62 Capt. Bonnycastle on some of the 
Arr. V.—Desultory Observations on a few of 
the Rocks and Minerals of Upper Canada, 
by Captain Bonnycastie, R. E. 
In the very desirable step which the Historical Society 
has at length adopted to commence the march of geological 
science in Canada, every reason is afforded for belief that a 
new and important opening will be made towards clearing 
away the incumbrances which have long overshadowed so fair 
a field for research, and that, not only will the country be 
ultimately benefitted and enriched, but that a new light may 
be spread over the science itself from the unveiling of those 
peculiar doubts and difficulties with which its study in this 
singular country is beset. 
Among some of these hitherto unsolved questions which so 
naturally present themselves to an enquiring mind, is that of 
the manner in which the vast masses of foreign rocks, in the 
shape of water worn boulders, have been transported to their 
present situations and whence they came. The boulders of 
the Juraand of Germany, are of small import and of limited 
extent when compared tothose of Canada. I have travelled 
by land or along the shores from Prescott to Lake Erie, and 
every where these singular strangers present themselves to 
view, thickly spread over rocks and soils to which they have 
not the slightest analogy, and at an immeasurable distance 
from any beds to which they might, in a few instances, be 
supposed to have originally belonged, I have observed them 
equally strewing the shores of the lakes and of the St. Law- 
rence, and covering the mountains and the hills, and that too 
asin Pelham township at a very considerable elevation. Here 
(at Kingston,) they line the low limestone shores of the lake, 
and consist of hard schists, of granites, of gneiss, of quartz, 
of 
