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PHYSICAL ASPECT 



The first variety includes those which belong to chains, and are the sources of 

 all, or nearly all, the rivers of the territory. They are generally connected by 

 small streams, often mere rivulets, possessing scarcely sufficient depth and breadth 

 to permit the passage of light bark canoes; while, in other instances, they are 

 formed by the expansion of the waters of larger streams, in basins, from one to two 

 miles in diameter. Examples of this variety may be seen by referring to the head- 

 waters of the Nemakagon, Red Cedar, Chippewa, Manidowish, Labiche, and Little 

 Wisconsin, and various tributaries of the St. Croix, in Wisconsin ; and to the 

 sources of the Mississippi, Red River of the North, Crow Wing, Rum, Big Fork, and 

 Mud Rivers, in Minnesota. 



Among these lakes may also be mentioned those which have no connexion, ex- 

 cept in long rainy seasons, or in the spring of the year, during the melting of the 

 snows, when they are connected by streams which flow along valleys, once, evi- 

 dently, the beds of large water-courses, but now elevated above the general level of 

 the lakes, and converted into meadows, cranberry marshes, or swamps. Between a 

 great proportion of the now isolated lakes west of the Bois Brule and St. Croix 

 Rivers, from St. Louis River to the Falls of St. Anthony, old connexions of this 

 kind may be traced ; and most of the rich valleys of that portion of the District owe 

 their soils to lacustrine deposits, made during the long period of elevation, during 

 and while the beds of large rivers were first converted into chains of lakes, and 

 subsequently drained, as the process of elevation continued. 



Many of the largest lakes are situated on the broad summit-level of the great 

 water-shed, and in many cases where examinations have been made, or reliable in- 

 formation obtained, these lakes have been found tributary both to Lake Superior 

 and the Mississippi. Connexions of this kind exist between the St. Croix and the 

 Bois Brule, at Upper St. Croix Lake, the west fork of Bad River and the Nema- 

 kagon, at Long Lake ; and, as I was assured by the Indians residing in the vicinity, 

 such an interlockage occurs between a branch of Kettle River, and one of Lefthand 

 River, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hornhanging Lake. I have also reason 

 to believe, that such a connexion exists between the sources of Big Fork River, 

 which sends its waters to Hudson's Bay, and the head-waters of Ondodawanonan 

 River, a tributary of Lake Winibigoshish, through which the Mississippi flows. 

 These junctions are always formed in swamps, some of which are very extensive ; 

 and although the amount of water afforded to both the northern and southern 

 streams is sufficient to render them navigable for light canoes in the driest seasons, 

 still in no instance has it been found practicable to conduct canoes, from one stream 

 to the other, through the swamp in which the interlockage is made. 



I may also mention here, that, in 1838, I met at Fort Francis, on Rainy River, 

 a Mr. Kane, who had just returned, across the continent, from Fort Vancouver on 

 the Pacific, and was informed by him, that the same lake in the Rocky Mountains 

 gives origin to the Athabasca River, the waters of which are carried to Hudson's 

 Bay, and also to a branch of the Columbia. If this be so, it shows the curious fact 

 of a continuous line of water communication between the very distant points, across 

 the continent, of Hudson's Bay in the north, the Gulf of Mexico in the south, and 



