128 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



RIVER VALLEYS OF THE NIAGARA ESCARPMENT. 



BY D. F. H. WILKINS, B. A., BAG. APP. SGI., HEAD MASTER, 

 HIGH SGHOOL, BEAMSVILLE, ONT. 



Read before the Haiiiilton Association, May 8th, i8go. 



That salient feature of the landscape of Western Ontario known 

 as the Niagara escarpment, in its course through the counties of 

 Lincoln, Wentworth, Halton, Wellington, Dufferin, Simcoe, Grey, 

 and Bruce, as well as on through the Manitoulin islands, possesses 

 among other interesting characteristics, a large number of river 

 valleys of all sorts and sizes. Some are recent ; others, ancient : 

 some tell the story of repeated submergence beneath the waves; 

 others, again, are almost of yesterday. Some have gently sloping 

 sides ; others with their precipitous, picturesque, angular walls, 

 resemble in miniature the canyons of the far West. In some the 

 drainage of the upland is slowly but surely carving its way to the 

 plain below ; in others, the dried-up stream-bed and the bare rock- 

 ledges speak of diminished rain-fall and ot complete erosion. In 

 some a jungle of tree and shrub clothes the entire glen ; in others, 

 the traveller pushes onward amongst grass and herbs only. 



Of the valleys, the most important to the north is certainly that 

 of the Sydenham, in Grey county ; for a glance at the map shows 

 that it, in former days, carved out that large and beautiful and now 

 valuable expanse of water known as Owen Sound. There we find 

 that the present unimportant stream, after winding on gently through 

 field and forest, plunges down two or three picturesque falls, and 

 flows onward through a flood-plain, its former valley, of which more 

 anon. Moreover, the stream has excavated, after the manner of 

 Niagara, a deep and narrow gorge in the limestone, the ledges of 

 which have caused the cascades just referred to; and that this 

 erosion is very recent, will be apparent to all who carefully study the 

 district. The ancient valley just mentioned deserves here a little 

 longer notice. Its breadth increases from a few hundred feet at the 

 south end to over a mile at the present river-mouth, and it extends 

 further as we go northward to a width of three miles. Its length, 



