Geological Gleanings. 263 



age does not appear to be known. One of these is entitled " de 

 Baiis," another is " de Thermis." The latter contains this line — 



"In regni3, Neptune, tuis Vulcanus anhelat." 



" Considering the proximity of Baias to Puteoli, it is not im- 

 probable that this last verse may refer to the baths described by 

 Pausanias." 



2. Professor Ramsay, on the geological causes that have influenced 

 the Scenery of Canada and the North Eastern States. This lecture 

 read at the Royal Institution in London, is one of the results of 

 Professor Ramsay's visit last year. We take the following sketch 

 from the published abstract of the lecture. 



"The island of Belleisle and the Laurentine chain of mountains 

 between the shores of Labrador and Lake Superior consist of 

 gneissic rocks older than the Huronian formation of Sir Wra- 

 Logan. This gneiss is probably the equivalent of the oldest gneiss 

 of the Scandinavian chain, and of the north-west of Scotland, un- 

 derlying that conglomerate, which, according to Sir Roderick 

 Murchison, in Scotland represents the Cambrian strata of the 

 Longmynd and of Wales. The mountains of the Laurentine chain 

 present those rounded contours that evince great glacial abrasion ; 

 and among the forests north of the Ottawa the mammillated sur- 

 faces were observed by the speaker to be often grooved and 

 striated, the striations running from north to south. The whole 

 country has been moulded by ice. Above the metamorphic rocks, 

 in the plains of Canada and the United States south of the St. 

 Lawrence, and around Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, the Silurian 

 and Devonian strata lie nearly horizontally, but slightly inclined 

 to the South. Consisting of alternations of limestone and softer 

 strata, the rocks have been worn by denudation into a succession 

 of terraces, the chief of these forming a great escarpment, part of 

 which, by the river Niagara, overlooks Queenston and Lewiston, 

 and capped by the Niagara limestone, extends from the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Hudson to Lake Huron. Divided by this 

 escarpment the plains of Canada bordering the lakes, and part of 

 the United States, thus consist of two great plateaux, in the lower 

 of which lies Lake Ontario, Lake Erie lying in a slight depression 

 in the upper plain or table land, 329 feet above Lake Ontario. 

 The lower plain consists mostly of Lower Silurian rocks, bounded 

 on the north by the metamorphic hills of the Laurentine chain. 

 The upper plain is chiefly formed of Upper Silurian and Devonian 



