Vegetation.

Tai-uk stream.

Terraces.

22 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA.

misia frigida.) There is little arable land in the valley, but a considerable
area fitted for stock ranges. On the 5th of June the young grass was
showing well above’ the dead tops of the old, while small patches which
had been burnt over were vivid green. An Indian who is in the habit
of wintering a few horses here, cuts a stack of hay for their use in the
autumn, and does not trouble himself further about them till the spring.

Where sandy beaches occur, the scrub. pine invariably forms groves,
in which many of tbe trees were here observed to be dead and dying
from the effect of the parasitic Arcuthobium, which hangs upon them in
masses. The river is generally fringed with dark groves of tall sym-
metrical black spruces (Abies Hnglemannt), while small poplars character-
ize the slopes. This valley may be taken as a type of many which
intersect the northern part of the interior plateau, of which most are
probably yet unknown, but which must in the aggregate represent a
great area capable of feeding cattle and horses. On ascending to the
higher plateaus or low hills bordering the valley, the surface is found
to be composed of the boulder clay, generally stony, and either covered
with thick forests of the scrub pine, with windfall, or the young growth
succeeding fires. Where the timber has been pretty thoroughly burnt
over, by the passage of a fire, killing the original forest, followed by the
uprooting of the dead trees by wind, and then by one or more
subsequent fires among the prostrate timber, fair grazing is frequently
found, and in many places grass, with pea, vetch and other nutritious
plants come up in great abundance.

Following the Tai-uk stream for eight miles, its source is found in
Choo-tan-li Lake, at an elevation of 3,600 feet. The valley of the stream
is narrow, and slopes upward more rapidly than the general surface of
the country gains in elevation, so that on reaching the lake one appears
to be at about the level of the plateau. The Kuy-a-Kuz Mountains,
rising to the west, showed large patches of snow on their summits at
this date (June 7th).

It is on the north-western continuation of this range that Fawnie or
Toot-i-ai Mountain is developed.

Terraces are well displayed in the Eu-chen-i-ko Valley, at heights
estimated near Tas-un-tlat Lake at forty, 100, and 250 feet above the
stream. The highest of these would have an elevation of about 3,280
feet above the sea. Near the Tai-uk stream terraces 3,400 to 3,500 feet
above the sea are found.

In travelling from Choo-tan-li Lake southward to the Blackwater

River, a part of the very obscure and almost disused Indian trail, from