BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



VOL. 15, PP. 211-242, PLS. 5-10 MAY 31, 1904 



TRENT RIVER SYSTEM AND SAINT LAWRENCE OUTLET 



BY ALFRED W. G. WILSON 



(Read before the Society January i, 1904) 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Introduction 211 



Geology of the area under discussion 21 2 



The bedrock geology 212 



Pleistocene and recent geology 213 



Topographic features of the country east and northeast of lake Ontario 215 



General description of the topography 215 



Special descriptions 218 



Trent river proper 218 



Prince Edward County topography 219 



Other rivers in the province of Ontario 220 



Rivers in New York state 221 



Origin of the bedrock topography 221 



Trent River system 224 



In general 224 



Central Ontario section 225 



Bay of Quinte section 230 



In general 230 



Trenton — Desoronto division 230 



Long reach and Napanee river 231 



Kingston section 233 



Saint Lawrence section 234 



Fault theory of origin of Bay of Quinte depression 234 



Notes on other streams tributary to lake Ontario from the east 236 



The Saint Lawrence outlet 238 



Summary and conclusions , 240 



Introduction 



The present paper is offered as a contribution to the already volumi- 

 nous literature on the origin of the basins of the Great lakes in the belief 

 that the matter here presented not only is of great importance in the 

 attempt to find a correct solution of the problem, but also because, so far 

 as the writer's study of the literature has gone, the facts here set forth 

 have been largely overlooked in the earlier studies of this question. In 



XXVIII— Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 15, 1903 (211) 



