BLUE HILLS OF THE SOURIS. 



289 



inches in mean depth, and flowing at the rate of half 

 a mile an hour. Observing numbers of fish rising at 

 grasshoppers in the Souris, we stretched a gill net across 

 the mouth of the river, and succeeded in taking pick- 

 erel, gold-eyes, and suckers, the grey and the red. In a 

 second attempt we caught a tartar ; a huge sturgeon got 

 entangled in the meshes of the gill net, and before we 

 could land him he succeeded in breaking away and car- 

 rying a portion of the net with him. 



Signs of Sioux Indians in the neighbourhood led to 

 our keeping watch during the night ; and on the morning 

 of the 25th we proceeded cautiously up the valley of the 

 Souris, keeping a sharp look out. On the left bank the 

 Blue Hills of the Souris are visible ten miles from the 

 mouth of the stream, and towards the west, the Moose 

 Head Mountain is seen to approach the Grand Eapids of 

 the Assinniboine. The first rock exposure in the valley 

 was observed about fifteen miles from the mouth of the 

 Souris. It consisted of a very fissile, dark-blue argil- 

 laceous shale, holding numerous concretions containing 

 a large percentage of iron, partly in the state of carbonate 

 and partly as the peroxide. Some very obscure fossils 

 were found, with fragments of a large inoceramus. The 

 shale weathers ash white. It is exposed in a cliff about 

 ninety feet high ; the upper portion of the cliff consists of 

 yellow sand, superimposed by sandy loam holding lime- 

 stone boulders and pebbles ; the exposure of shale is 

 seventy feet thick, in horizontal layers. The country 

 west of the Souris, so far, is an open, treeless, and un- 

 dulating prairie. On the east side, the Blue Hills are 

 very picturesque, their flanks and summits are wooded 

 with aspen. Bain as usual, the day closing with a 

 thunderstorm. 



On the 26th we arrived at the westerly bend of the 



VOL. I. U 



