i82 The Ottawa Naturalist. [November 



river, and below the level of the water these beds may extend for 

 a hundred feet. At this time (1889) no attempt had been made to 

 work these valuable coal fields. In many of the coal banks of this 

 locality through combustion or from fires started by Indians, an 

 enormous amount of coal has been burned, leaving the hard shaly 

 beds which intercept the seams, various shades of color from a 

 bright red to a dark yellow. The stratification is so marked and 

 the colors so brilliant that we called one spot Vermilion Point. 

 Opposite the largest of these coal deposits is a fine alluvial flat of 

 several hundred acres — a splendid town site, waiting the time 

 when the " iron horse" and busy hands will utilize this nature's 

 gift to man. For miles lower down the river we pass extensive 

 coal banks, all showing more or less the marks of fire. The 

 river is smooth with numerous shoal rapids and free from 

 boulders. 



Gold. 



Gold can be washed out from many of the alluvial deposits of 

 this river and most of the sand-bars of the Red Deer will yield 

 gold in small quantities. A sand-bar near our starting point on 

 this river yielded to an expert at panning from one to two dollars 

 a day. It is supposed that the gold in the Red Deer and other 

 rivers of the Northwest has been washed from the soft rocks 

 which formed the banks of these rivers, having in the first place 

 been derived from the quartzite and other rocks of the Rocky 

 Mountains. 



Iron. 



Clay ironstone is met with in thin beds and as nodules which 

 contain a percentage of metalic iron. Both shells and plants are 

 found in this ironstone ; one nodule we found contained a curious 

 member of the lobster family. We have now reached "Tail Creek" 

 a stream of about twenty feet wide, the outlet of Buffalo Lake, to 

 which a small band of Cree Indians we have just met are bound. 

 They have heard that two buffaloes have been seen in that vicinity 

 and are making their way to the big lake to try and capture them. 

 These Indians are very poor. Two sturdy members of the band 

 stripped and swam the river to our camp with the hope of getting 

 a little food. Here, alluvial banks of from one to two hundred 

 feet high occupy the north side of the river, while on the south 



