NOTES OP AETESIAJ^ AND COMMON WELLS. 579 



Bosser. — The railway well at Eosser is 29 feet deep, iu till, which forms the 

 surface there and east to Little Stony Mountain; water rises 15 feet from a sandy 

 layer at the bottom. 



Township 11, range 1 east. — Robert D. Bathgate, section 37: Well, CO feet deep; 

 till, 24 feet, from which alkaline water seeps; and light buft', hard limestone, .'56 feet, 

 and continuing lower; water of good quality rises from the bottom to 20 feet below 

 the surface. Other wells in this vicinity mostly get good water in veins or thin 

 layers of sand and gravel contained in the till. 



St. Frangois Xavier. — On Mr. Nanton's ranch, about 10 miles west of Headingiy 

 and a quarter of a mile south of the Assiniboine, a well 111 feet deep passed through 

 alluvial clay, 14 feet; till, 34 feet; limestone of light cream color, 47 feet; and reddish 

 limestone, 19 feet. Brackish water rises from the bottom to 14 feet below the surface. 



Meadow Lea.^ — Section 30, township 13, range 2: Wells in this vicinity range 

 from 20 to 95 feet iu depth, and are wholly in till, not reaching the bed-rock. 



Township 13, range 6. — Charles Cuthbert, section 21, 10 miles north-nortlieast 

 from Portage la Prairie : Well, 16 feet deep; soil and loamy silt, to water in quicksand 

 and fine gravel. The surface here is only a few feet above the high- water level of 

 Lake Manitoba. 



Portage la Prairie. — The common wells are 12 to 16 feet deep, being black soil, 

 2 to 4 feet; then yellowish-gray, loamy silt, the alluvium of the Assiniboine, iu which 

 fragments of driftwood, as small limbs of trees, are occasionally found, to water iu 

 quicksand and fine gravel. The deepest well hei-e is that of the Manitoba and North- 

 western Eailway tank, which reaches 30 feet, to till at the bottom, obtaining a very 

 large supjjly of water. 



Township 12, range 8. — Kenneth McKenzie, jr., in the north edge of section 2, close 

 west of Eat Creek : Well, dug 86 and bored 72 feet, to a total depth of 158 feet; soil, 2 

 feet; sand, 4 to 5 feet ; yellow till, 4 feet ; blue till, 70 feet, easy to excavate, with scanty 

 intermixture of gravel, but containing occasional stones up to 1 foot or more iu diam- 

 eter, undoubtedly true till, for the surface generally through the south part of this 

 township has plentiful embedded bowlders up to 2 or 3 feet in diameter; below was 

 "hardpan," a more iudurated deposit of till, very hard to dig or pick, bored or drilled 

 72 feet, and found to vary much in its hardness through this depth, some portions 

 being much softer than where the boring began. A seam of sand and fine gravel, 

 about an inch thick, was noticed between the upper part of the till, which was dug, 

 and the harder lower portion. At the bottom the drill struck a harder layer, which 

 was called rock. It was probably shale, for the drill, being dropped a few times upon 

 it, seemed iu danger of becoming stuck so that it could not be removed. Water rose 

 from the bottom within the first day to a depth of 20 or 30 feet in the portion of the 



■Here and onward, through the following pages, the ranges are numbered westward from the ref- 

 erence meridian. 



