, some of them being now in the museum at 
Hamilton, others apparently carried off by onlookers. He states also 
that some well preserved timber, recognized as belonging to trees still 
living in the vicinity, was found in the clay. “The shoulder blade of a 
moose or large deer was obtained from a sandy beach bed about a yard 
or so above the clay according to the workmen. I got a decayed rib of 
an elephant in a Slabtown gravel pit previously. Some years ago I 
paid a visit to the old gentleman who had the contract for the Des- 
jardins canal excavation. He mentioned that horns, etc., of a buffalo or 
bison were carried away by a bystander in addition to the animal 
remains secured by Sir W. Logan for the Survey.’ From Col. Grant’s 
account it is somewhat doubtful if the elephant remains from the 
Hunter street tunnel came from Iroquois beach deposits or from an old 
land surface of pre-Iroquois age. The wood obtained by myself appears 
to be older than the Iroquois beach deposits. 
In regard to the shells reported to have been found in this cutting, 
it may be said that they turn out to be Silurian brachiopods from 
boulders contained in the till below the old lake gravels. 
A description of the Hunter street section is given by Mr. A. E. 
Walker in the Journal of the Hamilton Association, in which he states 
that he obtained the lower jaw of some carnivorous animal, probably 
from the sand overlying the till,* and also partly carbonized wood. 
While the Hamilton fossils appear to be of an age greater than the 
base of the Iroquois beach gravels, and those from the Desjardins canal 
occur somewhat high up in them, most of the fossils found near 
Toronto occur comparatively near the surface. 
Fossils have been reported from four localities near Toronto, the 
* Jour. and Proc., Ham. Assoc., 1895-96, p. 150. 
