A GRIEF OFFERING. 



363 



none of the people present would talk about it, so he sur- 

 mised that there might be some disappointment, or perhaps 

 the death of a relative connected with it. From informa- 

 tion afterwards obtained, and verified at the Hudson's Bay 

 Company's post at the Touchwood Hills, it appears that a 

 favourite son of Mis-tick-oos was kiUed while hunting for 

 the post some months before, and that in accordance with 

 the customs of the Crees, Mis-tick-oos had presented the 

 officer in charge of the post with his tent of twenty-two 

 skins as a " grief offering." 



Early on the morning of the 30th I retraced my steps 

 to examine an exposure of cretaceous rock forming part 

 of the bank at the summit level of the Qu'appelle valley, 

 while Mr. Fleming continued taking the levels to the 

 South Branch. The rock is a sandstone, dipping very 

 slightly to the south-west. The length of the exposure, 

 east and west, is about fifty yards ; it is covered with 

 drifting sand. Near the summit the layers are highly 

 fossiliferous, and almost wholly composed of Avieula Lin- 

 guceformis (Evans and Shumard) ; above and below the 

 fossiliferous portion there is a coarse greenish-coloured 

 sand, interstratified with brown ferruginous layers. The 

 thickness visible is about twelve feet. The rock occurs near 

 the bend of the valley at its summit level ; the exposure 

 is perpendicular, and about sixty feet above the bottom of 

 the valley. Some of the beds, those which are unfossili- 

 ferous are very soft and friable, easily disintegrating, and 

 may, farther west, be the origin of some of the sand 

 dunes distributed over so wide an area in this part of the 

 country. In descending the slope from the summit level 

 to the Saskatchewan, the boulders on the ridges in the 

 valley were found to be generally deposited upon the west 

 side. The inclination of the boulders was towards the 

 east, those forming the upper stratum were inclined 



