408. General Notes. [ May, 
Mocobi or Mbocobi tribe is not mentioned, but considered as form- 
ing, with the Toba and Abiponian dialect, a linguistic family sep- 
arate from the Guaicuru. In this particular he has copied Balbi; 
but Balbi is formally contradicted by the Brazilian traveler 
Martius (Beitrage 1, pp. 232, 780), who gives the missionary 
Dobritzhofer as his authority. The Texan tribe of the Tonka- 
ways is relegated into Florida, and the Piqua regarded as an 
extinct Algonkin tribe, while it continues to flourish at the pres- 
ent time as a clan of the Shawnees or Shawanoes. 
For advancing our knowledge of American ethnology and 
linguistic topography, not much is to be gained by copying and 
extracting modern and ancient authors who have not personally 
seen the tribes of which they give accounts. The number of 
false and inaccurate statements in this respect is simply enormous, 
especially regarding Central and South America. Reliable infor- 
mation on all these subjects can only be expected from future ex- 
peditions, made by conscientious travelers into the imperfectly 
explored regions of both American continents.—A¥Z. S. Gatschet. 
GEOLOGY AND PALAIONTOLOGY. 
DISCOVERY OF THE PREGLACIAL OUTLET OF THE BasIN OF LAKE 
ERIE INTO THAT OF LAKE Ontario.—This is the subject of a 
lengthy paper recently read before the American Philosophical 
Society, of which Dr. Spencer gives the following summary : 
I. iagara escarpment after skirting the southern shores 
of Lake Ontario, bends at nearly right angles in the neighbor- 
hood of Hamilton, at the western end of the lake; thence the 
trend is northward to Lake Huron. At the extreme western end 
of the lake this escarpment (at a height of about 500 feet) encloses 
a valley gradually narrowing to four miles, at the meredian of the 
western part of the city of Hamilton, where it suddenly closes to 
a width of a little more than two miles to form the western end © 
the Dundas valley (proper). This valley has its two sides nearly 
parallel and is bounded by vertical escarpments which are capp® 
with a great thickness of Niagara limestone, but having the lower 
beds of the slopes composed of Medina shales. On its northern 
side the escarpment extends for six miles to Copetown, but west- 
ward of this village it is covered with drift, but it is not absent. 
On its southern side the steep slopes extend for less than four 
miles to Ancaster, where they abruptly end in a great deposit of 
drift, which there fills the valley to near its summit, but which is 
partly re-excavated by modern streams forming gorges from two 
to three hundred feet deep. To the north-eastward of Ancaster 
these gorges are cut down through drift to nearly the present 
lake-level. Westward of Ancaster, a basin occupying 4 hund 
1 Di 7 } rie into that of Lake 
onde aia wi ses ca tad Origin of tak Lower Get Laka ay 5 
B.A.Sc., Ph.D., F.G.S., King’s College, Windsor, N. S 
