SOME LOCAL DETAILS. 203 



probably here intervenes between the two beds seen in 

 contact nearer tlie edge of the terrace. 



Ottawa River. — The Leda clay and Saxicava sand are 

 well exposed on the banks of the Ottawa; and Green's 

 creek, a little below Ottawa city, has become celebrated 

 for the occurrence of hard calcareous nodules in the clay, 

 containing not only the ordinary shells of this deposit, but 

 also well-preserved skeletons of the Capelin {Mallotus), of 

 the Lump-sucker (Cyclopteriis), and of a species of stickle- 

 back (Gasterostem), of a Cottits, and of a species of seal. 

 Some of these nodules also contain leaves of land plants 

 and fragments of wood, and a fresh-water shell of the 

 genus Lymnea has also been found.* At Packenham 

 Mills, west of the Ottawa, the late Sheriff Dickson found 

 several species of land and fresh-water shells associated 

 with Telliiia Grmnlandica and apparently in the Saxicava 

 sand. These facts evidence the vicinity of the Laurentian 

 shore, and indicate a climate only a little more rigorous than 

 that of Central Canada at present. They were noticed in 

 some detail in my paper of 1866 in The Canadian Naturalist. 



Another illustration of the margin of the sea in this 

 direction is afforded by the discovery of the bones of a 

 whale at Smith's Falls, Ontario, in a bed of g^ravel, with a 

 few marine shells, lying on the margin of the old Lauren- 

 tian shore in this locality at a height of 420 feet above the 

 level of the sea, an elevation not very different from that 

 of one of the principal terraces with sea shells on Montreal 

 mountain. 



The marine deposits on the St. Lawrence are limited, as 

 already stated, to the country east of Kingston ; and the 

 clays of the basin of the great lakes to the south-westward 



* See notices of these fossils in Chapter V. 



