SASKATCHEWAN AND EED RIVER BASINS. 205 



feet above the sea, aud thence descending toward Lake Superior the old 

 channel contains Dog Lake, having a height of about 1,026 feet, and Mat- 

 tagaming or Mattawag'aming Lake, which, according to the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway survey, is 1,025 feet above sea-level. 



When the Kenogami, Missinaibi, and other glacial lakes of the James 

 Bay region became merged in one of great extent, rivaling Lake Agassiz, 

 the outlet of this confluent lake probably crossed the low watershed south 

 of the eastern end of Lake Abittibi, passing- to Lac des Quinze and the 

 Ottawa River. The elevation of Lake Abittibi, according to observations 

 of the Canadian Geological Survey, is about 857 feet above the sea, and 

 the portage over the watershed rises only about 100 feet higher. Its pres- 

 ent altitude is thus nearly a hundred feet less than that of the Kenogami 

 and Missinaibi t)utlets, and it is probable that when the land was first 

 uncovered from the ice-sheet the Abittibi outlet was relatively lower than 

 the others by a much greater difference, and that with reference to the sea- 

 level it was much less elevated than now. 



Basins of the Saskatclieivan and the Red River of the North. — During the 

 recession of the ice-sheet from Alberta small glacial lakes doubtless existed 

 in the basins of the Bow and Belly rivers, outflowing from the former suc- 

 cessively by the Little Bow River and the Snake Valley, and from the 

 latter successively by the Verdigris, Etsi-kom, and Chin couldes, which 

 Dr. Dawson describes as remarkable abandoned river courses now carrying 

 little or no water. The glacial th-ainage from the present sources of the 

 South Saskatchewan, and probably also of the North Saskatchewan and 

 Athabasca, was thus carried southeastward, in parallelism both with the 

 main Rocky Mountain range and with the retiring ice border, to the Jlilk 

 River, west and south of the Cypress Hills. The whole area of Alberta, 

 partly land sloping northeastward and partly ice sloping southwejstward, 

 with glacial lakes here and there along the ice margin, seems then to have 

 been tributary to the ^lissouri and the Grulf of Mexico.' 



From Lake Pakowki, through which this glacial drainage for a long 

 time flowed southward to the Milk River, the ice frtmt must have been 



' G. M. Dawsou, Report on the Geology aud Resources of the Regiou iu the vicinity of the Forty- 

 ninth Parallel, 1875; Geol. Survey of Canada, Report of Progress for 1882-83-84, Part C. Compare 

 Willi Mr. J. B. Tyrrell's paper iu Bulletin G. S. A., Vol. I, pp. 401, 403. 



