296 A. P. COLEMAN 



well sunk on the shore beneath the cliff, about five feet below 

 Lake Ontario and rise 85 or 90 feet above it. 1 The upper sur- 

 face mingles somewhat with the overlying sand and varies in 

 height to some extent. The clay is gray, very firm and resistant, 

 almost as much so as the Hudson River shale of the region, and 

 is generally finely laminated, though there are beds from two to 

 four or five feet thick, showing little or no lamination. Besides 

 the fine lamination there are often thin layers of grayish silt with 

 peaty material at distances of one or two inches apart, perhaps 

 representing flood seasons of an annual character. These silty 

 layers cannot often be traced for more than a few feet horizon- 

 tally, and may run up or down into a bed showing no lamination 

 in a way suggesting cross bedding. Another very characteristic 

 feature is the presence of half inch sheets of greenish impure 

 siderite every two or three feet, though these are not found 

 everywhere. 



The silty layers with peaty substances when washed to 

 remove clay and then dried and looked over with a lens show 

 great uniformity in all parts of the region. Scales of mica are 

 always numerous, as well as mosses, spruce leaves, certain round 

 black seeds and chitinous portions of beetles. So constant is 

 this assemblage that these clays are easily recognized by it 

 when found in new localities, the clay ironstone sheets affording 

 an additional earmark. Finally these are the only clays in the 

 region which burn to a dark red brick. As their materials must 

 have been derived by the Laurentian river and its tributaries 

 from the calcareous bowlder clay of the valley to the north, much 

 of the lime must have gone into solution by superficial weather- 

 ing before reaching the river or have been dissolved during the 

 time of transport, thus allowing the red color due to iron to 

 appear on burning. 



From the peaty layers of the clay the beetles were obtained 

 whose names are given in the following lists : 



I B. A. A. Sc. Rept., Com. on Pleistocene of Canada, p. 3. 



