Pleistocene of Montreal and the Ottawa Valley. 191 



and one dou ble track electric railway, the little River St. 

 Pierre and the I/ichine Canal. From the nature of the 

 soil as well as the dead level of its surface, it is easy to 

 conclude that at some period the land was covered with 

 water ; that, in course of time the water became a shallow 

 lake gradually overgrown with water plants, and at length 

 a swamp through which the small river carried all that 

 remained of the water which formerly filled the valley. 



Approaching Lachine the limit of the black soil i s 

 passed, and horizontal beds of limestone are seen reaching 

 to the surface, which here becomes more uneven and is 

 covered in places with loose stones interspersed with low 

 swampy tracts ; on the borders of the Town of Lachine 

 the general surface being only slightly, above the level of 

 Lake St. Louis. 



Retracing our steps we again begin our journey, this 

 time by the Canadian Pacific Railway from the Windsor 

 Station. Our route is now over the top of the bank 

 which forms the Western side of the Valley, the level of 

 which is reached at the Westmount Station. 



A short distance beyond this point, at the Glen, where 

 considerable excavations have been made, it is seen that, 

 the bank has been laid down by the agency of water, as it 

 is composed of layers of sand and gravel with a covering 

 of clay from which bricks are being manufactured. 



To the West, a bank composed of the debris from the 

 mountain extends to Montreal West, becoming gradually 

 lower until it ends abruptly near the Station ; this again 

 showing the action of the currents of water which carried 

 away the material planed off the top of B the Mountain by 

 ice-fields and strung it out in a tail several miles in length. 



Looking towards the East we are surprised to find we 

 cannot see the Valley through which we] passed on the 

 other Railway. Instead the surface of the land seems to 

 extend without a break, and with a gentle slope to the 

 St. Lawrence River, which can be seen in the distance, the 

 appearance being continuous, as in Fig. 1. 



