218 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 
nate. These are mostly white, but some are gray, brown, pink, and 
red, the latter often passing into banded compact sandstone. There 
are also pebbles of dark, fine-grained diorite, light-colored limestone, 
and some of dark fine-grained mica schist, and of white translucent 
quartz, the last mentioned being often rough surfaced. Mr. George 
M. Dawson thinks this quartzite drift has come eastward from the foot- 
hills of the Rocky Mountains, where in the neighborhood of the line 
(latitude 49°) he found unfossiliferous rocks in situ, some of which 
resemble certain varieties of these quartzite pebbles, but Rev. Pere 
Petitot collected white saccharine quartzite from the McKenzie river 
exactly like that of the white pebbles of the third steppe. 
While the composition of the bowlder clay of the first and second 
prairie steppes, and also, to some extent, that of the third steppe, as 
well as the course of the striz on the hard rocks on the east side of 
the prairies, would indicate that the drift had been mainly from the 
northeastward, the above evidence shows that a large proportion of 
the transported material on the highest levels has come from the north, 
or west. -A part of what is now found in some localities may have 
been moved first in one direction and afterward in another, whilst the 
bulk of the older drift, including, perhaps, even that on the third 
steppe, has probably come from points between north and east. The 
quartzite pebbles of the third steppe are all thoroughly water-worn, 
and appear to be most abundant on and near the surface. The upper 
200 feet, or thereabouts, of the south bank of the South Saskatche- 
wan, at the Red Ochre Hills, consists of clayey drift, in which bowl- 
ders of Laurentian gneiss occur, while the surfaces of these hills are 
strewn with smooth quartzite gravel and cobblestones. At the dis- 
tance of 150 miles to the southeastward, between the Dirt Hills and 
the Woody Mountain, the proportion of quartzite gravel on the third 
steppe has diminished considerably, and Laurentian bowlders have be- 
come very numerous on the surface. 
Between Fort Garry and Fort Ellice, Huronian bowlders and pebbles 
are scarce, they are, however, abundant in the drift in the banks of 
the Assineboine for some miles above and below the junction of the 
Shell river, and in the banks of the Calling river in the neighborhood 
of the Fishing Lakes. They are noticeable on the surface all the way 
from these lakes to the Touchwood Hills. Surface bowlders are ex- 
tremely abundant on the southern and western sides of the gravelly 
and sandy tract southwest of Fort Ellice, about the head waters of the 
Calling river, and in many places on the high ground of the third — 
