54 ASSIOTIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



fringing its low north-eastern coast were then dry areas 

 covered with rank grass. In the course of a few years 

 this will again take place, and for a long period, perhaps, 

 settlers may enjoy fine pasture lands, destined again to 

 revert to an intermittent condition of swamp or marsh. 

 Monkman informed me that many years since the Hudson's 

 Bay Company had a breeding establishment near this 

 Point, and he remembered the time when 120 horses 

 were pastured in the neighbourhood of Swan Creek, about 

 twelve miles from Oak Point. 



On the 28th we passed through an immense expanse of 

 reeds called Marshy Point, threading our way through 

 an intricate channel in which large numbers of duck 

 still lingered. About one o'clock we arrived at Oak 

 Point, where we found John Monkman and a number of 

 settlers from Eed Eiver catching their winter supply of 

 white-fish in gill nets. 



Lake Manitobah is 120 miles long by 24 broad in 

 its widest part, from headland to headland ; but if esti- 

 mated from Oak Point to the mouth of White Mud Eiver, 

 on the west side, the breadth does not fall far short of 

 thirty miles. The area of the lake is about 1900 square 

 miles, and its approximate altitude above the sea 670 feet, 

 or forty-two feet above Lake Winnipeg. It is remark- 

 ably shallow, so that in the parts sounded, which were 

 sometimes twelve to fifteen miles broad, the depth never 

 exceeded twenty-three feet ; this occurred half way be- 

 tween Cherry Island and Sandy Point in the upper portion 

 of the lake. In the two traverses between Manitobah 

 Island and Cherry Island not more than twenty-one feet 

 was recorded, while within four miles of the coast in the 

 southern or larger portion of the lake, eighteen feet was 

 the greatest depth found. 



The effects of winds on the large surfaces of water ex- 



