248

ERIE AND ONTARIO GEOLOGY.

lakes and the Alleghany ridge of mountains, as far eastward as the Mohawk, between which the slate is often interposed, as at Niagara, and throughout the State of New York generally. At Niagara, the stratum of slate is nearly forty feet thick, and nearly as fragile as shale, crumbling so much as to sink the superincumbent limestone, and thus verify, to some extent, the opinion that a retrocession of the falls has been going on for ages.

Lake Ontario Geology.-The subsoil around Lake Ontario is limestone, resting on granite. The rocks about Kingston are usually a limestone of very compact structure, and light blueish grey colour,-a fracture often approaching the conchoidal, a slight degree of translucency on a thin edge; and after percussion, the odour of flint rather than that of bitumen. The lowermost limestones are in general more silicious than those above them; and so much is it the case, that, in some places, a conglomerated character is given to the rock by the intrusion of pieces of quartz or hornstone. It is remarkable, that both angular and rounded masses of felspar rock, which usually underlies limestone (or, if absent, is supplied by one in which hornblende predominates), are imbedded and isolated in the limestone, demonstrating the latter to have been at one time in a state of fluidity.

The limestone formation is stratified horizontally, its dip being greatest when nearest to the elder rock on which it reposes, and by which it would appear to have been upraised subsequently to the solidification of its strata; the thickness. of which, like the depth of the soil, varies from a few feet to a few inches. Shale occurs as amongst most limestones; and, in some places so intimately blended with the latter, as to cause it to fall to pieces on exposure to the atmosphere. The minerals as yet noticed, in this formation, are chert or hornstone, basanite, chlorite, calcareous spar, barytes, sulphate of strontian, sulphuret of iron, and sulphuret of zinc. Genuine granite is seldom or never found.

The soils of Upper Canada are various; that which pre

MINERALOGY OF UPPER CANADA.

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dominates is composed of brown clay and loam, with different proportions of marl, intermixed; this compound soil prevails principally in the fertile country, between the St. Lawrence and Ottawa; towards the north shore of Lake Ontario it is more clayey and extremely productive. The substratum throughout these districts is a bed of horizontal limestone, which in some places rises to the surface. The Newcastle district lying between the upper section of the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, is a rich black mould, which also prevails throughout the East Riding of York, and on the banks of the Ouse or Grand River, and Thames.

At Toronto the soil is fertile, but stones are scarce for common use, which is also the case in some townships bordering Lakes Erie, St. Clair, and the Detroit, thus demonstrating the alluvial nature of the territory. A light sandy soil predominates round the head of Lake Ontario.

Mineralogy. I have before adverted to the native copper found on the banks of Lake Superior, on the Coppermine River; iron is abundant in various parts of the province, particularly at Charlotteville, about eight miles from Lake Erie; it is of that description which is denominated shot ore, a medium between what is called mountain and bog ore, and the metal made is of superior quality. At the Marmora Iron Works, about thirty-two miles north of the Bay of Quinté, on the River Trent, (which are situate on an extensive white rocky flat, bare of stones, and apparently in former times the bottom of a river, exhibiting, like many other parts of Canada, different ridges and water courses); the iron ore is rich to an excess, some specimens yielding ninety-two per cent.; it is found on the surface, requiring only to be raised up: there is abundance of the requisite materials of limestone and pine

The colour of this limestone is of different shades of blue, interspersed with grains of white quartz; it is used for building, and is manufactured into excellent lime by an easy process of calcination; it enriches and invigorates the soil when sprinkled over it. The limestone of Niagara differs from the foregoing in colour and quality, being grey, and not so easily calcined into lime.

250

VOLCANOES IN UPPER CANADA.

fuel in the vicinity. Magnetic oxyde, red oxyde, mountain, or lake ore, and other varieties are met with at this place. Black lead is found also at Marmora, on the shores of the Gannanoqui Lake, and in the eastern division of the colony, where it is said some silver mines are known to the Indians: small specimens of a metal like silver have been found at Marmora.

Two mineral springs flow at Scarborough, fifteen miles east of Toronto. Above the Niagara Falls is a phenomenon, termed the Burning Spring, the water of which is in a constant state of ebullition, black, warm, and emitting so large a portion of sulphurretted hydrogen gas as to light a mill, which stood at the place, the gas yielding when concentrated in a tube, a light and beautiful flame; in winter the water loses its burning properties. At the head of Lake Ontario there are several fountains, strongly impregnated with sulphur; found in substance collected into solid lumps of brimstone.*

Salt "licks" (springs) are numerous; one at Salt Fleet yielded a barrel of salt a day. Near the Moravian villages, on the River Thames, there are springs of petroleum and a bituminous substance appears on several of the waters in the north-west country on the above named river there is a quarry of soft freestone, of a dark colour, which the Indians hew out (like the Bermuda stone-see Vol. II.) with their axes; it will not endure the heat of fire, but is useful for building. Near the Gannanoqui lake is found a soft-soap stone, with a smooth oily surface. Gypsum is obtained in large quantities and of excellent quality on the Grand, or

The Indians speak of volcanoes in several parts of the province, particularly towards the Chippawa hunting-grounds. So far as we hear, however, they would appear to be in an incipient state; indeed the physical configuration and geology of Upper Canada tends to the impression that it -is but of recent formation, or rather emersion, from the ocean, and that at no very distant period of time instead of a continent there was only a succession of islands and rocks. Whether the bottom of Lakes Superior and Ontario are salt or fresh water, we know not; the greater density of the former might keep it always below, or there may be a communication with the fathomless depths of the ocean.

CLIMATE-WINDS AND WEATHER.

251

Ouse River. Potters' and pipe-clay is frequent, and yellowochre is occasionally met with.

We must wait the progress of civilization for further information on this section; it is only when men feel at ease, as regards the necessaries and convenience of life, that the science of soils and the mineral riches of the earth are investigated, when that period arrives for Canada, we may expect a rich harvest will be reaped by the explorers.

CLIMATE. Of course in an extent of country embraced between 42 and 50 of north latitude the climate is various; in the settled townships it is generally delightful, neither so cold in winter as Lower Canada, nor so hot in summer as New York; in the Newcastle district between 44 and 45 a man may work in the woods the whole winter in his shirt-sleeves, as in England; and the summer heat is tempered by a cool breeze, which sets in from the S.W. about 10 a. m., and lasts generally to 3 or 4 p. m. In summer the wind blows two-thirds of the season from the S.W., i.e. along the great lakes.

In spring and autumn this wind brings a good deal of moisture with it. The N.W. the most frequent in winter is dry, cold, and elastic; the S.E. soft, thawey, and rainy: the wind seldom blows from west or south, more rarely from the northward. Of course changes of wind are accompanied by corresponding alternations of weather ;* the most sudden are to the N. W., followed by weather clear and cold for the season-almost every thunder shower clears up with this wind the longest storms of rain, and the deepest falls of snow, are usually accompanied by easterly winds. The following table will afford a comparative view of the climate of Upper and Lower Canada throughout the year, as regards the highest, lowest, and mean temperature, for each month, in Upper and Lower Canada,-latitude 42. north in Upper Canada,-latitude 45. north in Lower Canada.

It may be generally remarked, that the human frame, in all climates, is more sensibly affected by the quarter whence the wind blows than by the mere height of the thermometer-humidity with cold or heat rendering the extremes of each less endurable.

The winter of Upper Canada, although not at present severe, is becoming milder every year as cultivation extends. It is a great error to suppose that the great Lakes, Ontario, &c. are frozen over at any time, they are always open in the centre, frequently exhibiting a beautiful and striking phenomenon during the inclement season, by reason of the water being warmer than the circumambient atmosphere, an evaporation resembling steam, may be observed ascending in every variety of shape, in clouds, columns and pyramids, with uncommon grandeur and magnificence from the vast surfaces of Ontario, Erie, Huron and Superior, as if from so many boiling cauldrons.

The chain of shallow lakes which run in an east and southeasterly direction from Lake Simcoe towards the midland district, are seldom frozen more than inch thick until about Christmas, and they are again open before April.

The earth in Upper Canada is not generally frozen at a greater depth than from 12 to 18 inches, and the snow rarely lies at a greater depth than from 18 inches to two feet unless when drifted. It is very seldom that the roads are in a per