Prairies of Manitoba. 39 
results. In large laboratories this could be done. Such 
treatment of subjects as that given the food question by the 
American Association is highly suggestive. 
(3) Attendance of specialists at societies where diverse 
topics, not of exclusive interest to any one specialty, are 
discussed. I think the occasional delivery of a popular lecture 
helps not a little to correct the specialist’s natural tendencies 
to aberrations of one kind and another. His attention is 
thus turned to substantial results rather than to methods of 
work. 
THE PRAIRIES OF MANITOBA. 
By A. T. DrumMMonD. 
In August of this year, another opportunity occurred to 
me of examining the superficial deposits around Portage la 
Prairie, Birtle and Kinbrae—the last named place about 
thirty miles north-west of Fort Ellice. The resulting facts 
will prove of interest in connection with questions that 
have been discussed about the origin of the north-west 
prairies. 
At Portage la Prairie the country is on all sides flat, and 
bears evidence of two to three periods of growth and decay 
of grasses and reeds in shallow water, alternating with 
periods of subsidence of the land. The genoral surface is 
perhaps twelve feet above the Assiniboine River, and that 
stream is in turn about the same number of feet higher 
than Lake Manitoba, which lies only fourteen miles to the 
northward. The banks of the river, in a height of twelve 
feet, show three layers of black loam, each from six to 
twelve inches or more in thickness, alternating with a 
creamy gray clay, and the whole underlaid near the water's 
edge by a reddish clay. Boulders throughout this section 
of the country and eastward to Winnipeg are unseen, even 
in the bed of the river at low water. Towards Westbourne, 
the large tract of low land, usually covered with water, and 
lying between Rat Creek and the Westbourne marsh proper, 
and through which the Manitoba and Northwestern Rail- 
