8o JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



above evidence is merely negative, and tiiere is just a possibility that 

 accidental absence from a particular portion of the gravels has not 

 been taken sufficiently into account. 



I have been collecting Indian relics in the Province of .Ontario 

 for upwards of a quarter of a century, and previously in Quebec, yet 

 I never found anything which led me to beheve that the red men 

 had been here for any considerable time. I have ascertained from 

 old residents that the gravel ridge which runs through Hamilton 

 from the Church of Ascension, by Central School to Burlington 

 Heights, was formerly an Indian trail. It represents the old lake 

 beach, when the waters of Ontario were about 130 feet higher thaft 

 at present (the Lake Iroquois of Dr. Spencer). Many thousand 

 years must have elapsed since these water-worn shingles, pebbles 

 and sands were first deposited on the glacial till underlying. 



When the cutting was made at the Desjardins Canal, the remains 

 of a deer, a beaver, and portions of the jaws and teeth of two ele- 

 phants, were discovered there. Accompanied by Mrs. Holden, a 

 lady who takes great interest in local history, Indian antiquities, etc., 

 I paid a visit last summer to the gentleman who had the contract 

 for the excavation. He informed me that the bones were lying in 

 the consolidated gravel several yards from the surface (they did not 

 appear to have been rolled up by the waves on the beach). Horns 

 of the buffalo or bison were also discovered there, but these were 

 taken away by a bystander, who kept them. The circumstance was 

 probably unknown to Sir W. Logan, the then director of the Cana- 

 dian Geological Survey, who fortunately succeeded in securing the 

 other organic remains. As I am unable to find it recorded in the 

 Proceedings published in 1863, I may be permitted to refer to this 

 omission. I must admit I have been greatly disappointed in obtain- 

 ing no proof as yet of the existence of man in the consolidated 

 gravels of this ancient beach. A few Indian relics were found on 

 the surface soil, but little importance can be attached to that. I 

 was likewise mistaken in supposing I might probably find other por- 

 tions of the two extinct elephants there. Large masses topple down 

 every year west of the canal, and although carefully examined I can 

 find no indications of bones or flint implements. We know from 

 experience in the Old Country that tusks frequently break into small 

 fragments when you attempt to remove them from loose gravel. The 



