28 



GEOLOGY OF WESTEEN CANADA. 



[1854. 



tions, ^there are yet bends in it that seem to correspond witli- 

 some of the curves of that chain of mountains. From Mon- 

 roe County in Kentucky, this axis talies a gently sinxibus 

 course, running under Cincinnati, on the Ohio, to the upper 

 end of Lalce Erie : thence it curves to the upper end of Lake 

 Ontario, where my assistant, Mr. Murrary, has observed its 

 influence in deflecting the strike of the strata n the neighbour- 

 hood of Burlington Bay. It then enters the lake, under the 

 waters of which it probably dies away towards the north shore. 



From beneath the three great coal-fields which have been 

 mentioned, the subjacent formations crop out in succession, 

 surrounding their carboniferous nuclei with rudely concentric 

 belts of greater or less breadth, according to the thickness or 

 dip of the deposit, and taking a wider and a wider sweep as they 

 decend in the order of superposition, while they conform at 

 the same time in their superficial distribution to all the 

 sinuosities and irregularities occasioned by geographical and 

 geological undulations. The org-anic remains of these rocks 

 proclaim them to be contemporaneous with the Silurian and 

 Devonian epochs of Europe, including the old red sandstone ; 

 and the Peiinsylvanian geologists compute that in their south- 

 eastern developement they attain the aggTegate thickness of 

 about .30,000 feet. But in the State of J^ew York, where 

 the quiet condition of the northern outcrop aifords an admi- 

 rable opportunity of determining with certainty all the relations 

 of the deposits to one another, not more than one third of 

 that amount can be made out. It would seem, therefore, if the 

 many complicated folds existing on the south-east side have 

 occasioned no error in the estimate, that the formations must 

 thin down greatly towards the north. 



The fossiliferous formations, wherever they have been found 

 in actual contact with the rocks beneath, appear to rest upon 

 masses of the primary order. But the geologists of New York 

 consider they have evidence of the existence of a series of 

 non-fossilliferous sedementary strata, in a more or less highly 

 crystalline condition, of an age between the two. As consider- 

 able difiiculties, however, attend the question, it will be 

 sufiicient for the purposes of the present description to unite 

 all the subjacent rocks, whether metamorphic or primary, and 

 to class them under the latter denomination. 



The lowest of the fossilliferous strata is a sandstone of 

 variable quality, more purely silicious towards the bottom, and 

 calciferpns towards the top, which givessupport to a thick and re- 

 markably persistent deposit of limestone, strongly distinguished 

 by its organic remains. This limestone thus becomes an ad- 

 mirable means of tracing out the perimeter of the great 

 western area under consideration. From the north-west border 

 of North Carolina, it sweeps in a broad belt across 

 Virginia to the junction of the Shenandoah and Potomac. 

 Thence traversing Maryland, it passes through Pennsylvania 

 by Harrisburgh, on the Susquehanna, and Belvidere, on the 

 Delaware, accompanied up to this point by the underlying- 

 sandstone. Diminished in its thickness, it thence crosses New 

 Jersey, and reaching Poughkeepsie it passes up the valley of 

 the Hudsonand Champlain, keeping to the east of the liver and ' 

 th€ lake and attains the neighbourhood of Missisquoi Bay.- — 

 Entering Canada, it proceeds towards Quebec, and it reaches 

 the vicinity of that fortress ; but I am not yet aware of 

 the precise spots at which it is visible in its course thither, 

 farther that I have been -informed stratified limestone 

 answering its condition is quarried and burned in the 

 Seigniory of St. Hyacinthe, east of the Yamaska Kiver. As 

 Quebec itself does not stand upon tha formation, it probably 



crosses the St. Lawrence higher up the stream ; but it may be 

 seen in the quarries of Beauport and farther down the river, 

 and its limit in that direction is to be found near Cape Tour- 

 ment, where the underlying primary rocks corile to the water's 

 edge. Turning at this point, and following the northern out- 

 crop of the deposit up the valley of the St. Lawrence, it is found 

 to run along the foot of a range of syenitic hills of a gniesoid 

 order, which preserve a very even and direct south-westerly 

 course, and down the flank of which the various tributaries of 

 the gi-eat river are successively precipitated in rapids and 

 cascades. On the Maskinonge the syenitic range is about 

 twelve miles in a direct line from the St. Lawrence, on the 

 Aohigan about twenty, and it strikes the Riviere du Nord 

 about a half a mile south of the village of St. Jerome. — 

 Following this stream, the primary rocks, which are close 

 upon its northern bank, gradually assume a course with 

 less of southing in it, until they reach Lachute Mills, when 

 their direction becomes nearly due east. Along this line from 

 Cape Tourment, the basset edge of the limestone does not in 

 all cases come quite up to the primary rook. There is 

 occasionally a space left between the two for the sandstone 

 beneath, and on the Riviere du Nord the caleiferous part of this 

 rock, capped by the limestone, is seen in several places in a 

 well defined escarpment about half a mile from the syenitic 

 range, dipping southward at an angle of six degrees, which 

 is probably one or two more than the average inclination along 

 the strike of the northern outcrop thus far traced. 



Leaving the Riviere du Nord, at Lachute Mills the edge of 

 the fosilliferous strata, still well defined by the rise of the 

 primary rocks from below them, crosses the township of Chat- 

 ham, pursuing a direct course to Grenville, on the Ottawa, 

 where the calcareous deposit is seen at the upper end of the 

 canal. A little above the village the primary range comes 

 upon the river, which may coiTcctly be considered the general 

 division between the two until we attain the township of Hull. 

 A bend in the Ottawa there, cutting deep into the limestone, 

 leaves four to five miles breadth of it on its left bank, and the 

 formation displayed in lofty precipices in the neighbourhood of 

 Bytown, affords the magnificent scenery of the Chaudiere Falls. 

 From personal observation I cannot speak of its course farther 

 up the Ottawa, but I undertand it reaches the island of Allumet, 

 and thence turning southward, runs through the townships 

 of Packenham, Ramsay, and Drummond, — crosses the Rideau 

 Canal in Rideau Lake in Elmsley, where, with the subjacent 

 sandstone, it is seen in section at the L^pper Narrows resting on 

 the primary rocks and dipping to the north of east at an angle 

 of four degrees, — and sweeping round the adjoining corner of 

 Bastard and Young, traverses Elisabethtown, and reaches the 

 St. Lawrence in the neighbourhood of Brockville. The lime- 

 stone deposit following the St. Lawi'ence down to St. Regis, 

 has a wide spread of the sandstone coming from beneath it 

 on the United States side of the river, the lower edge of which 

 passes by Canton, Hopkiu, and Malone, to Chateauguay, in a 

 line north of east. Here it makes a sudden turn to the south- 

 east, and the limestone sweeping round at its proportionate 

 distance, comes upon the western shore of Lake Champlain at 

 the mouth of the Chazy River, about five miles up which its 

 base is seen. Running along the shore of the lake it reaches 

 Pera, where the basset edges of both sedimentary deposits 

 come close together. Following up the lake they attain 

 Whitehall. They then bend round to the valley of the 

 Mohawk, ascending which they arrive in the neighbourhood 

 of Trenton, where a grand display of limestone in the Falls 

 of that name gave origin to the New York designation of 



