TRANSACTIONS 



OF THE 



P0t<i ^(0ti«tt ittstitute of J^dcnci*. 



cE5 



SESSIOTnT of 1892-'93 



Notes on the Miocene Tertiary Rocks of the Cypress 

 Hills, North-West Territory of Canada. — By T. 

 C. Weston, of the Geological tiv.rvey of Canada. 



(Head Decemher 12(h, 1892.) 



The first mammalian, reptilian and fish fossil remains found 

 in the Lower Miocene rocks of the North-West Territories were 

 discovered in 1883 by Mr. R. G. McConnell, of the Canadian 

 Geological Survey, in the vicinity of Swift Current, a portion of 

 the Cypress Hills district, about long. 1 09", lat. 49 ' 40'. The 

 following summer the writer received instructions from Dr. 

 Selwyn, the director of the Survej^, to make a further examina- 

 tion of the rocks containing these interesting fossil bones. 



Accompanied by Mr. James Macoun as assistant, we left 

 Ottawa May 21st, and arrived at Maple Creek, one of the Cypress 

 Hills stations on the Canadian Pacific Railway, on the 30th, 

 where we fitted out with waggon, buck-board, horses, saddles, 

 two half-breed Indians and one month's provisions. 



The following morning we left at 7 a. m. and proceeded south 

 forty-eight miles where we camped for the night, in close proxi- 

 mity to a large encampment of Blackfoot Indians who wei'e 

 engaged collecting BuflTalo bones, to be used for the refining 

 of sugar and fertilizing purposes. 



Next daj' we reached our field of research, a great verdant 



