BORDERING ON THE KAERAUOO R I V E R. 



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present a perpendicular escarpment, but merely a very abrupt slope or talus, 

 amongst which a few pines have taken root. 



This range of hills begins near the north end of the lake, and after skirting its 

 shores for more than half its length, bears off in an easterly direction, and may be 

 traced for many miles. A valley, elevated about two feet above the water, ex- 

 tends from the north end of the lake, gradually widening as it recedes from it. 

 This valley is much more fertile than one would expect in the immediate vicinity 

 of such hard, quartzose rocks. It is partly covered with a heavy growth of oak, 

 and, as it widens out, it presents many fine sites for farms. Some portions of the 

 rock in this valley are not indurated quartzite, but gray and reddish sandstones, 

 nearly as soft as those on the Wisconsin, and amongst the loose blocks are many 

 masses of a soft, friable conglomerate. 



Soon after passing Devil's Lake, we began to descend from these ridges I have 

 been describing, and, after travelling about four miles, reached the Barraboo River, 

 at the town of Adams. Here, too, the soil is of good quality, supporting a heavy 

 growth of oak, maple, ash, elm, and lind. The town, consisting of about sixty or 

 seventy buildings, stands upon drift deposits. 



From this place I proceeded in a northwest direction, through a valley bounded 

 by hills varying from one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet in height. Three 

 miles from Adams I found altered sandstones and quartzite, the former passing 

 gradually from a coarse brown sandstone to a flinty quartzite. The rock is exposed 

 both in naked cliffs and large angular blocks, and varies in colour from brown to a 

 purple-gray, with occasional thin seams of milky quartz, which traverse the for- 

 mation in various directions. The face of the cliff exhibits variegated parallel 

 bands, conformable with the original lines of stratification. The base of the expo- 

 sure is about eighty-six feet above the Barraboo, with one hundred and twenty-six 

 feet of rock above. About a mile beyond this, the sandstone occurs in horizontal 

 beds of eight to ten feet, exposed near the base of a hill sixty feet high. From 

 the masses of rock of the same character thickly strewn on the slope, it is probable 

 that the principal part of the hill is composed of beds of sandstone, equivalent to 

 F. 1, c, as some of the masses resemble the Lingula grits near the base of the 

 Mountain Island section. 



For about six miles there is no section of the strata accessible, when about twenty 

 feet of brown sandstone crops out, with some layers of a siliceo-calcareous rock 

 interstratified, containing green grains of silicate of iron, and having the lithological 

 aspect of the fucoidal layers of the Wisconsin section. On the top of the ridge, 

 some ferruginous pebbly sandstone shows itself, containing some fossils ; all but a 

 Bellerophon were too imperfect to be able to characterize them. The height of 

 this hill is about three hundred and twenty-eight feet above the Barraboo. 



Barry's Copper Diggings are situated about two miles northwest of the above 

 locality, on Section 1, Township 12, Range 14 east. 



The ore is an impure carbonate and silicate of copper, with some copper pyrites, 

 very similar to that analyzed by Dr. Owen from the vicinity of the Kickapoo ; it 

 occurs in "pockets," in F. 1, chiefly at a single locality, where, after the disintegra- 



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