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chains wide between banks and has a very swift current, the actual volume of water
being about 2 chains wide and 1 to 2 feet deep. This stream, as well as the main
branch, teem with trout, being principally char, rainbow, and grayling.

The land surveyed between the Halfway River and the South Fork is a tract
which lies mostly on a leyel bench between the two streams and contains some
excellent land, the strip along the South Fork being mostly all open meadow land,
with scattered clumps of small willow and poplar. This land has nearly all been
burnt over, resulting in a second growth of small willow and poplar, with here and
there trees that have escaped.. There is an excellent growth of peavine and grass
throughout. The soil is mostly black loam with clay subsoil.

Near the junction of the South Fork of Halfway River and the main stream
sixty sections were surveyed.

HIGH-LEVEL PLATEAUX EAST OF HUDSON HOPE.

Hudson Hope may be taken as marking the eastern boundary of the foot-hills.
To the east the country spreads out into high-level bench prairie lands, having a
general height of from 2,200 to 2,400 feet above sea-level. The Peace River has cut
into this to a depth of about 800 to 1,000 feet, while the smaller tributaries have
cut to a correspondingly less degree. Almost everywhere the surface for a depth
varying from 1 to 5 feet is composed of a fine, dark, loamy soil, resting on a bluish
clay, underneath which, as seen in the cut-banks along the river, lie clay-shales, with
beds of semi-coherent sandstone, all belonging to the Cretaceous period. Interbedded
with these measures there are, probably, occasionally beds of lignite, and possibly of
true coal. Float from these seams is found in various creeks.

THE WIDE PEACE RIVER.

Below Hudson Hope the Peace River has a width of from a quarter to half a
mile, and, although flowing at the average velocity of from five to six miles an hour,
contains no rapids, as its bed is composed of gravel and small, round, water-worn
stones, producing innumerable bars and shoals, with numerous islands, nearly every
one bearing evidence of having been originally a gravel-bar, on which, at the upper
end, a log-jam had formed, producing a breakwater behind which the sand and silt
had collected, forming a foothold for the vegetation of forest trees which now grow
so luxuriantly. In back channels and eddies sand and silt bars have collected, and
these, particularly nearer the canyon, show colours of fine gold. Attempts have been
made to wash these bars with cradles and sluices, but, while some quantity of gold
has been recovered, the bars are not rich enough to pay for this class of mining.
The results attained indicate the possibility that they can be successfully worked by
dredging when transportation facilities permit of heavy machinery being taken in.
At highest water the river is too swift, and at low water too shallow, for steamboat
navigation, but for a period during midsummer the Hudson’s Bay Company operates
a large and well-equipped river-steamer from Vermilion to Peace River Crossing, at
the junction of the Smoky River, a distance of some 800 miles, with occasional trips
to Fort St. John and to Hudson Hope, a distance of about 250 miles from Peace
River Crossing; and another trading company has a vessel making occasional trips,
thus providing transportation for over 550 miles on the river, about 50 per cent.
greater distance than that provided by the St. Lawrence from the Great Lakes to
Quebee. The steamers on the Peace River run only on an approximately schedule,
as the bulk of the business originates with the owners—chiefly the Hudson’s Bay
Company. Their chief object is to make three round trips from Vermilion to Fort
St. John and one to Hudson Hope with supplies, returning with the furs secured
from the Indians in trade. According to the Geological Survey, the fall in the river
between Hudson Hope and Vermilion is 572 feet, or about 1 foot to the mile. The
ice starts to run in the river about the end of October, and it usually closes about
the beginning of December, starting to break up about the beginning of May and
being free by the middle of that month. Owing to the current the ice drifts for
some time before finally jamming and closing the river.

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