Lamstrinc Formation of Torryburn Valley. 1 7 
about this time appeared those primeval architects of the northern 
streams. 
THE BEAVERS. 
No traces of these creatures have been observed below No. 5 ; 
but at this horizon in the Eastern Basin minute chips of wood were 
found, bearing marks of the teeth of a gnawing animal, and the 
leaves of the deposit become papery, as if macerated in water, 
showing that a pond had been formed in that part of the valley. 
More decided indications of the presence of beaver appear in No. 7, 
which contains fragments of branches of trees that have been 
gnawed by these creatures. Similar gnawed sticks were found in 
the deposit in Lawlor’s Lake at the horizon of the Peaty marl, (Nos. 
6 — 7,) and further indications of their work in two beaver dams 
at the West end of the lake. Of these dams the one at the outlet 
of the lake has been nearly destroyed by the operations connected 
with the building of the Intercolonial Railway : but the other is 
perfect and extends down through Nos. 9, 8, 7 and 6 of the Lake 
deposit. Along the lake front of this dam the two middle divisions, 
Nos. 7 and 8, had been compacted into a dark, grey peaty mass, full 
of sticks and twigs of ametiferous and coniferous trees. No. 5 
also abounds with similar fragments of trees ; and with seeds^ 
glumes, spikes and culms of the grass referred to in a previous 
paragraph, intermingled with seeds of pond weeds ; and contains 
also cones of Black Spruce, and fragments of the tests of insects. 
At the level of Div. 6 leaves of coniferous trees and of the 
woodland Horse-tail [Equisetum sylvaticum)^ seeds of various plants 
and a cone of the Larch tree were imbedded in the deposit. Here 
also on the outer slope of the dam, the Molluscan fauna which had 
invaded the lake becomes conspicuous, the dark loam of the dam 
being speckled and blotched with scattered shells of water snails of 
the genera Planorhisj Limnma and Valvata, as well as a few shells of 
a little bivalve called Pisidium. 
Similar remains with the addition of a Sphaerium among the 
molluscs, and fragments of mosses, seeds of the Black Spruce, and 
a greater variety of the seeds of other plants than occur below are 
found in Div. 7. Leaves of the Sweet Gale which in the Eastern 
Basin occur as low down as No. 5, were here found in No. 7. 
