26 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



exclusively. The writer trusts that he may here digress sufficiently 

 to note the importance of coast-ice as a denuding and polishing 

 agent. On the Labrador coast may be seen hard gneissic rock, 

 polished, grooved and scooped, not by glaciers, but by coast ice, 

 raised and lowered by the tide. While it has been distinctly shown 

 that a. glacier cannot erode, or can erode but slightly, coast ice cer- 

 tainly can accomplish a heavy task in denudation, as it was the 

 writer's privilege to verify in 1875. Amongst other phenomena he 

 then noticed that the polishing and grooving were not conspicuous 

 towards the summits of the hills of that forbidding rocky coast, but. 

 that between and above the tide-marks they were a conspicuous 

 feature. 



From the fourth beach the land rises to the upper Niagara es- 

 carpment in a series of billowy clay loam fields, the escarpment it- 

 self constituting a well-marked terrace. As on the lower escarpment, 

 ice-marks are plainly visible, scratching, polishing and rounding being 

 as usual very conspicuous. The general direction of these marks, 

 it may be added, is plainly about S. 68° E., though it may appear 

 that a second series of strise crosses here and there at right angles to 

 this. The action of coast ice is to the writer as plainly demonstra- 

 ted here as on the Labrador coast, and he regrets greatly that 

 other engagements have prevented a close study of the phenomena. 



But most important of all, perhaps, upon the summit of the 

 escarpment, at distances from the edge varying from one-eighth to a 

 quarter of a mile, lies a ridge of brown stratified clay, much heavier 

 in texture, more strongly calcareous and lighter in color than that 

 below the escarpment. The ridge rises to the height of from seventy 

 to ninety feet above the escarpment, and presents a bold, bluff face 

 to the north-east, while it rolls away in gentle slopes to the south- 

 west. This ridge — roughly parallel with the edge of the escarpment 

 — is traceable westward through the County, on through Wentworth 

 to Ancaster Township. Here it constitutes the height of land 

 referred to by Mr. William Kennedy on page 3 of a valuable paper 

 read before this Association in March, 1882. It crosses the H. and 

 N. W. R track near Rymal station at a height of four hundred and 

 ninety-three feet above Lake Ontario. The present writer inde 

 pendently examined this ridge west of Hamilton many years ago, 

 and traced it into Beverley Township. As Mr. Kennedy has stated, 

 it is the water-parting between the streams flowing into Lake Onta- 



