
CAPABILITIES WITH REFERENCE TO SETTLEMENT. eats) 
to avoid tamarack groves, &c., and increases the actual distance which 
must be passed over in taking a canoe from one river to the other. On 
approaching the source of the Roseau River, the swamp again becomes 
shallow and hard-bottomed. The stream, as at first found, is a riunnel 
searcely wide enough for a canoe, but falling westward with a swift cur- 
rent. The height of land muskeg, judging from the line of levelling on the 
forty-ninth parallel—about six miles south—and from the current of the 
Reed River, cannot be more than ten or twelve feet above the Lake of 
the Woods. It has all the appearance of having been at one time a shal- 
low lake-basin, with a hard bottom of drift material; and has been gradu- 
ally filled by the growth and decay of vegetable matter. 
633. I believe that this and other swamps of the region of the water- 
shed, might yield important supplies of peat fuel to the woodless prairie 
country to the west. The peat would, of course, require to be manufac- 
tured by one of the processes now employed elsewhere, and advantage 
might be taken of the upper part of the Roseau for its shipment. The 
peat here found must be pretty pure, though not formed by the accumu- 
lation of the Sphagnum or peat moss, but from grasses and other aquatic 
phenogamia. 
634. The North-east Roseau, is at first narrow and tortuous, like 
the upper part of the Reed River, and the surrounding country is swampy 
and covered with tamarack, and willow bushes, The banks soon, however, 
begin to rise higher, and poplar becomes the prevailing wood. Fine 
oaks, elms, and ash-leaved maples also fringe the stream. The forest 
retains this character as far as Roseau Lake, and where small openings 
occur, rose bushes, asters, convolvulus (Calystegia sepium) wild hop (Hu- 
mulus lupulus) the prickly cucumber (Echinocystis lobata) and high-bush 
cranberry ( Viburnum opulus), form a tangled thicket. 
635. About three miles from the source of the river, and two-and-a- 
half from its crossing with the forty-ninth parallel, a tributary nearly as 
large as the main stream enters from the north. A few miles above Ro- 
seau Lake, a second large stream comes in from the south-east, and may 
be called the South-east Roseau. The banks of this part of the river are 
usually high, and are as much as fifteen feet above the water level where 
it crosses the Line. As far as can be seen from the edges of the river, 
the land continues in most places dry, and supports a good growth of 
timber. For several miles before reaching Roseau Lake, however, the 
dry banks merely form narrow ridges at the sides, and open grassy swamp 
lies both north and south of them. The whole upper on North-east Roseau 
