278 Explorations ot Verendrye and His Sons 



peg, thouijli clearly identiliablc l)y their delineation, the former 

 havini;- many islands, and the latter being narrowed at the 

 middle, are nnnamed. The Saskatchewan river, of which 

 only the lower part is shown, not extending to the junction of 

 its south and north branches, is called Fleuve de 1' Quest 

 (River of the West.) 



Not far south of the Saskatchewan, in the place of the 

 l*()reu])ine and Pascjuia hills, the sketch of Ochagach bears the 

 name Montagues de pierres brillantes (Mountains of shining 

 stones), which probably suggested later the names Shining 

 mountains and Rocky mountains, applied to our great western 

 Cordilleran belt. As known by Ochagach, however, and de- 

 scribed by him to- the French, the mountains of his 'sketch 

 were doubtless the Cretaceous escarpment, generally from 500 

 to 1,000 feet in height of mostly steep ascent from its base to 

 its top, south of the lower Saskatchewan and West of lake^ 

 Winnipegosis and Manitoba and the Red river. This escarp- 

 ment is now known, in its successive parts from north to south, 

 as the Pasquia and Porcupine hills. Duck mountain, and Pem- 

 bina mountain, and the Coteau des Prairies, which reach from 

 the SaskatchcAvan valley southward into North Dakota and to 

 the southwest part of Minnesota. 



The "shining stones" were probably selenite crystals from 

 the Cretaceous shales, the same as those which Groseilliers 

 and Radisson had seen, or of which they had heard some de- 

 scription, during their visit nearly seventy years before, in 

 1660, among the Prairie Sioux, in whose country, as Radisson 

 wrote, "There are mountains covered with a kind of Stone 

 that is transparent and tender, and like to that of Venice.'^ 

 The Sioux or Dakota people knew of the selenite crystals in 

 the shales, and in the comparatively thin overlying glacial 

 drift, which together form the Coteau des Prairies ; and the 

 Assiniboines knew of the same "shining stones" of the same 

 formations in the Pembina, Riding, and Duck mountains, and 

 in the Porcupine and Pasquia hills. 



In 1731, Verendrye, commissioned and equipped by the 

 Canadian government, with his sons and his nephew, Jemer- 

 aye, began their explorations far west of lake Superior, which 

 they left by the route of Pigeon river and the series of lakes 

 and streams continuing west along the present northern 

 boundary of Minnesota. Fort St. Pierre, a trading post, was 



