No. I.] GEOGNOSTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 507 



our journey in this direction. The older traders relate, that many lakes have 

 dried up on the plains since they first visited the country. The hollows are 

 annually partially filled by the melting snow, but the water filters away, or is 

 evaporated early in the summer. Many ponds or small lakes, however, still 



remain. 



' The traders report that they have observed limestone in several of the 



creeks that flow into the upper parts of the Saskatchawan ; and it is probable 

 that the limestone formation not only extends through a vast portion of the 

 plains, but also that it runs parallel to the Rocky Mountains as far as M'Ken- 

 zie's River. Captain Franklin observed it on the Beaver River : it exists abun- 

 dantly and almost exclusively on the Clear Water and Elk Rivers ; and we found 

 it again on the islands on the south side of Great Slave Lake. Between this 

 limestone and the Rocky Mountains , rocks of the coal formation exist ; beds 

 of coal on fire having been known to the traders for many years on the upper 

 part of the Saskatchawan and on M'Kenzie's River. These were the only cir- 

 cumstances we could gather with regard to the western boundaries of this for- 



- 



mation. We touched more than once on its eastern boundary in the course 

 of our journey, but no where had we a good opportunity of observing its geog- 

 nostical relation to other rocks. The most singular circumstance attend- 

 ing it is the entire exclusion of foreign beds. We never observed it as- 

 sociated with any other rock, except perhaps on Elk River, where it appears 

 in contact with compact earthy marl, and slaggy mineral pitch, or bituminous 

 sandstone ; and on the Copper-Mine River, where rolled fragments of a similar 

 stone were found connected with layers of dark flinty slate. The cliffs on the 

 west side of Lake Winipeg are from twenty to thirty feet high ; and at the Grand 

 Rapid there is a section of it nearly sixty feet deep. It is here covered with a 

 very thin layer of soil, and its strata-dip to the northward at an angle of 10°. 



About Cumberland-House, the country is uniformly flat and swampy, but the 

 rock shews itself frequently above the surface. Its strata here are generally 

 horizontal, but in one place we observed it dipping to northward at an angle 

 of 40°. 



About thirty miles to the southward of Cumberland- House there is a round- 

 backed hill, named Basquiau, of considerable altitude, being visible at that 

 distance. It forms a long ridge with an even outline, but we had no opportu- 

 nity of examining it more nearly. There are several salt springs at its foot, 



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