INTBRGLACIAL WATER-LEVELS 



171 



period, holding that the Ice age was a unit. It is not intended to discuss 

 this question here at length, but merel}^ to show what all who have 

 studied the drift sections near Toronto will admit, that there was a great 

 and long continued recession of the ice from the region of lake Ontario 

 during the time of the Toronto formation, even if the ice-sheet was not 

 completely thawed away. 



The Toronto formation * gives no hint of changes connected with the 

 withdrawal of the ice during the earlier part of the inter-Glacial period, 

 but commences with a warm climate deposit resting on a bed of till- 

 The numerous plants and animals found fossil in these beds show a 

 climate distinctly warmer than the present at Toronto and incompatible 

 with the presence of a huge mass of ice a short distance away. The 



Boulder P^yemenC 



Stratifced Clay mt/>out fossils 



TlU partly stratifued 

 Peat/ Clay (cold climate) 

 .Unco Sands (warm cLuDote) 



FiGUKE 3.— Section at Taylor's Brickyard, Don Valley. 



cases of the Malaspina and other Alaskan glaciers ending close to a 

 luxuriant vegetation, and of the Swiss glaciers whose foot reaches the level 

 of orchards and vineyards, brought forward by Warren Upham to show 

 the probable continuity of the Ice age during the deposit of the Toronto 

 formation, do not furnish a parallel to the state of affaii's in inter-Glacial 

 times on lake Ontario, since in the latter case there were no lofty moun- 

 tains to afford neve, as in the instances referred to. We may conclude, 

 then, that the Don beds of the Toronto formation indicate the middle 

 of a mild period, with ice too far away to dam any valleys of the region. 

 At this time Scarboro hights, now rising 350 feet above lake Ontario, 

 did not exist. Instead there was a depression reaching more than 40 

 feet below the present lake level at that part of the region, and a greater 

 lake than Ontario stretched a bay to the northward or northwestward to 

 what distance is unknown. The water stood at least 40 feet, and prob- 



* See G. J. Hinde : Glacial and Iiiterglacial Strata of Scarboro Hights, Jour. Can. Inst., vol. xv, 

 p. 388; Interglacial Fossils from the Don Valley, Am. Geologist, vol. xiii, Feb., 1894, pp. 85-95 ; 

 Glacial and Interglacial Deposits near Toronto, Jour. GeoL, vol. iii, no. (i, 1895, pp. (j22-04o, and Re- 

 port on Canadian Pleistocene, Committee of British Association, Bristol, 1898. 



