CANADIAN TERMINUS OF THE MISSOURI COTEAU. 399 



runs along the face of the northern continuation of the Pembina escarpment, 

 with a mean elevation of 1,600 feet. In the great depression drained 

 by the Valley river its width is from a quarter to half a mile. It is com- 

 posed chiefly of sand, but it also contains very many large bowlders of dark- 

 gray and reddish gneiss, mingled with others of Paleozoic limestone. 



Proceeding a little further to the west, the whole surface of Duck mount- 

 ain is found to consist of irregular ridges aud knolls of gueissic debris ris- 

 ing in some parts to a height of 2,000 feet above Lake Winnipeg, or 2,700 

 feet above the sea. This rugged tract extends southward over the summit 

 of the Riding mountain, and it is not improbable that the Brandon hills 

 (which have been described to me as having somewhat similar characters to 

 those already mentioned) may be a southern continuation of the same ex- 

 tensive ridge. 



Proceeding still farther westward along the Forty-ninth parallel of north lati- 

 tude to the westward margin of what has been known as the second prairie 

 steppe, a wide belt of rounded morainic hills is reached, lying on a sloping pre- 

 glacial surface rising gradually from east to west. This hilly country, which 

 has been known since the time of the early voyageurs as the Missouri Coteau, 

 was well described by Dr. Dawson in his report on the geology and resources 

 of the Forty-ninth parallel. It has also been identified by Professor T. C. 

 Chamberlin as the continuation of the great terminal moraine of the second 

 glacial period, which has been traced by himself and others from Dakota 

 eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. From the northern boundaries of Dakota 

 it has been traced by Mr. McConnell northwestward in Canada for two hun- 

 dred miles to a point on the South -Saskatchewan river, twenty-five mile above 

 the elbow, crossing the line of the Canadian Pacific railway in the vicinity 

 of Secretan station. North of this point its course is not at present known, 

 and it must be borne in mind that north of the Fifty-first parallel of north 

 latitude the plains lose to a great extent their eastern slope, the summits 

 of the Duck mountain, in long. 101° W., being equal in height to the gen- 

 eral surface of the country due west of them in long. 113° W\, or more than 

 five hundred miles distant. Since, then, the slope on which the moraine con- 

 stituting the Missouri Coteau was deposited becomes very indefinite or dies 

 out a little north of the South-Saskatchewan river, it is not improbable that 

 the course of the moraine itself is much changed, so that it may curve around 

 and join others that are now known to the east or west of it. It is, however, 

 more probable that it is here an interlobate moraine, and that as a definite 

 entity it does not extend much further north than its present known limit. 



West of the Coteau the till is of essentially the same character as that to 

 the east of it, and numerous detached ridges of " rolling hills " or terminal 

 moraines are known to occur. In describing the vicinity of the Cypress 

 hills Mr. R. S. McConnell classes with the Coteau, as being " covered with 



