118 Kansas Academy of Science. 



same level as that river, and is separated from it in many places 

 only by the low ridge previously mentioned. At Everson the 

 Nooksack runs on one side of the depot, and the drainage of the 

 other side is through the Sumas to the Fraser. In fact, it would 

 not take 100 men one day with team and scraper to so change the 

 channel of the Nooksack, at any one of several places, during high- 

 water times, that a great part of its water would ultimately reach 

 Georgian Bay through the Fraser. And the same is true of the latter 

 stream during flood periods. It would back its water up through 

 the Sumas into the Nooksack. In 1894 it flooded the Sumas 

 prairie so that boatmen rowed to the suburbs of Sumas City in the 

 slack water. When visited in June last it was backing water over 

 the prairie within two miles of that city, and the Sumas river was 

 at a stand-still at Everson There seems to be every reason to be- 

 lieve that should these two streams — Nooksack and Fraser — get 

 on a "rampage" at the same time they would flood the entire flat 

 country between them, 



DID THE NOOKSACK RIVER EVER FLOW THROUGH THE SUMAS 

 VALLEY TO THE FRASER ? 



To this question a negative ansvver can assuredly be given. Had 

 it ever flowed there it would still do so, because, with the low di- 

 vide removed, as it would then have been, the fall is decidedly 

 northward. 



POSSIBLE CAPTURE OF THE NOOKSACK RIVER BY THE FRASER. 



The Fraser, on account of its volume and fall in its upper part, 

 is eroding its channel faster than the Nooksack, and has already 

 captured several streams in the valley of the latter. As we have 

 seen. Lake Judson, just north of the low dividing ridge, drains into 

 it, as does also the Sumas river, a river which rises in the very 

 gorge through which the Nooksack descends from the mountains, and 

 which flows almost parallel with it and at about the same level for 

 miles. Furthermore, a very high flood, now that the timber is 

 mostly removed, may at any time cause the Nooksack river to cut 

 through the low divide and turn the greater part of its water into 

 the Fraser through the Sumas river and lake. Such a catastrophe 

 is expected by the settlers at every flood period. ^^ 



12. The removal of a few feet of the divide west of Lynden would turn a portion of the Nook- 

 sack river into Semiahmoo bay through the Dakota creek. 



