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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent etre film^s d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichd, il est filmd A partir de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 (3E ni.BbflX 1875 ■I a31187 0nt4i+n2Q10b E.M.S. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO 00330 CALL No. 11^1©¥1® WAWWiM — FROM- 00330 -OP — LW tm* 'jjm Mgf ■ifKf^j 1ST4-S. i]VHTiTTjTit:E> isri. ^ — »4»-« — ^" ELOBA : PRINTED AT THK "LIGHTNING EXPRESS" OFFICE BY J. TOWNSEND. 1875. UNIVERSITY OF WMERLOO LlBKiRV OFFICE BEARERS^ 1874-5. -^■^CDOC:^-^ PRESIDENT Charles Clarke. VICE-PRESIDENTS | ??.^''!? ^^""''"^ ( AV . P. Newman. SECRETARY -TREASURER . . John Simpson. CURATOR David Boyle. OIT THE 1-OCAl- GBOl-Oair OP ELOnA- Roiul by Mr. David Boyle, PIUNCIl'AI. OF TIIK PUBLIC SCHOOL, At lh«' Flr-I Ki'Miiliir :>I«M'tliiK of tUc ClAtltA Naiiii-al lIlHlory Noch-t), ou Ihe 'Jiid of Nov., 1871. It would probably be iiupossiblo to find a better iiitroductioii to this nuper, Ihnii n sentence or two incidentally employed by a recent writer on Natural History. Ho says : " There is nothing that tlio study of geology teaches us that is more certain or more impressive than the ex- treme instability •■! the earth's surface. Evurywhere beneath our feet wo fitd proofs that what is land has been sea.and that where oceans now spread out has once bt-'oa land ; and that this change from BHa to laud, and from laml to sea, lias taken })lace, not once or twicu only, but again and again, during countless ages (>f past time." The introductory use of these remarks will be Bufficiont to indicate that a ceraiin au)uunt of elementary knowledge regard- ing the science is supposed to be already in your possession. Should this not be the ctsc, you can scarcely do beUer than read cue or more of the many geological works in the village library by Lyull, I'age, AnsLed, Sedgwick and otliers. In rhn study of this, as of tho other natural sciences, nothing so discourages the beginner as tho formidable appear, anco of the terms used to distinguish or. pers, genera, Bpeci<'8 or individuals. Frequent employmenb of the ugly-looking names will surmount the dilliculties of pronunciation, and a slight knowledge of the cliiHsiciil lunguages will go a 1 ng way towards destroying their forbidding appearance, and even make them beauti- ful in our eyes. A consideration of this kind flione should pr.^m])t nil who may have an opportunity to the study of both Greek and Latin. Now, before plunging into the special department which has been chosen as the subject of this paper, it will be well, I think, to say a word or two concerning geological " formations" and " systems." One of tho first principles laid down by Dr. Smith, " the father of Modern Geology," was, that no matter how much the mineral character of rocks might differ, a .itnitum could always be identi- fied by its fossils. According to this principle, although of late years it has been somewhat modified, one, two, or more .strata cou taining fossils of a like kind are known by the n uue of " formation," one or moreof which may compose a " system." And just liere we encounter another of the difliculties to beginners. lu Scotland, it may be, we read of the Laurentian cropjiing out in the Northern Highlands, whilst iu Canada, ou tho shores of Lake Erie and other places, we are informed that the Devonian system exists. How can a system in Britain take its namo from our St. Lawrence, or one in Ontario from the County of Devon iu England ? In this way. Geologists have adopted, in many instances, the practice of nam- ing a formation from that portion of the world iu which the formation is most perfectly developed, or whore a certain series of strata has been first studied and recoguized as peculiar. My only apology fur saying anything iu reference to this point is just for the sake of making it quite clear why the rocks in our neighborhood are known as " Silurian." Sir Roderick Murchisou first studied tho systeui of which the Elora rocks form a part, and upon the principle already alluded to. calltd it " Silurian," from that portion of South Wales where his invc'BtiRiitions were made, »nil wliioh was anciently inhabited by a trilie of UritonH to wlmni tlio llniuiiusi (iavo tlio name Silures. Now, when ProfesHor Nioholsou was in onr neiKliliovhood last sniniuer, ho volnn- tiicreil ti) dur I'lcstdenl. aiul niysflf a littl'i liit of information, which so far as linown to uio lias not yet ii])|)eare(l in buokn. It was somewhat to this el'fect : Professor Sedgwick, whom he pronounced a superior nuthority to Sir lloilerick, denied the jjropriety of the name " Siliiiian," con- tending that the rocks so eaUi'd were only a continuation in all their main fossil chanicteiistics, of the LJambriau, which lies immediately underneath, and that therefore they should be named not Silurian but Upper Cainhrlan, or at most ('iiii.hniSiluridn. Muroliison having des- cribed and named them, naturally looked upwii them with a jealous eye, and in- sisted on tne retention of the name given by him. Doth Murchison and Sedgwick are now dead, and what impartial judges will do in the inatter remains to be seen. The Silurian rouks as developed in Canada are cLissilicid int() sub-formations, made for the most part, as I have already exp'ained, many of the names too taking their rise from places in New York, where they were tirst described, such for in- stance as " Utica,"' " Hudson Hirer, "' " Onondaga." In portions of tliis and adjoining counties the strata take the name of "Guelph," simply because no equivalent appears to exist in New York State, and could not, as a matter of course, have been described by the American geologists. According to Sir William Logan, late Provincial Geologist, the Guelp'u forma- tiod is very noa* ly the highest in the Silurian system, only other two overlying it, whilst not less than ten are under- ueatli. AtElora, again, we are, I think, con- siderably higher than at Gueliih itself, and since the higher we go among the leaves of the rocky volume, the more likely we are to find fossils of an advanc- ed type, it will be easy to kco the pecu- liar advantages enjoyed by an enthusias tic geological student in our locality. On the banks of the rivers, the Grand and Irvine, wo have just such an expo- sure as a student rwquiies : an exposure which, had Nature not performed the work, it would have taken millions of dollars to accomplish ; an exposure, in fact, which if it did not exist, wo should irisli that it did. One of l!ie first questions that occur to tlie nund of a stran.^er upon gazing over our precipices i.s, " How was this gorge fcrmed? liy water or how ?" The "or how?" in such a pioblem is exceed- ingly handy, as the querist apparently asks two (luestions, whereas he only asks one, the " or how ?" being e<[uivalent to " well, water is out of the question alto- gether. I give it up." My own opinion is that the chasms were produced (for all I know .en million years ago) by a sud- den convulsion of Nature — :«! earthquake — ihat if the strcuimh had been fljwing previous to that time, the infiltrati(m of the water through the porous rock (for all liinestene formations are remarkable ft)r th(!ir porosity) so weakened it by keeping it perpetually in a moist condi- tion, that when the shock did occur, the weaker thre<<.dlike portions marking the streams' courses first 3'ielded to tlie enor- mous pressure from within ; or, that the separation having taken place before there were streams, the wat^r when it began to flow naturally took the lowest level, and thus tbi' chasms became utiliz- ed as river-beds. However it may have been with regard to the sireams them- selves, I have no doubt at all as to the eruptive origin of the gullies, and if wo accept this theory we are then driven to the conclusion that the rent portion must have been weaker than surrounding por- tions, whatever the cause of that weak- ness may have been. The nair^ Dolomite has been given to this class of rocks to which those of our formation belong, in honor of a French geologist. A very slight inspection of the Silurian cn- iiul 11/0 the if 111 M cur "« 'ilO formation, in aluioHt any ono of itH many Hirata, in ijuite Butlhtiunt to duioriuiuo itH ai)(ira OntioUiui. In ccmpnny with Mr. Wilkitj I visited tho quarry in which ho had first met with oAtioldta, and succeeded in procuring a fair specimen after some search. It may 1)0 seen here with the rest of the objects. Returning to Elora, somewhat deeper than the region of the Favosites, con- corning wliich nothii.j; more noed be said at present, and measuring from the high- est part of the formation, wo occasionally come across a very pretty species of what is commonly known us Lamp Shell, from its resemblance ti' an old-fashioned oil- lamp. It has been named ['nitiniwrai Orcifhiitahs, and when found with tho lines sharply defined is one of the finest fossi's our rocks contain. At a depth of from forty to sixty feet, other two sjiocies are met with having tlie same general ap- pearance, of course, but dillering some- what in size and iiroportion. One of tliose exists in consideiabln numbers in a small cavern on the left band of the Irvine lliver, almost below Modeland's Foundry. In the same place may be lound as well, a great manj' beautiful specimens, s uiie of which are probably unnamed, including soecies of PUuroto- luariii, Mitn-ltinDiiia, and Orthoceru.i, I can conceive of no more profitable and pleasing way for a bov to spend a few hours, than in such a place, where al- most every few minutes tho hammer ex- poses a gracefully formed shell, which has been entombed probably a greater number of years than Adam could have counted had he been busy counting day and night to this tho second day of 6 November, 1874.* In thiH cuvorn too, but foiiiul UHUftUy i\ littli) ImkIht, tlin Btuik'ut will poHHibly moot witli that Bpecieu of PlDurototmiriii, lutmud by HilliuKS Kliini. Another shrll I Inivo montioniHi iis bi'in^ prociirnblu in our ueighborhdoil is tho Orllinci'raK, or BtraiKht Hhell. duuo five hundred dis. tiii(!t Kpfici<'P (if OiihocfniK havii boon luimi'd and doKuribcd in variims parts of thu world, and hulf-a-dnzt'H at lonst imve been broii^'lit to li^bt about F.lc^ra. Who jhall siiy that as iiianv iiuirt' nv tlirioo an many niorc may not reward th<,' dilif^nut explorer'.' In lif'i lh(>HO shells must have been remarkably behutiful -of all sizes from two Of three lucbea to six feet in length, tapering (/ently, ami richly colorcii. With the exception of I'eutaraerns, all the shells noticed so fur are univalves. Of bivalves we have also quite a variety. Almost all children in the village upwards of five or six years of age, can distinguish Mcijaloiiiuii ('(uiudcn.iiK. quite as readily as they cm an Early Hohp potato or a Swedish turnip. It is the eommontst and most characteristic bivalve in tlie (iuelph formation. It is found of all sizes from two to six or seven inches in length, cither in casts of the ttechy parts, which arc the more common, or in casts representing tho form of t)ie jjcrfect animal. Mepalnmus would seem to have reigned a king among bivalves on the shores of tie Silurian seas. Tne im- jnense numbers of tlieni to be found at present is attributable, doubtloss, in some measure, to the great thickness and con- sequent strength of the shell— from a quarter to flve-eighths of an inch. Com- mon as they are in this foimation they are hsghly prized for European eollec- tions, as they are utterly wanting in the *Tho rigidity of the old eonceptiona has been relaxed, the public mind being rendered gradually tolerant of Uie idea that not fiir ^ix thousand, nor for sixty thousand, nor for six thousaiiil thousand, but for u-ous embracing untold millions of years, tho earth has been the thealre of life and death. TyNi>.\L!.. Silurian system of ihe Old World. It would be uimuat uecidless to mention where tho Miiiiilmmin may be found in this locality, but to aKsist those who in- tend to make a beginning, the (|uarries at ^ .Mrs. Inglis' farm, tho left bank of tho river any where between tho carpet I factory and .\l)oync, a surface exposure near the resiieuee of Higliland John, and the rocks at Tribe' syieUl specimens more or less perfect. : Mifore elosiiig this part (pf my paper, I 1 shall mention only one bivalve more — one whioli has carried the name and fame of Elora across the Athinti •, ami caused I onr bidoved little town to be spoken of j by the hk st eminent palaeontoli>gists i i England, as " a ver> interesting locality. "• ; This shell is only found in a very circum- ; scribed area, and, so far as I know, not j being met with anywhere else than with- i in a sliort distance above the (iilkinson bridge, on the right bank of the Grand I River.* Strictly speaking the shell itself is not found at all- only an in- \ terior cast, or east of the tleshy part, and this alone is certainly a remarkable ibject. No cast (f tho exterior has yet been discovered—leading us to conclude that the shell must be exceedingly thin and fragile. The name of this fossil is TriminU'i iiniiiilis, and I should bo glad to hear of some of you devoting your spare time and energies towards the un- earthing of evt-n better specimens than our museum now possesses. But however much invites the geolo- gical student in the rocks of the (Juelph formation, his attention need not neces- sarily becontiued to them alone. Thanks to the cold period which succeeded tho hot one t)f the coral ages, other materials have been supplied, and some of them from great distances. The glaciers, whose mighty masses ploughed their way slowly but irresisti- bly towards the south, carried witli them in their icy embrace, millions of frag- * Besides I'ilora, it has only been no- ticed in twt) or tlu'Lc other iilaces in tha Province. monls of rocks belonging to tho regionn whore from olimatio chnngon intoiiHO frofit hftd Bupplantod torrid boat. TbodO fragmontf), boooming unlookod as tho masses penetrated comparatively warmer regions, dropped, oventnally became wfttor-worn, wore washed into hollows, and at last elevated so as to form dry land. Deposits of this kind are known to us as gravel-bods. Tho heavier fragments, not so easily affootod by waves or tides, imbedded thomsolvoB in the ooze, heavy end always down — those wo Reo at, or near tho surface, to-day, and call them " boulders." It IS quite possible, therefore, to learn just'as much from a careful exarainmion of a boulder or a bod of gravel, as if icmo friend fifty, or a hundred, or two hundred miles off had sont us the same quantity of material by express, tor our own special inspection. Beautiful crinoidnl or mountain limestone is often procurable on the fields in tho shape of boulders. I hav(> here upon the table a perfectly defininl cast of bountiful shells picked up in a field in Filkiugton by my friend Mr. Sanderson. Our col lection contains a boulder which has been carried from tho North West per- haps more than five hundred miles. Close by Salem is a gravel-bod in which tho boys of tho village procured somo very fine specimens of Stroplwmena, Ambonychia radiata, Avicula dcininsa and trilobitos, not to bo found in thu solid formation nearer than Owen Sound. Only last Wednesday my own littlo girl, who plays at Geology on tho gravel walk, picked up a handsome littlo specimou of a trilotite's tail, in a bit of Hudson River shale. In fact tho amount of in- terest and information dorivablo from an hour spent in a gravel pit, is, to one who does so for the first time, perfectly as- tonishing. Several pits exist even with- in the limits of the corporation ; try them, and at somo future meeting dis' play your collections jointly or separately > and I feel confident that those who look will be equally astonished with those who gathered. Although hammer and ohiaei are not quite so induspensablo in pits an among tho solid rocki, you will yet find them of groat value. Many slaty-lookiog stones will bo found which split easily, and fre(|uently they contain the greatest treasures. I have already hinted at tho coloring of the ancient shells. Now, although it is quite true that none are over met with about I'llora, and seldom any where else, to indicate tho possossiou of peculiar beauty in this rospoct, a momout's con- sideration will show tho reasonableness of tho supposition that the fossil molluscs wore at least as variously and as prettily tinted as the average recent shell. The total absence of color in limestone speci- mens, can only be accounted for from tho comploto mineralization which has been effected by a process which may be described at some other time. Omitting altogether tho notice of many points that have doubtlosslv suggested tlioniRolvos to some 'if yon, I will close this papur ')y an attumi't io answer tho irrepressible " What good ?" In most cases when this expression is taken out of its interrogative form and made aosortivo, it simply means " You can't make anything by it." Go to Fer- gu'^, or Eden, or a hundred places in this Province besides, and thoy Will tell you that they have lost from geological ignorance. Only some tea or twelve year.- ag.) a farmer near Bowmunvill-^ ruined himself by boring for coal. Sir W:i!. LoRnn at the time declarer'' how uttorlv unreasonable tho search was, and still thoro are to-day thousands in On- tario who believe that coal remains to bo discovered within our borders. In the Island of Timor a comp my was formed in 1861 for the mining of copper. I quote, " So confident wore thoy of tho existence of copper, that they thought it would bo waste of time and money to ex- plore ! and accordingly sent to England for a mining engineer, with tools, machinery, laboratory, utensifs, me- chanics, and stores of all kinds for two yonrH." When tho oiiBineer, who waH of (idiirHo IV practical i^rolnKiHt, arrivid on tliii Hput, till! tifbt ^Innci! ii.HHUr( cryHtnlH from Quebnu, Hupposiufj; thum to lin diumondR. Milt is thoro no proht other than thuf. of dollars iind cimlH? Why do we iMijoy a walk— a lino view— a llower garden — a hoftutiful picliiri!, or an nxiiuisiloly ox- I'l id pioco of mnchincty'i' Just, I tako it, ..v.cauHc wo niort with an appeal to thn imagination oitliur in one form or another. And I contoiid that no moro forcihli' appeal can poBttibly ho made, than tht) study of thiH Hcioncu alTords ufl upon every hand Now and aKttin a dinoovory Ih iniido of (I. few Indian rolicH, and on roadini^ tho account it is imposHible to avoia contrasiinp the Canada of today with Canrtda of, say two hundred years ago. Certainly in Ruoh a caee there is room for wonder and admiration, but what is even that compared with the Canada of ton thousand years ago ? What is that compared with the time when the Hpot, now occupied by Elora first appeared aljove the surface of a miRhty surroundiuR ocean, an oeean whose bottom was a mass of corals and sponges, the only vogetaticn being a few simple forms of sea-weed ? * When tho niolhiHcouH animals we now And fosHil- ized were gifted with life and motion, ar.d when the lily or other encrinito with ox- tended arms, waved gracefully to tho tluntnations of tho water in particular localities. Hurcd} such conslderationH as these, npari from a purely sciontitic point of view, are sulhcient to endow the study A'ith tho deopost interest, and tu assiht in making us what wo all ought to ho —happier, bettor, and moro thoughtful men and women ; enlarging our views concernin',' the majesty of creation, and, as a oonsequence, giving us a moro renyonable, yet elevated conception of tho (Ireil First Cause. Nature in every aspect affords food for the profoundest thought, and ho who jiasses through life in total ignorance, or regardlessness of the thousand and one wonderful objects with which he is sur- rounded, can never be said to enjoy his existence to tlio full, or bo considered, in point of intelligence, as but a few re- moves from the beasts that perish. May our Society do at least a little to- wards bringing about a bettor state of feeling among both young oud old, in Elora and its vicinitj ! *If star-fish existed in those seas, no remains of them have yet been found hero, and the boy who first discovers one >vill be as famous in our annals as he who finds a triloliito. Fish had not appeared to populate tho deep, and of the multi- tudes of gelatinous creatures with which the seas undoubtedly teemed, it is im- possible to detect a trace. Note. — Since the abovo was written I have learnt that the Phacopn rana refer- red to was brought from Bosanquet.