272 B. N. A. BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 

trees are coniferous, and from the swampy character of the country, the 
tamarack is perhaps most abundant. The cedar (Thuja occidentalis) was 
in a few places observed, forming groves of limited extent. The red 
pine, Banksian, or scrub pine, and white pine, (Pinus resinosa, P. 
Banksiana, and P. strobus,) also occur where the ground is dry, and 
especially on the sandy ridges separating the swamps; but not in very 
large groves. All the ordinary eastern spruces and firs are also repre- 
sented. Of deciduous trees, the poplar is most common, and generally 
represented by the aspen or balsam poplar (P. tremuloides and P. 
balsamifera) willows of many species form thickets in the swamps and 
along the edges of the woods. Elm, oak, birch, and the ash-leaved 
maple, also occur sparingly. 
627. The climate of the region immediately bordering on the Lake 
of the Woods, is much improved by it. The shallow expanse of water 
becomes heated by the rays of the sun, and in July and August was very 
generally found to have a temperature of from 70° to 75° Fahrenheit. 
Early frosts are thus prevented, and the nights, which at a like elevation 
on the prairie west of Red River are frequently cold, are here, as a rule, 
deliciously balmy. Should land for agricultural purposes ever become of 
value in this region, a great area of the bottom of the lake might be laid 
dry, at comparatively small expense, by removing the rocky barrier at 
Rat Portage, the water being thus lowered about eighteen feet. 
Region between the Lake of the Woods and the Red River Prairie. 
628. West of the Lake of the Woods, is an extensive wooded, and 
very generally swampy region, which extends to the eastern edge of the 
alluvial prairie of the Red River. Where crossed by the road from the 
North-west Angle to Winnipeg, the wooded region is about sixty miles 
in breadth; on the forty-ninth parallel, about seventy-five miles. On the 
northern line of section the character of the country is as follows :—From 
the North-west Angle to Birch Creek Government Station, is for the most 
part thickly wooded, but almost a continuous swamp, with here and 
there a rocky or sandy ridge rising above the general level. Much of the 
soil would dry up if the woods were removed, but appeared to be sandy 
and poor, and of little or no use for agricultural purposes. There is much 
tall, but slight, pine timber, suitable for railway sleepers, but not of much 
use for the saw mill. The sand of the ridges is generally of yellow ferru- 
ginous colour, and the gravel, when it occurs, is chiefly of small limestone 
