ANCIENT BEACHES ABOUT THE GREAT LAKES. 263 



Ontario when it stood "about 170 feet above its present level."* The 

 Geological Survey of Canada in its valuable Report of Progress to 1863 de- 

 scribed these " ancient beaches, terraces, and ridges," on pages 910 to 915, 

 but presented no theory of their origin. In 1877 Mr. George J. Hiude, in a 

 paper on the glacial and interglacial strata of Scarboro' heights and other 

 localities near Toronto, accounted for the drift by the agency of ice-sheets 

 during two great epochs of glaciation, separated by a long interglacial epoch 

 which had a climate nearly like that of the present time. The Laurentiau 

 lakes at the close of the Glacial period, according to this author, were much 

 larger than now, as shown by the old shore lines; but he is not sure whether 

 their barrier was the receding ice-sheet or "accumulations of glacial debris 

 which have since been removed." f The southern high shore lines of these 

 lakes, in the United States, have been regarded by Whittlesey, Newberry, 

 Claypole, and Gilbert, as of fresh-water formation, the lakes having been 

 held higher than now by the ice-sheet during its departure; J and Spencer 

 is the only recent writer who has examined this region and believes the 

 beaches to be sea shores. § 



The water-shed which divides the upper St. Lawrence basin from the basin 

 of James's bay, is covered by many channels of outflows from glacial lakes 

 pent up* between that water-shed and the departing ice-sheet on the north. 

 Kenogami or Long lake, north of Lake Superior, having a length of' about 

 fifty-four miles from northeast to southwest and a width mostly between a 

 half mile and two miles, forming the head of Kenogami river, tributary to 

 the Albany, occupies the channel of outlet from a glacial lake in the Albany 

 b^sin, passing southward by Trout lake and Black river to Lake Superior.|| 

 The elevation of Kenogami lake, according to the survey of the Canadian 

 Pacific railway, is 1,032 feet above the sea. Dr. Robert Bell states in a letter 

 that the summit crossed by the Height of Land portage close south of this 

 lake, and leading from it to Black river, is about seventy feet higher, being 

 therefore approximately 1,100 feet above the sea. This portage "is about a 

 half mile long, and is over an accumulation of well-rounded bowlders with 

 gravel and earth filling the interspaces in part ; at other parts the bowlders 

 are piled on each other quite naked. The valley between the rocky walls is 

 about half a mile wide. The surface is somewhat level, and there is a sub- 

 ordinate valley or depression sweeping around on the west side between the 



* Canadian Journal, new series, vol. VI, pp. 247-253. 



tibid., vol. XV, pp. 388-413. 



JC. Whittlesey, "On the Fresh-water Glacial Drift of the Northwestern States," 1864, pp. 17-22: in 

 Smithsonian Contributions, vol. XV. J. S. Newberry, in Report of the Geological Survey of Ohio, 

 vol. II, 1874, pp. 50-65, with three maps. E. W. Claypole, " The Lake A^e in Ohio," pp. 42, with four 

 maps, in Trans, of the Geol. Soc. of Edinburgh. 1887. G. K. Gilbert, " Changes of Level of the Great 

 Lakes," in The Forum, vol. V, June, 1888, pp. 417-428 ; and " History of the Niagara River." in Sixth 

 Annual Report of the Commissioners of the State Reservation at Niagara, for 1889, pp. 61-84, with 

 three maps. 



§ J. W. Spencer, "The Iroquois Beach," in Trans. Royal Society of Canada, sec. iv, 1889, pp. 121- 

 1.34, with map; and " The Deformation of Iroquois Beach and Birth of Lake Ontario," in Am, Jour. 

 Sci., 3d sen, vol. XI, Dec, 1890, po. 443-451. 



II Geol. Survey of Canada, Report of Progress, 1871-72, p. 336. 



