62 



RED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



Eainy Lake, into which the river, much increased in vo- 

 lume, discharges itself in a series of cascades, making a 

 plunge of over 112 feet in the distance of five miles and a 

 half. The lakes just referred to are bounded, for the 

 most part, by low hills, generally wooded, but in some 

 cases rocky, with an occasional valley between them pre- 

 senting a less barren appearance." 



The Seine Eiver enters Eainy Lake at Seine Bay, one 

 of the deep north-easterly expansions of that irregular 

 body of water. Seine Bay and a part of the river are 

 shown on Thompson's map of the Boundary Survey ex- 

 ecuted in 1826. A beautiful reduced copy of the geogra- 

 phical outlines of part of this map is published in the 

 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for May, 1854, 

 accompanying a paper on the Geology of Eainy Lake, by 

 Dr. J. J. Bigsby. Seine Bay and the mouth of Seine 

 Eiver are both shown on this reduced copy. 



The Seine Eiver receives an affluent called Fire Steel 

 Eiver, which rises in the wide spreading marshes at the 

 height of land, from which also Dog Eiver, flowing into 

 Lake Superior, issues. 



Soon after leaving Milles Lacs, the Seine falls by a series 

 of rapids, seven in number, a depth of thirty-six feet in a 

 distance of nine miles ; its waters are then precipitated 

 twenty-four feet in two steps at Little Falls, and before 

 reaching Eainy Lake, a distance of sixty-seven miles in a 

 direct line, it falls 350 feet by twenty-nine steps varying 

 in altitude from three to thirty-six feet. 



The hills surrounding Milles Lacs here and there bear 

 pine of fair dimensions, while in the narrow and shal- 

 low valleys between them there is every indication of 

 hardwood over large areas. Exposures of white quartz 

 are repeatedly seen on the islands and main land at the 

 western extremity of the lake ; and not unfrequently are 



