THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 27 



rio and those flowing into Lake Erie; and yet it is penetrated b)'all, 

 or by nearly all the creeks which have a north-eastward direction. 

 Thus, near Beamsville, the Twenty and the Thirty Mile Creeks have 

 cut their way through the ridge long after this ridge had been de- 

 posited. It is, moreover, the last sea-margin of the former Lake 

 Erie at a time when the highlands of Western Ontario stood far above 

 the water level of that day ; and it has been as this sea-margin refer- 

 red to on page 6 of "River Valleys of the Niagara Escarpment." 

 To the south of the ridge the soil is nearly uniformly brown clay in- 

 tersected by swamps, and this character is maintained as far south as 

 Lake Erie. 



It is worthy of notice that the clay area covers not only great 

 parts of Lincoln and Welland Counties, but also the Townships of 

 Barton, Glanford, Saltfleet and Binbrook of Wentworth, a small part 

 also of Ancaster, and nearly the whole of Haldimand County, to- 

 gether with portions of East and South Norfolk. A line drawn from 

 Concession 2, Lot 3, Ancaster Township, at the mountain edge, 

 south-west to Concession 5, Ancaster Township, thence south- 

 westerly to Onondaga, roughly represents the line between the clay 

 and the overlying sand. The line is next met with about two or three 

 miles east of Oakland, Brant County, about three miles east of Wat- 

 erford and four to five miles east of Simcoe, near Renton station on 

 the Air Line, reaching Lake Erie west of Port Dover. A subordi- 

 nate clay area occupies the southern part of Walsingham and 

 Houghton Townships, Norfolk County, evidently a former extension 

 of Long Point Bay. It is worthy of note that by comparison of the 

 levels on the Canada Southern Division of the Michigan Central 

 Railway, those along the Air Line Division of the Grand Trunk, 

 and those along the Buffalo and Goderich Division of the same, 

 the sand stands at a much higher level than the clay area of 

 South Lincoln, Welland and Haldimand. Thus, the sandy deposits 

 along the Air Line near St. Thomas east to Simcoe, have an eleva- 

 tion greater than five hundred feet above Lake Ontario, while from 

 Simcoe east they fall much below this, and from Jarvis east to the 

 Niagara River the clay beds do not exceed three hundred and sev- 

 enty-five feet. Along the Canada Southern, except at Villa Nova, 

 East Norfolk, the clay never exceeds four hundred and seventy feet, 

 while the sand and gravel beds near Waterford maintain a pretty 

 uniform level of over five hundred and eighty feet. Along the 



