438 J. W. SPENCER ^RELATIOK OF NIAGARA TO GLACIAL PERIOD 



Whirlpool-Saint Davids Channel was open to a depth of 186 feet below 

 the present surface and was covered by forest. All of the deposits here 

 were brought from the north and were not carried from the Erie basin. 

 Whether the channel was. previously filled with drift can not now be 

 known. 



The deep trench corresponds to the great interglacial erosion valley 

 found on the north side of Lake Ontario (see below). The spruce wood 

 makes a paleontological connection with the upper Toronto beds. What- 

 ever filling has been removed from the higher portion of the valley was 

 carried away by the local drainage, which excavated it to a depth much 

 lower than the rocky Lyell ridge north of the falls. Still the drift in the 

 buried channel beneath the Forest Glen has been penetrated to a depth of 

 over 100 feet, and it may be double this amount. 



So far there are known to be at least two glacial formations older than 

 the Forest Glen and two newer, with apparently a third layer of till 

 before reaching th'e surface of the plateau, not to speak of the esker-like 

 ridge at the mouth of the ancient gorge. These features place Niagara 

 Eiver near the close of the Pleistocene period, as it cuts through the most 

 recent of the long succession of till formations found in this locality, 

 although the glacial history was not completed in the Saint Lawrence 

 Valley to the northeast. 



Correlation of the Whirlpool Drift v^itii that of Scarboro 



Heights 



My investigations of the superficial formations of Ontario were pri- 

 marily for the study of the deserted beaches, yet in many places there 

 was found evidence of three layers of till, not to mention the morainic 

 ridges. At Scarboro Heights, just east of Toronto, Dr. G. J. Hinde found 

 fossiliferous beds passing below the level of Lake Ontario, in a pre-exist- 

 ing erosion trough, and a bed of till farther west, in Toronto, which he 

 thought passed under the interglacial Scarboro beds. Carved out of them 

 he found great erosion valleys. These were refilled or covered with over- 

 lying accumulations of till separated by interglacial beds.^^ Professor 

 Coleman describes a fourth layer of till.^^ From a depth of 41 f ee^ below 

 lake level to 60 feet above, it has been found by the gentlemen before men- 

 tioned that the interglacial beds contain fiora and fauna indicating a 

 climate similar to that of the present day in a latitude several hundred 



" But the older till is here as yet only known by the occurrenca of the overlylnt? and 

 redeposlted beds now forming interglacial series, 

 w See Professor Coleman's papers. 



