THE NORTHERN PACIFIC ROUTE. Si 
its resorts. Just west of the town the Northern Pacific is crossed 
by a branch of the Soo Line (Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. 
Marie Railway), which runs from Alexandria to Plummer. 
The roughest part of the moraine seen from the railway, a part 
known as the Leaf Hills, lies east of Detroit, but west of that place the 
surface features become more and more subdued. 
Audubon. As the morainic topography disappears farming 
Elevation 1,332 feet. becomes more general, and at Audubon field after 
= hi reaps field of grain stretches away over the rolling upland 
as far as the eye can see. Although the traveler 
may have enjoyed the ever-changing panorama of lakes, hills, and 
plains of the morainic belt, he may find it a relief to emerge into the 
fine farming region about Audubon and Lake Park. 
Lake Park is another important town of the lake region, and 
although no water is visible from the train there are one or two 
ponds near by, and some of the finest lakes of 
Lake Park. the region lie a short distance to the south. Lake 
Elevation 1,341 feet, Park is on the edge of the prairies. The trees are 
Population 740. ll | fined 1 ly to th rat 
Se. Penk tiesidies: small and are confined largely e watercourses. 
Almost all the land is under a high state of cul- 
tivation, and fields of wheat and hay abound on every side. 
The country here is a gently rolling upland with the valleys cut 
to a depth of 50 feet or more below the general level. At Manitoba 
; ' Junction the Northern Pacific line running to 
ee mies pases: Crookston, Minn., Grand Forks, N. Dak., and Win- 
egekors —— nipeg, Canada, turns to the right (north). At thise 
place the traveler enters the valley of Buffalo Creek 
and can not see the upland country, which, however, is much the same 
in character as the country east of the junction—that is, it is rolling, 
but is cut by the valleys of the larger streams. 
Hawley. The railway follows Buffalo Creek through the 
Elevation 1,174 feet. village of Hawley, but the valley grows deeper 
—— toward the west, and little of the country outside 
St. Paul 228 miles. 
of the immediate valley can be seen from the train. 
If the traveler had been attempting to cross the continent in the 
closing stages of the glacial epoch by the route which he is now fol- _ 
lowing, he would have been confronted, when he 
Muskoda. reached the place where Muskoda now stands (see 
Elevation 1,087 feet. sheet 4, p. 40), by a vast lake which then occupied 
— the valley of Red River. The only passageway 
around it would have been by a wide detour to the south, for the 
lake extended into Canada for several hundred miles and was bounded 
on the north by the impassable front of the great continental glacier. 
As the lake has completely disappeared the reader may be skeptical 
about its existence or wonder upon what evidence its presence in a 
