CHARACTER OP RAINY RIVER. 



87 



The ground at our camp, twelve miles below Fort 

 Frances, was covered with the richest profusion of rose 

 bushes, woodbine, convolvulus in bloom, helianthii just 

 beginning to flower, and vetches of the largest dimen- 

 sions. Fringing this open interval of perhaps 280 acres 

 in extent, were elms, balsam-poplars, ashes, and oaks. 

 One elm tree measured three feet in diameter, or nine 

 feet eight inches in circumference ; and there is no exag- 

 geration in saying that our temporary camping place was 

 like a rich, overgrown, and long neglected garden. 



Similar intervals to the one just described were noticed 

 occasionally as we descended the river ; the banks pre- 

 serving an average altitude of about forty feet, and 

 sustaining a fine growth of the trees before enume- 

 rated. No part of the country through which we have 

 passed west of Lake Superior can bear comparison 

 with the rich banks of Eainy Eiver which everywhere 

 preserves a very uniform breadth, varying only from 

 200 to 300 yards. The soil is a sandy loam at the 

 surface, much mixed with vegetable matter, but where 

 the bank has recently fallen away, clay may be seen 

 stratified in layers of about two inches in thickness, 

 following in all respects the contour of what appears to 

 be unstratified drift clay below. Basswood is not un- 

 common, and sturdy oaks, whose trunks are from eighteen 

 inches to two feet in diameter, were found in open groves 

 with luxuriant grasses and climbing plants growing be- 

 neath them. The lodge poles of an Indian camp of 

 former seasons were covered with convolvulus in bloom, 

 and the honeysuckle twined its long and tenacious stems 

 around the nearest support, living or dead. 



The banks of the river maintain for twenty miles an 

 altitude varying from fifteen to sixty feet. Occasionally, 

 they show the abrupt boundaries of two terraces, the 



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