202 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. vii. 



shaped hollows, or forming chains of lakes in broad, flat, valley- 

 like depressions, often extending many miles, but closed in on all 

 sides by rounded, drift-covered hills with grassy slopes. When: 

 occurring in this manner, the lowest lake in the valley receives 

 the drainage of the others, and I observed in all such cases, that 

 while the water of the uppermost lake would be either quite- 

 fresh or only very slightly saline, that in the lowest lake of the 

 chain would be intensel}'- salt and bitter. This peculiarity may 

 also often be observed as regards isolated lakes near each other- 

 situated at different altitudes, and the traveller seeking good water 

 should always look for it in those pools or lakes which occupy the 

 most elevated positions, because the water in them is supplied by 

 rain and snow alone, and not by drainage and percolation from 

 higher levels. All the old voyageurs and traders in the country 

 state that good water was formerly much more plentiful on the 

 prairies than it is now, and in the course of our journey numbers 

 of places were pointed out to me as the sites of pools or lakes^ 

 formerly holding fresh water at all seasons, which are now only 

 irregular shaped, flat-bottomed, dry depressions, clothed with a 

 growth of long, coarse grass, and surrounded with a fringe of low 

 willow bushes or banks of sand and gravel. This drying up of 

 the country has been ascribed to various causes, but is generally 

 supposed to be connected with the gradual destruction of the 

 forests over large areas by fires. Whatever the effects may be of 

 these destructive conflagrations in reference to the water supply 

 of the region, there is no doubt that at different times almost 

 every square mile of the country between Red River and the 

 Rocky Mountains has been subjected to them, and that hundreds 

 of miles of forest have thus been conveitei into wide and almost 

 treeless expanses of prairie. And there is little room for doubt- 

 ing that the tendency of this would be to gradually diminish the 

 rain fall. 



The second and third prairie steppes, from Fort Ellice to Rocky 

 Mountain House, may be said to be absolutely denuded of good 

 timber. Between the Assiniboine and the Eno;lish River, 120' 

 miles west of Carlton, or for a total distance of 400 miles, neither- 

 oak, ash, elm, birch, spruce or pine trees were seen, and even the 

 poplars are of small size, and suited for little else than firewood. 

 Around the Little Touchwood Hills Fort, there is a small ex- 

 tent of forest, in which the largest poplar trees attain a diameter 

 of two feet, and in the same district there are also some fair- 



