STRUCTURE OF THE ESKER 413 



rent dips inclined 5 to 25 degrees eastward. No till nor boulders are 

 encountered. 



In the southwest quarter of section 35 the esker continues east to its 

 end, near the middle of the east line of that quarter section. At the 

 home of Mr. Hutchings and through the west half of the quarter, it has 

 a nearly flat top, forming a plateau about an eighth of a mile wide, 50 

 to 40 feet above the general level, slightly declining to the east; and the 

 gentle slopes to the south and north make the whole width about a third 

 of a mile. Nearly all the surface is gravel and sand, with pebbles up to 

 6 or 8 inches in diameter; but about 20 rods southwest of Mr. Hutch- 

 ings' house several boulders are seen, 2 to 4 feet long, which may belong 

 to a projecting part of the nucleal till accumulation. 



Narrowing eastward, the esker terminates as a rounded low headland 

 near the center of the south half of section 35, half a mile east of the 

 Hutchings residence. In its end the Birds Hill Sand Company has a 

 pit 20 to 30 feet deep and about 100 by 75 feet in diameter, opened 

 about a year ago. The upper 3 to 6 feet of the rounded eastward slope 

 at the pit are gravel, partly coarse, with many cobbles up to 6 inches or 

 partly 8 to 12 inches in diameter, nearly all being limestone. All the 

 excavation below is sand, or has only scanty and fine gravel. The stratifi- 

 cation is in part steeply inclined, with dips of 20 to 40 degrees eastward, 

 as seen in one place for a vertical extent of 8 feet, so that it seems not 

 to be merely cross-bedding. Some contortion of the inclined beds was 

 noticed, but no faulting. The pit goes 10 feet below the general level, 

 finding water which is curbed as a shallow well. No till nor boulders 

 are there, nor in the near vicinity. The sand excavated is carried to 

 Winnipeg by a branch railway that runs eastward to the southeast corner 

 of this section 35, and thence passes south to the Canadian Pacific Eail- 

 way. 



Close at the south side of the railway track, an eighth to a third of a 

 mile east from the pit, is a beach ridge of the Glacial Lake Agassiz, 

 consisting almost wholly of fine sand, which has also been much excavated 

 by the Birds Hill Sand Company. The beach sand forms a ridge ex- 

 tending from west to east, about 10 feet thick and some 20 to 15 rods 

 wide, narrowing eastward, brought by wave erosion from the southern 

 flank of the esker. 



Adjoining the end of the esker, a nearly flat lower plain of sand and 

 fine gravel, 15 to 10 feet above the general level, stretches a third of a 

 mile to the north and a half to two-thirds of a mile northeast and east. 

 Next northeastward beyond this plain, in the central part of the north- 

 east quarter of this section 35, is a somewhat rounded hill 20 to 40 feet 



