292 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



creature could be detected with the aid of a good glass, 

 The prairie had been burnt last autumn, and the Buffalo 

 had not arrived from the south or west to people this 

 beautiful level waste. What a magnificent spectacle this 

 vast prairie must have furnished when the fire ran over it 

 before the strong west wind ! . 



From beyond the South Branch of the Saskatchewan to 

 Eed Eiver all the prairies were burned last autumn, a vast 

 conflagration extended for one thousand miles in length 

 and several hundreds in breadth. The dry season had so 

 withered the grass that the whole country of the Saskat- 

 chewan was in flames. The Eev. Henry Budd, a native 

 missionary at the Nepowewin, on the North Branch of the 

 Saskatchewan, told me that in whatever direction be turned 

 in September last, the country seemed to be in a blaze ; 

 we traced the fire from the 49th parallel to the 53rd, aifd 

 from the 98th to the 108th degree of longitude. It ex- 

 tended, no doubt, to the Eocky Mountains. 



A few miles west of the Blue Hills, being anxious to 

 ascertain the dip of a very remarkable exposure of shale 

 with bands of ferruginous concretions, Mr. Dickinson 

 leveled with the utmost care an exposure facing the south, 

 and found it to be horizontal. At the base of the expo- 

 sure, and on a level with the water's edge we succeeded 

 in finding a layer of rock full of gigantic inoceramus. 

 One specimen measured 8^ inches in diameter, it was very 

 fragile but the peculiar prismatic structure w r as remarkably 

 well preserved. On attempting to raise it, it separated into 

 thousands of minute prisms so characteristic of this shell. 



Vast numbers of pigeons were flying in a north-westerly 

 direction, and our friends the grasshoppers were every- 

 where abundant. From the Blue Hills to the south bend 

 of the river, rock exposures possessing the characteristics 

 already noticed, occurred at every bend. The first speci- 



