50 We Explore Dead Lodge Canyon 



with cottonwoods. We reached the mouth of 

 Willow Creek at one thirty in the afternoon. The 

 scenery in ever-shifting panoramas, was beauti- 

 ful indeed. The rushing river hurried us on 

 from one prospect to another, each one seeming- 

 ly more beautiful than the last. The grey sand- 

 stone beds increased in thickness, and the visible 

 coal seams thinned out. Fifteen miles below 

 Drumheller the Edmonton beds ran under the 

 river, the yellow silt of the Pleistocene capping 

 the older beds. Great land slides impinged on 

 the curves of the ox-bows of the winding stream. 

 Concretions stuck out of the sandstone ledges, 

 like toad stools on a pine log. The river was 

 about 600 feet wide. At three in the afternoon 

 the upper buttes had disappeared. Sharply 

 rounded haystack buttes, or sugar loaves, and 

 narrow ridges that tongued out from the prairie 

 on the south, were visible. On the north, long 

 grassy slopes were frequent. The valley widened 

 and the hills retreated towards the distant prai- 

 rie. There were ranches along the flood plain. 

 At four thirty we reached a ranch twenty-five 

 miles below Drumheller. We now got into the 

 marine Fort Pierre. These beds underlie the 

 Edmonton, and were exposed along the river's 

 edge. Bounded bluffs, with here and there an 

 exposure of dark shales were the order of the 

 day. The timber shrunk and the grass was short ; 

 showing the effects of the unfriendly alkaline 

 shales on the soil. By five o'clock we had left 



