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Show MINNESOTA. 383 a point two hundred miles north of our national boundary; there a sandy desert sets in, and continues to the Arctic Circle. This State and Dakota Territory have many features in common. On the western border of the State, and forming a part of the bound-ary line between it and Dakota, are two lakes Big Stone and Traverse. The southern one, lying north- west and south- east is Big Stone, thirty-one miles long and only three- fourths to one and a half miles wide, with bold shores fifty to eighty feet high beautiful in summer, filled with fish and abounding in water- fowl. On its shores 50,000 people could witness a boat race over a course of ten miles or more. About it linger many curious and wild traditions of the Indians. This lake is simply a deep, wide river channel, resembling points on the Upper Mississippi, where there is no valley or low land along the river. Lake Traverse was originally a part of it a continuation of it north-ward resembling it in all respects. But now they are separated by about four miles of low valley of the same width. Into and through this valley runs a creek head of the Minnesota River which rises in Dakota and flows close by the south end of Lake Traverse and into Big Stone Lake, issuing again from its south-eastern end, and joining the Mississippi near St. Paul. Traverse is not so large or long as Big Stone, and as one passes along its western shore, the hills grow lower and recede from it. Its shores become marshy, and it narrows to a lagoon, and finally into a stream or river with scarcely a noticeable current. At Breckinridge, Minnesota, or Wahpeton, Dakota, this stream is joined by the Otter Tail River, a somewhat rapid stream of considerable volume. Where the two unite ( the one from Traverse is called the Bois des Sioux, or properly the Sioux Wood River) both names cease, and the Red River of the North begins. It is a river at once. From this point it flows three hundred miles, in a right line, to Lake Winnepeg, in British America. The fertile valley of Red River, is about a hundred and fifty miles wide, half in the State and half in Dakota. Westward it yields to the higher lands and soon to the barren couteau, fit for nothing but scant pasturage. In the valley are now some of the largest wheat farms in the world. There a dozen or more teams can be seen in early sum-mer, following each other With successive furrows plowing on the same " land," which is a township. The furrows are six miles long. They just make two rounds per day, going up and back, taking din-ner and then repeating. One mounted man commands the whole, and a cart with a few tools accompanies. If any thing befalls a plow or team the driver turns out and lets the other pass, starting in again |