Environs of Kingston, Ont. 109 
tian ridges, the limestone escarpments, and the picturesque 
islands which contribute so much to the variety of the 
landscape in the neighbourhood of the city, as well as 
make its environs so geologically interesting. When a 
student at Queen’s, I had gone over the ground, occasionally 
with Dr. Geo. Lawson, now of Dalhousie College, Halifax, 
but then of Queen’s, sometimes with the late Dr. John Bell, 
of Montreal, who was an enthusiastic botanist, and often, 
alone, and as the familiar spots, one after another, came, 
after long years of absence, once more to view, many a 
pleasant memory of extended rambles and of interesting 
discoveries was recalled. The geological notes then made 
when a student have not been published, but some of them 
are still of interest and will be referred to here and be 
supplemented by the more recent notes. 
Lying almost atthe point of contact of the old Archean 
rocks with those of the overlying Cambrian and Trenton, 
and in a section of country where the evidences of glacial 
action in quaternary times are very marked, besides being 
at the foot of Lake Ontario where the waters of the Great 
Lakes join the St. Lawrence amid the diversified features 
and scenery of the Thousand Islands, Kingston has much 
to interest the geologist. The city itself is, in reality, 
situated on what appears to have been an ancient island, 
whose length was about six miles with an extreme breadth 
of three miles, and whose boundaries, apart from the 
harbour front, are now well defined by the limestone 
escarpment, which, leaving the lake shore west of the 
Lunatic Asylum, skirts the broad valley of Little Gata- 
raqui Creek some miles in a northerly and then north- 
easterly direction, until, veering around to the south-east 
as it approaches Kingston Mills, it meets Great Cataraqui 
Creek and then parallels it in its entry to the harbour at 
Kingston. 
The harbour fronting Kingston is, in its main expanse, 
underlaid, probably throughout, by the Black River lime- 
stones, judging by the comparative uniformity of the 
soundings in the channel. The usual depth there is from 
