410 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



groves scattered here and there, and flowers abundant. 

 Wild-fowl are found on all the lakes ; and bro wn and 

 white cranes, together with smaller waders of many species 

 in the marshes. As we approach the great prairie the 

 country becomes more undulating, and the soil light- 

 coloured and poor ; the aspens, which cap some of the 

 low hills, are still large, although many are nothing more 

 than dead trunks. The "wooded" country through which 

 we passed during the day is only so called in remem- 

 brance of former forest growth. If the devastating fires 

 continue for a few more years it will become a treeless 

 prairie to the Lumpy Hill, and the aspen and birch woods 

 will then be limited to the country between that eminence 

 and the North and South Branches of the Saskatchewan. 

 A young brood of grasshoppers has been seen to-day, 

 showing that these destroyers reached this part of the 

 country last autumn. 



After traversing a very undulating country, in which 

 are low ranges of hills and conical mounds with limestone 

 boulders on their summits, we arrived about noon on the 

 13th at the Big Hill, a point of some interest, for south 

 and south-east of it lies a boundless, undulating prairie. 

 The summit of the Big Hill is covered with huge granite 

 or gneissoid and limestone boulders, indeed on all the 

 hills which surround the Big Hill boulders are very gene- 

 rally distributed. The limit of the so-called " wooded 

 country," is about seventy miles from the North Branch 

 in an air line, and thirty miles from the South Branch. 



From the summit of the Big Hill the " Buffalo Cart 

 Plain," and " Lake where the moose died," are visible ; 

 both noted locahties in the wild history of these regions. 

 South-east of the Big Hill the trail winds through a 

 dreary labyrinth of dome-shaped hills, many of them 

 covered with boulders. One or two small streams flowing 



