1899] Weston — Notes on a Geological Trip. 187 



belong-ino- to the Pierre shales, a subdivision of the Cretaceous 

 and part of the Laramie formation, but lower in the horizon than 

 the Laramie and Belly River formation from which our dinosaurian 

 remains come from, are rich in fossils. Here in a bed of dark- 

 colored sandstone is a bivalve shell. It belongs to the genus 

 Inocerotmis, measures thirteen inches from apex to base and four- 

 teen inches across the widest part. The mollusk these shells con- 

 tained must have weighed four or five pounds and no doubt would 

 have been good eating had there been any one to eat them. 

 Here is a large convolated shell, an Ammonite. It belongs to the 

 Nautilidae family, is sixteen inches in diameter and the test or shell 

 still retains all the beautiful opalescent colors, blended together 

 like the colors of the rainbow ; and here is a little bivalve called 

 Lipistha utidulata that will almost lie in one of the furrows of our 

 Inoceronius. But 1 cannot mention here the names of the numer- 

 ous fossils these rocks contain, and must ask the reader of these 

 notes, should he have an opportunity to visit the Geological Sur- 

 vey Museum, Ottawa, not to miss seeing some of the specimens 

 taken from these, at first sight, barren rocks. 



Our work here is now finished and we pull our boats well up 

 on shore hoping they ma\^ be of use to some other geological 

 investigators, and return to the crossing by freighter's cart, sent 

 for us by the mounted police, who kindly stored our other fossils. 

 It would take pages to describe the beauty of the rivers we have 

 been drifting down for more than a month. The turbid state of 

 these streams after heavy rains, and the difficulty of navigating 

 the shallow places are of course a drawback, but with these 

 exceptions I know of no more delightful spots in this section of 

 our Northwest Territories. To the geologist, palaeontologist and 

 botanist the banks of these rivers ofi"er abundant food for the 

 mind ; to the artist and sportsman rich fields for pencil and gun. 

 Our journey from the Battleford and Edmonton crossing to the 

 C. P. R. was made in freighters' carts. 



