
CAPABILITIES WITH REFERENCE TO SETTLEMENT. 295 
692. West of White Mud River, to the 505 mile point, an undulating 
prairie is passed over, resembling in its vegetation the surface of the 
Tertiary plateau. It is deeply drift-covered. Beyond this point, an out- 
lying portion of the Tertiary plateau stretches for about thirty miles. It 
is much cut up by ravines, and sometimes very stony, but is covered 
in general by a close sod, and shows a few swamps with good grass. 
693. There is evidence that over the whole eastern part of the third 
prairie steppe, and especially over the Tertiary plateau, the season of 
1874 was an exceptionaily dry one. Grasses on the drier hill-sides, 
which had ripened their seeds the season before—as evidenced by the 
seed stalks—in 1874 showed no flower, and even the leaves were scarcely 
green. 
694. Beyond this portion of the Tertiary plateau, an arid plain 
stretches with little interruption for fifty miles, or nearly to the Milk 
River. It also extends far north-westward toward the Cypress Hills, and 
appears to coalesce, along their western front, with a similar desert 
region, which—according to Palliser—exists to the north. It appears to | 
be irremediably sterile and useless, being based on Cretaceous No. 4, and 
in great part composed of the debris of these rocks. (§ 351.) In early 
spring it is evidently, in many places wet, but in summer, dry, hard, and 
- fissured, and scarcely supporting a sod. Itis traversed by the vallies of 
the East and West Forks of Milk River, which rise in the vicinity of the 
Cypress Hills ; but both the main streams and their tributary coulées 
become nearly dry before the end of the summer. 
695. The western limit of this plain, is formed by a strip of more 
eleyated land, lying between it and the Milk River, and about five miles 
wide. This is again based on the Lignite Tertiary formation, and shows 
a uniform, short sod; with some lakes and swamps, surrounded with fine 
hay-grass, along its eastern border. 
696. Here, during Juiy and August of last year, the greater part of 
the ‘Big: Camp’ of the half-breeds, wzs situated. The hunters and 
traders in this region congregate for mutual protection, and form, as it 
were, a tribe among the Indians. They live under no law or restraint, 
other than that imposed by necessity and by the general consent, or by 
the priest who accompanies them. Spending the summer at large, in the 
neighbourhood of any district which happens to be well stocked with 
buffalo, they fall back eastward for winter quarters. A few of them 
going to Wood Mountain, but most to the White Mud River, south of 
the Line, near a trading post known as Fort N. J. Turnay. A compara- 
