Notices of Memoirs — The Niagara River. 83 



Professor Tarr has made a most interesting contribution to glacial 

 science, Only a few of the matters dealt with have been referred to, 

 but the whole paper deserves careful perusal. 



NOTICES OIF MEMOIES. 



Relationship of Niagara River to the Glacial Period. Bulletin 

 Geol. Soc. America, August 10, 1910, pp. 433-48. 



IN this paper Dr. J. "W. Spencer records further observations made 

 by him on the Whirlpool - St. David's Valley, Gorge and Canyon. 

 The buried canyon occurs at the south end of the Whirlpool, some 

 3 miles from the escarpment. Above this is a shallower and smaller 

 channel 2 miles further south. Beyond the ridge is another ancient 

 valley trending to the south, and deepening to 66 feet in 1 J miles at the 

 site of the falls themselves. In this distance the valley broadens from 

 less than one quarter to over a mile, descending gradually a more gentle 

 gradient throughout a longer course than that of the Whirlpool- 

 St. David's Gorge. The buried gorge leading from the Whirlpool 

 is bounded by compact limestones with steep faces, except where 

 rounded and glaciated with striations along the direction of its course. 

 This ancient and now buried gorge increases from 1,400 feet at the 

 Whirlpool to 1,800 feet in a distance of 2 J miles. Professor Spencer 

 discovered in this gorge, at a depth of 186 feet, the remains of 

 a buried interglacial forest. Interglacial beds were first recorded in 

 Canada by Mr. D. P. H. Wilkins, at Port Rowan on Lake Erie, in 

 1878. A little later, at Scarbo' Heights, east of Toronto, they were 

 recorded by Dr. George Jennings Hinde, F.R.S. {Canadian Journal, 

 Toronto, vol. xv, p. 388, 1878). This was the foundation of inter- 

 glacial geology in the Ontario basin. 



In the neighbourhood of the Whirlpool Gorge the surface of the 

 Niagara limestone floor has been planed off, polished, and grooved, the 

 strongest striations being to south 60° west and weaker ones south 

 60° east ; best seen at the quarry on the mountain-top east of 

 St. David's, where the drift is reduced in places to only 4 feet. 

 Several well-sections are described, one of which passed through 

 293 feet in depth of glacial and other detrital deposits. Ever3 r where 

 beneath the neighbouring drift-deposits lie buried channels, and 

 high above the Whirlpool Channel is an esker-like ridge of sand and 

 gravel rising at one point to 442 feet above the lake. 



In the borings in Whirlpool Channel have been discovered remains 

 of a cool climate forest and soil, at a depth of 186 feet below the 

 surface, with proof of three or four glacial formations since that time, 

 like the Pleistocene Series at Toronto. 



Before the forest bed, at least two glacial formations had been left 

 in the buried channel, below which lie some 100 to 200 feet of still 

 older glacial deposits. This lowest drift lies in a rock-bordered valley 

 which had undergone a far greater amount of erosion than that during 

 or since the Glacial period. Prom all the evidence Professor Spencer 

 concludes therefore that this now filled trough is of pre-glacial origin. 

 The age of the modern Niagara River is also found to be younger than 



