CROSS LAKE. 



463 



an hour, we set off again in the hope of reaching the 

 Grand Eapid before dark. We soon entered a rapid by 

 which we were lowered about two and a half feet in a 

 distance of ten chains, followed, after an interval of smooth 

 water, by another about a mile long, but with an easy in- 

 clination, the descent in that distance not being above seven 

 and a half feet ; it being nearly dark when the foot of the 

 latter was reached, we camped for the night (August 21). 



Cross Lake doubtless derives its name from its shape 

 and the peculiar position it bears in relation to the 

 Saskatchewan, of which it is evidently a dilatation. It is 

 an oblong sheet of water, upwards of eight miles in length, 

 having its longitudinal diameter at right angles to the 

 general trend of the river ; three miles is its greatest 

 transverse diameter, and this breadth is about the distance 

 between the termination and beginning of the bed of the 

 river on either side of the lake. The altitude of Cross 

 Lake in relation to Cedar Lake and Lake Winnipeg, 

 acquired by leveling the rapids and measuring the cur- 

 rents in the river, would make its approximate elevation 

 above the sea about 680 feet. It is reported to be 

 deeper than Cedar Lake ; and its banks on the east and 

 west side are more abrupt and rocky, but its northern 

 and southern shores are very low. Along the coast there 

 are some fine groves of balsam-spruce, and aspen, but the 

 land back from the lake is very flat and poorly wooded, 

 a great portion of the original forest having been de- 

 stroyed by fire ; large tracts of burnt and dead timber are 

 seen here and there ; the blackened trunks of poplar and 

 spruce indicating the ridges or dry areas over which the 

 conflagration extended, and the lifeless tamaracks reveal- 

 ing the swamps or flooded land. The lake extends so far 

 to the north, its extremity in that direction is not seen 

 from the traverse line, being below the horizon of the 



