THE QU'APPELLE VALLEY. 



427 



below the level of the prairie, and its greatest depth is 

 between 350 and 400 feet. It cuts a gently sloping plain 

 extending from the South Branch to the Assinniboine. 

 The surface of this plain is slightly undulating, and in a 

 few localities broken by elevations which have a general 

 direction from the north-east to the south-west ; the 

 north-western sides being abrupt and steep, the south- 

 eastern descents gradual and undulating. The Touchwood 

 Hills, Lumpy Hill, the Pheasant Mountain, the File Hill, 

 &c, are among the most prominent of these elevations. 

 So gradual is the general slope of this great plain, and so 

 extensive is its surface that Elbow Bone Creek or the 

 Souris Forks* inosculates with the Little Souris Eiver, 

 which after a course leading it sixty miles south of the 

 boundary line, returns north and joins the Assinniboine 

 about 115 miles in a south-easterly direction from Fort 

 EUice. 



The highest part of the bottom of the Qu'appelle 

 valley is only 85 feet above the South Branch at its 

 summer level, and from 75 to 78 feet above it during 

 the spring elevation of its waters. This occurs at a 

 point distant 11^ miles from the junction, where a lake 

 is found, which discharges itself both into the Saskat- 

 chewan and Assinniboine. Before connecting with the 

 Assinniboine, it falls about 280 feet in 256 miles, or 1 ft. 

 1 in. per mile. The difference of level between the South 

 Branch at one end of the Qu'appelle valley and the 

 Assinniboine at the other, does not exceed, according to 

 our estimate, 200 feet. 



In its long, deep, and narrow course there are eight 



* On the map accompanying Captain Palliser's Reports, Moose Jaws 

 Forks is shown by a dotted line to inosculate with the Little Souris, and 

 Elbow Bone Creek is named "Many Bone Creek." This difference in 

 names does not affect the remarkable fact of an inosculation of the Little 

 Souris with the Qu'appelle. 



