HAMILTON SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 25 



current near its mouth. The current here flows up or down accord- 

 ing as the tide is high or low. We have a great many rivers in 

 lyabrador that we never hear about. There is a whole set that flow 

 into Georgian Bay. There is also a great set of rivers which cross 

 into the great plains and flow out in all directions. Astonishing 

 as it may sound, there are some of our rivers which flow into the 

 Gulf of Mexico itself. A little consideration will make this clear. 

 These rivers are tributaries of the Missouri and the Missouri is in 

 turn a tributary of the Mississippi, which, as yon of course know, 

 empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Thus all people receive the 

 waters from our rivers. 



Of the rivers that flow into Hudson Bay one is of great import- 

 ance and interest. These rivers have not many falls and impedi- 

 ments in their course, but have a great many " flat rapids" as the 

 canoe-men call them. They are shallow but have a great many 

 stones in the bottom. It takes double the time to go up one that 

 it does to come down. The Grand Trunk Paciflc will cross these 

 great rivers. The river I referred to is a huge one that we hear 

 very little about, the Nelson. There is another river in the west 

 of Ontario, E.ainy River, that I had always thought of as a rather 

 wild and unexplored region. It was a surprise to me to find that 

 it was quite well settled and that here you could travel nearly 250 

 miles by steamer. The Government was once going to build a lock 

 on this river, but the project fell through. 



Then there are two other rivers of great importance. Those 

 are the Red River, which starts in Dakota and Minnesota and flows 

 into Lake Winnipeg, and largest of all the Saskatchewan. Eighteen 

 or nineteen 3'ears ago I visited the headwaters of the Saskatchewan. 

 The snows of the rockies all pour into that stream. 



Perhaps I should tell you something further about these west- 

 ern rivers. There was a time when the Red River was the only 

 way of getting into Manitoba. You had to cross over into the 

 United States and take a steamboat from there. It is the character- 

 istic river you get in flat places. Flowing through the mud, silt 

 and sand, the river gets very crooked, winding and doubling upon 

 itself. 



