consolidated by a ferruginous cement. Beds several feet thick also occasionally occur, which 

 contain nothing but loose pebbles." " Beds of pebble conglomerate, though more frequent 

 and larger near the base of the Miocene, are found at irregular intervals all through it, and 

 are of all thicknesses, from a single layer of pebbles up to beds fully 50 feet thick. In many 

 cases the formation consists of a single thick bed of this rock. Besides the pebble con- 

 glomerate, beds composed of angular pieces of clays enclosed in a matrix of hard sandstone, 

 and forming a species of breccia, are occasionally found.'' 



" The sands of the Miocene sometimes form hard beds, from one to two feet thick, but 

 are usually only slightly indurated, and are near]}- always affected by false bedding." 



The above deposits are best seen in Bone coulee which runs almost due north and south 

 about nine miles west of the eastern escarpment of the hills. In this coulee two streams have 

 their origin within a few hundred yards of each other, the north fork of Swift-current creek 

 flowing north-easterly, and Frenchman creek (Fairwell creek of Mr. McConnell's report) 

 flowing in an opposite direction to the south. 



It is in this main coulee and its tributaries, that the collections of vertebrate remains 

 from this horizon of the Cypress hills have been principally made. 



The first vertebrate fossils received from Bone coulee were obtained in 1883 by Mr. 

 McConnell whilst engaged in his geological exploration of that year. Later in the same 

 season Mr. T. C. Weston visited this locality, and secured a collection ; but unfortunately all the 

 specimens then obtained were lost by the sinking in Lake Superior of the steamer Glenfinbis 

 on which the collection had been shipped for the east from Port Arthur. During the summer 

 of 1884 Mr. Weston revisited the eastern end of the hills, and obtained many mammalian and 

 other vertebrate remains typical of the Cypress Hills fauna. In 1888, and again in 1889, a 

 short time was spent by Mr. Weston in adding to the collections ahead} 7 made in Bone coulee. 

 In 1904 the writer spent some weeks in the eastern end of these hills making a supplementary 

 collection of the vertebrate remains. 



The fossils collected by Messrs. McConnell and "Weston in 1883, were submitted to 

 Professor Edward D. Cope, who published a preliminary list of the genera and species in the 

 American Naturalist, 1885, vol. XIX, p. 163.* The result of his subsequent study of the same 

 material appeared in 18S6 as an appendix to Mr. McConnell's report of 1886.** Further 

 contributions to the American Naturalist *** by the same distinguished palaeontologist, 

 followed in 1889, after Mr. "Weston's collection of 1888 had also been placed in his hands for 

 determination and description. Professor Cope's final report on all the material from the 

 Cypress hills, including the specimens obtained by Mr. Weston in 1899, appeared in 1891 as 

 part I **** of this volume. 



* Tin- White River beds of Swift-current river, North West Territory. 



** Op. cit.. part C, p. 79, appendix I. The Vertebrate of the Swift-current Creek region of the Cypress hills, by E. D. Cope. 



*** ISS'.t. American Naturalist, vol. XXIII, p. 151, The Vertebrate of the Swift-current river, II ; and p. 028, Verte- 

 brata of the Swift-current liver, III. 



**** The species from the Oligocene or Lower Miocene beds of the Cypress hills ; Geol. Survey of Canada, Contr. to Can. 

 Palseont., vol. Ill (quarto), pt. I. 



