PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 67 



irregular wavy surface of the old giiti-ss dips uiuU r the irregvdarly tleposited cover 

 of Torridouiau sandstone. To this, too, the stratilied rocks of the Nipigon Bay have 

 the greatest resemblance. We have thus in two widely separated parts of the 

 earth's surface indications of a pre-Cambrian land surface which was afterwards 

 renewed. 



Towards the west the rounded landscape of the Laurentians gradually dis- 

 appears under younger formations. At the same time the forest growth recedes, 

 it is confined more and more to the singly rising rounded hills and finally 

 disappears altogether with these. The meadow land, which at first only appeared 

 along the overflowed districts, begins to be the rule. Within about^ui hour's 

 journey by rail, this transition from primeval forest to prairie is completed ; Rat 

 Portage is in the midst of the forest, Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, lies 'amid 

 wide level meadows which take in the bottom of the former Lake Agassiz. 



This is magnificent farming land, producing the very best wheat. Immense 

 as was the forest before, the fields are now equally boundless, interrupted only 

 along the rivers by wooded meadows. The land — an old lake bed — lies there as 

 level as a table ; the railway, no longer obliged, as in the Laurentiau district, to 

 wind in continual curves around the numerous rounded hills, now pursues its way 

 as though it had been drawn with a ruler. Instead of stt)pping as in the forest 

 once an hour at the little group of houses made up of station, hotel and shops, 

 undeserving the name of village, the train now passes prosperous villages often 

 inhabited by Scandinavians, and draws up every twenty minutes at a station 

 beside which rises a huge granary or elevator. The harvest is just over. The 

 fields are mowed in a week, the corn is already threshed and the elevators are 

 filled. Meanwhile the news has arrived of a fiiilure of the harvests in the old 

 world. Joy reigns in Manitoba. They speak of millions that must pour into the 

 land. 



The journey continues about 100 kilometers over the almost level bottom of the 

 old Lake Agassiz before the road, which at Winnipeg attained a height above the 

 sea of 210 meters, rises as high as 250 meters. Then certainly a slope becomes 

 apparent. We must ascend the plateau of the cretaceous formation which extends 

 through Western Manitoba. We soon reach a height of oOO to 600 meters, and for 

 500 kilometers this level is maintained with scarcely an appreciable rise or fall as we 

 descend into the valleys of the rivers or ascend the water-sheds. The soil is still 

 as fertile as before ; alluvial clay prevails. It has just been turned by the plough. 

 Here and there we meet settlements with good prospects such as Regiua, the 

 capital of the District of Assiniboia. Further west the land changes. Previously 

 level or rolling it now becomes hilly. It consists of a number of closely crowded 

 eminences separated by level marshes. 



One perceives at the first glance that the Missouri coteau which we cross 

 between Mortlach and Ernfold is a true moraine landscape. But how different it 

 appears here where it lies in a dry climate, from what it is in our richly watered 

 land. Not a pond, not a pool, not a bog between the hills, nor any forest on them, 

 not even a tree or bush ; no little brook winding its way through the landscape ; 

 only a monotonous "up and down" covered by a comfortless steppe. For 

 miles the dry vegetation is burnt away. The land is black with its charred 

 remains ; only the white erratic boulders gleam ghostlike from the black j)lain. 

 Here and there where the water has been able to remain some time on the level, a 

 little green appears, the white crusted plains beside it are the remains of a dried 

 up salt marsh. A group of larger salt lakes, the Old Wives lakes, persists fi-om 

 year to year ; the bottom of a fi-eshwater lake now drained (Rushlake) serves as a 

 farm. Not a house is to be seen for miles, perhaps once an hour the train stops at 

 a wretched station. In other respects too the land is desolate, since the herds of 

 buffalo which once inhabited it have been slain. At the station one sees great 

 piles of their bones which have been collected on the steppe to be ground into 

 bone meal. The very bare desolation of the land, however, aids us even in parsing 

 to get an idea of its structure. Several groups of moraine ramparts can be 

 recognized, sometimes having a heap of debris lying in front of them. One is 

 strongly reminded of the Alpine relationships ; but the whole IMissouri coteau 

 seemed to me like a dried up Baltic lake plateau. 



This great terminal moraine rampart, like its European equivalent, does not 



