THE FLOODS. 



393 



Eiver and the Assinniboine flow is quite sufficient to 

 show that extensive inundations have occurred from time 

 to time during many ages. The accumulations of strati- 

 fied mud containing the buried trunks and branches of 

 trees are the records of overflows similar to those which 

 caused such distress and consternation in 1826 and 1852. 

 There is good ground for belief that floods have 

 occurred in the district of Assinniboia during the follow- 

 ing years : — 



1776. On the authority of Mr. Nolin.* 

 1790. Indian Tradition, f 



1809. Indians living in the Settlement when Ross wrote, 1856. 



1826. J Missionary Register, December, 1826. 



1852. " Notes on the Flood," by the Bishop of Rupert's Land. 



From the level character of the country of the waters' 

 overflow, the deep trench in which Eed Eiver glides 

 towards Lake Winnipeg, a shallow wide-spreading lake 

 soon forms. In 1852 the Bishop of Eupert's Land esti- 

 mated the breadth of the inundated country to be about 

 twelve miles a short distance below Fort Garry. Although 

 the flood of 1852 was not so high as that of 1826, yet 

 its effects were very severely felt in St. John's and St. 

 Paul's parish and about Fort Garry, but in the parish of 

 St. James, St. Andrew, and the Indian Settlement were 

 almost untouched. § Houses and barns were swept away 

 in the inundated parishes, and the country for miles on 

 either side assumed the appearance of a lake. Some 

 of the settlers took refuge on the Lake Eiclge near St. 

 James's Church, which by leveling we ascertained in 

 1858 to be eleven feet above the gate of Fort Garry ; 



* Mentioned by Ross, in the Red River Settlement, its Rise, Progress, 

 and Present State, 

 f Ibid. 

 \ Ibid. 



§ Notes on the Flood at Red River. 



