arid Geology of Lalie Ontario. 9 



coves displays a series of partially wooded slopes strewn with 

 displaced masses; frequently a straight line of cliffs is formed, 

 which have in their upper parts large triangular excavations 

 at tolerably regular distances; so that with their sharp and 

 formal outlines they resemble a row of houses with their gables 

 to the street, as in Holland. I need scarcely remark that this 

 scenery is very fine, especially when a break in the heights 

 admits a view of the neighbouring hamlets, or of the pine 

 forests. 



This part of the coast is called the " Highlands of York," 

 and is between seven and eight miles long. Eastward it sinks 

 very graduall}^, while westward it recedes from the lake for 

 about a mile, leaving a flat space of clay (blue and red inter- 

 mixed with quartz pebbles), and then ranges parallel with its 

 shore to Burlington Bay, as a high and steep bank of woods. 

 On the east side of these " Highlands," the country on the 

 lake side is for many leagues principally wilderness ; whether, 

 therefore, the lofty embankments from thirty to sixty miles 

 from York are spurs from that range, I know not ; but in that 

 interval there are terraces, — either single, and then at least one 

 hundred feet high; or several, mounting one behind another, 

 which range in great curvatures along-shore, each appearing 

 to have contained a bay. They now overlook a morass or 

 dense wood. 



For fifteen or sixteen miles west of Port Hope (sixty miles 

 east of York) the immediate bank of the lake is clay, capped 

 by loam or sand. Here the clay is in thin horizontal laminae. 

 About ten miles from Port Hope the banks are of loam filled 

 with quartz boulders. The height of these banks is usually 

 about twenty feet, and never exceeds eighty. Bounded by the 

 great beds of alluvion between York and Port Hope, and thirty 

 to forty miles from the former, the lake side is a mere morass, 

 penetrating into the country in bays filled with reeds and 

 rushes. The south side of the peninsula of Prince Edward is 

 in this state. The south shoi'e is also frequently swampy. 



Ledges or platforms of rock are extremely rare between 

 Presquisle and York ; but they are frequent in other places, as 

 in the Niagara district. Bay of Quinte, vicinity of Kingston, 

 Sackett's Harbour, &c. 



On the western iialf of Lake Ontario its shores are distri- 

 buted into unimportant and shallow bays, having an earthy 

 bank or low ledge of rock at the angles, and low grounds 

 within. The sheet of water called Burlington Bay at the west 

 end, is more properly a lake, separated from the main lake by a 

 sandy beach extending five miles ; from Saltfleet on the south, 

 to Nelson on the south, with a snuill creek as an outlet. 



New Series. Vol.5. No. 25. Jan. 1829. C 'I'he 



