282 Reports and Proceedings — 



the discovery of buried channels revealed by borings, from the 

 inspection of the glaciation of the lake-region, the consideration 

 of the late high continental elevation, and the investigation of 

 the deformation of old water-levels, as recorded in the high-level 

 beaches, the explanation of the origin of the basins of the great 

 lakes becomes possible. 



The original Erie valley drained into the extreme western end of 

 Lake Ontario — the Niagara river being modern — by a channel now 

 partly buried beneath drift. Lake Huron, by way of Georgia Bay, 

 was a valley continuous with that of Lake Ontario ; but between 

 these two bodies of water, for a distance of about 95 miles, it is now 

 buried beneath hundreds of feet of drift. The old channel of this 

 buried valley entered the Ontario basin about twenty miles east of 

 Toronto. The northern part of Lake Michigan basin was drained 

 into the Huron basin, as at present ; whilst the southern basin of 

 the lake emptied by a now deeply drift-filled channel into the south- 

 western part of Huron. The buried fragments of a great ancient 

 valley and river, and its tributaries, are connected with submerged 

 channels in Lake Huron and Lake Ontario, thus forming the coui'se 

 of the ancient St. Lawrence (Laurentian) river, with a great tributary 

 from the Erie basin and another across the southern part of the State 

 of Michigan. This valley is of high antiquity, and was formed 

 during times of high continental elevation, culminating not long 

 before the Pleistocene period. The glaciation of the region is 

 nowhere parallel with the escarpments, forming the sides of, or 

 crossing the lakes or less prominent features. During the Pleistocene 

 period, and especially at the close of the episode of the Upper Till, 

 the continent was greatly depressed, and extensive beaches and 

 shore-lines were made, which are now preserved at high elevations. 

 With the re-elevation of the continent these old water levels have 

 been deformed, owing to their unequal elevations. This deformation 

 is sufficient to account for the rocky barriers at the outlets of the 

 lakes. Some of the lakes have been formed, in part, by drift 

 obstructing the old valley. The origin of the basins of the Great 

 Lakes may be stated as the valley (of erosion) of the ancient St. 

 Lawrence River and its tributaries, obstructed during, and particularly 

 at the close of the Pleistocene period, by terrestrial movements, 

 warping the earth's crust into barriers, thus producing lake-basins, 

 some of which had just been formed in part by drift deposited in 

 the ancient valley. 



3. " On Ornithosaurian Kemains from the Oxford Clay of North- 

 ampton." By E. Lydekker, Esq., B.A., F.G.S. 



Seven vertebrae, portions of the ilia and ischia, one femur, and 

 the distal portion of that of the opposite side, part of a bone, probably 

 from the shaft of the tibia, and two undetermined fragments, all 

 associated, indicate the existence in England during the Oxford- 

 clay period of the species of Rhamphorhynchus provisionally referred 

 to B. Jessoni, though not definitely distinguished from R. Gemmingi. 



Amongst the noticeable features of the specimens are the presence 

 of a distinct rib-facet at the lateral border of the inferior surface 



