NATURAL HISTORY, TORONTO REGION 
The early history of the Jesuit settlements in 
Ontario, which might find a Kentuckian parallel in 
tales of “the dark and bloody ground,” lie outside 
our subject, being dealt with by Professor A. F. 
Chamberlain, the best authority on the Indians of this 
region, in a special paper. The geological basis for 
the history of Toronto has also been made the subject 
of an article by Professor Coleman. In that article 
it appears that from far distant ages the neighbour- 
hood of Toronto was distinguished as the embouchure 
of a great river from the Northland, discharging the 
waters of the vast inland seas of that early era into a 
lake which was much larger than the present Ontario. 
Had this river remained to our time Toronto might 
have been already a second Chicago. But the oldest 
records say that the site was a well-known Indian 
trading-post and centre of exchange, one of the most 
popular etymologies for the name being “a place of 
meeting,’ and a place of meetings Toronto has cer- 
tainly been. Two great trails crossed here, one from 
the north, the other from the west; and danger and 
honour have met more than once at the crossing.* 
The first reference to Toronto quoted by Dr. Sead- 
ding in his delightful volume of “ Collections and 
Recollections,” is found in a Memoir on the state of 
affairs in Canada, transmitted to France in 1686 by 
the Governor of the day, the Marquis de Denonville. 
Referring to preparations for meeting a hostile ad- 
*“ Send danger from the east unto the west, 
So honour cross it from the north to south, 
And let them grapple.”—Shakespeare, I Hen. IV, I: iii. 
12 
