52 EXPEDITION TO THE 



will remain convinced that the supply of so small a popu- 

 lation offers no brilliant prospects to the colony. What- 

 ever may be the amount of the population of Pembina at 

 a future period, it will, we think, have to depend much 

 upon the internal resources of the country ; it can look to 

 no foreign trade. Great hopes appear to have been enter- 

 tained, by some of the colonists, of the discovery of valua- 

 ble mines ; and they have already had among them some 

 who have announced the existence of silver ore, and have 

 even asserted that they had obtained the metal out of it. 

 We saw no ore of this kind ; the prairies do not present 

 any character that would lead us to anticipate the discovery 

 of mines in their neighbourhood. There is a mountain 

 on Pembina river, about thirty leagues from the settle- 

 ment, in which these mines are supposed to exist ; we saw 

 a specimen from it, but it was the common iron pyrites. 

 Coal has been represented as being found there ; whether 

 there be any foundation for the report we know not. 



Of the plants observed in this neighbourhood, besides 

 the Pembina, we can only mention the common hop ; and 

 the raspberry-bush, which yields fruit in great abundance 

 and of a very superior quality ; also a large kind of whor- 

 tleberry, the fruit of which is double the size of ours, and 

 more oval. The forest-trees are the same which we had 

 previously seen on Red river. The zoology of the country 

 is not very diversified. Among the birds seen by Mr. 

 Say, during our stay at Pembina, were the turkey-buz- 

 zard,* red-headed woodpecker, flicker, hemp-bird,t king- 

 bird,t sparrow-hawk,§ house-wren, robin,|| chimney-bird,1F 



♦ Cathartes aura. f Fringilla tristis. 



i Tj'ranmis pipiri, Vieil. § Tinnunculus sparverius. 



fl Turdus migratorius, ^ Hirundo pelasgia. 



