BIOLOGICAL RECONNOISSANCE AT FLATHEAD LAKE. 138 
dred feet above the water. This is a great fishing resort for the In- 
dians on the reservation, and one seldom visits the place without seeing 
several tepees on the bank some place near. The osprey is as industri- 
ous as the Indian, and is seldom absent from the scene when one visits 
the rapids. 
The moraine at the lower end of the lake is worthy of more extended 
notice. Between it and the lake is a level plain. At the western end, 
where the plain is widest, it separates the moraine from the lake by a 
distance of about two miles. Eastward the hills come almost to the 
water’s edge, separated only by a narrow strip of level land. 
This level plain shows clearly two terraces, with evidences of a third 
higher upon the hillside. The terraces correspond with similar terraces 
at the northern end. Here one is beautifully shown at Sliter’s, near the 
Station. : 
The lake has therefore had two, possibly three levels other than that 
at present. 
The moraine is 450 feet above the level of the lake, at the piace where 
the wagon road crosses near Polson. There are probably several places 
higher than this. The railroad survey crosses the moraine about midway 
between the Pend d’Oreille river and the mountains. Their readings 
show the height at the river to be 84 feet less than that at the place 
selected for passage. The engineers preferred the higher passage be- 
cause the lower necessitatd doubling back in order to get down on the 
southern side. 
The wagon road winds back and forth in its passage over. The lake 
is invisible until the traveler reaches the crest of the hill, when it comes 
suddenly before him in all its beauty. The view of the lake proper 
is obscured by the islands and peninsula, which practically cut the lake 
in two. The view of the lake from any other point is better than that 
from the lower end. 
The banks of the lake do not afford as much shelter for invertebrate 
life as would at first seem apparent. The southern third, cut off by the 
islands, is shallow, nowhere of greater depth than twenty feet. The 
eastern part of this bay, formed by the peninsula projecting from the 
Mission mountains, is very marshy, with muddy bottom. Rushes and 
weeds grow abundantly, offering an excellent harbor for smaller life. 
This is the largest marshy region around the lake. Between the mouth 
of Flathead river and the mouth of Swan river, along the northern shore, 
is another marsh in the spring, of peculiar nature. At the water’s edge 
is an embankment of a more or less rocky nature. North of this em- 
bankment is a shallow marsh, about two miles long and a quarter toa 
half mile wide. When the lake rises, as it does in the spring, from ten 
to twelve feet, the water flows over the embankment, and into the low 
land. As the lake recedes the imprisoned waters cannot escape, and 
offer a fine breeding place for mosquitoes for some time, until the waters 
evaporate or filter through the soil to the lake region. Most of the re- 
maining banks are rocky, precipitous at the water’s edge, with or with- 
out a gravelly beach. The bottom generally is reported to be rocky, 
with little mud. This report comes from the captain of the boat Klon- 
