134 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. 



[Lakes and rivers. 



the river is navigated by steamboats as far south as Moorhead. When the 

 river is high its waters are connected with those of the Mississippi through 

 the valley of lakes Traverse and Big Stone, and boats can pass from the 

 Mississippi to lake Winnipeg in Canada, without unlading.* Indeed there 

 is every evidence of the former existence of a river passing through this 

 valley and draining the waters of the Red river of the North, and lake 

 Winnipeg, by way of the Minnesota to the Mississippi. The flat portion 

 of this drainage area is generally one of prairie, but it extends in its north- 

 ern part far to the east, embracing Red lake and its tributaries, and 

 includes a large area that is timbered, the prairie-belt at St. Vincent being 

 not more than fifteen miles wide, east of the river. 



The Rainy river drainage system has an approximate area, in Minne- 

 sota, of 10,330 square miles. It extends along the international boundary 

 from the water-divide between North and South lakes to the "north-west 

 point" of the lake of the Woods. Its waters are derived from the lakes of 

 the "region of bare rock," as far as to the west end of Rainy lake. To 

 the west of that there are several tributaries from the south which rise in 

 the northern sweep of the belt of morainic hills, and in the flat marshy 

 tract south of Rainy river, which flow entirely upon the surface of the 



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drift-sheet, and very rarely come in contact with the underlying rock. Its 

 area in the state is smaller than that of the Red river of the North, but the 

 annual discharge of water is apparently about double that from the Red 

 river valley. It receives waters from land more than two thousand feet above 

 the ocean, and where it leaves the state it has an altitude, in the lake of 

 the Woods, of 1025 feet.f This area also wa? formerly drained wholly or in 

 part, by the Mississippi. There is a continuous river valley between the 

 southern end of Bow String lake and lake Winnibigoshish, in which in 

 time of freshet there is a continuous water-course from the Mississippi to 

 Hudson's bay. In the same manner, but among the rocks of the north- 

 eastern part of the state, the North and South lakes, which are tributary, 

 respectively, to the Rainy river system and the St. Lawrence system, on 



*This was attempted in 1869 by Capt. John B. Davis, with a small, flat^bottomed, square-bowed boat, named the 

 Freighter, owned and run by himself; but he was compelled to abandon his boat about ten miles below Bi^ Stone lake, on 

 account of the subsidence of the water and the desertion of his crew. The boat was pillaged and nearly destroyed by the 

 Indians, but the timbers of its bottom were still visible in 1879. Capt. Davis stated that if he had started twenty or 

 thirty days sooner, he would have got through with little trouble. 



fThe elevation of the lake of the Woods here given is that determined by the the U. S. northern boundary com- 

 mission, Maj. W. J. Twining, chief astronomer, based on Fort Pembina at 760 ft., all determined by a series of barometric 

 observation:*. Daily means for one year were reduced with this result. The geological report of C;ui;ula for 1874 gives 

 the elevation of the lake of the Woods, by the Canada Pacific R. It. survey, at 1042, which is the same ligure as that of 

 the astronomical station of the northern boundary commission at the "northwest angle." 



