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(3E ni.BbflX 1875

■I

a31187 0nt4i+n2Q10b

E.M.S. LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

00330

CALL No.

11^1©¥1® WAWWiM

— FROM-

00330

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'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

cur

"«

'ilO

formation, in aluioHt any ono of itH many
Hirata, in ijuite Butlhtiunt to duioriuiuo itH
a<iiiooiiB origin. Coraln, shulls, and
criiHtacoouK aniiualH, iho latter distantly
rclatod to rocont lobsters and oralis, aro
fiiutid in groat abuurtanoo. C'oiictn-ning
these rruHtiicoans— the trilobites— it may
1)0 rcniarkiu! hero that i)lcntiful as thoy
are in the Trenton, Utica, Hudson and
Medina groups, all underlying onv own,
thoy appear to die out in the (,'liiiton
and Niagara rocks upon which, particu-
larly tho latter, our formation rests. No
trilobites have, to my knowledge, over
boon found in this locality, that is to say
in our liniostono rock.* Otherwise thoy
have, but of that afterwards. Corals in
coi'siderable variety may be jiicked up
almost anywhere, and singular as it may
appear, oven a sponge. Most of the
former are of the genus luinisitc's, so
ciiliod fro'u their Ininey-comb iippoarauce.
Another somewhat plentiful coral takes
its name frcnn the similarity which a
cr< fis-seoiion of it presents to a chain—
llalijxitcji Cdtoiuhitiix. Sprciniuns of
tliis fossil are chiefly found near the
suifaco ; ai, least I have never met with
any at a greater depth than four or tive
feet. Excellent illustrative specimens
:U'e oftiai seen in field-stones, in which
eases the interstices are eroded by the
action of tho weatht!r, and the chain-like
Willis stand out projiiiuontl}'. As speci-
mens of this and other fossils referred to
may bo oxamiiied on the table during
recess, it will bo nuite uniiecfssiiry to
describe them at length. The sponge
fdluded to ( Strom(it(Hium coitcciitricu i is
more commonlj' met with than many
other local fossils. On the rocky roud-
bt'd leading to the Gilkiuson bridge on
both sides, very large ones may be seen,
and some capital weathered specimens

*.V beautiful folded specimen, Phacops
(•((/IK, is in the museum. It was found
l)y Air. K. Tribe, but is doubtlessly
" drift." A fragmentary speoim(;n rf
very doubtful character liiis re(!ent'y I)oen
picked up by Mr. Clarke.

may he picked up about Aboyno. Down
the Ciraud Uivor also, below Tribe's, any
number of them may bo soon in tho si do
of tho cliff. Formerly Stnmdtopora con-
cfittricii was regarded aa a coral, but
from a remarkably line ono submitted to
Professor Nichcdsiiu's inspection by our
President, tho evidence in favour of its
being a spcuigo was consi<lored as pretty
conclusive. A new speeifs was discovered
by ^^r. Jolin Wilkie, of (fuelph, two years
Bgo, and described 1)y Nicholson, who
named it Stroiiiati>i)(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

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<wl liiin
tliiit not II )iiirti(!lt< of coppnr nxiHtel
tlinro. A (cw inoiitliH ninoc ik poor fnllnw
out wiHt luiirricd a widow with n larRO
fiunily, lii'cauHd ho tlmuxlit sho nwiiod a
little hill composod Iftrjjoly of gold. Tho
iiiiiKMul thiU di'Cdivnd him hafi dc<!<'ivo(l
iiniriy luorc, it v/tw Hiiuply )ii-Hiii])hiirMt
or iron iiyritoH. The onrly Fronoh ox-
plornrH of AtiK^'icii oiirriod horno with
tliuiii Imsholrt of wofthlon>( 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.