I 



ORIGIN OF THE NAME BIRDS HILL 409 



Only one house has been built on the esker, this being the summer 

 home of E. F. Hntchings, of Winnipeg, about 3 miles east from Birds 

 Hill Station. The part of the esker there and for a half mile or more 

 to the west, commanding a broad and beautiful prospect of the flat valley 

 plain to the south and north, 50 to 60 feet below, was named Lome Hill 

 about 30 years ago, on the occasion of a visit by the Marquis of Lome, 

 Governor of Canada; but this name seems not to have come into general 

 use. Instead, the earlier name Birds Hill, which originally was applied 

 to the most western mile of the esker, separated by a lower part from its 

 prominent development for more than a mile adjoining the summer resi- 

 dence of Mr. Hutchings, is now commonly bestowed on the whole length 

 of this esker. Such usage of the name is promoted by the recent open- 

 ing of a large excavation or pit by the Birds Hill Sand Company in the 

 east end of the esker, from which the best grades of sand are obtained 

 in large quantities for masons^ use in mortar and plaster, and for the 

 tempering of clay by the brickmakers of Saint Boniface and Winnipeg. 



Structure of Birds Hill 



Along the distance of almost a mile from its west end the esker rises 

 to a height of 40 to 50 feet, and has an east-southeast course, with a 

 width of a sixth to a quarter of a mile. Its central third or two-fifths, 

 from near its crest northward, through a length of about 4,000 feet, has 

 been removed for railway ballast, masons' use, etcetera, by steam shovels 

 and by hand work, loading on cars of a spur branching from the Cana- 

 dian Pacific Eailway at Birds Hill Station. The elevation of the station 

 is 759 feet, and of the crest of the ridge 800 to 810 feet, above the sea. 

 On the southern side the section ranges from 30 to 50 feet in depth from 

 the natural surface, and on the northern side from 20 to 25 feet. 



As thus exposed to view, the greater part of this deposit is seen to be 

 gravel, some of which is very coarse, containing pebbles and rock frag- 

 ments of all sizes up to 10 inches or rarely 15 inches in diameter. Most 

 of the pebbles and cobbles are well rounded, but some of the larger are 

 angular, with only slight marks of water wearing. In some portions 

 near the west end of this excavation no interbedding of coarser and finer 

 layers of the torrential esker gravel is noticeable for 10 feet or more 

 vertically, the spaces between the larger stones and cobbles being filled 

 with finer gravel and sand. In the eastern half or two-thirds of the 

 excavation, much sand and fine gravel are irregularly interbedded; and 

 along a considerable extent toward its southeastern end a great part of 



XXIX — Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 21, 1909 



