1908.] ROUTES TRAVERSED ALBERTA. 87 



refer only incidentally to the foresting in the description which 

 follows. 



Six miles below Athabaska Landing a long, low, spruce-covered 

 island is passed on the left, and about 24 miles below this. La Biche 

 River, the outlet of the lake of that name, enters the Athabaska 

 from the east. In this part of its course the Athabaska has cut down 

 through the formation called the La Biche shales, which conse- 

 quently compose its banks." Ten miles below, Quito, or Calling, 

 River, also an inconsiderable stream, comes in from the west. Near 

 its month is a small store the property of one of the smaller trading 

 companies. Swift Current Rapid is 55 miles below Athabaska Land- 

 ing. It is merely an acceleration of the current caused by the water 

 flowing over a gravel bar. which forms an island in the center of 

 the river. On the left of this point are high, steep mud banks, 

 where an extensive landslip has occurred. In this case the face of 

 the mass of displaced soil has been sharply cut off by the swift cur- 

 rent : in other similar places the slide, with its accumulation of 

 broken and uprooted trees, slopes gently to the water, the tangled 

 mass often remaining for years and forming a serious impediment 

 to upstream navigation, which is effected mainly by tracking. (See 

 PL V, fig. 1.) Where the sides of the valley are high, they usually 

 consist of a series of terraces, caused by successive slippings of the 

 banks as the river has excavated its bed. (See PI. V, fig. 3.) Big 

 Month Brook, the next conspicuous feature, enters the Athabaska 

 from the east 10 miles below Swift Current. 



At a distance of 100 miles from Athabaska Landing Pelican 

 Portage is reached. From this point a portage road leads to the 

 navigable pail of Pelican River, whose lower course, in common 

 with all of the tributaries of the Athabaska above the Clearwater, 

 is rapid and unnavigable. This results from the abrupt descent of the 

 streams from the level of the bordering plateau into the dee)) valley 

 of the receiving river. On the left bank of the Athabaska. about 

 150 yards above the small group of log houses which marks the 

 beginning of Pelican Portage, is a gas well. Here, in 1897, a shaft 

 was sunk to a depth of 820 feet in the hope of finding petroleum. 

 At this depth a heavy flow of gas was encountered, which so clogged 

 the pipes and drills with maltha and sand that operations had to be 

 suspended. The gas is >til! escaping, and having been lighted rises 

 in a fiery column to a height of L5 or 20 feet. Under favorable 

 conditions its roar can lie heard for a distance of a mile or more, 

 and the heat has destroyed all vegetation within a radius of L0 or L5 



The geological notes appearing in this paper are mainly taken from the 

 various reports of the Canadian Geological Survey, principally by McConnell, 

 ( >gilvie, Tyrrell, and Hell. 



