352 A. P. COLEMAN — IROQUOIS BEACH IN ONTARIO 



after layer was added to the bar during a gradual rise of the water. 

 Even then it might be expected that the base would have been much 

 broader than it is. From its narrowest and steepest part, near the 

 canal, the bar runs south and then southeast through the city of Ham- 

 ilton to the foot of the Niagara escarpment. 



On the south side of the old bay a well denned plain extends from 

 Hamilton to Dundas at about 80 feet above lake Ontario or 36 feet below 

 Burlington heights. At first the plain is of clay overlying gravel, but 

 to the west the gravel runs out and only clay is seen. 



A deep railway cutting made some }^ears ago, but now covered in as 

 the Hunter Street tunnel, exposed 30 feet of coarse stratified gravel be- 

 longing to the southern end of the bar, followed by 2 feet of brown un- 

 stratified clay, evidently an old soil, and 8 feet of blue till. In the old 

 soil quantities of decayed wood, as well as bones of mammoth and other 

 animals, were found. About a mile to the west large pits opened for 

 clay, sand, and gravel disclose the following section : 



Feet. Feet 



Clay making red brick 6 78 



Gravel 30 72 



White sand 5 42 



Hard pan 4 37 



White sand with mammoth tusks and bones 33 



Covered to level of bay 



The mammoth remains are not apparently waterworn and we may 

 suppose that the animal which supplied them died on the spot, so that 

 the water level at the time can not have been more than 33 feet above 

 the present lake Ontario. 



The whole evidence, from the character of the gravel bar, the finding 

 of an old soil with trees and stumps 32 feet below the top of the gravel, 

 and of unworn mammoth remains 83 feet below it, indicates a great 

 change in water levels during Iroquois times, low water being followed 

 by high water, until in the end the bay cut off to the west was almost 

 as large as the present Hamilton bay and had a depth near the bar of 

 more than 100 feet. 



Before the end of the last Iroquois stage a prominent gravel bar was 

 formed near Waterdown, east of Burlington, and extended 2 or 3 miles 

 toward the present Hamilton bay, to a small extent overlapping the bar 

 previously described, which is about a mile to the east. 



Burlington Heights to Toronto 



From Burlington heights to Toronto the Iroquois shore has much the 

 same features as from Queenstowh to Hamilton— a broad, flat clayey 



