40 E. Petitot on the Athabasca District 



syenite, porphyry, serpentine, &c. Vegetation is only to be seen in 

 the inequalities of the stony surface or depressions in these products 

 of fusion, where the action of water has not entirely cleared away 

 their sandy surface, or where it has deposited a slight layer of sedi- 

 mentary earth, as at the Chipewyan ^Mission. Conifers, black alder, 

 heather, Cistus, Absinthium, and some other aromatic plants root in 

 the meagre soil, and diminish the melancholy aspect of this vast 

 exposed portion of the frame of nature. 



I firmly believe that all the land reclaimed from the Peace 

 and Athabasca rivers is of the best quality, if the present con- 

 ditions are maintained. But there is always the fear of some 

 exceptional rise in the waters causing a sudden flood, of such a 

 nature that the vast plains recently uncovered might be once 

 more overrun by devastating currents washing away their soil and 

 entirely re-modifying their surface. 



I have travelled over the whole of the estuary of the Peace 

 River,* above referred to, and found it no less curious than that 

 of the Athabasca. As before mentioned, its first or most eastern 

 channel enters Lake Athabasca at the Four Forks, under the 

 name of Egg River ; and the maps are quite wrong in represent- 

 ing the Clear Lake River as another mouth of the Peace River. 

 But between the Egg River and the Canard or Duck Portage, 

 where there are unmistakable traces of an old western channel, 

 this river has four other openings into the Slave River, without 

 counting six creeks originating in the same number of lakes formed 

 by the overflow of the Peace River, but with no currents of their 

 own, directly its waters retire. Between the two last-named points, 

 therefore there is an immense plain, comparable in fertility with 

 the delta of the Camargue in Provence, intersected by rivulets 

 and dotted with lakes and ponds. Forest-trees have sprung up in 

 it, and pine-crowned hillocks rising in a hundred different places 

 show the position of former islands. Crops of the highest quality 

 could be raised on this gigantic and well-watered delta, which 

 contains prodigious quantities of timber deposited by the waters 

 during past ages. I am firmly of opinion that the colonization 

 and cultivation of this portion of the Athabasca district deserve 

 serious attention, and I have therefore done my best to prepare a 



* On the Peace River Distriet, see also Dawson, in Rep. Geol. Survey 

 Canada, 1879-80, (B) p. 66 et seq. 



