158 ROBERT BELL ON THE CAUSES OF THE 
Ontario and Quebec, destroying not only vast quantities of valuable timber, but burning 
out the fertilizing elements of millions of acres of land. 
Confining our remarks to the Dominion, it is well known that, under the same latitude 
and with similar climatic conditions, some districts may possess deep, rich and permanent 
soils, while in others the lands are poor from the prevalence of rocks, sand or stiff clay. 
The rocky character and scant soi] of our Laurentian and some of our flat-lying limestone 
districts are obviously caused by the peculiarities of their geological formation. These, 
modified by the subsequent action of the drift, are also the reason of sandiness or the 
clayiness of other districts. For example, a broad extent of sandstone, even if buried by 
the drift, will be certain to give rise to a sandy tract immediately over it, and for some 
distance beyond in the direction in which the glaciers have travelled. The relation of the 
soil to the underlying rock may be very considerably altered by the immersion of an 
extensive region and the consequent modification and reärrangement of the materials of 
the drift; as, for example, over the lower levels in the Province of Quebec. The flat lands 
of the lower beds in the province of Manitoba have been formed in a similar manner; 
namely, by the deposit of sediments from water. In the lower part of the Red River valley, 
the clays, etc., may have been deposited from a former extension of Lake Winnipeg, but 
higher up this valley, and also along the Assiniboine, the thin alternating layers of clay, 
silt and vegetable matter have probably been formed by the periodical overflows of the 
river itself, such as still take place in the spring, and are much increased locally by the 
jamming of the ice, which occurs sometimes in one part and sometimes in another, and 
converts the valley for many miles into a muddy lake. On higher levels in Manitoba, but 
still within the first prairie steppe, areas of sand and long ridges of gravel are met with, 
but I shall not dwell on these, as the remarks I intend to make refer more particularly to 
the higher regions of the North-West which are embraced in the second and third steppes. 
In the Canadian North-West territories, a great fertile tract stretches from the Inter- 
national boundary of the Liard River, above latitude 60° a distance of some 1,400 or 1,500 
miles. There are, of course, some spots in this tract which are not so good as the average, 
owing to boulders, swamp, sand, gravel, etc., but taking its general character throughout, 
it will be difficult to find a longer extent of almost continuously good land in any other 
part of the world. Except in the poorer spots, such as have been indicated, wherever the 
fresh soil has been turned up, it is seen to consist of a dark, almost black, loam mixed 
with a little gravel or with occasional small stones. This loam has an average depth of 
about a foot thoughout these territories. 
Immigrants from the older provinces and elsewhere are now penetrating far into this 
fertile tract: within the last few years the Indians are being taught agriculture, and the 
Hudson’s Bay Company are practising it on a larger scale than formerly; so that every 
here and there we see a field or two ploughed up, serving to shew us a sample of the soil, 
of the locality. Any one familiar with the appearance of the newly ploughed fields in 
districts of admitted fertility in the older provinces, must be struck with the darker colour 
and the finer and more homogeneous character, as well as the manifestly greater richness, 
of the North-West soil. In a field in either of these provinces, recently cleared of timber, 
the soil shews many light spots, where uprooted trees have brought the subsoil to the 
surface, giving the whole a mottled appearance, whereas in the North-West territories 
every furrow shows an unbroken roll of black loam. 

