1853.] 



NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY OF TORONTO. 



149 



the western part of this Province, yet the rocks which have 

 been discovered by Mr. Murray in the Western Peninsula, have a 

 thickness exceeding 1000 yards, and are unquestionably of earlier 

 date than the true coal measures, and must be considered as 

 members of the upper Silurian group. They constitute the sub- 

 stratum of the whole Province west of the Credit. If coal is 

 found in the western Province, it will be found above these 

 rocks. These rocks seem, however, everywhere to be covered 

 immediately by the Drift, so that the probability of finding true 

 coal, is remote in the extreme. Brown Coal, similar to that 

 which has been recently discovered in Vermont, may yet be 

 found in Canada. 



A glance at the layere of rocks at the Garrison Com- 

 mon beach, each layer apparently distinguished by some pe- 

 culiarity in its fossil remains — some containing corals in 

 abundance, others the remains of marine vegetables, others espe- 

 cially rich in bivalve shells, and others beautifully ripplemarked, 

 — will probably convey a better idea of the time which elapsed 

 during the deposition of five feet in thickness, exposed there, 

 than any calculation based upon examples, from other localities. 

 If we assume that other stratified rocks have required an 

 equal period of time to attain the same thickness (five feetj by 

 slow deposition at the bottom of seas ; our conceptions become 

 still more defined of the immensity of that period which divides 

 the Drift from Loraine Shales, when we remember that the 

 thickness of the rock we have been contemplating is less than the 

 one five thousandth part of the rocks of that unrepresented epoch, 

 which existed between the respective periods of their creation. 



Having thus given a very slight sketch of the position and 

 comparative age of the Loraine Shales, I shall now confine my 

 remarks to the narrow stripe of Shale and Sandstone which is 

 e.xposed on the lake beach at the Garrison Common. For the 

 space of a few feet, the section exposed during the summer of 

 1852, was quite perpendicular, and very cleaiTy defined. The 

 action of the waves very quickly destroys the face of the rocks, 

 and rounds the edges of the exposed masses of Shale. At the 

 present season, the water covers the layers, marked No. 14 and 

 15 in the subjoined list, and when the least v.'ind is blowing, it 

 is quite impossible to prosecute any examination with comfort, 

 owing to the spray which arises from the dash of the waves 

 against the rocks. In the summer months, in calm weather, 

 there is a space of two or three feet between the foot of the 

 rocks and the watere. About fifteen feet from the cliff", a very 

 uniform row of large boulders of gneiss, washed from the drift. 



Loraine 



Shales. 



i 



lines the shore for many hundred yards. These boulders it must 

 be remembered, have no connection whatever with the stratified 

 rocks, they belong exclusively to the Drift, and a walk along the 

 banks svill reveal many of their kindred, ready, almost, to fall 

 out of tlie yellow clay in which they are embedded h'lto the 

 waters of the lake below. 



Order and thickness of rocks on the Lake Beach, at the Gar- 

 rison Common. 



Feet. Inches. 



Drift with Boulders 16 



f 1 Hard Yellow Sandstone 9 



2 Do Do - 1 



3 Thin layers of blue shale 2 



4 Hard Calcareous Sandstone .. . l^ 



5 Thin layers of blue shale 1^ 



6 Hard yellow calcareous sandstone 1 



7 Blueshale... 4 



8 Sandstone 3 



9 Layers of Shale 4 



10 Sandstone 1 



11 Layers of Shale .- 3 



12 Sandstone 5 



13 Shale 4 



14 Sandstone 4 



15 Lake Stone,Shale, Ripple marked 8 



The fossil remains found in these layers of rook are exceed- 

 ingly numerous, and are not confined to any one of the sub- 

 kingdoms into which animals ai-e divided by Zoologists. We 

 find, indeed, the three kingdoms, Mollusca (snails, oysters), Arti- 

 culata (crabs, worms), and Radiata (coi'als) ; and it is a question 

 which has excited much discussion, whether the repiesentatives 

 of the fii-st sub-kingdom, vertebrata (beasts and birds), have been 

 found in the Lower Silurian rocks. For the honour of Canada 

 it is earnestly to be hoped that the discoveries and speculations of 

 Mr. Hunt, Chemist to the Provincial Geological Survey, cauti- 

 ously advanced in the last Geological Report, may be tho- 

 roughly borne out and confirmed by future investigations. It 

 will then be established that the leading types of animal structure 

 have had their representatives throughout all ages of the world's 

 history since the earliest period of created life. The following 

 table extracted from Hall's Paleontology affords a very good 

 view of the extent and diversity of animal life in the ancient and 

 extensive Lower Silurian Seas, of which the Loraine Shales formed 

 perhaps the latest deposit. 



We will now proceed to examine the fossil remains, which a few walks to the cliff at the Garrison Common, have afforded me 



