Then the beaver and muskrat swam up to investigate this new intruder, while from the tree-tops came the constant query, "Who! Who!" For seventy miles the country is thickly wooded with pine and poplar, the stately spruce trees silhouetted against the sky adding a charm to the ever changing scene.

Nature has also been kind to the treeless regions beyond, for underneath the fertile prairie, veins of good lignite coal of varying thickness are successively cut by the river.
In many places these are worked in the river banks during winter.

One vein of excellent quality is eighteen feet thick, although usually they are much thinner.

The government right has been taken to mine most of this coal outcropping along the river.
[Illustration: Fig.

48 .-- Locality of Ankylosaurus skull in Edmonton formation in Red Deer River.