Between the walls of the rapid and the limestone ridge there is a piece of meadow-ground, having a soft, clayey soil, in which, near the base of the hill, a small rivulet flows to join the river. The bed of this rivulet presents accumulations of boulders of large size, arranged so as to form two terraces, the upper of which is considerably above the highest level either of the rivulet, or of Bear Lake River. The boulders consist of varieties of granite, gneiss, mica-slate with garnets, greenstone and porphyry. [Sidenote: 50] One of the porphyries is a beautiful stone, composed of hyacinth-red felspar, and irregular crystals of milky quartz, with a few specks of a dark green mineral, and very much resembles a rock which is not uncommon in the gneiss districts about Fort Enterprize. [Sidenotes: 45, 47, 50, 51, 49] Many of the boulders consist of conglomerates and sandstones that strongly resemble those of the old red sandstone formation, which forms the height of land between Dease Bay and Coppermine rivers. Also some flinty slates, mixed, in thin layers, with compact, yellowish limestone, and some pebbles of jasper interleaved with flinty slate.
The limestone ridge below the rapid stands on a narrow base, whose transverse diameter does not exceed a quarter of a mile. Its summits are generally conical, but very rugged and craggy; the highest peak I had an opportunity of visiting is about a mile from Bear Lake River, and it has been already stated to be estimated at eight hundred feet above that stream, or nine hundred and fifty above the sea. The general direction of the ridge is from S.E. by S. to N.W. by N., or nearly parallel to the great Rocky Mountain chain, and to the smaller ridges betwixt it and that chain. Its prolongation through the flat surrounding strata, to the southward of Bear Lake River, can be traced for at least forty miles, and it is visible at nearly an equal distance, as it runs through the still more level country to the northward; but here, as has been already said, it appears to incline towards the similar ridge which is cut by the Mackenzie, at the mouth of the Bear Lake River, and is about twenty-five miles to the W.S.W., in a direct line. That part of the ridge which I had an opportunity of visiting, consisted entirely of limestone, generally in thick beds. Its stratification was not very evident, and in my very cursory examination the general dip was not clearly ascertained. A precipitous cliff, four hundred feet high, facing the S.E., and washed by the Bear Lake River, presents strata, inclined to the S.W. at an angle of 45 degrees, which may be perhaps considered as the general dip; for the ridge on that side slopes down to the surrounding country at an angle of about 30 degrees or 40 degrees, while on the N.E. side it presents lofty precipices formed by the cropping out of the strata. [Sidenote: 39, 34] Many of the beds in this hill consisted of a blackish-gray fine grained limestone, intersected by veins of calc-spar; [Sidenotes: 40; 35, 36; 42, 43, 44] but several layers of gray and dark coloured dolomites, and some of a yellowish-gray _rauchwacke_, were interstratified with them, and the upper parts of the precipitous cliff, [Sidenote: 35, 36] and also of the highest peak, consisted of a calcareous breccia, containing rounded pieces of brown limestone, and angular fragments of chert; and the faces of some cliffs, on the N.E. side of the hill, were incrusted with a fine crystalline gypsum to the depth of from one to two feet.[26]