Lake Champlain, where it was first described by the New York geologists. In Canada it is associated with sandstones and shale, and is here described as Chazy formation. It is exposed in the cutting of the Grenville canal, and there crosses the Ottawa to Hawkesbury. In its geographical distribution, it forms a zone around the geological depression between the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence. It forms two patches on the calciferous outlier of the Lac des Chats, also of the lowest outlier of the Alumette Islands. The arenaceous part of the Chazy is seen at Aylmer, in Hull, and in the eleventh range of Eardley, on the north side of the Ottawa. It is also found in the Townships of Huntly and Ramsay. The great mass of limestone which overlies the Chazy formation is divided into three portions by the New York geologists. The divisions are supposed to have been characterised by peculiar fossils. However, in Canada, a separation of this kind cannot be definitely carried out, owing to the circumstance that the Birdseye and Black River formations become very indistinct; they are, in consequence, grouped together. Not only are the strata blended together, but also the fossils characteristic of the one are found in the other; thus the difficulty of division. According to Sir W. Logan, the Birdseye, Black River, and Trenton formations constitute one of the most persistent and conspicuously marked series of the strata of the Lower Silurian period of North America.

The limestone of the Trenton group is found extensively in Canada East and West, and particularly between the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, but more especially around the capital of Canada, Ottawa. The limestones of this locality are affected by two parallel dislocations between five hundred and six hundred yards apart, west of the Rideau. " One of these dislocations comes to the Ottawa a little below the exit of the canal, in a small upthrow to the south; and the other about six hundred yards above it, beyond the Barrack Hill, is a downthrow of seventy feet in the same direction." Farther west this series of limestones come up against the Gloucester and Hull fault, extending from the west side of the junction gore of Gloucester across the Ottawa to the front of the sixth lot of the fifth range of Hull. Owing to these various faults it has been found difficult for the Geological Survey to estimate the thickness of the series in this neighborhood. It is, however, computed that the total volume of the limestones of this locality will not fall short of six hundred feet.

UTICA SLATE (so termed from Utica in the State of New York). It comprises a series of dark-brown, bituminous shales,

stone.

interstratified here and there with a few beds of dark limeIt is found in considerable quantity near this city, and is seen cropping out directly across the Rideau Bridge, near the General Protestant Hospital. In the Townships of Collingwood and Whitby this shale is sufficiently bituminous to produce mineral oil in considerable quantity.

THE DRIFT OR BOULDER FORMATION, of which we have ample evidence in this locality, comes under the Post-pliocene or Posttertiary period. The clay, sand, and gravel of the valleys of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence, containing sea-shells or the skeletons of marine fish, are also referred to it. Owing to the manner in which drift is supposed to have been formed (that is, transported by ancient glaciers), it is termed Glacial Drift. "The greatest development and extension of these glaciers is said to have been during the interval between the close of the Cainozoic period and the commencement of the existing epoch, properly so called." It forms the surface of country over a great part of the triangular area included by the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers. Stratified clays and sand fill up depressions of great extent over this surface, and erratic boulders of great size are to be observed, in localities. the most unexpected. A granitic boulder of considerable magnitude is to be seen just above, and to the right of the Suspension Bridge, on the table of rock lying below; and one on the island immediately above the Chaudière Falls, of much greater size. Dana states that nothing but moving ice could have transported the drift, with its immense boulders. In the glacial regions of the Alps, ice is performing this work at present. In that locality there are evidences of stones of great size, which have, in former times, been borne, by a slow moving glacier from the vicinity of Mont Blanc across the low lands of Switzerland to the slopes of the Jura Mountains, and left there, a height of 2,203 feet above the present level of Lake Geneva. The channel of the Ottawa River is contracted at various parts by ridges of glacial drift, of boulders running north and south. The nearest of these is to be seen above the mouth of Green's Creek, between seven and eight miles below this city. In this locality a well-marked line of boulders runs quite across the river, and forms a considerable obstruction to navigation during low water, such as we have had this season particularly. Professor Dawson divides the eastern postglacial beds into two series, the lower a deep-sea deposit, named the Leda Clay, from one of its characteristic shells; and the upper,

for a similar reason, the Saxicava sand, formed in shallow waters. On the south bank of the Ottawa River, from this city to Hawkesbury, the lower clay formation of Dr. Dawson is to be seen in banks from twenty to forty feet high. "The overlying sand generally approaches the river and conceals the clay except along the streams." Wherever these clay formations exist along the river the shells Suxicava rugosa and Tellina Grænlandica are to be found, and in a bed of clay at Green's Creek nodular masses exist in considerable abundance. The most common fossil embedded in these, is the Mallotus villosus or capeling of the Lower St. Lawrence. This capeling is also found in nodules, in clay, on the Chaudière Lake, 183 feet; on the Madawaska at 206 feet; and at Fort Coulonge Lake, at 365 feet above the sea. This formation contains also various other fossils. On the north side of the Ottawa, from Hull to Isle Jesus, this clay formation covers a considerable breadth between the Laurentian Hills and the river. It can also be traced in considerable abundance along the banks of the Gatineau and river Rouge. In the former locality it is well known to the lumberers, who in wet weather describe it as the sticking clay of the Gatineau. A well-defined hill of clay exists on the front and to the left of the General Protestant Hospital, facing the Rideau River, and to the rear an extensive mound of sand, both of which are drift formations. The boulder formation or glacial drift, both in the British Isles and North America, is referred by Lyell to the age of the newer pliocene, of which it marks its close; while the stratified deposits which overlie it, consisting partly of boulder formation re-arranged by water, are placed among post-tertiary strata. The records of the drift or boulder period extend over North America, north of parallel 40°, as well as over all the northern countries of Europe, and the various boulders have been moved from the north towards the south. Throughout the regions occupied by the drift, the rocks in place are more or less polished, striated, or grooved. These marks are observed on the consolidated formations that appear at the surface, and constitute a very essential part of the records of this period.

ROCK BASINS OR POT-HOLES.-These are everywhere common along rapid brooks and rivers. They are most frequently seen on elevated ground, and present all the appearances of those formed at water-falls by the gyration of the pebbles. Professor Emmons gives an example of one, as seen at Antwerp, St. Lawrence County,

N. Y. He states that it is at least one hundred feet above the Oswegatchie, three-fourths of a mile distant, with an intervening. hill higher by some fifty feet than this remarkable pot-hole, whichis from twenty-four to thirty feet deep, and from twelve to fourteen feet in diameter, bearing the usual marks on the interior of waterworn surfaces. Another example of this kind is described in Grafton, New Hampshire, on the crown of a high valley, between the waters of the Connecticut and Merrimack rivers, at an elevation about 2000 feet above them, and a smaller one eight or ten feet higher. The celebrated basin at Franconia Notch is one of these wells, forty feet in diameter, and twenty-eight feet deep. It is filled to the depth. of eight or ten feet with pure water, which revolves with such force that it is considered a dangerous place for even an expert swimmer.. These basins have also been noticed in the granites of high and exposed regions of Devonshire, England, varying from one toseveral feet in depth, and from a few inches to several feet in diameter. At one time superstition ascribed the excavation of these basins or pot-holes, in that locality, to the Druids; but no person now doubts their true origin, as the results of decomposition and attrition on the softer portions of the granite. Pot-holes in process of formation are described in Chambers's Gazetteer, vol. i, p. 188, as seen in the course of the river Devon. Throughout various parts of Canada these pot-holes have been noticed, viz: At French River they occur at considerable distance above the river level, and range from one to three and a half or four feet in depth, and from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter. At the High Falls, on the River du Moine, several pot-holes are to be seen in the gneiss rocks. Very peculiar formations of this description are to be seen at the Roché Capetaine Rapids, on the Ottawa River, at an elevation of fifty to sixty feet above the present river level. Several small ones are met with at and above the High Falls of Dartmouth River, which enters into the northwest arm of Gaspé Bay; also on York River, which enters the south-west arm of Gaspé Bay; also seen in the black shale in the bed of the Black River, lots 16th and 17th, fifth range of Acton, in the Eastern Townships. Those who take an interest in such formations, need not proceed beyond the limits of Ottawa City in order either to gratify curiosity or satiate a thirst for knowledge. in this respect. Numerous small formations are seen in the surface-rock on the roadside towards the Little Chaudière Falls;

also on the Le Breton Flat, in which locality they possess no small degree of interest, and have called forth considerable remark, owing to several of them appearing as natural wells. Of these, the one most recently discovered is in the foundation just excavated by Mr. Richards, Chaudière, near the residence of the Hon. James Skead. It was exposed after the removal of a bed of alluvium, about two feet in thickness, and was filled above for two feet with drift material, containing numerous recent shells; and below, with sand, pebbles and boulders of various sizes. These being all removed, the dimensions were shown to be in diameter three feet, and in depth thirteen feet. At present this pot-hole is filled with pure water, of excellent quality. Within the last few weeks several hundreds have visited this interesting locality, and a few have taken away a portion of the water, from a belief that it possessed medicinal properties, but in my opinion its properties are equal to those of any other well in that locality, but not superior. A pot-hole in the floom of Mr. Perley's mills, is ten feet in diameter, and fifteen to twenty feet deep.-Extracted from a lecture on the Geological Structure of the Ottawa, read before the Ottawi Natural History Society.

ON PEAT AND ITS USES.

By T. S. HUNT, A.M., F.R.S.

The peat deposits of Canada have been made the subject of repeated notice in successive Annual Reports of the Geological Survey, and are at length attracting the attention of practical men. A few years since attempts were made by Mr. C. M. Tate to work the peat of Chambly, which were partially successful; and more recently we learn that Mr. Hodges, having purchased a large area of peat-bog in Bulstrode, on or near the line of the Arthabaska railway, has imported machinery of the most approved construction, for the purpose of compressing the peat for fuel. We think therefore that the following pages extracted from "Geology of Canada" published in 1863, will not be without interest to our readers, as describing both the principal applications of peat, and some of its localities in Canada.

Great deposits of peat are met with in various parts of Eastern Canada, which seems to present conditions of soil and climate peculiarly favorable to its growth and accumulation. The peat