252 NOTES ON THE DAVENPORT GRAVEL DRIFT. 
substances; and the occurrence of boulders in very considerable 
quantities strewn along the flat land under the base of the terrace is 
a sufficient proof that they have been left behind. 
The occurrence of nodules of clay, from an inch to two or three 
inches diameter, in some of the beds of gravel, is not a little remark- 
able, seeing that they are so soft as to be easily crumbled up in the 
hand. These clay nodules are not found in every bed, but only in 
beds here and there. Their presence may be accounted for by sup- 
posing that the waves had undermined a portion of the half frozen 
clay cliff in winter, and that some of the fragments had been 
rolled along the beach by the waves and ultimately washed up in 
their frozen condition and deposited where we find them. These 
fragments of clay are identical in character with the clay found in 
digging into the face of the terrace. Their rounded and water- 
rolled appearance would certainly go far to strengthen the above 
supposition, but in order to support it we are obliged to bring in the 
agency of frost. This may not only be quite justifiable, but the 
presence of these pieces of clay of the peculiar shape and in the 
singular position which we find them, may be some slender proof 
that the climate in those days long gone by was not unlike the 
climate at the present time. 
The plate shows a section of the gravel deposit, as well as a:sketch 
of its position in relation to the adjoining country. The tinted 
part is intended to represent the land which would be under water, 
with Lake Ontario 170 feet above its present level 
We have had occasion in these observations to draw a comparison 
between the gravel deposit at Davenport and the formation now 
going on in front of Toronto; but perhaps the most remarkable 
resemblance in the character of both is that they denote the boun- 
daries of two capacious natural harbours. The present one, the 
harbour of Toronto, is well known; and the ancient one must have 
occupied the whole of that flat expanse lying between the Dayen- 
port gravel ridge and the village of Weston, and must have embraced 
over seven square miles of sheltered water, or nearly double the area 
of Toronto Harbour. It is not a little strange that the same 
natural forces should be at work to-day in forming almost a dupli- 
cate of what they completed in the same neighbourhood before the 
commencement of history on this continent; for if the natural har- 
bour of Toronto is not exactly similar in outline or in expanse to 
