13 



These lakes either occupy true rock basins or depress- 

 ions in the mantle of drift or they have banks formed in 

 part by rock and in part by drift, occupying in some 

 instances portions of a larger rock basin which has been 

 partitioned off by masses of drift. 



Over the greater part of the area the drift is compara- 

 tively thin, so that, while it forms the soil of the country, 

 the underlying rock in the form of smooth roches mon- 

 tonnees protrudes through it at frequent intervals. On 

 the higher levels the drift is unstratified and filled with 

 boulders. Stratified sands and gravels, however, are found 

 around the lakes and in the river valleys. 



A glance at the Haliburton sheet will show the remark- 

 able influence which the strike of rock underlying the area 

 has had upon the distribution and position of the lakes and 

 upon the courses of the streams. In the southern portion 

 of the area these follow very closely the course of the bands 

 of Grenville limestone, while in the granitic region of the 

 north they form a delicately etched pattern on the surface 

 of the great plain of granitic gneiss, occupying shallow 

 depressions whose course is determined chiefly by the 

 strike of the country rock; and even when the lake runs 

 across the strike, the long arms and bays in its deeply 

 indented shore line will be found to follow the directions 

 of the foliation. 



GEOLOGY OF THE AREA. 



The Haliburton and Bancroft map area is a very 

 typical Archean or Pre-Cambrian area, near the southern 

 margin of the Canadian Shield or great Northern Protaxis 

 which stretches with almost unbroken continuity to the 

 borders of the Arctic ocean. Ordovician strata, which 

 survive as evidence of the transgression of the Palaeozoic 

 sea from the south occur as isolated outliers of various sizes 

 and shapes. They form conspicuous steep-faced hills of 

 horizontally stratified rocks in the townships of Lake, 

 Methuen, Burleigh and Harvey, in the south-west angle 

 of the Bancroft sheet. To the south of Stony lake, the 

 northern portions of Dummer and Smith townships are 

 forms by the main body of the Ordovician which forms 

 the great plain stretching southward to Lake Ontario 

 and beyond. 



