426 W. UPHAM— ESKER NEAR WINNIPEG, MANITOBA 



made on the course of the electric power line that brings power from 

 Lac dn Bonnet to Winnipeg, passing from east to west through the center 

 of these sections 7 and 12. The cut, made to supply ballast to the Cana- 

 dian Northern Eailway by a track running west, is a half mile long, 

 extending through the east half of section 12, and is only 5 to 8 feet 

 deep ; but as the railway grade rises some 25 feet above the general level, 

 the top of the cut is at the height of 30 feet or more. The west half 

 of the cut is very coarse gravel, nine-tenths of it consisting of pebbles 

 and cobbles from a half inch to 8 inches in diameter, of which fully 

 95 per cent are limestone, the others being mostly granitic. The formerly 

 steep sides of the excavation had mostly fallen down at the time of my 

 visit last September, so that the stratification was visible only for a small 

 part, there showing dips of 5 to 30 degrees east. 



The underlying till rises with a very gentle and smooth slope beneath 

 the east part of the gravel, and forms the surface onward for about an 

 eighth of a mile, along the eastern quarter of the cut, or is in part over- 

 lain by a surface stratum of the coarse gravel 1 to 2 feet thick. It con- 

 tains plentiful rock fragments and boulders, up to 3 feet in diameter, 

 most of the large boulders being granitic, while nine-tenths or more of 

 the small fragments are limestone. As in the Moose Nose and Birds 

 Hill, the stratification of the gravel and the material of both the gravel 

 and till denote derivation from the west. 



On the township line road crossing this Oak Hummock from north to 

 south, the surface is till from the east end of the cut for some 30 or 40 

 rods south ; but the higher part cf the hill, rounded and somewhat irregu- 

 larly rolling in contour, consists of gravel and sand, without boulders. 

 It is mostly wooded with poplars, scrub oaks, and bushes ; but it has two 

 Bmall cleared fields which Were formerly cultivated. An excavation near 

 the southeast corner of the northern field, about 100 feet in diameter and 

 6 to 10 feet deep, is all coarse gravel, nearly as in the railway cut. 



How confluent currents of the ice-sheet heaped the till in its prominent 

 underlying and nucleal accumulations which form parts of Oak Hum- 

 mock, the Moose Nose, and the east half of Birds Hill will here receive 

 no attempt for explanation, other than to indicate that the glacial move- 

 ments thus amassing the till were closely related with the contour of the 

 ice surface which immediately afterward caused an ice-walled river to 

 bring and deposit in these places the sand and gravel of the kames and 

 esker. Further study may be profitably given for ascertaining the con- 

 ditions of drift transportation and deposition by which these till accumu- 

 lations were formed, and they may contribute light on the diilicult ques- 

 tion of the origin of drumlins. 



