HILL AT BEAR LAKE RIVER.

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The Mackenzie traverses the basin in which the tertiary coal is deposited very obliquely, and the Great Bear Lake River cuts. it more directly across.

The hill on the north side of the last named river rises about six or seven hundred feet above the water, every where steeply, and in some places precipitously. It is, as has been stated, part of one of the spurs of the Rocky Mountains, a gap in which furnishes a channel for the passage of the Mackenzie. Its base, measured directly across, is about three-quarters of a mile. The Great Bear River flows between its south flank and the tertiary coal beds described above; but on its north flank horizontal beds of limestone and bituminous shale appear again. The strata of the hill itself are highly inclined upward on both its flanks toward its axis, and some are vertical. I did not procure organic remains from any of the upheaved beds forming these ridges or spurs, whereby their age might be determined, but they are evidently branch of the Saskatchewan, and latitude 56° N., longitude 116° W. (Edgecoal Creek) in the Peace River, as places where coal beds are exposed. Mr. Drummond procured me specimens of coal with its associated rocks at Edmonton (latitude 53° 45′ N., longitude 113° 20′ W.) on the north branch of the Saskatchewan, and, consequently, between the places mentioned by Sir Alexander Mackenzie. According to Mr. Drummond the coal was in beds varying in thickness from six inches to two feet, and interstratified with clay and sandstone. The examples he selected were precisely similar to the slaty and conchoidal varieties which are found at the mouth of Great Bear River, and the resemblance between the sandstone of the two localities is equally close. He also found a black tertiary pitch coal which breaks into small conchoidal and cubical fragments, which Mr. Small, a clerk of the Hudson's Bay Company, who gave me the first information of these beds, likened well to Spanish liquorice. At Edmonton the more slaty coal-beds pass gradually into a thin, slaty, friable sandstone, which is much impregnated with carbonaceous matter, and contains fragments of fibrous lignite. Hand specimens of this can not be distinguished from others gathered from the shale cliffs on the Athabasca River. Highly bituminized shale, considerably indurated, exists in the vicinity of the coal at Edmonton, and clay-ironstones occur in the clay beds.

Chief Factor Alexander Stewart told me that beds of coal are on fire on the Smoking River, which is a southern affluent of the Peace River, and crosses the 56th parallel of latitude, and also that others exist on the borders of Lesser Slave Lake, that lies between Smoking River and Edmonton. There are coal beds on fire, also, at the present time near Dunvegan on the main stream of the Peace River. All these places are near the base of the Rocky Mountains, or the spurs issuing from that chain, and their altitude above the sea varies from 1800 to 2000 feet and upward. The beds at Great Bear River are probably not above 250 feet above the sea level.

F

older than the limestone and shale formation which abuts against them or covers their edges, and are, very probably, judging from the scarcity of fossils, of the protozoic epoch.

... AT THE RAPID ON BEAR LAKE RIVER.

The Hill at the Rapid, twenty-four miles higher up Bear Lake River, is very similar to the one just noticed, and its beds have the same anticlinal arrangement. It is, as has been already stated, a member of the same spur with Clark's Hill, and from its summit the ridge may be seen extending through a comparatively level country toward the west end of Smith's Bay in Great Bear Lake. The floor of the valley lying between it and the spur at the mouth of the river is well wooded, but is much intersected by lakes, marshes, and considerable streams, some of which fall into the Mackenzie, and others into Bear Lake River. Immediately to the westward of the Hill at the Rapid, but separated from it by a rivulet, there are horizontal beds of friable sandstone, and beyond them a thick deposit of bituminous shale, which extends northward into the high promontory of the Scented Grass Hill, that divides Smith's Bay from Keith's Bay in Great Bear Lake. The excavation of the body of the lake terminates the shale formation in this direction, but more to the westward it can be traced onward to the Arctic Sea.*

*Various detailed accounts of some of the tertiary coal beds, and of the elevated spurs which cross Bear Lake River, are contained in the Geo

The dog

As has been already said, the general aspect of the forest does not alter in the descent of the Mackenzie. The white spruce continues to be the chief tree. In this quarter it attains a girth of four or five feet, and a height of about sixty in a growth of from two to three hundred years, as shown by the annual layers of wood. One tree, cut down in a sheltered valley near Clark's Hill, measured the unusual length of one hundred and twentytwo feet, but was comparatively slender. Most of the timber is twisted, particularly where the trees grow in exposed situations. The Banksian pine was not traced to the north of Great Bear Lake River; but the black spruce, in a stunted form, is found on the borders of swamps as far as the woods extend. wood, silvery oleaster (Eleagnus argentea), Shepherdia, and Amelanchier grow on banks that in Europe would be covered with gorse and broom, and the southern Salix candida is replaced by the more luxuriant and much handsomer Salix speciosa, which is the prince of the willow family. The Hedysarum Mackenzii and boreale flower freely among the boulders that cover the clayey beaches; while the showy yellow flowers and handsome foliage of the Dryas Drummondii cover the limestone debris, which give shelter also to the Androsace Chamajasmi. In the heart of the spruce-fir forests, the curious and beautiful Calypso borealis lurks, along with some very fine, large, oneflowered, ladies' slippers (Cypripedia). There is, in fact, notwithstanding the near neighborhood of the Arctic circle, no want of flowering plants to engage the attention of a student of nature; logical Appendix to Franklin's Second Overland Journey; and the maps on a large scale, given in that work, may be consulted with advantage by any one who wishes to become well acquainted with the topography of the country, or to trace the course of the ridges here described in the text.

The limestone which forms the body of the hill at the mouth of Great Bear Lake River is blackish-gray, full of sparry veins, or brownish-gray and bituminous, associated with calcareous breccia. On the northern flank of the hill, abutting against the vertical beds, there are layers of bituminous shale, some of which effervesce with acids, while others approach in hardness to flinty slate. Underlying the shale, horizontal beds of limestone are exposed for some miles along the Mackenzie, and from them there issue springs of saline sulphureous waters and mineral pitch.

The horizontal sandstone beds, above the Hill at the Rapid, of the same river, contain fossils, some of which were considered by Mr. Sowerby to belong to the same age with the English oolitic limestones; but they require re-examination, and then we may learn whether the very extensive bituminous formation belongs to the Marcellus shale or to the lias beds.

and many of the feathered inhabitants of the district recall to the traveler or resident fur-trader pictures of southern domestic abodes. The cheerful and familiar Sylvia æstiva is one of the earliest arrivals in spring, coming in company with the wellknown American robin (Turdus migratorius) and the purple and rusty grakles. A little later, the varied thrush makes its appearance from the shores of the Pacific. The white-bellied swallow (Hirundo bicolor) breeds, at Fort Norman, in holes of rotten trees; and the Sialia arctica, a representative of the bluebird so common in the United States, enlivens the banks of the Mackenzie, coming, however, not from the Atlantic coasts, but from the opposite side of the Rocky Mountain range. On the Mackenzie, there is an intermingling of the floras of both coasts, as well as of the migratory feathered tribes, the Rocky Mountain range not proving a barrier to either.

One of the birds which we traced up to its breeding-places on Bear Lake River, but not to the sea-coast, is the pretty little Bonapartean gull (Xema Bonapartii). This species arrives very early in the season, before the ground is denuded of snow, and seeks its food in the first pools of water which form on the borders of Great Bear Lake, and wherein it finds multitudes of minute crustacean animals and larvæ of insects. It flies in flocks, and builds its nests in a colony resembling a rookery, seven or eight on a tree; the nests being framed of sticks, laid flatly. Its voice and mode of flying are like those of a tern; and, like that bird, it rushes fiercely at the head of any one who intrudes on its haunts, screaming loudly. It has, moreover, the strange practice, considering the form of its feet, of perching on posts and trees; and it may be often seen standing gracefully on a summit of a small spruce fir.

The insectivorous habits of this bird, and its gentle, familiar manners, contrast strongly with the predaceous pursuits and voraciousness of the short-billed gull (Larus brachyrhynchus of the Fauna Boreali-Americana). If a goose was wounded by our sportsmen, these powerful gulls directly assailed it, and soon totally devoured it, with the exception of the larger bones. In the spring of 1849, when Mr. Bell and I were encamped at the head of Bear Lake River, waiting for the disruption of the ice, the gulls robbed us of many geese, leaving nothing but well-picked skeletons. Mr. Bell who was the chief sportsman on this occa

sion, and spent the day in traversing the half-thawed marshes in quest of game, hung the birds, as he shot them, to the branch of a tree, or deposited them on a rock; but, on collecting the produce of his chase in the evening, he found that the gulls had left him little besides the bones to carry. If by chance a goose, when shot, fell into the river, a gull speedily took his stand on the carcase, and proceed to tear out the entrails, and devour the flesh, as he floated with it down the current. Even the raven kept aloof, when a gull had taken possession of a bird.

The harlequin duck (Clangula histrionica) also frequents Bear Lake River; but is comparatively rare in other districts, and is not easy of approach. It congregates in small flocks, which, lighting at the head of a rapid, suffer themselves to glide down with the stream, fishing in the eddies as they go. A sportsman, by secreting himself among the bushes on the strand, conveniently near to an eddy, may, if he has patience to wait, be sure of obtaining a shot. In this way I procured specimens. The osprey and white-headed eagle both build their nests on the banks of Bear Lake River, and the golden-winged woodpecker migrates thus far north, and perhaps further, though it did not come under our observation in a higher latitude.

A small frog (Bufo americanus) is common in every pond, and Mr. Bell informed me that he had seen it on Peel River, which is the most northern locality I can name for any American reptile.* A frog resembling it, but perhaps of a different species, abounds on the Saskatchewan, and its cry of love in early spring so much resembles the quack of a duck, that while yet a novice in the sounds of the country, it led me more than once to beat round a small lake in quest of ducks that I thought were marvelously well concealed among the grass.

On Bear Lake River, the frogs make the marshes vocal about the beginning of June. Throughout Rupert's Land, they come abroad immediately after the snow has melted. In the swampy district between Lake Superior and Rainy Lake, they are particularly noisy. While we were descending the Savannah River on the 20th of May, we were exposed to the incessant noise of one called by the voyagers le crapaud,t whose cry has an evident *See note, p. 126.

†This is probably the Bufo americanus, also. Mr. Gray of the British Museum, who examined my specimens, found old and young examples of