BANKS OF EED RIVER. 



131 



September, offer no formidable obstacle to the Company's 

 and freighters' boats carrying four and five tons, an assem- 

 blage of well-built stone buildings are grouped, which 

 create a very favourable impression of Eed Eiver 

 resources and comfort, not unfrequently repeated in as- 

 cending the stream. There is erected a very substan- 

 tial stone church, capable of seating 500 people, and 

 surrounded with a stone wall enclosing an extensive 

 burying-ground. About 300 yards south of the church, 

 the parsonage house is seen from the river, and a visit to 

 its interior, to be more fully noticed subsequently, proved 

 that every desirable comfort was enjoyed by the kind 

 and hospitable incumbent, Archdeacon Hunter. Adjoin- 

 ing the parsonage is the residence of the curate, Mr. 

 Kirkby (now on Mackenzie's Eiver), and next to it a 

 capacious and well-built school-house of wood. Four 

 miles above the Grand Eapids, Water-mill Creek enters 

 the river, having cut its way through the yielding clay 

 substratum of the prairie to a depth of twenty-five feet, 

 half a mile from its mouth. 



Above Mill Creek the river banks break off abruptly 

 from the prairie level, and are well wooded on the east 

 side, the houses of the inhabitants occurring at regular 

 intervals upon the west bank. At a short distance above 

 the very commodious and comfortable residence of Mrs. 

 Bird, a lower terrace, caused by denudation, commences, 

 and its prairie boundary passes in the rear of the house 

 occupied by the Expedition, and comes upon the river 

 again before reaching the Presbyterian church. The 

 following section shows the relation of the lower terrace 

 to the general level of the Great Prairie, the relation of 

 the Big Swamp, noticed hereafter, to the river, and also 

 of the ancient beach or ridge of Lake Winnipeg to the 

 general level of the country. 



K 2 



