﻿1848. LOFTY BANKS. 219 



retired to rest in the boats, winch were suffered to 

 drift with the current all night under the guidance 

 of a steersman. On the morning of the 29th, the 

 fog was so dense that for some hours we allowed 

 the boats to follow the current, being afraid to row, 

 lest we should run aground. At night we en- 

 camped not far from the Old Fort. The shale, 

 sandstone, and limestone beds, continue throughout 

 the space intervening between the former and 

 present sites of Fort Good Hope. In some places 

 the friable sandstones, yielding readily to the torrents 

 of water which flow over the brow of the cliff in 

 spring, were cut into deep ravines at regular dis- 

 tances, producing conical, truncated eminences, 

 like shot-piles. In others, beds of bituminous 

 shale, one hundred and twenty feet high, existed, 

 interleaved with two or three beds of limestone, and 

 in several places the shale banks were crowned with 

 a thick deposit of sand, which rose above the level 

 of the country behind. This peculiar arrangement, 

 which has been already mentioned as occurring not 

 only on the Mackenzie, but extending also some 

 way up many of its affluents, is conspicuous in the 

 reach immediately above the old site of Fort Good 

 Hope, and has the aspect of ridges of sand left in 

 these situations on the subsidence of waters, that 

 have swept over the neighbouring country. These 

 banks rise much beyond any floods of the present 



