Mr. McInnes, examined before the select committee of the Senate in 1907, declared that the whole region from Split lake to a line about forty miles north of the Saskatchewan is a clay-covered country. After leaving Split lake, ascending the river, this clay-covered country shows absolutely no boulders and no gravel. Even the shores of the lakes, until you reach a height of about eight hundred feet, show no gravel bars at all. There is absolutely nothing to interfere with the cultivation of the soil there. It is a country that has been burnt over. The witness assumed that Burntwood river got its name that way. It has been subject to repeated burns. At the present time it is covered by a very open forest. Grasses grow fairly luxuriantly. There are two species of this, blue joint grass and a wild rye, that are the prevailing grasses. He understood from Professor Macoun, though he was not very familiar with the grasses himself, that these are very excellent meadow grasses, and make excellent fodder. Mr. McInnes left Norway House in the second week of June, and made the circuit and came out at The Pas on September 6, so it was in June, July and August he was there. He saw grass growing from eighteen inches to two feet high. The witness computed the area of this country at about ten thousand square miles. He did not mean to say, he explained, that all of that ten thousand square miles is good land, but the basin characterized by this deposit of clay has an area of about ten thousand square miles. It is bounded on the north by Churchill river. The witness was at about the centre of the basin. The Indians told him it extended north to the basin of Churchill river. Beyond that, northwards, mud and gravel took the place of clay. Starting at The Pas and proceeding towards Churchill, the witness first passed through about one hundred and forty miles of country underlaid by the flat limestone of northern Manitoba. He walked for miles over HILLS OF ALMOST BARE LIMESTONE with hardly any soil. Beyond that—that is, about the contour he had spoken of where this clay was deposited, there is about one hundred and seventy miles to Split lake (Split lake is about two hundred and fifty miles from The Pas), possibly in a straight line about as the railway is projected, that is characterized by these clay deposits.