According to the report of Mr. Wm. McInnes, who explored in 1906 (See p. 23) the basins of Reed and Wekusko lakes and Grass river, there are areas of intrusive granite, some of which, below Reed lake, are of even texture and bright red colour and would furnish very beautiful stones for monumental work and ornamental building. Palæozoic limestones cover all the country between the Saskatchewan and an east and west line cutting the southern ends of Reed and Wekusko lakes. The rocks are, as far as examined, magnesian and are probably all dolomites. They occur in flat-lying or gently undulating beds, varying in thickness from six feet or more to quite thin and shaly, the latter occurring near the base and the heavy beds forming the mass of the formation. Many of the heavy beds are even-grained and uniformly bedded so that they can be readily taken out in blocks of even thickness and of any required size. Many of the low cliffs near the lakes are so situated as to be admirably adapted for quarrying. Quartz veins are plentiful throughout the Keewatin belts, but, with the exception of arsenical and iron pyrites and traces of copper (near File lake), no valuable minerals were found in them, though their character, particularly where exposed on Grassy river below Reed lake, was
for the occurrence of the minerals that are so often associated with these rocks. The prevailing rocks exposed along Nelson river are biotite gneisses. Only at two places on the shores are other rocks seen, at Pipestone lake and on the southern shores of Cross lake, where a belt of Keewatin rocks crosses, and for some miles follows the river valley. The exposures at Cross lake are promising looking for the occurrence of gold, resembling closely, as they do, the gold bearing strata of the district east of Lake of the Woods. They are cut by intruded masses of the same crushed granite with blue opalescent quartz, known locally in the eastern region as _Protogene_.
Mr. William McInnes, in his evidence before the Senate committee of 1907, stated that in the region just west of Hudson bay there are only two or three belts of what is known as the Keewatin rocks. These are the rocks which in western Ontario hold gold. The witness found no minerals in commercial quantities. He found traces of copper on File lake. At Cross lake there is an area of these Keewatin rocks cut by intrusive granite of the same character as the protogene of western Ontario, which are almost always gold-bearing, but nothing has been found there. The limestones would make excellent building material. There are some intrusive granites on Grassy river which are of fine texture and beautiful red colour, which would make very fine monumental stone trimmings for buildings, etc., and would quarry very well. That would be along the projected line of the railway.