i8o The Ottawa Naturalist. [November 



The source of the Red Deer River is in one of the rang-es of the 

 Rocky Mountains in lat. 51° 30', long. 116° W., and flowing- east- 

 ward joins the South Saskatchewan near the fourth principal 

 meridian. The following- morning- after reaching the Mackenzie 

 farm I find it will be two or three days before we can start down 

 the river, so embrace the opportunity offered to visit the village, 

 eight miles up stream, which place we reach by crossing the river 

 on horseback and proceeding along its east bank. Here at the 

 Calgarv-Edmonton crossing the stream is rapid and over 470 

 feet wide. On the east side is situated Red Deer Village, which 

 at that time (1889) consisted of two general stores, one log cabin 

 boarding house and a few other buildings. The principal trade 

 done by the stores is with the half-breed freighters who are con- 

 stantly passing to and fro between Calgary and Edmonton, a 

 distance of about 170 miles. The country here is beautiful, con- 

 sisting of rich dark loamy prairie lands broken by clusters of 

 spruce, poplar and other trees. The variety and beauty of the 

 wild flowers are remarkable and makes one loath to leave so charm- 

 ing a spot. But we must return to the Mackenzie farm where 

 Mac and another half-breed are busy calking and pitching the two 

 boats which are to carry us hundreds of miles down part of two 

 remarkable streams. Our boats have been made by half-breed 

 Indians during the spring ; they are made of half and one inch 

 planks sawn from trees which grow on the banks of the river in 

 this vicinity. They are rough flat-bottomed boats constructed 

 specially for the journey we are to make. 



From the Red Deer Village crossing, eight miles up stream, 

 the river is very crooked with, in places, " cut banks" of alluvial 

 deposits, clays, gravels, and laminated beds in which we found 

 pieces of wood, leaves, and fragments of bone; one seemed to be 

 part of the sucrum of a buffalo ; it was found with some flint chip- 

 pings five teet below the surface. A few miles below the Red Deer 

 Village crossing the Blind Man River enters the Red Deer between 

 high "cut banks" and sloping wooded land. This is an interesting 

 locality, as here we find in the calcareous clay slates beautifully 

 preserved leaves of exogenous plants, some of which are closely 

 allied to certain species of plants of the present day. With these 

 are associated several species of delicate ferns and grasses belong- 



