242 



RED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



Lake Winnipego-sis receives the Eed Deer Eiver and 

 Swan Eiver, which open communication to an important 

 tract of country east and north-east of the head waters of 

 the Assinniboine. The south-western extremity of Lake 

 Manitobah is distinguished by the extent and richness of 

 the prairies which at a higher lake level it has assisted in 

 forming. The White Mud Eiver which meanders through 

 them may be classed among the most valuable of the 

 lesser tributaries of the great lakes of the Winnipeg 

 basin. 



The Eed Eiver of the north and the Assinniboine 

 having been already described, require no further notice. 

 Some of the affluents of the last-named river are suffi- 

 ciently important to deserve a separate notice. 



The Qu'appelle or Calling Eiver falls into the Assinni- 

 boine about five miles below Fort Ellice. At its mouth 

 this stream is 88 feet broad, 12 feet deep in the main 

 channel, and shows a mean sectional depth of 8 feet ; its 

 current is at the rate of 1^ miles an hour. The valley 

 in which it flows inosculates with the South Branch of 

 the Saskatchewan at the Elbow. It is 269 miles long, 

 and seventy miles from the Assinniboine about one 

 mile broad, and 310 feet below the prairie, which 

 stretches north and south from its abrupt edges as 

 far as the eye can reach. At the Qu'appelle Mission, 

 119 miles from the Assinniboine, the valley is one 

 mile and a quarter broad, and 250 feet deep. The 

 river here is 48 feet wide, 6 feet deep in the channel, 

 with a mean sectional depth of 3 feet 6 inches, and a 

 current of one mile an hour. The lakes at this point 

 have a depth of 57 feet, so that the total excavation 

 below the prairie on either hand is 307 feet. 



Near the first or Qu'appelle Forks the valley is one 

 mile and one third broad, and 220 feet deep. At the 



