HAMILTON SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 27 



Here is a river that masquerades under several names like the St. 

 Lawrence, and is much over two thousand miles long. 



I was one of the two men who discovered one of the main 

 branches of the Athabasca, so perhaps I should be an authority on 

 it. It starts in the mountains much as the Saskatchewan does. It 

 changes greatly with the season. The volume of water is large. In 

 spring, it is a raging torrent, but about the early part of July it be- 

 gins to fall again and can be forded. 



The Mackenzie has one peculiarity : it flows due north. It is 

 one of the worst rivers for flooding its banks in the country, be- 

 cause the snow and ice begin to melt in the south, while the lower 

 part of the river is still frozen and blocked with snow and ice. 

 When it comes near its mouth it really loses its way. Near the 

 mouth it is three or four miles wide, and, as I said before, is the 

 greatest and longest river in Canada, nearly eleven hundred miles 

 long. 



The rivers so far all have their beginning in the Rockies. 

 When travelling westward you have perhaps noticed, when you got 

 to the peak of the Rockies, a sign, "The Great Divide." Below 

 that sign there used to be a trough. Years ago a stream flowed 

 through this trough and actually divided, one part flowing down 

 one side of the mountain, the other flowing down the other side. 

 It is the greatest divide in the world. Its summit, a sharp peak, 

 brings to one's mind in a very striking way the division of the 

 waters. Take, for example, a snowstorm falling on this peak. Its 

 flakes, when melted, might run thousands of miles apart. 



When the Hudson Bay Company were masters in that region, 

 there was one point where the men from the east used to meet the 

 men from the west. Now that parting point in the headwaters of 

 the Athabasca is still called "The Connnittee's Punch Bowl." 

 The reason was this. They were nearly all Scotchmen^ and as 

 water, of course, is dangerous to drink, a punch bowl was necessar3^ 

 This Punch Bowl is not much larger than this building, and into it 

 comes dropping the melted snow from all sides. You will notice a 

 little stream flowing out of it, and if you go to the other end of the 

 pool you find another stream flowing in the opposite direction. 



