224 



MIOCENE TERTIARY ]{OCKS — WESTON. 



valley extending many miles in a north and fsouth direction. 

 Within a short distance of our camp, water flowed south into 

 the White Mud River, and north into Swift Current Creek. 

 From this main valley couli'es branch ot\' at right angles, and 

 extend from a short distance to several miles till they are lost on 

 the table-land of the gi'eat prairies. In these couh'es are found 

 the best escarpments of Miocene Tertiary rocks, which, although 

 several hundred feet in thickness, are seldom seen in vertical 

 sections of more than lifty feet. The sides of the coulees slope 

 at various angles up towards the table-land, and are "partly 

 covered with scrubby brush, grass and wild sage (Artemisia 

 cana), while in the bottom a stream of clear cold water flows, and 

 willow, pine and other trees form a shelter for the antelope and 

 other smaller game. 



The Miocene rocks of the Cypress Hills plateau consist of 

 gravel in which pebbles of ([uartzite from half an inch to a foot 

 in diameter predominate {h of section). In all the overlying 

 strata, fragments of fossil bones, either fish, reptilian or mammal, 

 have been found ; but it is in the agglomerate 1 jand that most of 

 the vertebrate remains now in the cases of the Dominion 

 Museum were obtained. This consists of (in places) a four-foot 

 bed of yellowish sandy limestone which when treated with 

 hydrochloric acid leaves a residue of grains of (juartz and 

 fragments of a variety of other rocks — angular and partly rounded 

 pieces of a rock similar to the matrix. Occasionally pebbles of 

 red, black and other coloured jasper, banded quartzites, chert and 

 porphyry are found, all derived from the Laurentian mountains 

 east of these deposits, and transported during a glacial epoch of 

 the world's history. 



Section of Miocene Tertiary Rocks near the Head Waters 

 OF Swift Current. 



a. Superficial and other deposits in which, in a bed of 

 yellowish-white silt 20 feet above the agglomerate beds (6 of 

 section), the teeth of an extinct deer, Leptomeryx mamviifer 

 Cope, were found. 30 feet. 



h. Agglomerate beds, containing rounded pebbles of (|uart- 



