378 DR. J. W. DAWSON ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE 
of its vegetation and the absence of large trees, illustrates also the 
paucity of vegetable fossils by which these beds are sometimes cha- 
racterized. 
In the region above referred to, glacial strize are often observed 
upon the hard rocks uncovered in railway excavations; and there 
are glacial deposits of two kinds, though they are not very con- 
tinuous or of great depth, the indications being that the region was, 
in the Pleistocene period, an area rather of denudation than of - 
deposition. One marked variety found between the ridges of crys- 
talline rock is a stratified red clay sometimes with greenish bands. 
This kind of deposit, which abounds in the drift area of Southern 
Manitoba and Minnesota, has been attributed to the waste and 
driftage westward of the red clays and sandstones of the Kewenian 
formation of Lake Superior. It is not usually a Boulder-clay, but 
where it approaches rocky ridges, 1s seen to overlie or pass into clay 
with numerous local boulders. Boutilders are often to be seen heaped 
in great numbers against the sides of steep rocky ridges. Not far 
from Rat Portage, a conspicuous instance is afforded by a steep 
escarpment of hornblendic rock, which is seen to be furrowed in a deep 
and fantastic manner by ice-action, while its base is piled with large 
masses of Laurentian rock. In many places also gravel beds and 
ridges containing boulders appear, as a more recent deposit than the 
red clay, in the same manner as we find in Eastern Canada and 
also westward on the plains. 
An interesting feature of these clays in their extension into 
Minnesota is the presence in them of Foraminifera of several species 
to which attention has been directed by Mr. B. W. Thomas, of 
Chicago, who has kindly sent me mounted specimens of these organ- 
isms. They belong to the genera Tewxtularia, Rotalia, and Glo- 
bigerina ; but are not properly fossils ot the Boulder-clay itself, 
being in all likelihood derived from the Cretaceous marls of the west, 
which abound in such organisms. Indirectly, however, they consti- 
tute an evidence of the aqueous origin of the clays, as they imply 
much disintegration of the marls and the driftage of their materials 
to great distances. 
At Stony Mountain and Selkirk, on the borders of the Red River 
plain, are cream-coloured Silurian limestones now extensively quar- 
ried, and affording a beautiful building-stone. They are rich in 
marine fossils, of which considerable collections have been made by 
a local geologist, Mr. J. H. Panton. From these it would appear 
that within a very moderate thickness of beds there occur fossils 
ranging from the Trenton to the Niagara age, thus presenting an 
instance of a long lapse of time marked by a very small amount of 
deposit, similar to that which occurs in some other western localities. 
The precise stratigraphical subdivisions of these fossils, if such 
exist, remain to be worked out. I may here remark that while the 
outcrops of these limestones are at present of comparatively small 
extent, the immense number of boulders scattered westward on the 
plains to the base of the Rocky Mountains, more than 800 miles 
distant, shows that they must, before the glacial period, have occu- 
