538 



The chief geological featureronnected with Mr. Roy's observations 

 and described in the paper, is the high land which separates Lake 

 Ontario from Lake Simcoe. The distance between these bodies of 

 water is 42 miles, and the greatest elevation of the ridge is 762 feet 

 above Lake Ontario, or 282 above lake Simcoe. The lowest visible 

 formation is a stratified blue clay which effervesces freely and is of un- 

 known depth. Above this are immense masses of clay, sometimes re- 

 sembling fuller's earth, and sand most irregularly associated. The cen- 

 tral and northern divisions of the ridge are thickly strewed, even to the 

 highest peaks, with a great variety of boulders, many of them of 

 immense size, and for the greater part derived from primary or trans- 

 ition formations. Many of them are rounded, and others decayed by 

 weathering, whilst the edges of some are perfectly entire. On the 

 southern side of the ridge boulders are not so common. 



The manner in which the materials composing this ridge are ar- 

 rangedj resembles, in Mr. Roy's opinion, that in which drifted matter 

 is now disposed along the margin of the lakes at the breaking up 

 of the ice ; and hence he conceives, that the ridges may, to a consider- 

 able extent, have been accumulated in a similar manner. 



The author then enters into a calculation of the quantity of water 

 hourly discharged by the Saint Lawrence, the Mississippi and the 

 Hudson, amounting, according to his estimate, to 400U millions of 

 cubic feet ; and afterwards proceeds to show, that in order to reduce 

 the ancient lake 30 feet, the distance between two of tlie highest pa- 

 rallel ridges, fifteen years would be required, supposing the discharge 

 to be double that at present. 



Mr. Roy next details with considerable minuteness, the processes 

 by which he supposes this vast sea was drained ; but as his descrip- 

 tions cannot be successfully followed without the aid of diagrams, 

 they do not admit of being given in the Society's Proceedings. 



A paper " On the Geology of the neighbourhood of Smyrna 3" by 

 Hugh Edwin Strickland, Esq., F.G.S., was then read. 



The district described consists of two ranges of high land, running 

 from east to west, separated by the bay of Smyrna and the alluvial 

 plain of Bournabat, at the eastern termination of which is a trans- 

 verse ridge uniting the two ranges. 



The rocks belong to the formations described by the author in his 

 former paper on Asia Minor (p. 424, &c.), and are : 1 . Hippurite 

 limestone and schist ; 2. Tertiary limestone and marl 5 3. Tra- 

 chytic rocks. 



The author supposes that mountains of hippurite limestone formed 

 the boundaries of a lake in which tertiary beds were deposited, which 

 were afterwards broken up by the eruption of trachytic rocks, and 

 that the same event may have produced the drainage of the lake sub- 

 sequently carried on by the denudation of its outlet, which is now 

 traversed by the Meles. 



1. The hippurite limestone on the south side of Smyrna bay is ac- 

 companied by much black, greenish, or cream-coloured sandstone, 

 analogous to the macigno of Italy ; but it is difficult to decide whe- 



