218 PHYSICAL ASPECT 
The first variety includes those which belong to chains, and are the sources of 
all, or nearly all, the rivers of the territory. They are generally connected by 
small streams, often mere rivulets, possessing scarcely sufficient depth and breadth 
to permit the passage of light bark canoes; while, in other instances, they are 
formed by the expansion of the waters of larger streams, in basins, from one to two 
miles in diameter. Examples of this variety may be seen by referring to the head- 
waters of the Nemakagon, Red Cedar, Chippewa, Manidowish, Labiche, and Little 
Wisconsin, and various tributaries of the St. Croix, in Wisconsin; and to the 
sources of the Mississippi, Red River of the North, Crow Wing, Rum, Big Fork, and 
Mud Rivers, in Minnesota. 
Among these lakes may also be mentioned those which have no connexion, ex- 
cept in long rainy seasons, or in the spring of the year, during the melting of the 
snows, when they are connected by streams which flow along valleys, once, evi- 
dently, the beds of large water-courses, but now elevated above the general level of 
the lakes, and converted into meadows, cranberry marshes, or swamps. Between a 
great proportion of the now isolated lakes west of the Bois Brulé and St. Croix 
Rivers, from St. Louis River to the Falls of St. Anthony, old connexions of this 
kind may be traced; and most of the rich valleys of that portion of the District owe 
their soils to lacustrine deposits, made during the long period of elevation, during 
and while the beds of large rivers were first converted into chains of lakes, and 
subsequently drained, as the process of elevation continued. 
any of the largest lakes are situated on the broad summit-level of the great 
water-shed, and in many cases where examinations have been made, or reliable in- 
formation obtained, these lakes have been found tributary both to Lake Superior 
and the Mississippi. Connexions of this kind exist between the St. Croix and the 
Bois Brulé, at Upper St. Croix Lake, the west fork of Bad River and the Nema- 
kagon, at Long Lake; and, as I was assured by the Indians residing in the vicinity, 
such an interlockage occurs between a branch of Kettle River, and one of Lefthand 
River, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hornhanging Lake. I have also reason 
to believe, that such a connexion exists between the sources of Big Fork River, 
which sends its waters to Hudson’s Bay, and the head-waters of Ondodawanonan 
River, a tributary of Lake Winibigoshish, through which the Mississippi flows. 
These junctions are always formed in swamps, some of which are very extensive ; 
and although the amount of water afforded to both the northern and southern 
streams is sufficient to render them navigable for light canoes in the driest seasons, 
still in no instance has it been found practicable to conduct canoes, from one stream 
to the other, through the swamp in which the interlockage is made. 
I may also mention here, that, in 1838, I met at Fort Francis, on Rainy River, 
a Mr. Kane, who had just returned, across the continent, from Fort Vancouver on 
the Pacific, and was informed by him, that the same lake in the Rocky Mountains 
gives origin to the Athabasca River, the waters of which are carried to Hudson’s 
Bay, and also to a branch of the Columbia. If this be so, it shows the curious fact 
of a continuous line of water communication between the very distant points, across 
the continent, of Hudson’s Bay in the north, the Gulf of Mexico in the south, and 
