146 Feathers! onhaugK's Geological Report. 



point. Further on, the banks of the river consist of about 

 twenty feet of alluvial sandy loam, containing great quantities 

 of planorbis, anculotus, and helices, to the bottom, of the same 

 species now found.* About twenty-five miles from the Ma- 

 kato some red-earth bluffs occur on the left bank, with nume- 

 rous boulders ; from this point the general appearance of the 

 soil and country begins to vary and announces a change in the 

 formations, and five miles further some pocky bluffs come in 

 at the left bank, the lower beds of which are a brick-red 

 color and of a fine grain. On landing and leaving the bank, 

 I found the country covered with beds of red gritstone, of a 

 very hard quality, inclined about fifteen degrees. These rocks 

 are full of pot-holes, some of them a foot in diameter and eight 

 inches deep, and are as smooth as metal. The carboniferous 

 limestone formation seems to terminate here, and to be stopped 

 by a conglomerate resembling in its mineralogical characters 

 the upper beds of the old red sandstone. The river has in 

 old times passed over these rocks, worn the pot-holes, and 

 made them so glassy smooth. The Warhajoo, called by the 

 voyageurs riviere aux Liards^ or Cotton-wood river, comes in 

 from the right bank, at a short distance beyond this point ; 

 we turned the canoe into it for awhile, but were obliged to 

 return on account of the shallowness of the water. Our dis- 

 tance by computation from the mouth of the St. Peter's at this 

 place, was two hundred miles, estimated by the windings of 

 the river, and we had more than three hundred yet to accom- 

 plish before we could reach the sources of the St. Peter's. 

 There is a village of Sissiton Indians a little west of the 

 Warhajoo. Five miles from this last stream, the St. Peter's 

 winds, in a very curious manner, through rich alluvial bot- 

 toms, covered with sugar-maple trees : it goes round a tongue 

 of land, at one place, the distance of one mile and five- 

 sixths, which is only twenty yards across at the base. It is 



* The alluvial banks of the Mississippi at Gtuincy are in like manner filled 

 with these univalves; these deposites being the old beds of streams, like those be- 

 fore mentioned at Fort Gratiot. 



