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36 plaques found that match your criteria
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Ripple Rock
The ripple marks on the adjacent rock faces were made some two billion years ago by waves in a shallow body of water. Buried by later deposition of silt and then subjected to great pressure, the rippled sand became sandstone. The formation was subsequently tilted 60" from the horizontal by crumpling of the earth's crust. This exceptional feature is of particular interest in that there are at least three distinct beds of sandstone, two of... -
Scarborough Bluffs, The
The layers of sand and clay exposed in these bluffs display a remarkable geological record of the last stages of the Great Ice Age. Unique in North America, they have attracted worldwide scientific interest. The first 46 metres (150 feet) of sediments contain fossil plants and animals that were deposited in a large river delta during the first advance of the Wisconsinan glacier some 70,000 years ago. They are covered by 61 metres (200 feet)... -
Sir Casimir S. Gzowski 1813-1898
First chairman of the Niagara Parks Commission (1885-93), Gzowski was born in Russia of Polish parents. Forced to emigrate, following participation in the Polish Rising of 1830, he came to Canada in 1841. An exceptionally able engineer, he first served as a government construction superintendent. He later organized a company that built the Grand Trunk Railway from Toronto to Sarnia, 1853-7, and the International Bridge across the Niagara River at Fort Erie in 1873. He... -
John Backhouse Mill, The
John Backhouse emigrated from Yorkshire to the United States in 1791 but shortly thereafter, moved to Upper Canada. He served as a Major of the 1st Norfolk Militia in the War of 1812 and became a chairman of the Quarter Sessions, then the chief instrument of local government. He is believed to have erected this mill 1798. It remained in the possession of his descendants until its purchase 1955 by the Big Creek Region Conservation Authority having been in continuous operation for a longer period than any mill in this province. -
John Muir 1838-1914
Born in Dunbar, Scotland, this famous naturalist, whose books and articles played a significant role in the early development of the United States National Park Service, emigrated with his family to Wisconsin in 1849. Intensively interested in botany and geology, Muir set out in 1864 on a walking tour of Canada West, during which he travelled much of what is known in Ontario today as the "Bruce Trail". His brother Daniel, employed since the previous... -
Lang Mill, The
In 1846, Thomas Short, later member of the Parliament of Canada for Peterborough County, erected this stone flour mill here on the Indian River. Within five years he had built a sawmill across the river and had laid out a village plot named Allandale. By 1858, the Allandale Flour Mill, which now also housed an oatmeal mill, had become one of the largest in the region and was exporting large quantities of its products. Short... -
Niagara Escarpment, The
Hamilton Mountain is part of the Niagara Escarpment, a height of land extending 725km across Ontario from Niagara Falls to Manitoulin Island. Over 430 million years ago, a tropical sea covered most of central North America. Sediments and coral reef on the seabed were compressed into dolomite, a hard type of limestone more resistant to erosion than the bedrock of adjacent lands. The cliffs of the escarpment are the exposed floor of the ancient sea... -
Niagara Escarpment, The
Queenston Heights is part of the Niagara Escarpment, a height of land which extends 725 kilometres across Ontario from Niagara Falls to Manitoulin Island. Over 430 million years ago, a shallow tropical sea covered most of central North America. Sediments and coral reef on the seabed were compressed into dolomite, a hard type of limestone which was more resistant to erosion then the bedrock of the adjacent lands after the water retreated. The cliffs of... -
Palisades of the Pijitawabik, The
Here, at Pijitawabik Bay and other Lake Nipigon localities, ancient rocks of the Precambrian Shield were overlain by a diabase sheet formed approximately 1,200 million years ago. Erosion by water and ice removed the covering rocks and sculptured the sheet into rounded flat-topped hills bounded by escarpments which rise in some places to 500 feet above Lake Nipigon. The hills are separated by deep narrow valleys. The towering pillars of the cliffs are the result... -
Steep Rock Iron Range
As early as 1897 the presence of hematite boulders on the shores of Steep Rock Lake led geologists to suggest that beneath its waters lay a substantial iron ore body. It was not, however, until 1938 that a drill set up on the ice by Julian Cross of Port Arthur led to actual discovery of the ore. Steep Rock Iron Mines, Ltd., formed in 1939, undertook to reach the ore by diverting the Seine River and draining the lake. In 1944, Steep Rock began mining, and in 1960, the Caland Ore company also came into production. By 1964, shipments by the two companies had totaled over 36 million tons. -
Toronto Island
Toronto Island is part of a sand-bar which begins on the mainland near Woodbine Avenue and extends westward for about 5.5 miles before turning northward toward the main shore. The building of the bar began with the formation of Lake Ontario about 8000 years ago. Eroded from the Scarborough Bluffs, the sand was shifted westward by wave action during easterly storms. Eventually a long curving peninsula was formed, creating the large natural harbour on which...