274: The American Geologist. November, 1894 
and is covered with houses. Two churches are also built upon 
it. In some places it has been cut away, but it continues as 
a prominent feature as far as Clopperton street. Where 
excavations have been made the composition of the ridge is 
shown to be of characteristic beach material, — rounded gravel 
and pebbles with sand. Near its outer end this ridge is about 
20 feet above the general level of the town. The altitude of 
lake Simcoe is stated by Dr. Spencer to be 722 feet- above sea 
level. The shore line in Barrie, measured on the beach ridge 
where it is crossed in the eastern part of the town by the 
Penetanguishene road, is about 60 feet above lake Sim- 
coe, or approximately 780 feet above the sea. Westward 
from the spit the ground is lower and for some dis- 
tance west of the town it is a rolling sand plain. Between 
Barrie and Allandale there is a low trough extending west- 
ward from the lake. Along the base of the hill south and 
west of Allandale the beach was found rather lightly devel- 
oped. We ascended the first point of the hill on the Cooks- 
town road, from which a wide view over the surrounding 
lowlands was obtained. Toward the west in the trough, 
which divides the highlands of the north from those on the 
south, the extension of the beach could be seen for a mile or 
more: but whether the water at the time of submergence ex- 
tended clear through the trough to Colwell so as to make an 
island of the highlands north of it, was not seen. Eastward 
from Barrie the shore line was found beautifully developed 
all the way to Orillia. It may be seen plainly from the train 
nearly all the wa} T . Just east of Barrie the railroad cuts the 
beach, making a fine cross-section, and then rises to a higher 
level for a few miles, leaving the beach between it and the 
lake. Through this stretch it is a finely formed gravel ridge 
with a lagoon hollow behind it. In some places there are 
several lower ridges with intervening hollows. But beyond 
that, for most of the way to Orillia, it is a cut terrace with a 
low blurf at its back and a gentle boulder slope in front. It 
is well formed at Oro and Hawkstone. Within a few miles of 
Orillia the beach passes out of sight in a forest. 
Orillia. Along the face of the high blurf back of this place 
the shore line was found clearly developed as a cut terrace 
with a few beach ridges at lower levels. It is particularly 
