and Geology of Lake Ontario. 429 



Quinte Portage dip to the N.W., would relieve us from the 

 dilemma by placing the salt rock above them ; but the shreds 

 of limestone visible in those places are horizontal : neither is it 

 usual for the newer rocks to incline towards those more an- 

 cient supporting them, they usually incline from them. 



In the basin of Lake Ontario, we have not so decidedly the aid 

 of the organic remains in investigating the relative ages of the 

 strata. There is no doubt of the situation of tlie carboniferous 

 and calciferous limestones on the south shore ; for instance, 

 the former is beneath the salt rock, and the latter above it ; yet 

 they both contain orthoceratites, trilobites, productcB, &c. dif- 

 fering however in species. 



Leaving these difficulties to be unravelled by future ob- 

 servers, I shall proceed to mention, that although I have care- 

 fiiUy travelled over the distance, I have not seen fixed lime- 

 stone from within three miles of Quinte Portage* to York 

 (107 miles), excepting a few weathered strata at Hamilton's 

 Creek (sixty-seven miles E. of York) and Port Hope (sixty 

 miles E. of York). At these two places it floors the streams, and 

 is both compact and crystalline in the same layer: it contains 

 the fossils of carboniferous limestone, and so for the present 

 must be arranged as such. 



Near Still's Tavern, thirty miles east of York, and not far 

 from the lake, I am told there is a small patch of black cal- 

 careous shale having chiefly trilobites imbedded in it. I did 

 not visit the spot. This shale may belong to the calciferous 

 slate of Eaton, above the saliferous and ferriferous rocks, — a 

 supposition greatly strengthened by the nature and contents 

 of the limestone about the fort at York, at the mouth of the 

 adjacent River Humber, and for six or eight miles up it, 

 where tiiere are extensive quarries. Dr. Lyons, surgeon to 

 the forces, informs me that it is in horizontal lavers of mode- 

 rate size, and that it contains the genus Cnryocrinites of the 

 Crinoidea. It cannot be distinguished in hand specimens from 

 some of the calcareous beds in the calciferous slate; and now 

 and then, like them, contains silvery scales, very small, of mica 

 or talc. It is brown with a slight tinjre of jrreen, irranular 



lllT 11** 1 't3 



and hard. In aikution to great numbers ot large ort/ioccrev, 

 terehratulcc^ productec, encrinital cohunns, &c. it contains also 

 many modioli, and jdagiostomcc, organic remains, which, with 

 the encrinital stomachs just alluded to, have never been found 

 in the carboniferous limestone of Canada, but frequentiv '» 

 the calciiiiirous slate. The luiuibcr of liagmenls of trilobites 



* It is seen in broken lcdj;cs at the jioints, lint rliic/l}' under water und 

 much changed. I had it not in my i)owcr to exanjinc it. 



occurriuff 



