266 _ B. N. A. BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
become river channels, but in most cases they seem to have been 
now long disused. This may arise either from a gradual decrease in the 
amount of flowing water, and in the intensity of the spring floods; or 
from an increasing scarcity of timber capable of forming obstructions, in 
the regions traversed by the streams, which seems on other grounds to 
be undeniable. 
614. The Red River is still not far below the level of its bordering 
prairie, and from the fixed elevation of its out-fall in Lake Winnipeg, cannot 
be lowering its bed appreciably, though the bordering prairie is no doubt 
gradually gaining somewhat in height from the sediment deposited in 
seasons of flood. The course of the river is exceedingly tortuous, and 
it is yearly becoming more so. An examination will show that all the 
concave sides of the bends are being eaten away by the stream, and the 
stumps of old half-buried oak, and elm trees, being there exposed; while the 
opposite, or convex sides are almost invariably gaining by the addition of 
banks of sediment, which as soon as they are formed are taken possession 
of by thickets of young willows, and consolidated by their roots. When 
this process has been carried to an extreme, it is naturally remedied by 
the breaking of the water across one of the narrow necks separating 
two of the bends, during some period of excessive flood, and the formation 
of anew course. I do not know of any very modern instance of this, but 
old portions of the river-channel, may frequently be observed forming 
ponds and small lakes on the prairie, sometimes more than a mile from 
the present stream. These, like the parent river, may be fringed 
with trees, and are generally surrounded by a dense growth of reeds, and 
filled with rank aquatic vegetation. 
615. The floods of this river, arising from the melting snow in spring, 
are intensified by its northern course; the sources being broken up and in 
flood, while the ice at its mouth is still quite firm. Extensive ice-jams 
are apt to form, and a small increase in the elevation of the water 
above the banks, serves to overflow a great area of 'country. The 
silting up of the mouth of the river, may also, as has been suggested, | 
have something to do with the recurrence of great floods at somewhat 
reguar intervals, and may require some such natural paroxysm for 
its remedy. 
616. The systems of ramifying coulées with gently sloping grassy 
banks, but with neither brooks nor regular stream courses, when seen 
during the dry weather of summer, may seem to require for their expla- 

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