Quoting from a report he had prepared in 1879-80, on the extent of arable and pastoral lands in the region of Peace and Athabaska rivers, Doctor Dawson showed that Peace river basin comprised an area of about thirty-one thousand five hundred and fifty square miles. Its average elevation may be stated as a little over two thousand feet, and this is maintained with considerable uniformity, for though the general surface slopes slightly from the north and south towards Peace river, the region as a whole may be considered as a plateau, through which the great gorge-like valley of the Peace has been excavated. This valley has in general a depth of six hundred to eight hundred feet below that part of the plateau bordering it, with a width of two or three miles from rim to rim. Its tributary streams, at first nearly on the plateau level, flow in valleys of continually increasing depth as they approach that of Peace river. Those from the southeastern portion of the region rise either in Rocky mountains or near the Athabaska, the tributaries received by the latter stream, in this part of its course, from the north and northwest being—with the exception of the Baptiste—quite inconsiderable. The ridges and hills by which this region is occasionally diversified, appear in all cases to be composed either of the generally soft rocks of the cretaceous, or of arenaceous clays containing erratics and representing the boulder clays of the glacial period. These elevations are generally slight, and with exceedingly slight, and gradual slopes, the scarped banks of the streams constituting much more important irregularities. These ridges, however, often resemble detached portions of a higher plateau, and spread widely enough to occupy in the aggregate a considerable area, of which the soil is not so uniform in character as elsewhere. With these exceptions, the soil of the district may be described as a fine silt, resembling the WHITE SILTS OF THE NECHACCO BASIN, and not dissimilar from the loess-like material constituting the subsoil of Red river valley in Manitoba. This silt at a short distance below the surface, is greyish or brownish in colour, but becomes mixed superficially with a proportion of vegetable matter to a varying depth. It has evidently been deposited by a comparatively tranquil body of water not loaded with ice, probably toward the close of the glacial period, and has either never been laid down on the ridges and undulations above referred to, or has been since removed from them by processes of waste. As evidenced by the natural vegetation its fertility is great.