
118 . B. N. A. BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
Peekopee. The appearance of the valley of the river itself is strange and 
desolate. 
289. Thebanksrise nearly three hundred feet above the level of 
the stream, and are more than a mile apart. They are almost bare of 
vegetation, and marked by bands of differant coloured clays and sand- 
stones in a nearly horizontal position, as far as the eye can reach. The 
descent into the valley cannot be made on horseback, but by taking 
advantage of the well-worn buffalo tracks, which are found leading down 
almost every coulée and ravine. The river itself is comparatively 
insignificant, and winds in broad curves from side to side of the valley, 
and is fringed by a growth of large poplar trees, and by willows. Tho 
bottom of the valley is marked out into three distinct levels, differing 
much in appearance, though only by a few feet in height. Over the first 
of these the river must constantly pass in flood. It shows in many 
places a luxuriant growth of grass, and supports most of the timber. 
The second level, which the river can seldom if ever touch, is character- 
ized by the abundant growth of Artemisia of several different species. 
A third level, which forms a kind of low terrace at the foot of the cliffs, 
and must be twenty to thirty feet above the stream, consists of hard, 
parched clay, the washings of the banks, and nourishes only the grease- 
wood, and a few other thick-leaved drought-loving plants. 
290. The sections in the banks are undisturbed and regular. The 
beds are divided into an upper and lower series, by a zone of sandstones, 
which is about two-thirds up the bank near the Line, but about eight 
miles north-westward up the valley, is found forming the very summit of 
the cliff; which here, from the better support afforded by such hard 
rocks as compared with the clays and arenaceous clays of the rest of the 
formation, assumes a bolder and more rugged aspect, and a greater 
height than elsewhere. Fourteen miles south-eastward of the crossing 
of the Line, the same sandstone zone is again seen, but now only | 
* about .one-third up the bank, indicating a general inclination of the 
beds in a south-easterly direction,—which may not be exactly that of the 
full dip,—of about ten feet to a mile. 
291. The sandstones, though often well and evenly bedded, are not 
regularly hardened, but have a nodular character; and though in 
some localities indurated throughout their entire thickness, in other 
places not far removed, they may show only certain hard layers of 
comparatively small thickness, separated by beds of unconsolidated sand. 
They appear, however, to be very constant in extent, and do not differ 
