28 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



Brantford, Norfolk and Port Burwell Line the sandy deposits of 

 Oxford County show an average elevation of over five hundred feet, 

 as also do the Oak Plains near Brantford. In 1886, moreover, the 

 writer measured a section exposed in the sandy beds near Lake 

 Erie, in Charlotteville Township, and found it to consist of sand 40 

 feet, followed by yellow and brown clay, 10 feet, stratified; sand, 

 stratified, 80 feet ; blue clay 30 feet, to the edge of Lake Erie ; thus 

 giving a total height of one hundred and sixty feet above Lake Erie, 

 or of four hundred and eighty-five feet above Lake Ontario. 



The use of these apparent digressions from our subject will be 

 seen when we shew how these bear, or seem to bear, upon the pres- 

 ent distribution of clay in the region under consideration — South 

 Lincoln. The clay area having the escarpment for its margin, was 

 evidently cut off" to the west by a sand-bar derived from the higher 

 lands of Ontario, and this sand-bar so shaped the currents of the 

 then existing lake as to preserve an expanse of quiet, somewhat 

 shallow water, greatly resembling the present Long Point Bay, this 

 water covering Haldimand, South Wentworth in part, South Lincoln 

 and Welland Counties, a few sandy spots showing yet shallower 

 water. At that time the drainage of Lake Erie was either to the 

 west, along the Wabash Valley reversed, or towards the east as some 

 have supposed, beyond Buffalo to Central New York and to the Sus- 

 quehanna. Be that as it may, Niagara River then had no existence, 

 the clay and the gravel and sand beds containing recent shells, and 

 now seen at Goat Island and elsewhere, far above the river level, 

 pointing rather to the eastward margin of the former lake. Not un- 

 til the barrier at Queenston Heights was broken could the drainage 

 of Lake Erie take place as at present ; and the cause of the fracture 

 seems to have been mere warping of the earth's crust, even though 

 very small. A more careful examination of the superficial deposits 

 at Queenston Heights may reveal some other cause, and until that 

 time the warping spoken of must be held as provisionally true. 

 Whatever was the cause, it seems to have operated almost simul- 

 taneously upon all the streams of the Niagara district, compelling 

 them to break through the barrier, thus draining to a large extent 

 the area of quiet water previously mentioned, and leaving lagoons 

 separated by clay and gravel ridges, from which lagoons by silting up 

 have been derived the present swamp areas of the district in ques- 

 tion. 



