ANCIENT LAKE EIDGE ON THE ROSEAU. 



157 



states, figuring under the name of the town of Pembina. 

 Most of the inhabitants of Pembina have moved to St. 

 Joseph, so that the population of this frontier village does 

 not now number more than 100 souls. On the evening 

 of the 25th we camped on the banks of the Eoseau, after 

 a hard march of thirty-one miles through a very fine and 

 promising country. 



The general course of this stream from its confluence 

 with Eed Eiver to Eoseau Lake is a few degrees to the 

 south of east. It enters Eed Eiver about ten miles north 

 of the 49th parallel, and it is probable that Eoseau Lake 

 is on the boundary fine between Eupert's Land and the 

 State of Minnesota. The course of the Eoseau is very 

 tortuous, and for the first twenty miles it meanders through 

 a beautiful prairie, with a belt of heavy forest trees on its 

 banks. Near the mouth of the river, on the south side, 

 there is a large area of low land, but above that point the 

 banks vary from fifteen to twenty feet in height until, at 

 the crossing place, the ancient Lake Eidge is reached. Here 

 the banks are from fifty to fifty-five feet above the level of 

 the river. Near the crossing place, the riclge has probably 

 an elevation exceeding sixty feet above Eed Eiver ; it, with 

 its offsets, form a very singular and most interesting fea- 

 ture in the topography of the valley of this river. 



The ridge once past, the whole face of the country 

 changes. The soil becomes poor and sandy, although still 

 preserving a prairie or plain character. The timber on 

 the banks of the river fast dwindles to small sized oak, 

 elm, birch, and poplar, until it gives place, about forty-six 

 miles from the mouth, and perhaps seventy or eighty by 

 the winding of the stream, to extensive marshes, in which 

 there are islands of small pine. At the commence- 

 ment of these marshes the Eoseau Eiver moves sluggishly, 

 and its stream soon becomes dead water, with a vast ex- 



