SUPERFICIAL GEOLOGY OF DUNDAS VALLEY. 113 



drift of considerable depth. A well bored by Mr. Guest, to a depth 

 of thirty-five feet, passes through sandy loam the whole way and fin- 

 ishes in quicksand. This well is only within a few hundred yards 

 of the upper or lime ridge. 



The Drift covering this rocky floor is heaped up into long shaped 

 hills on the outside, leaving a valley between them and the talus of 

 the upper escarpment. Through this valley, the stream from the 

 northern end of the village passes and shows in its banks beds of 

 gravel and boulders in patches. The hills are mostly of clay, with 

 pebbles and streaks of sand, and where cut by streams show no 

 signs of being stratified. This cutting away of the upper beds, I 

 would refer to ice action, as, on a sheet of rock exposed where the 

 lower escarpment crosses the road, there are striae running in a 

 direction of N. 60, E. It is interesting to note that on the road, at 

 the lime-kilns, there is an exposure showing the black shales of the 

 Niagara formation, with several contorted beds of thin shales lying 

 immediately above them. These contorted beds are surmounted by 

 other beds of a uniform level with the black shales underneath. 



The quarry close to the Woollen Mill, belonging to the Egleston 

 estate, and lying on the other side of the ravine, shows several large 

 perpendicular fractures passing from the surface down through the 

 several beds in the face of the quarry so far as exposed. At one 

 place, two of these fractures run parallel to each other at a distance 

 of three feet apart, and giving the enclosed rock the appearance of a 

 dyke. That it is not a dyke, however, can be seen from the enclosed 

 material ieing of the same texture, and having the same bedding in 

 uniformity with the rest of the quarry. 



At Guest's lime kiln, just above the exposure of the black shales, 

 the top beds, where not quarried, show a cut-away edge, somewhat 

 as if a mighty agency had passsd along and bevelled them off. This 

 cutting away has the appearance of being due to the action of the 

 waves, whether it was only done by the ice and the markings after- 

 wards obliterated by the action of the water, I cannot say. It is, 

 however, probable that such is the case, as the upper beds are not of 

 such a nature as to retain any but very deep marks. In no place in 

 this vicinity have I seen ice-markings on this upper escarpment. 



The escarpment on the more westerly, or West Flamboro' side 

 of the valley, differs in some respects from the Hamilton side. There 



