36 



REPORTS ON TORONTO HARBOUR. 



What would the citizens of Hamilton give to exchange their 

 costly Canal for the almost free Port of Toronto ? With them it is 

 Canal or no Port. 



Itmay justly be asked, whence comes the desire to risk the sta- 

 bility of a good natural Harbour, by making another costly chan- 

 nel, which, at the best, can only benefit a partial navigation ? 



To the east end of the Town it can bring but evil, if it injure the 

 west of the Harbour. 



Is the entrance to the west of any benefit to the west end of the 

 Town? 



Are not almost all the commercial wharves east of Yonge Street ? 

 And is not Yonge Street the pivot around which all commerce 

 centres 1 



Will any merchant ask, or care whether his goods come in at 

 the east or at the west end of the Harbour, provided the Harbour 

 charges be light? Will he consent to pay enormous Harbour 

 dues merely for the accommodation of a partial navigation ? In 

 no other light can commerce look upon this project of a Canal. 

 Lastly, as Provincial property, can there be a reasonable hope 

 that any Legislature or Government will assent to the mak- 

 ing of a second opening into one of the finest Harbours in the 

 Province, at an acknowledged risk and heavy cost, unless an urgent 

 necessity can be shown for such risk and such cost ? 



Until this vexed question is set at rest, the citizens of Toronto 

 generally will not turn their attention with due anxiety to the 

 preservation of the valuable Harbour they have the happiness to 

 enjoy. 



I have endeavoured to show, in the light I see it myself, that, 

 physically, a Canal to the east would be destructive to the Port ; 

 that its nautical advantages are largely delusive ; that it would 

 act prejudicially on the commerce of the Town ; and, lastly, that 

 the assent of Government to such a project is all but hopeless. I 

 will now turn my attention to a subject more worthy of the care 

 and economy of a great commercial town like Toronto — the im- 

 provement of the Harbour, active steps of preservation of the main 

 features of it, as traced out by the hand of nature, repairing that 

 which is decaying, and improving without dangerous innovation 

 such parts as are susceptible of improvement, is the only safe course 

 that the guardian power of the Port can pursue. Like the human 

 system, in all ordinary derangement, ordinary care may suffice, 

 but where the danger is imminent, we call in the most skilful aid ; 

 so would I, in the important case of the derangement of any vital 

 feature in the Harbour, consult the most eminent engineers, nay, 

 a board of engineers, for no expense should be spared to secure 

 the stability of a Port, upon which the value of so much property 

 depends. 



I, in the matter of the improvement of the Harbour, only give 

 opinions founded upon long observations, and which observations 

 may be useful to engineers ; for it is only by observations on the 

 present operations of nature, that we infer of the past, or antici- 

 pate for the future ; therefore, in furtherance of my opinions and 

 observations, although I did not mean to touch upon the theory of 

 the formation of the Peninsula, yet as the means for its preserva- 

 tion call for some opinion of its origin to account for its present 

 appearance, its constant state of transition however gradual, and 

 to adopt measures to retard its decay, I here submit them. 



The Peninsula is still fed by drift and detritus from the east, 



and still grows from the root whence it sprung, the point where 

 the land falls away at the head of Ashbridge's Bay, striking out 

 in a fair field of growth into deep water, the present formation, 

 the result of ages of destruction of the highlands of Scarborough, 

 even from the undefined time where the Lake changed its level 

 from a higher to a lower, of which the whole boundaries of it bear 

 incontestible evidence. 



The action of the north-east storm has had the same effect upon 

 the then advanced promontory of Scarborough, as the north-east 

 storm has upon it at the present day. Acres and acres havebeen 

 removed from the flats below Scarborough Heights within my re- 

 collection. 



The result of ages of this work of destruction has been the for- 

 mation of the present peninsula and shoal, the latter of which is 

 upwards of a mile in width and six miles in length, the crest of it 

 being the present Peninsula. If my theory be correct, the super- 

 structure will be the gravel and stone of Scarborough flats, under- 

 neath of necessity clay, and below that most probably indurated 

 clay. The crest has started in continuation of the land, with its 

 broadest part above water, where now it is narrowest, for as the 

 Peninsula extended west, and the Promontorj' of Scarborough re- 

 ceded from erosion, so did the neck of the Peninsula at the east, 

 as it could not stand out prominent from the protecting land. 

 Hence the more rapid retrocession of the Peninsula east, and the 

 tendency to a Presqu-isle formation. 



The proof of this retrocession of the Peninsula or crest of the 

 shoal, is traced in the flat shelving shore, leaving little water as 

 the crest recedes from the south, and meeting comparative deep 

 water to the north, the Peninsula not being acted upon by the sea 

 on that side. The modern marks of retrocession, within my own 

 observation during the last twenty-five years, are the long line 

 of aged trees undermined and thrown down by the sea all the way 

 from the head of Ashbridge's Bay to Privat's Hotel. 



On examining the beach on the inside at the head of Ash- 

 bridge's Bay, although the Lake has frequently make breaches 

 there, and swept over the whole part, from where the trees cease 

 east; increasing the beach inside, as it was swept from the out- 

 side ; yet there is no such thing as that which we see at the breach 

 in Toronto Bay ; that is, two long piers of sand formed inwards, 

 showing the range of current in ; in Ashbridge's Bay there is no 

 ready vent in an opposite direction for the bodies of water thrown 

 in by the sea, consequently it returns in under-current again 

 through the beach ; hence no leading marks of a current, but aug- 

 mentation of the beach within. 



In Toronto Bay, the wide mouth of it affords rapid exit for the 

 water as fast as thrown in, and hence the long banks of sand above 

 water as leaders, and the mass ejected at their head into deep 

 water. 



It is easy to account for the spreading of the Peninsula tree-like 

 to the west. The material being finer as removed from the source 

 of supply, spreads over the lake, as seen by the turbid waters in 

 all easterly gales ; these gales are invariably met by a counter gale 

 from the south-west, driving back the charged water upon the west 

 end of the Peninsula and the mouth of the Bay, the reaction of 

 the water from the Bay causes the deposit which forms the bar at 

 the entrance. It is useless to speak of the phenomena of ridges 

 caused by the action of the waves. 



