58 



RED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



pression it is not improbable that the waters of the Height 

 of Land Lake and its connecting swamps drain into Dog 

 Eiver. With this exception the horizon appeared to be 

 perfectly uniform, the slight difference in the height of the 

 tamaracks and spruces, which seemed most to abound, 

 furnishing the only deviation from a level expanse in all 

 other directions. 



The Savanne Lake with its feeding swamps may there- 

 fore be considered to be the source of the waters which, 

 in this latitude, send tributaries to Hudson's Bay ; although 

 the Indians say that there exists a connection between the 

 Height of Land Lake and Savanne Lake ; the portage be- 

 tween them is named Portage de Milieu ; it passes over 

 a low sandy ridge supporting small pine, with tamarack 

 and spruce at its foot. The connections, indeed, which 

 exist between different water-sheds by means of swamps 

 at the Height of Land, impassable even to a small canoe, 

 are by no means of rare occurrence. In the present case 

 we have the Height of Land Lake sending water both to. 

 the St. Lawrence and to Hudson's Bay ; but if we go a 

 little farther south, we find that in the territory of the 

 United States these interlockages are numerous and com- 

 plex.* The St. Croix Lake, connecting the Mississippi 

 with Lake Superior ; the west fork of Bad Eiver and the 

 Nemakagon at Long Lake, establishing the same connec- 

 tion ; and the Big Fork, which flows into Eainy Eiver, 

 thence into Hudson's Bay, is connected with the Ondor 

 dawanoan Eiver, a tributary of Lake Winibigoshish, through 

 which the Mississippi flows, 



Savanne Lake is about one mile broad ; at its south- 

 westerly termination begins the Great Savanne Portage, 

 near the mouth of a small stream, flowing into Savanne 



* See Dr. Norwood on this subject, in the Geological Survey of Iowa, 

 Wisconsin, &c. &c. 



