BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



VOL. 15, PP. 347-368, PL. 22 JUNE 29, 1904 



IROQUOIS BEACH IN ONTARIO 



BY A. P. COLEMAN 



{Read before the Society January i, 1904) 

 CONTENTS 



Page 



] ntroduction 347 



Niagara river to Hamilton 350 



Iroquois beach at Hamilton 351 



Burlington heights to Toronto 352 



Scarboro to Colborne 353 



Colborne to Trenton 354 



Islands to the north and northeast 355 



Region north of Trent river 356 



Lake Peterboro 357 



Beach levels on the north shore of lake Iroquois 358 



Iroquois beach in New York state , 358 



Tilting of the Iroquois beach 359 



Relation of the Iroquois beach to the Rome outlet 362 



Time estimates 364 



Climate and glacial relationships 365 



Summary 367 



Introduction 



The signs of wave action in the cutting of cliffs, the piling up of beach 

 sands and gravels, and the formation of bars or spits across the mouth of 

 bays are so well marked on the old Iroquois beach that it was early rec- 

 ognized as a shore formation by farmers and land surveyors, as well as 

 geologists. The first written mention of the beach in Ontario is contained 

 in Thomas Roy's paper on the "Ancient State of the North American 

 Continent," read by Sir Charles Lyell before the Geological Society of 

 London in 1837;* and Lyell was so much interested in the account of 

 the series of terraces which Roy described that on his visit to America he 

 crossed from Niagara to Toronto in 1842 to examine them. Roy noted 

 a number of sand and gravel beaches at various levels above lake Ontario 



*Proc. Geol. Soc. London, vol. ii, no. 51, pp. 537, 538. 

 XLVIT— Bull. Geoi.. Soc. Am., Vol. 15, 1903 (347) 



