354 Canadian Record of Science. 
Lying to the north-west of this lake, there is an area of 
level or very gently sloping country, which is now covered 
by extensive natural meadows, separated by groves of 
poplar and birch, as well as occasional forests of spruce and 
tamarac. This country is as yet in its native beauty, being 
entirely untouched, either by the woodman’s axe or the 
plough of the farmer; but the time cannot be far distant 
when a thriving agricultural population will occupy the dis- 
trict, reaping from the fertile soil bountiful and continuous 
harvests. 
In the early part of the past summer, the writer made a 
short journey on foot into this country, from the shore of 
the lake, in order to determine the question of the existence 
or non-existence of beds of gypsum in the vicinity. 
Starting from the north-west corner of the Indian Reserve 
at present held by the Saskatchewan Band of Saulteaux 
Indians, we travelled in a general north-westerly direction 
for five miles, till we reached a rounded gravel ridge, rising 
from fifteen to twenty feet above the general level of the 
country to the north-west of it, and along the foot of which, 
on the alluvial plain, are scattered numbers of rounded, 
weather-worn, gneissoid erratics. This ridge represents 
a beach of the extended Lake Winnipeg, called by Mr. 
Warren Upham Lake Agassiz, when it covered the whole 
of this area, and when the surrounding fertile alluvial 
deposits were being laid down near its gradually receding 
shore. The height of this ridge, as shown by aneroids 
read simultaneously on it and on the lake, is about 840 feet, 
being fifty feet above Lake St. Martin, and thirty feet above 
Lake Manitoba. Its chief interest, however, did not centre 
in the fact that it had once represented a lake-shore line, for 
these shore-lines are very commonly to be met with in all 
this apparently level Manitoba plain, but that in little holes 
and caves in it were to be seen small exposures of soft, 
compact, snow-white gypsum. 
Following the ridge, still in a north-westerly direction, 
for a mile, the surface becomes very rugged and irregular, 
being broken by deep pits with steeply sloping sides. In 
