280 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



towards Lake Manitobah ; the view from its summit ex- 

 tends far and wide over the Assinniboine prairies ; and 

 skirting its base on the south flank are groves of aspen 

 and balsam poplar, with scattered oak trees and willow 

 bushes. The pasturage in the open glades is of excellent 

 quality and very abundant. The ridge is quite level and 

 from 80 to 100 feet broad, devoid of trees, slightly arched 

 and composed of gravel. Here and there it is cut by ri- 

 vulets draining the marshes in the plateau on its northern 

 side. As it approaches Prairie Portage its apparent ele- 

 vation diminishes, until at the Portage Eiver it is no longer 

 discernible. We traced it for a distance of seventy miles, 

 and it will be mentioned further on that a similar ridge, 

 but one formed at an earlier period and at a higher level, 

 is seen west of Manitobah Lake, near the Hudson's Bay 

 Company's post, Manitobah House. The older ridge pre- 

 serves there the same characters of horizontality, uniform 

 outline, gravelly formation, and admirable adaptation to 

 the purposes of a road, which have been already noticed in 

 connection with the Big Eidge north of the Assinniboine 

 and east of Eed Eiver. For many miles, ties for a railway 

 might be laid upon both without a pebble being removed, 

 and the only breaks in their continuity occur where streams 

 from the plateau and higher grounds in the rear have 

 forced a passage through them. The older ridge, however, 

 follows the western contour of Lakes Winnipeg and 

 Manitobah, and passes through a country not likely to be 

 first selected by a large body of settlers. The Big Eidge is 

 important in so far that it forms the boundary of land of the 

 first quality, which occupies the low prairie valleys of the 

 Assinniboine and Eed Eiver. Soundings subsequently made 

 in Lake Manitobah showed a uniform depth of eighteen 

 feet for a distance exceeding sixty miles along its south- 

 eastern coast, so that if its beds were exposed, it is pro- 



