1 86 The Ottawa Naturalist. [November 



and on the other side were ripple marks showing- that the wind 

 blew over the waters and the leaves fell in those untold ages ago. I 

 should like to linger many more days among these relics of crea- 

 tures never seen by the eyes of man, but my men are getting 

 uneasy and wish to get back to civilization, so we must leave the 

 graves of these great saurians and hasten toward the more fertile 

 banks of the South Saskatchewan. 



Continuing our journey we glide quickly, and as my man 

 remarks, gracefully down stream. It is a lovely morning, and but 

 for the twittering of birds and rippling of water is as " quiet as a 

 grave." But turning a sharp angle of the river we come suddenly 

 on a large flock ot wild geese which are feeding on the short 

 mossy grass of the ^hore. I am not a sportsman and hate to kill 

 anything, but Mac says we are getting short of grub, and hands 

 me the gun. I fire and four fall. The skeleton of one is in the 

 Dominion Museum, Ottawa. A little further on we pass three 

 hungry looking coyotes making their way along the shore. We 

 pass several small islands all well covered with rich vegetation. 

 Suddenly the river widens out and becomes so shallow and full of 

 sand-bars that we only make two miles in six hours, then we glide 

 into a rapid stream and make ten miles in the afternoon. 



Geologically this is not an interesting locality. Clay and 

 sand banks occupy both sides of the river. It is evidently a good 

 home for the beaver, for we have seen three and several beaver 

 dams. We still hear the twittering of many small birds and the 

 cooing of the dove, a large bald-headed eagle wings its flight 

 over our heads, and in the twilight of the evening we hear the 

 croaky cry of the big grey owl. 



Sunday, July 14th, we reach the confluence of the Red Deer 

 and South Saskatchewan rivers, and on the 19th we pitch our 

 tents on the shore near the Battleford and Swift Current crossing. 

 Here there is a mounted police " shack," and we greet the first 

 white man we have seen since we left our starting point nearly 

 two months ago, and here we store our boxes of precious fossils. 

 At day-break next morning we are in our boats again and in an 

 hour or so pitch our last camp opposite the mouth of Swift Cur- 

 rent. To the palaeontologist this is an exceedingly interesting 

 spot. High buttes of dark-colored shales, clays and sands — rocks 



