SECTION IV., 1886. INS SM Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA. 
VIL.— On Certain Borings in Manitoba and the Northwest Territory. 
By GEorGE M. Dawson. 
(Read May 26, 1886.) 
In Manitoba and in the Northwest generally, boring operations are likely each year, 
as settlement advances, to be undertaken with increasing frequency. The generally 
uniform character of the surface, coupled with the covering of drift deposits over large 
areas, due to the Glacial Period, renders boring necessary, whenever it is desired to 
ascertain the character of the underlying rocks. Most of the borings so far carried out 
have been for the purpose of obtaining water in localities where the surface supply is 
insufficient or unfit for use on account of dissolved salts. In a number of cases, the 
object in view has been attained, and it may be specially mentioned that a good supply 
of water for the City of Winnipeg has been secured, by wells sunk through the alluvium 
of the valley, at a comparatively moderate depth. 
In too many instances, however, the strata passed through in these borings have not 
been noted with sufficient care to enable satisfactory sections to be given. The great 
importance attaching to such records, whether for the guidance of future sinkings for 
coal and lignite, natural gas or brine, and in explorations which may be attempted in 
search of petroleum, is my excuse for collecting in this paper such facts as I have been 
able to obtain and for discussing their bearings. Some of the results already arrived at 
are interesting from an economic point of view, as indicating the development in the near 
future of important industries ; while, as will have been gathered from the remarks already 
made, all borings effected in Manitoba and the Northwest, the results of which are 
carefully recorded, possess a special value from a purely geological standpoint. 
In addition to the borings now first reported on, and chiefly made by the Canadian 
Pacific Railway Company, several experimental borings, conducted under the auspices of 
the Geological Survey, are referred to in this paper. Details of these will be found in 
the Reports of Progress, as follows :— 
Report of Progress, 1873-74, pp. 3, 12; 1874-75, p. 2, boring at Rat Creek, subse- 
quently referred to; 1875-76, p. 281, boring at Carleton. This experimental boring 
was executed under the supervision of Mr. R. W. Ells, and was carried to a depth of 175 
feet without passing through the drift deposits. 1875-76, p. 292, boring at Fort Pelly on 
the Assiniboine River. After passing through the drift, this boring penetrated the lower 
portion of the Pierre shales and ended at a depth of 500 feet in marly beds, evidently repre- 
senting the Niobrara division of the Cretaceous (cf. Report of Progress, 1879-80, p. 14.) 
