178 FORMATIONS OF 
to all that portion of the Chippewa Land District watered by Red River and its 
tributaries. : 
On reaching Pembina, and making inquiries of the people relative to the adjacent 
country, I found the opinion prevalent that coal and other valuable minerals exist 
in the Pembina Mountain, situated to the west, high up on the Pembina River. I 
determined to occupy the few days required to make the necessary preparation for 
our return route by the Lake of the Woods, in visiting that mountain, distant a 
day’s journey from Pembina; both for the purpose of determining its geological for- 
mation and elevation, and also to ascertain whether it is north of the forty-ninth pa- 
rallel of latitude, in the territory of the Hudson’s Bay Company, or south of it, within 
the boundary of the United States; a point not yet ascertained by any observers. 
By the assistance of Mr. James M’Dermott, I succeeded in engaging a guide and a 
conveyance. This latter consisted of an equipage somewhat novel to me, a real 
Canadian-French, single-horse cart, made entirely of wood. The segments of the 
wheels are held together solely by the spokes, wooden pins, and wedges. When 
they exhibit any signs of parting, they are spliced on either side by pieces of wood, 
and wound round by withes of raw hide; or they receive a complete tire of the 
latter material. Raw hide is also used to harness the horse to the cart. 
With this equipment, Dr. Litton and myself started, on the morning of the 7th, 
leaving Mr. Evans to proceed to the colony at the mouth of the Assiniboin, there 
to make preparation for our return route by the Lake of the Woods; for that, we 
were told, was the only place on Red River, where we could procure the necessary 
stores, as Mr. Kittson, to whom Mr. Sibley had kindly furnished us with a letter 
of introduction, had gone to the States with a supply of furs. After a hot and 
fatiguing ride over the plains, we arrived, an hour after sunset, at the foot of Pem- 
bina Mountain. In the twilight, as we stood at our encampment on the plain, it 
looked as if it might be three hundred feet or more in height; but in the morning, 
by broad daylight, it seemed less. When I came to measure it, I was somewhat 
surprised that it did not exceed two hundred and ten feet. I observed on this, as 
on many other occasions, that a hill rising out of a level plain, appears higher than 
it really is, especially when, as in this case, the trees on its flanks and summit are 
of small growth. Pembina Mountain is, in fact, no mountain at all, nor yet a 
hill. It is a terrace of table-land—the ancient shore of a great body of water, that 
once filled the whole of the Red River Valley. On its summit it is quite level, 
and extends so, for about five miles westward, to another terrace, the summit of 
which I was told is level with the great buffalo plains that stretch away towards 
the Missouri, the hunting-grounds of the Sioux and the half-breed population of 
Red River. 
Instead of being composed of ledges of rock, as I was led to suppose, it is a mass 
of incoherent sand, gravel, and shingle, so entirely destitute of cement, that with 
the hand alone a hole several feet deep may be excavated in a few minutes. The 
Pembina River has cut through this material a deep, narrow valley, but little ele- 
vated above the adjacent plain. Alongits banks are precipices of sand, surmounted 
by gravel and a few boulders. I was told that it was impossible to ascend these 
banks. So loose is the deposit, that, no sooner is an ascent attempted, than the 
