BASIISrS OF THE GKEAT LAKES OF AMEEICA. 533 



Hydrographic Survey, which the Author had utilized, and which we 

 had in vain asked for in England. The depth of the Saguenay valley 

 would be also accounted for by the Author's explanations. 



Prof. Seeley was prepared to accept the ancient drainage of the 

 Laurentian river as now set forth. But he did not think it followed 

 that the ancient valleys had been excavated by the river any more 

 than that they were the work of ice. The general course of the 

 Laurentian lakes followed the outcrop of the strata sufficiently to 

 suggest that the lakes were originated by earth-movements. The 

 main work of excavation seemed to him attributable to marine 

 denudation in times when the level of the land was lower. And 

 as tidal waters retired from the valley which they had cut out, the 

 river-drainage necessarily occupied these inlets after the land was 

 elevated. 



Mr. Whitaker asked why objection was raised by Dr. Hinde 

 to deductions from borings in America when in England they 

 were accepted. No other evidence of buried channels was to be 

 had, sometimes. He would like to have some idea of the number of 

 borings on which the Author relied. 



The Author, in reply, answered Dr. Hinde and Mr. Whitaker 

 that he had only written a condensed account of the origin of the 

 basins, not of the lakes themselves. There were no escarpments in 

 the place where Dr. Hinde had asserted their existence. There 

 were scores of deep wells sunk in the Drift between Lake Simcoe 

 and Georgian Bay, where deep Drift was shown. Similar sections 

 were shown at the south-east end of the lake. He gave fuller details 

 of the extension of these borings to the S.E. He cited instances of 

 modern buried channels of a similar nature to those which he had 

 described, and which evidenced a high continental elevation. To 

 Prof. Seeley he replied that he had no objection to the assistance 

 of sea-waves, in part, enlargiug the valleys in some Pre-Pleistocene 

 times. The old Erie-Ontario channel has been warped two feet per 

 mile, which would account for the obstruction of the ancient valleys. 

 Mr. Gilbert and he had traced one particular beach continuously 

 round Lake Ontario. The elevations he had deduced from obser- 

 vations were founded on accurate instrumental measurements along 

 this line, and similar observations had been made by him in other 

 areas. There was no other evidence of barriers in the Erie-Ontario 

 valley other than such as were due to differential elevation or 

 partial filling with Drift. The Pre-Pleistocene drainage of the Lake- 

 Michigan Basin was not to the south ; hence no barrier greater 

 than at present was needed, as explained in the paper. 



There were no beaches about Kingston on account of the low 

 altitude, but he had traced beaches in other parts of the region. 



If we were to follow the differential elevation we should find that 

 there were no Canadian Highlands at the close of the episode of 

 the Upper Till, but he could not now enter into the ice-hypothesis. 

 He gave instances of the absence of marine organisms in undoubted 

 marine beaches, and instanced the discovery of a whale in beach- 

 deposits upon which the evidence of warping was partly founded. 



