
7 
220 B. N. A. BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
and was found to be 300 feet deep. A terrace occurs, which is specially 
prominent on the western bank, and has a wide tread. It is about 200 feet 
above the stream, and in some places is thickly strewn with boulders. — 
Allowing something for the fall of the river, it would thus nearly 
correspond with the first terrace met with on the St. Joseph’s and Totten 
Trail. The existence of this terrace in the river valley, is interesting, 
as showing that it must have formed a narrow arm of the great post- 
glacial lake of the Red River Valley when near its highest, and is 
therefore probably of pre-glacial age. 
501. Westward, toward Long River, for many miles, wherever the 
subsoil is turned up by the burrowing of badgers, yellowish, marly drift 
appears, and holds many small pebbles of the Cretaceous shales, which 
though sufficiently firm to bear shaping in water, rapidly split up, and 
become disintegrated when exposed to the air. 
502. In the valley of Long River, a very interesting section was 
observed. (Plate XII, Fig. 2.) The bank in which it occurs is about 
thirty feet high, perpendicular above, and composed at the foot of the 
Pembina Mountain Cretaceous. The lowest portion of the drift, is of 
stratified sands and gravels, very evidently false-bedded. The pebbles 
are chiefly from the underlying rock, but there are also a few of foreign 
origin, and the whole is arranged in a manner implying a very strong 
flow of currents in different directions. About eleven feet from the 
top of the bank, the false-bedded layers end abruptly, being cut off by a 
horizontal plane. Above this the bedding is regular, and the drift 
includes many, and some large, travelled boulders of Laurentian and 
white limestone, together with much small Cretaceous material. Large 
boulders are also abundant protruding from the soil of the prairie 
above. The surface of the Cretaceous, on which the drift is deposited, is 
not a smooth one, and there appears to be some evidence that the valley 
of Long River was indicated before the period of the drift. We have 
here, at least, a hollow filled at first under the influence of powerful 
currents in shallow water, and then, it would seem, a deepening of the 
sea to such an extent, as to allow the passage of heavy, far-travelled ice, 
which planed smooth the summits of the current-formed banks below, 
and brought larger fragments of foreign rock to add to the deposit. 
503. The largest boulder observed in this region was in the valley of 
Long River. It was of coarse grey granite, and the portion projecting 
from the ground measued about ten feet square. 
504. Badger Creek, fourteen miles west of Long River, cuts deeply 
into the surface of the prairie, and exposes drift, resembling that of 
