[Ml CES ArtTH SCIENCES L1BRAK . , " •is *«»- . m m 1 \ TUB UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA. A REPORT ON THE GEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY OF MINNESOTA MADE IN PURSUANCE TO AN ACT OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE, APPROVED MARCH 1, 1872. PUBI.ISHKI) I1Y AUTHORITY OF THE STATE. VOLUME I. •Si-ON Red Lake add Pcinbiria Imh.iii Reservation i s ^jf*K- \; .1 P S^£3 GEOLOGICAL ,SNI1 NAT! 'UAL IllSTOhT SITHVKY Oh' MINNK SOTA. N.H.WIXC'HKI.I.. STATK OBOL00tST !'_' niili-s I" ati n..'h \ • e , « i . NOBLE5 , . JAi' Mtntti -vot hi t In: Archives rf/w Marines, in flu /«f/T.V(',v.v/^// «/' //*/• Lit'jmrtineni of American Hi.-itwv ofih? Mintifsota Historical Sadcty . J.Bieii A Co I'Koto.-lith PAGE 3 .I.Hien.Pholo.lith.X.Y. [\eiJin-<'tl ;<>r(ht' (iu'li'inntl and Xutiiral Hi,?tm\\- Survey ofMfail6f0tadr0m ./ tntcina in the Department pt\\mcrtcan /ft.itrt;\;o('tfu> Mtnnf.wtn f/i,vt<>ru~t/t Society HISTOKICAL SKETCH. 5 1678, Du Luth.] country south of Minnesota, visiting the Mississippi by way of the Wisconsin in 1673, he seems not to have prosecuted his discoveries within the area of Minnesota. SIEUR DU LUTH. Under the direction of the Governor of Canada, but probably at the instance of the merchants of Quebec, Daniel Greysolon, the Sieur du Luth, was dispatched with eight men, in 1678, for the purpose of visiting the country to the west of lake Superior, and taking possession of it in the name of the king of France, and securing the trade of the native tribes before the English could reach them. He entered Minnesota in the summer of 1679, having wintered near the falls of the St. Mary's river. In July he caused the arms of the king of France to be set up in the great Sioux village, KatJrio, which he styles the village of the Izatys, which can be no other than the great Nadouessioux settlement at Mille Lacs, to which he gave the name Lac Buade. The next year he reached the Mississippi river by way of the Bois Brule river (in Wisconsin) and the St. Croix, and encountered Hennepin and his companions, as detailed in his report made to the Marquis of Seignelay in 1685, an extract from which is as follows :* EXTRACT FROM DU LUTH'S REPORT, MADE IN 1685. On July 2d, 1679, 1 had the honor to plant his majesty's arms in the great village of the Nadoecioux, called Izatys, where never had a Frenchman been, no more than at the Songaskitons and Honetlotons, distant six score leagues from the former, where I also planted his majesty's arms in the same year, 1679. On the 15th of September, having given the Agrenipoulak, as well as all the other northern nations, a rendezvous at the extremity of lake Superior, to induce them to make peace with the Nadouecioux, their common enemy, they were all there, and I was happy enough to gain their esteem and friendship, to unite them together, and in order that the peace might be lasting among them I thought that I could not cement it better than by inducing the nations to make reciprocal marriages with each other. This I could not effect without great expense. The following winter I made them hold meetings in the woods, which I attended, in order that they might hunt together, give banquets, and by this means contract a closer friendship. The presents which it cost me to induce the Indians to go down to Montreal — who had been diverted by the Openagaux and Abenakis, at the instigation of the English and Dutch, who made them believe that the plague raged in the French settlements, and that it had spread as far as Nipissingw, where most of the Nipissiriens had died of it— have also entailed a greater expense. In June, 1680, not being satisfied with having made my discovery by land, I took two canoes with an Indian, who was my interpreter, and four Frenchmen, to seek means to make it by water. With this view I entered a river which empties eight leagues from the extremity of lake Superior, on the south side, when, after having cut some trees, and broken about a hundred beaver dams, I reached the upper waters of the said river ; and then 1 made a portage of half a * Shea's Translation of Hennepin's Description of Louisiana. g THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Du Luth. 1679. league to reach a lake, the outlet of which fell into a very fine river which took me down into the Mississippi. Being there I learned from eight cabins of Nadouecioux whom I met, that the Reverend Father Louis Henpin, Recollect, now at the convent of St. Germain, with two other Frenchmen, had been robbed and carried off as slaves for more than three hundred leagues by the Nadouecioux themselves. This intelligence surprised me so much that, without hesitating, I left two Frenchmen with these said eight cabins of Indians, as well as the goods which 1 had to make presents, and took one of the said Indians, to whom I made a present, to guide me, with my interpreter and two Frenchmen, to where the said Reverend Father Louis was, and as it was a good eighty leagues, I proceeded in canoe two days and two nights, and the next day at ten o'clock in the morning I found him with 1,000 or 1,100 souls. The want of respect which they showed to the said Reverend Father provoked me, and this I showed them, telling them that he was my brother; and I had him placed in my canoe to come with me into the villages of the said Nadouecioux, whither I took him, and in which, a week after our arrival there, I caused a council to be convened, exposing the ill treatment which they had been guilty of, both to the said Reverend Father and to the other two Frenchmen, who were with him, having robbed them and carried them off as slaves, and even taken the priestly vestments of said Reverend Father. I had two calumets which they had danced to them, returned to them, on account of the insult which they had offered them, being what they hold most in esteem among them to appease matters, telling them that I did not take calumets from people, who after they had seen me and received my peace presents, and been for a year always with Frenchmen, robbed them when they went to visit them. Each one in the council endeavored to throw the blame from himself, but their excuses did not prevent my telling the Reverend Father Louis that he would have to come with me toward the Oulagamys, as he did, showing him that it would be to strike a blow at the French nation in a new discovery, to suffer an insult of this nature, without manifesting resentment, although my design was to push on to the sea in a west-northwesterly course, which is that which is believed to be the Red Sea [Gulf of California], whence the Indians who had gone warring on that side gave salt to three Frenchmen whom I had sent exploring, and who brought me said salt, having reported to me that the Indians had told them that it was only twenty days' journey from where they were to find the great lake, of which the waters were worthless to drink.* This has made me believe that it would not be absolutely difficult to find it, if permission would be given to go there. However, I preferred to retrace my steps, manifesting to them the just indignation which I felt against them rather than to remain after the violence which they had done to the Reverend Father and the other two Frenchmen who were with him, whom I put in my canoes and brought them back to Michelimakinak. HENNEPIN'S MOVEMENTS IN MINNESOTA. That portion of Hennepin's narrative which relates to his movements in Minnesota, and to the natural features of the country, is as follows, as translated from the first, or Paris, edition of his works, by John Gr. Shea. The river Colbertf runs south-southwest and comes from the north-northwest; it runs between two chains of mountains, very small here, which wind with the river, and in some places are pretty far from the banks, so that between the mountains and the river there are large prairies, where you often see herds of wild cattle browsing. In other places these eminences leave semi-circular spots covered with grass or wood. Beyond these mountains you discover vast plains, but the more we approach the northern side ascending, the earth did not appear to us so fertile nor the woods so beautiful as in the Islinois country. This great river is almost everywhere a short league in width, and in some places two leagues ; it is divided by a number of islands covered with trees interlaced with so many vines as * There is no such lake in the limits of Minnesota, but this may refer to some of the alkaline lakes of Dakota. [N. H. W.] f Mississippi. HISTOKICAL SKETCH. 7 1679, Du Luth.] to be almost impassable. It receives no considerable river on the western side except that of the Otontenta, and another, which comes from the west>northwest seven or eight leagues from the Falls of St. Anthony of Padua. On the eastern side you meet first an inconsiderable river, and then further on another, called by the Indians Onisconsin, or Misconsin, which comes from the east and east-northeast. Sixty leagues up you leave it and make a portage of half a league, and reach the bay of the Puans by another river which, near its source, meanders most curiously. It is almost as broad as the river Seignelay, or Islinois, and empties into the river Colbert a hundred leagues above the river Seignelay. Twenty-four leagues above you come to the Black river, called by the Nadouessions, or Mali, Chabadeba, or Ohabaoudeba. It seems inconsiderable. Thirty leagues further up you find the Lake of Tears,* which we so named because the Indians who had taken us, wishing to kill us, some of them wept the whole night to induce the others to consent to our death. This lake, which is formed by the river Colbert, is seven leagues long and about four wide. There is no considerable current in the middle that we could perceive, but only at its entrance and exit. Half a league below the Lake of Tears, on the south side, is Buffalo river, full of turtles. It is so called by the Indiang on account of the numbers of buffalo found there. We followed it for ten or twelve leagues ; it empties with rapidity into the river Colbert, but as you ascend it it is always gentle and free from rapids. It is skirted by mountains far enough off in some places to form prairies. The mouth is wooded on both sides and is full as wide as that of the Seignelay. Forty leagues above is a river full of rapids, by which, striking northwest, [northeast] you can proceed to lake Conde as far as Nimissakouat** river, which empties into that lake. This first river is called Tomb river,t because the Issati left there the body of one of their warriors, killed by a rattlesnake, on whom, according to their custom, I put a blanket. This act of humanity gained me much importance by the gratitude displayed by the men of the deceased's tribe in a great banquet which they gave me in their country, and to which more than a hundred Indians were invited. Continuing to ascend this river ten or twelve leagues more, the navigation is interrupted by a cataract, which I called the Falls of St. Anthony of Padua, in gratitude for the favors done me by the Almighty through the intercession of that great saint, whom we had chosen patron and protector of all our enterprises. This cataract is forty or fifty feet high, divided in the middle of its fall by a rocky island of pyramidal form. The high mountains which skirt the river Colbert last only as far as the river Onisconsin, about one hundred and twenty leagues ; at this place it begins to flow from the west and northwest without our having been able to learn from the Indians, who have ascended it very far, the spot where this river rises. They merely told us that twenty or thirty leagues below [above?] there is a second fall,tt at the foot of which are some vil- lages of the prairie people called Thinthonka,l who live there a part of the year. Eight leagues above St. Anthony of Padua's Falls, on the right, you find the river of the Issati, or Nadoussiondj. with a very narrow mouth, which you can ascend to the north for about seventy leagues to lake Buade,? or of the Issati, where it rises. AVe gave this river the name of St. Francis. This last lake spreads out into great marshes, producing wild rice, like many other places down to the bay of the Piians.ffi This kind of grain grows in marshy places, without any one sowing it ; it resem- bles oats, but tastes better, and the stalks are longer as well as the ear. The Indians gather it in due season. The women tie several ears of it together with whitewood bark to prevent its being all devoured by the flocks of ducks and teal found there. The Indians lay in a stock for part of the year and to eat out of the hunting season. Lake Buade, or lake of the Issati, is situated about seventy leagues west of lake Conde ; it is impossible to go from one to the other by land on account of the marshy and quaggy nature of the ground ; you might go, though with difficulty, on the snow in snowshoes ; by water there are many portages, and it is one hundred and fifty leagues, on account of the many turns to be made. From lake Conde, to go conveniently by canoe, you must pass by Tomb river, where we found only the skeleton of the Indian whom I mentioned above, the bears having eaten the flesh and pulled up the poles which the deceased's relatives had planted for a monument. One of our boatmen * Lake Pepin. ** Bois Brule. t St. Croix. ft Little Falls. J Tintonwan Jt Rum river. § Milie Lacs. JJ Green Bay. 8 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Hennepin, 1680. found a war calumet beside the grave, and an earthen pot upset, in which the Indians had left fat buffalo meat, to assist the departed, as they say, in making his journey to the land of souls. In the neighborhood of lake Buade are many other lakes whence issue several rivers, on the banks of which live the Issati, Nadouessans. Tinthona (which means prairie-men), Ouadebatlion,* River-people, Chongaskethon, Dog or Wolf tribe (for Chonga among these nations means dog or wolf ), and other tribes, all which we comprise under the name Nadouessiou. These Indians number eight or ten thousand warriors, very brave, great runners, and very good bowmen. It was by a part of these tribes that I and our two canoemen were taken in the following way : The map accompanying Hennepin's work, as published at Paris, is reduced and reproduced in plate-pages 5 and 6. The Mississippi is conjectur- ally represented by a dotted line as flowing into the gulf of Mexico. The Illinois river is named Seignelay ; the Wisconsin is called Oisconsins ; above that is the river Noire, or Black river ; the next above on the east is E. des Bceufs; the St. Croix is styled E. du Tombeau, and between it and Bum river, which is denominated the St. Francois, is a water connection of lakes and streams. There is one river above the St. Francis, but unnamed. The Mississippi is represented as having no tributaries from the west, and as flowing between two ranges of mountains from the Falls of St. Anthony to some distance below the Wisconsin. These " mountains " are none other than the bluffs of the river valley, made of horizontal strata cut by the river itself. Lake Pepin is named Lac des Pleurs ; Mille Lacs is Lac Buade ; lake Superior is Conde ou SupSrieur ; lake Michigan is L. Dauphin ou Illinois ; lake Huron is L. D'Orleans ou Huron ; lake Erie is Conty ou Erie, and lake Ontario is L. Frontenac. The coat of arms of France (probably as established by Du Luth) is represented at the most northwesterly point on the map, surmounted by a figure of the cross, and underneath it are inscribed these words: Armes du Eoy telle quel u sont grauee sur I' escorce d' un Chesne a I' endroit margue — A. The unscrupulous Franciscan represents missions of his order estab- lished some leagues to the northwest of Mille Lacs, on the lower Mississippi, below the Illinois, as well as on lake Ontario. The gulf of California is named Mer Vermeille, and toward the north further are the Straits of Anian, supposed to lead to the " Northwest Passage," that phantom of all early explorers of North America. •Warpetonwan. HISTOKICAL SKETCH. 9 1680, La Salic.] As Hennepin's account of his visit to the Falls St. Anthony has been much criticised for the exaggeration and the egotism which pervade it, the account of La Salle, who planned and despatched the party, is added. It is very probable that La Salle misrepresents Du Luth, and his travels in the upper Mississippi region. Charlevoix refers to Du Luth as a man of veracity, bravery and honor, and Le Clercq as a man of ability and experience. LA SALLE ON THE DISCOVERY OF THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. La Salle's letter from Fort Frontenac, 22nd of August, 1682, is found in Part II. of Margry's Decouvertes et etablissements des Francais dans I'ouest et dans le sud de I'Amerique septentrionale. It contains internal evi- dence that La Salle derived his information of this expedition from Michel Accault, the real leader of the party. Translated into English as follows : The river Colbert, named Qastacha by the Iroquois and Mississipy by the Outaouacs, into which the river of the Islinois, called Teakiki, empties, comes from the northwest. 1 have caused it to be explored by two of my men, one of the name of Michel Accault and the other a Picard,* with whom the K. P. Louis Hennepin was associated, in order not to lose the opportunity to proclaim the gospel to those people who inhabit the upper country who had never heard it. They left Fort Creve Cceur in the afternoon of the 28th of February, with the Peace Calumet, which is a protection against the savages of these countries that they seldom violate. The said Michel Accault was somewhat acquainted with their language and their customs. He knew all their habits, and was a friend of several of those tribes to whom I sent him, where he had been acquainted; also, he is prudent, courageous and cool. They had about one thousand pounds of goods, such as are most valued in those regions, which, combined with the Peace Calumet, are never disregarded by those tribes, since they are nearly destitute of everything. They met at first a number of Islinois, who were ascending their river on a return to their village, who used every effort to induce them to abandon the journey. Michel Accault, who believed he should lose the honor of accomplishing the undertaking, encouraged by the example of the B. P. Louis Hennepin, who desired also to signify his zeal, and wishing to keep his word which he had given me to perish or to succeed, encouraged his comrade who was dispirited by the statements of the savages, and made him believe that the design of the Indians was to profit themselves with their merchandise, and to seize their provisions, and that they should not change the resolution which they had taken. In fact, they continued their journey down the river Theakiki until the 7th of March, 1680, when they fell in with a nation called Tamaroa, or Maroa, about two leagues from the mouth of the river where it reaches the Colbert. This nation numbers two hundred families or thereabout. They desired to conduct them to their village, situated at that time on the west coast of the Grand river, six or seven leagues above the entrance of the Iheakiki. They would not follow them, but arrived, the same day, at the conflu- ence of the two rivers, distant about fifty leagues from Fort Creve Cosur and ninety from the village of the Islinois. The river Theakiki is nearly everywhere of equal size throughout these ninety leagues, approaching the size of the Seine, in front of Paris, where it is confined within its own bed ; but at various places, as at PimiteouiJ one league to the east of Creve Coeur, and two or three other times below, it swells out to one or two leagues, over much space, while the two shores which border it below the village of the Islinois, are distant from each other about half a league. The land which they enclose between them is swampy, as well as the bed of the *His real name was Du Gay. fPeoria. 10 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [La Salic, 1680. river, and often inundated, especially after rains, which easily cause the streams to leave their channels, and expand them exceedingly, though often but a little in height. That of the Islinois, from their village to the Grand river, has a very deep and even bed. There is a border of timber nearly its whole length. The low grounds all sustain very large trees of all kinds, the slopes of the shores being generally covered. But immediately after one has crossed that which the river overflows from time to time, and ascended the banks, he finds only beautiful fields spread before his view, interrupted here and there with clumps of trees, which appear to be there only from necessity. These uninhabited plains extend sometimes even to the brink of the river, particu- larly about the environs of the village, and at sixty leagues to the east and northeast, where timber can be seen very rarely along the shore of the river; but below it is more generally bordered. The current is hardly perceptible when there has not been a great fall of rain. Although this happens only in the spring, it is perfectly navigable, nevertheless, throughout the year, for large boats as far as to the Islinois, and above that only for canoes, partly on account of the rapidity of the stream, and partly on account of the greater descent and the shoals which destroy its depth. Ice which they encountered in the Grand river stopped them at the mouth of the Islinois till the 12th of March. It washes on the south shore a steep rock, about forty feet high, suitable for the establishment of a fort, and on the opposite side extends a fine prairie, the limit of which cannot be seen, very good for cultivation. This place seems to me very well adapted for settlement, for many reasons which I have not time here to state, and I shall easily be able here to establish myself on my return. Just at and below Pimiteoni the river turns somewhat to the south, so that its embouchure is between 46 and 47 degrees of north latitude, and separated from the gulf of Mexico about 120 or 130 leagues. There are between Quebec and Montreal 43 leagues difference east and west; from Montreal to Fort Frontenac, 61 leagues ; from the fort to Niagara, 65 ; from Niagara to the head of Lake Erie, 122 ; from there to the mouth of the river of the Miamis, 117 ; from there to the Islinois, 52 ; thence to Pirniteoui, or Creve Cffiur, 27, and from Creve Cceur to the Mississipi, 18, which makes, altogether, about 500 leagues, or 24 degrees of longitude. The Missistipi appears, in leaving the mouth of the leatiki, to go toward the south and southwest, and above there to come from the north and the northwest. It runs between two ranges of mountains of considerable height — much more than that of Mt. Valerian, which wind about in the same manner as the river, from which presently they fall back a little, leaving between them and its channel a prairie of some width, which is sometimes washed by the water of the river, in such a way that when along one coast it is bordered by the foot of a mountain, on the other is formed a bay, the head of which is terminated by a prairie or by a little patch of woods. The slopes of these shores, which are either of rubbish or of rock, are covered here and there with little oaks, and at other times with very beautiful herbs. The height of these moun- tains conceals the plains beyond, which are of rather poor land, quite different from that of the Islinois, though they sustain the same animals. The channel of the great river, although, for the most part of the width of one or two leagues, is entirely intercepted by a number of islands covered with wild timber, in which are so many vines that one can hardly pass through it. These are subject to inundation by the overflow of the river. They conceal generally the other shore of the river from view, so that it is rarely seen because of these islands. The bottom is very uneven, in ascending the river above the mouth of the Islinois. There are often shoals which cross the channel from one side to the other, over which canoes have difficulty in passing. It is true that in the current of the stream there is generally sufficient water to float the largest vessels ; but there the stream is extremely rough and difficult to make headway. The Mississipi does not receive any considerable rivers from the west side, from the river of the Islinois up to the country of the Nadouessioux, where it receives that of the Otoutantas, Paote and Maskoutens, who are of the Nadouessioux of the East, about one hundred leagues from Teakiki. THE WISCONSIN VALLEY AND THE ROUTE TO GREEN BAY. Following the course of the Mississipi, one finds the river Ouisconsing, Misconsing or Meschetz Odeba, which flows between the bay of the Puans and the Grand river. It runs at first from the north to the south, to about the 45th degree of north latitude, and from there turns to the west and southwest, and after a course of sixty leagues, falls into the Mississipi. It is almost as large as that of the Islinois, navigable up to that bend where a canoe portage is made HISTOBICAL SKETCH. H 1680, LaSalle.] across a divide and a swampy prairie to reach the river Eakaling, which falls into the bay of the Puans, and perhaps further. The Misconsing runs between two hill-ranges, which recede from time to time and leave between them and the river prairies of considerable size, and lands untimbered, which are sandy and sterile. At other times the patch which is between these ridges and the river is, in places, more low and marshy ; and then it is covered with timber and is flooded by the overflows of the river. The mountains diminish imperceptibly in size as one ascends the river, and at length, about three leagues from the portage, the land becomes flat and marshy, open on the side from which the portage sets out, and covered with pines on the other side. The place where the canoes are carried is marked by a tree, on which there are two canoes rudely delineated by the savages ; whence, after having walked about half a league, the river Kakaling [Fox] is found, which is only a rivulet rising from a marsh, and which winds about exceedingly, forming little lakes by enlarging itself, and then often becoming narrow. It is followed about 40 leagues, in the course of the bends it makes, and then is found the village of the Outaga- mies. At one-half league from the river, on the north side, before arriving there, the river falls into a lake which may be eight leagues long and three leagues wide ; and after passing the village about two leagues are found the Kakaling rapids, which are difficult to descend on account of the swiftness of the water, the frequency of rocks which it encounters, and three waterfalls where it is necessary to carry the canoes and their burden. They continue six leagues. Three leagues below them, at the debouchure of this river into the bay of the Puans, is a house of the Jesuits, who truly have the key to the country of the beaver, where a brother blacksmith whom they have, and two companions, have changed more iron into beaver than the Fathers have of savages into Christians. About 23 or 24 leagues to the north, or northwest, from the mouth of the Ouisconsing [Wis- consin], which has also a rocky coast on the south side and a beautiful prairie on the north, near to three beautiful basins or bays of quiet water, is the river Noire [Black], called Chabadeba by the Nadouesioux. This is of inconsiderable size, and at its mouth it is bordered on both sides by alders. Ascending about 30 leagues, all the way in nearly the same direction, we have the river Bceufs [Chippewa], about as large at its mouth as that of the Illinois. It is so called because of the number of these animals which are there found. It was explored ten or twelve leagues, and it remains of the same size and without rapids, bordered by mountains, which are separated farther, occasionally, so as to form prairies. There are several islands at its mouth, and it is lined with woods on both shores. LA SALLE'S OPINION OF DU LUTH. Thirty-eight or forty leagues higher is found the river by which Du Luth descended to the Mississipi. For three years he had been, contrary to orders, with a band of coureurs det bois, in the lake Superior region. He had acted very boldly there, publishing every- where that at the head of his braves he did not fear the Grand Provost, and that he would forcibly make him grant him amnesty. The coureurs des bois, to whom he first had revealed his pretence, have been several times in the settlement, and have returned carrying merchandise and furs, of which they have meantime despoiled lake Superior, from all the approaches to which they have kept out the Outaouac during this year, so that they could not descend to Montreal. During this time and while he was at lake Superior, the Nadouesioux, invited by the presents which the late Sieur Randin had made them in behalf of Count Frontenac, and the Sauteurs, who are the savages that bring the most peltries to Montreal, and who dwell at lake Superior, wishing to observe the repeated injunctions of said Frontenac, concluded a peace, which was to unite the nation of the Sauteurs to the French, and to allow them to go in trade to the country of the Nadouesioux, distant about 60 leagues to the west from lake Superior. Du Luth, in order to conceal his desertion, took this occasion to give it some excuse, and causes himself, with two of his fellow-deserters to pass as an envoy of the Count and charged with his orders, for the purpose of negotiating that peace— during which his comrades negotiate for a great number of beaver. He had a number of conferences with the Nadouesioux, and as he had no interpreter, he bribed one of mine, named Faffert, till then a soldier at Fort Frontenac. Finally, the Sauteurs having been several times back and forth to the Nadouesioux, and the Nadouesioux to the Sauteurs, seeing that there was nothing to fear, and that it was possible to increase the number of their beaver, he 12 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [La Salle, 1680. sent there this Faffert, by land, with some Nadouesioux and Sauteurs, who returned in company with him. This young man having made a report on his return of the number of beaver which he might obtain from that direction, he resolved to attempt to go there himself; and under the guidance of a Sauteur and a Nadouesioux, with four Frenchmen, they ascended the Nemitsakouat, whence, by a short portage, he descended into that in which he said he had passed forty leagues of rapids ; and having seen that the Nadouesioux were further down with my men and the Father,? having gone down the river from the village of the Nadouesioux where they had already been, he comes on to flnd them. He returned to the village, whence they all together re-descended and by the way of the river Ouisconsing reached Montreal. There he was considerably elated at having been one of their party, having even insulted the commissaries, and also the Deputy Procureur, (at present the Procureur- General), named d'Auteuil. Mons. le Oomte de Frontenac had him arrested, and took measures to keep him in prison in the bastile at Quebec, intending to send him to France on the certification of the facts by Mons. 1'Intendaut, to the end that the amnesty granted to his coureurs des bois should not result in his discharge. To know who this Du Luth is, it is necessary that you be informed by Mons. Dalera. Meantime he pretends to have made a considerable discovery, and to demand this country as if to the advantage of the Islinois, a proceeding which is quite agreeable, and which he hopes may compensate for his rebellion. Secondly, there are only three routes by which to go there— one is by lake Superior, the second by the bay of the Puans, and the third by the Islinois and the terri- tory that is covered by my commission. The first two lie under suspicion, and it will not be necessary to open to him the third to my disadvantage, he not having incurred any expense, and having made great gain without risk, at the same time that I have endured great fatigues, perils and losses. Further, through the Islinois is a detour of three hundred leagues for him. For the greater part of the country of the Nadouesioux is not that which he has discovered. It has been known for a long time, and the R. P. Hennepin and Michel Accault were there before him. Even that one of his fellow-deserters who was there, was one of my soldiers whom he bribed. Further- more this country is not habitable, little adapted to cultivation, having only marshes full of wild rice (folle avoine ) on which the people live ; and there can be derived from this discovery no advantage whether it be attributable to my men or to Du Luth, because the streams are not navigable. But the king having granted us the trade in buffalo hides, this would be ruined in going to and coming from the Nadouesioux by any other route than by lake Superior by which Count Frontenac has power to send him there in search for beaver, in pursuance of the authority which he has to grant permits. But if they go by way of the Ouisconsing, where for the present the chase of the buffalo is carried on, and where I have commenced an establishment, they will ruin the trade of which alone I am laying the foundation on account of the great number of buffaloes which are taken there every year, almost beyond belief. LA SALLE'S DESCRIPTION OF THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. Ascending still the JtfJssisstpt, at twenty leagues above this river, are found the falls which those whom I sent, and who passed there first of all, named from St. Anthony. They have the height of thirty or forty feet, and there the river is also narrow. There is an island in the midst of the fall, and the two shores of the river are no longer bordered by mountains, which diminish insensibly up to there ;* but the land on both sides is covered with light timber, ** as we style it, that is to say, oaks and other hard woods, standing far apart, such as grow only in poor lands. There are also some prairies. Here the canoes are carried about three or four hun- dred steps, and eight leagues above is the river of the Nadoesioux, ou the westf side. It is narrow at its entrance and drains a poor country covered with shrubs through about fifty leagues, where it terminates in a lake called lake of the Issati, which spreads over a great marsh where grows the wild rice, at the point of its outlet in this river. * Hennepin says the mountains extend only to the mouth of the Wisconsin. § Hennepin. ** Perhaps this bois clairs means deciduous trees. t This is evidently an error of some copyist, as the river, which is well known as Bum river, is an eastern tribu- tary of the Mississippi. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 13 1680, La Salk.] CAPTURE OF ACCAULT AND HIS PARTY. The 3Hsnis.ii2)i comes from the west, but it was not followed because of the adventure which happened to B. P. Louis, Michel Accault and their comrade. This affair happened in this way. After having pursued the course of the Mississipi till the llth of April about three o'clock in the afternoon, rowing along the shore on the side of the Islinois, a band of a hundred Nadouesioux warriors who were going to slaughter some of the Tchatchaklgona* were descending the same river in thirty-three canoes made of birch bark. There were with them three women, and one of those slaves who serve the women, although they are men, whom the Islinois call Ikoveta. They passed along on the other side of some islands, and so several of the canoes had descended below that of the Frenchmen ; but descrying it they all gathered together, and those who had gone below returning with all haste, they easily encom- passed it about and closed up the way. There was one party of them on the land, who surrounded them on that side. Michel Accault, who was the leader, presented them the calumet. They accepted it and smoked, after having made a circle on the ground covered with straw where they caused the Frenchmen to sit down. Immediately two of the old men began to weep for the death of those of their kinsmen whom they designed to avenge ; and after having taken some tobacco they made our men embark, and cross over first to the other side of the river. They followed on, after having uttered three cries, and pushed their canoes with all haste. On disembarking Michel Accault presented them with twenty knives and a measure and a half of tobacco, which they accepted. They had already stolen a demi-pique and several other small articles. They then traveled together ten days, without giving any sign of discontent or of evil design ; but on the 22nd of April, having reached the islands where they had slain some Maskcutens, they put the two dead whom they were going to avenge, and whose bones they carried with them, between P. Louis and Michel Accault. This is an ambiguous ceremony which they perform before their friends in order to incite them to compassion, and to cause them to make presents to cover them with, and before their slaves whom they take in war to make them understand that they must expect a treatment like to that which they render to the dead. Michel Accault unfortunately did not understand this nation, and there was not one slave of the other nations whom he did under- stand, which hardly ever happens, all the tribes in America having a number of those to whom they have granted life in order to replace their dead, after having sacrificed a great number to satisfy their vengeance. This enables them to understand almost all the tribes, since they become acquainted with three or four languages of those tribes who go farthest in war, such as the Iro- quois, the Islinois, the Akonsa, the Nadouesioux and Sauteurs. Accault understood all these except the Nadouesioux ; yet there are among them a number who have been slaves with the others, or who had come from them and have been taken in war, but by chance he did not find one of them in this company to interpret him to the others. It was necessary to give a full case of merchandise, and the next day twenty-four hatchets. At eight leagues below the falls of St. Anthony they determined to go by land to their village, distant about sixty leagues from the place of disembarking, not being willing to carry the goods of our men, nor to conduct them there by water. They made them then give up the rest of their hatchets, which they shared amongst themselves, promising to repay them well at the village ; but two days afterward they divided also among themselves two cases of merchandise, and, falling into a quarrel concerning the division both of the merchandise and of the tobacco, each chief claiming to be the master, they sepa- rated in jealousy as they led the Frenchmen toward the village, where they promised to make satisfaction with beaver skins which they said they had in great number. THE PAUTY AT M1LLE LACS. There they were received well, and at once made a banquet for Accault, who was in a differ- ent village from that where the R. P. Louis and the Picard were, but who were there also well received except that, several sportive young men having told the Picard to sing, the fear that he experienced made a coward of him, since only slaves sing on arriving at a village. Accault, who was not there, was not able to prevent it ; but they were subjected to no other treatment like that *IIemiepin says Otttaffamis, and Parkman says J/iai»m. 14 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [La Salle, 1680. which they impose on slaves. They were never tied ; and after that, they promised the return of that which their young men had seized, since Accault, who had found some men to whom he could make himself understood, made them comprehend the importance of it, when they imme- diately danced two calumets, and offered several beaver skins with which to begin the payment ; but as these were too little Accault would not be satisfied. Six weeks afterward, all having returned to the Ouisconsing with the Nadoesioux on a hunt, the E. P. Louis Hennepin and the Picard resolved to go to the mouth of the river where I had promised to send messages, as I had done by six men, whom the Jesuits deceived, telling them that the B. P. Louis and his fellow travelers had been slain. They allowed them to go there alone, to show them they were not regarded as slaves, and that Du Luth is wrong in boasting of having released them from slavery, since on the journey and as long as their food lasted, the Frenchmen had the best, although they suffered great hunger when the savages were without food. Jealousy was the sole cause of the pillage, because, as they were from different villages, and but few from that where the Frenchmen were to go, they did it in order to secure their portion of the merchandise, of which they feared they would receive none if they once entered the village where the Frenchmen were to go ; but the old men blamed greatly the young men, and offered and even began to make the restitution that Accault ought to have. They regarded the French so- little as slaves that they gave to R. P. Louis and the Picard a canoe to go in search of my messengers. All that Du Luth can say is, that having come to the place where the Father and the two Frenchmen had gone in a hunt from the village, where, along with them he went for the first time when they returned there, he made it easier for them to return sooner than they would have done, because messengers whom I had sent had been dissuaded from going on ; but we should have been in search for them the following spring if we had not learned, as we did in the whiter, of their return by way of the Outagamis. Accault found himself so little a slave that he was intending to remain there until he should receive the payment that had been promised him. LA SALLE JUSTIFIES THE EXPEDITION. I do not doubt but several things may be said of this expedition. (1.) That I ought to have sent a man who understood the language. To this it is easy to reply that I did not send Accault to the Nadouesioux but to explore the Grand river, that he understood the language of those who were nearest, such as the Otontanta the Aiounouea, the Kikapou and the Maskoutens Nadouesioux through whom he was to pass first, and to take an interpreter from there for going further on, it being impossible to send those who understood all the languages. It will be said also that in the first expeditions it was not necessary to go with so much merchandise, which tempts the young men, already under bad subjection to the elders, and leads them to deeds which they would not do if they saw nothing which tempted them. To this I reply that, sending to those nations with whom we had acquaintance through the Islinois, and to whom Accault was a friend, because he had passed two winters and a summer there, during which time he had seen several of the most important of their villages where he was to pass, whom he had won by little presents, there was nothing to fear, at least in all probability — there being no likelihood that they would encounter an army of the Nadouesioux three hundred leagues from that country. (2) These voyages being difficult, those who undertake them do it only through the hope of gain, which they could not accomplish without merchandise. (3) Several of those savages having come to the Islinms while we were there, and having seen the merchan- dise which we had there, they would be filled either with anger or jealousy, believing that going into their country with but little would be either from a want of friendship for them or from some evil design. Finally, wishing to attract them to come and buy of our commodities and to make them accustomed to the use of them, it would be necessary to have a somewhat considerable quantity of them. I have thought it proper to give you this account of the adventures of this canoe, because I do not doubt its being spoken of, and if you wish to confer with Father Louis Heimepin, Recol- lect, about it, who has returned to France, it is well to know something of it, for he will not fail to exaggerate everything ; it is his character ; and to me even he has written as if he had been nearly burnt up, although he has not been <:ven in danger of it ; but he believes it is honorable in him to act in that way, and he speaks more in accordance with what he icishes than what he knows. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 15 1688, La Hontan.) Hennepin's account of the capture and captivity among the Nadoue- sioux is more circumstantial than that of La Salle, but in the main similar to his. Hennepin, however, recounts various indignities and deprivations to which they were subjected, regarding himself as a prisoner and a slave while at lake Buade. " In the beginning of July" the Frenchmen set out with the Indians on a grand buffalo-hunt down the Mississippi. In four days they reached the mouth of the St. Francis, or Rum river,* where they halted for the purpose of making more canoes; while Hennepin and the Picard proceeded down the Mississippi alone in a poor canoe intending to reach the Wisconsin river, where La Salle had agreed to send messages to them. It is probable, there- fore, that Hennepin first saw the Falls of St. Anthony on the 5th day of July, 1680,f in company with the Picard alone. On the llth they were not far from the Wisconsin, after some adventure and delay. It is plain, also, that Hennepin saw the Falls of St. Anthony before he encountered Du Luth, and may be accredited with the first recorded exam- ination of the Mississippi between the Wisconsin river and the Bum river, and Du Luth with the first visit to the St. Croix river, which he prob- ably descended from the headwaters of the Bois Brule, known then as the Nemissakouat. (Plate-pages 5 and 6.) LA HONTAN IN MINNESOTA. Baron La Hontan's work, in which he describes a voyage on the river Long, made by himself in the winter of 1688-89, is largely fictitious. He states that he traveled sixty days in winter on a river 500 miles long, at the mouth of which are many rushes, which entered the Mississippi from the west. Mr. J. N. Nicollet regards the river that La Hpntan entered as the Cannon river. It has also been suggested that on ascending this river to its source he passed into the Minnesota river, through some of the canoe routes and lakes which cause the headwaters of the Cannon to interlock with those of the Le Sueur. Keating, the chronicler of Major Long's expedition to the sources of the St. Peter, supposed that the Root river * On modern maps the name of St. Francis is applied to the next stream above the Rum, and that may have been the river to which Hennepin referred in his Journal, since by a portage the route by it to lake Buade is much less than the course of the Rum river, and the Indians may have followed that route. t The Minnesota Historical Society celebrated July^S, 1880. as the Bi-centennial of the discovory of the Falls of St Anthony. 16 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Le Sueur, 1700. was the one referred to by La Hontan, while others, with perhaps as good reasons, think he actually entered the Minnesota river. The very general and vague description which he makes of the physical character of the valley of the Riviere Longe will apply with equal correctness to either of these valleys, but the direction of the river he says he explored, as represented on his map, can only apply to the Root river. The Root river is less likely to be frozen in winter than either of the others, owing to the fact that it is derived largely from copious springs and subterranean streams that flow from the rocky bluffs between which it runs (see the geology of Fillmore county), and is a larger stream than the Cannon, and further south.* LE SUEUR IN THE MINNESOTA VALLEY. Although there is mention made in the treatise of Nicholas Perrot, a trader and interpreter, and later an agent of the government in the upper Mississippi region, on the habits, customs and religions of the savages of North America, of the St. Croix and St. Peter's rivers, there seems to have been no further extension of knowledge of the geography of the region till the time of Le Sueur. The first accredited exploration of the Minnesota valley was made by Le Sueur, who first visited the upper Mississippi in 1683, with Perrot, in the interests of trade. He built a trading-post on Isle Pelee, a few miles below Hastings, in 1695, and in 1699 received a commission from D'Iberville to visit and examine a copper mine which he claimed to have discovered in the country of the loways. In April, 1700, with a single shallop and about twenty-five persons, he started from the settlements on the lower Mississippi for the mouth of the Minnesota river, where he arrived on the 19th of September ; and on the last day of the same month, being stopped by ice forty -four leagues above its union with the Mississippi, he determined to build his fort. His narrator, Penicaut, who was also his carpenter, states that this place was a league up the Green river (now the Blue Earth) on a point of land a quarter of a league distant from the woods. This river was so called "because it is of that color by reason of a green earth, which, loosening itself from the copper mines, becomes dissolved in it and makes * Coxo in French's Hist. Col. of Louisiana, Part II., p. 233, says lake P«pin was abate the "Long" river of La Hontan. KHU MBI /HUB i/ffl Htm- im BUI mi MI mini -mi fil li't the dec I tun cat . ATI-: n. ue du \Cancer /6Sj. le, Rc.ut.rtJid PC re- — * '•*. £tennef>in HISTORICAL SKETCH. 17 1701, Le Sueur.] it green." Four leagues above the mouth of the St. Croix, at the mouth of a small lake, Le Sueur saw a large mass of copper. " It is on the edge of the water, in a small ridge of sandy earth, on the west of this lake."* The blue, or green, earth, which was mistaken for an ore of copper by Le Sueur, was obtained in a mine three-quarters of a league distant from the fort. The fort was named L'Huillier, from one of the chief collectors of the king, who had assayed the ore in Paris in 1696. Having spent the winter at his fort, in the spring of 1701 he descended the Mississippi with a large quantity of the ore, 4,000 pounds of which were sent to France. He intended to return, but in 1703 the garrison left by him arrived at Mobile, in charge of Derague, having been compelled to abandon the post on account of ill treatment by the Indians, and lack of supplies. This river is further described as being near a range of hills (Keating says mountains) ten leagues long that seemed to be composed of the same substance. Charlevoix says : " After removing a burnt, black crust, as hard as a rock, the copper could be scraped with a knife." Penicaut says : " This mine is situated at the beginning of a very long mountain which is upon the bank of the river, so that boats can go right to the mouth of the mine itself. At this place is the green earth, which is a foot and a half in thickness, and above it is a layer of earth as firm and hard as stone, and black and burnt like coal by the exhalation from the mine. The copper is scratched out with a knife. There are no trees upon this mountain. If this mine is good, it will make a great trade, because the mountain contains more than ten leagues running of the same ground. It appears, according to our observations, that in the very finest weather there is continually a fog upon this mountain."! Mr. W. W. Mather, who accompanied Featherstonhaugh, says that he " found the green earth, but it contained no copper." Mr. Featherstonaugh is very positive in his denial of the existence of any copper in that locality, and pronounces the whole account a fabrication by Le Sueur. It is more probable that Le Sueur was honest in his conviction, but was mistaken in the value of the green earth which he mined. Charlevoix, La Harpe and Penicaut agree in the statement of the main facts, and if * Neill's Minnesota, p 161. t Translated by A. J Hill, in the Third Volume of the Minnesota Hittorical CMecUont. 2 18 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Ochagach, 1730. Le Sueur took a quantity to France for assay, it is not likely that he wilfully falsified the facts as to its origin and nature. There can be no question of the existence of both green and blue earth in that vicinity. The shales of the Cretaceous are common in that part of the state, and there is also a clayey deposit, supposed to be of the Cretaceous, found lying unconformably in eroded places in the Cambrian limestones of that valley. The hard, black, burnt crust mentioned, which, on being scraped, exhibited the copper, can be no other than the ironstone incrustation that covers the Cambrian limestones, as seen at Mankato, wherever the Cretaceous clays lie unconformably over them. OCHAGACH'S MAP. The oldest map of the region west of lake Superior was traced by a chief of the Assiniboines, named Ochagach, for Verendrye, in 1730, and was taken by Verendrye to the governor of Canada to induce him to equip an exploring expedition in search of a passage to the western ocean. This map was sent to Paris and deposited in the Archives de la Marine. A reduced transcript of this map is given below (Fig. 1.), derived from a fac- simile tracing in the Department of American History of the Minnesota Historical Society, through the courtesy of Mr. Neill. It was reproduced on the margin of Buache's map of 1754, and its contents are also incor- porated in Buache's general Carte Physique. (V. Plate 4.) It gave rise to the important and extensive explorations of Sieur Verendrye and his sons and nephew (Jeremaye), which extended through several years and covered the valleys of the Assiniboine and Saskatchawan, as well as those of the upper Missouri and the Yellowstone, to the " shining mountains." The water-course rudely represented on this chart, extending westward from lake Superior, is that which afterward became the international boundary. The river marked "R. de fond du L. Superieur" is evidently that which is now known as Vermilion river, north of Vermilion lake, and derived its designation by Ochagach from the fact that it furnished the main route, for east-bound canoes, to the head of lake Superior and the south shore of that lake ; and, for a similar reason, that marked " Missis- sipi" represents the Big Fork river. The "Fleuve de 1'ouest" is evidently the present Saskatchawan river, flowing into lake Winnipeg from the west, HISTORICAL SKETCH. 19 1766, Carver.] and rising in the Kocky Mountains. Plate IV however, represents the river of the west as flowing into the Pacific, rising in lake Brochet in the neighborhood of the sources of the Missouri. ya-f faju-axilfi: P •fftU. £ar& tf-aG& fiar- /ft'cvert (3%ancct* 2&s7'£4*ei tier tdonf K &rfa CV tyTf^ JONATHAN CARVEE. Jonathan Carver in 1766 was the next to contribute to the geography and natural history of Minnesota. By this time the route for canoes along the northwestern boundary had become well known, and was annually traversed by hundreds of coureurs des bois and by thousands of Indians conveying furs to the lake shore, where at Fort Charlotte, now Grand Port- age, they were exchanged for supplies from Montreal, or were despatched in the light birch canoes to the distant markets of Montreal and Quebec. This route had been mapped by Ochagach in 1730 for Verendrye, and by Jeffrey in 1762. Carver ascended the Mississippi from the mouth of the Wisconsin to the falls of St. Anthony, of which he gives the fullest description up to that time, and, passing above the falls, reached the St. Francis river. Thence he descended, and made his way up the Minnesota river as far as the mouth of the Waraju, or Cottonwood, where he spent seven months — the winter and spring of 1766-67. Subsequently descending the Mississippi to Prairie du Chien, he passed through Wisconsin to lake 20 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Caiver. 17*6 FIGURE 2. NOUVELLE Par Guillnurne BE L'ISLE cr'f /'A. •afitJme&'t/aJi- dt's i Superior and Grand Portage, returning to Boston by way of the north shore of lake Superior, Michillimackinac and Detroit. Carver's book* states that he intended at first to pass by way of the lake of the Woods and lake Winnipeg, to the " heads of the river of the West, which, as I have said before, falls into the straits of Annian, the termina- tion of my intended progress," but falling short of supplies for presents to the Indians, and being unable to obtain them of the traders at Grand Portage, he was compelled to abandon his great exploration. "Travels through the interior parts of North America, in the years 1706, 1767 and 1768. By J. Carver, Esq., Captain of a company of provincial troops during the late war with France, Dublin, 1779. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 21 1766, Carver.] Passing through lake Pepin, he gives the usual description, adding the following respecting the fauna : CARVER ON LAKE PEPIK AND THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Great numbers of fowl also frequent this lake and rivers adjacent, such as storks, swans, geese, brants and ducks ; and in the groves are found plenty of turkeys and partridges. On the plains are the largest buffaloes of any in America. Here I observed the ruins of a French factory, where it is said Captain St. Pierre resided and carried on a very great trade with the Naudowessies, before the reduction of Canada. The Mississippi, as far as the entrance of the river St. Croix, thirty miles above lake Pepin, is very full of islands, some of which are of considerable length. On these also grow great numbers of the maple or sugar tree, and around them vines loaded with grapes creeping to their very tops. From the lake upwards few mountains are to be seen, and those but small. CARVER ON CARVER'S CAVE. About thirty miles below the falls of St. Anthony, at which I arrived the tenth day after I left lake Pepin, is a remarkable cave of an amazing depth. The Indians term it Wakon-teebe, that is the Dwelling of the Great Spirit. The entrance into it is about ten feet wide, the height of it five feet. The arch within is near fifteen feet high and about thirty feet broad. The bottom of it consists of fine, clear sand. About twenty feet from the entrance begins a lake, the water of which is transparent, and extends to an unsearchable distance ; for the darkness of the cave prevents all attempts to acquire a knowledge of it. I threw a small pebble toward the interior parts of it with my utmost strength ; I could hear that it fell into the water, and notwithstanding it was of so small a size, it caused an astonishing and horrible noise that reverberated through all those gloomy regions. I found in this cave many Indian hieroglyphics, which appeared very ancient, for time had nearly covered them with moss, so that it was with difficulty I could trace them. They were cut in a rude manner upon the inside of the walls, which were composed of a stone so extremely soft that it might be easily penetrated with a knife ; a stone everywhere to be found near the Mississippi. The cave is only accessible by ascending a narrow, steep passage that lies near the brink of the river. At a little distance from this dreary cavern is the burying-place of several bands of the Naudowessie Indians. Though these people have no fixed residence, living in tents, and abiding but a few months on one spot, yet they always bring the bones of their dead to this place, which they take the opportunity of doing when the chiefs meet to hold their councils and to settle all public affairs for the ensuing summer. Ten miles below the falls of St. Anthony the river St. Pierre, called by the natives Wadapaw Menesotor, falls into the Mississippi from the west. It is not mentioned by Father Hennepin, although a large, fair river ; this omission, I conclude, must have proceeded from a small island that is situated exactly at its entrance, by which the sight of it is intercepted. I should not have discovered this river myself had I not taken a view, when I was searching for it, from the high lands opposite, which rise to a great height. Nearly over against this river I was obliged to leave my canoe, on account of the ice, and travel by land to the falls of St. Anthony, where I arrived on the 17th of November. The Mississippi, from the St. Pierre to this place, is rather more rapid than I had hitherto found it, and without islands of any consid- eration. CARVER AT THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. The falls of St. Anthony received their name from Father Louis Hennepin, a French missionary, who traveled into those parts about the year 1680, and was the first European ever seen by the natives. This amazing body of waters, which are about 250 yards over, form a most pleasing cataract ; they fall perpendicularly about thirty feet, and the rapids below, in the space of 300 yards more, rendered the descent considerably greater; so that when viewed at a 22 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Carver, 1766. distance they appear to be much higher than they really are. The above-mentioned traveler has laid them down at about sixty feet ; but he has made a greater error in calculating the height of the falls_of Niagara, which he asserts to be 600 feet, whereas, from later observations accurately made, it is well known that it does not exceed 140 feet. But thej good father, I fear, too often had no otherfoundation for his accounts than report, or, at best, a slight inspection. FIG. 3. CARVER'S SKETCH OF THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHOXY, 1766. In the middle of the falls stands a small island about forty feet broad and somewhat longer, on which grow a few cragged hemlock and spruce trees, and about half way between this island and the eastern shore is a rock, lying at the very edge of the fall in an oblique position, that appeared to be about five or six feet broad and thirty or forty feet long. These falls vaiy much from all the others I have seen, as you may approach close to them without finding the least obstruction from any intervening hill or precipice. The country around them is extremely beautiful. It is not an uninterrupted plain where the eye finds no relief, but composed of many gentle ascents which, in 'the summer, are covered with the finest verdure, and interspersed with little groves that give a pleasing variety to the prospect. On the whole, when the falls are included, which may be seen at the distance of four miles, a more pleasing and picturesque view cannot, I believe, be found throughout the universe. I could have wished that I had happened to enjoy this glorious sight at a more seasonable time of the year, whilst the trees and hillocks were clad in Nature's gayest livery, as this must have greatly added to the pleasure I received ; however, even then, it exceeded my warmest expectations. I have endeavored to give the reader as just an idea of this enchanting spot as possible in the plan annexed ; but all description, whether of the pencil or the pen, must fall infinitely short of the original. At a little distance below the falls stands a small island, of about an acre and a half, on which grow a great number of oak trees, every branch of which, able to support the weight, was full of eagles' nests. The reason that this kind of birds resort in such numbers to this spot is that they are here secure from the attacks either of man or beast, their retreat being guarded by the HISTORICAL SKETCH. 23 1 766 Carver.] rapids, which the Indians never attempt to pass. Another reason is that they find a constant supply of food for themselves and their young, from the animals and fish which are dashed to pieces by the falls and driven on the adjacent shore. Having satisfied my curiosity, as far as the eye of man can be satisfied, I proceeded on. still accompanied by my young friend,* till I had reached the river St. Francis, near sixty miles above the falls. To this river Father Hennepin gave the name of St. Francis, and this was the extent of his travels, as well as mine, toward the northwest. As the season was so far advanced, and the weather extremely cold, I was not able to make so many observations on these parts as I otherwise should have done. It might however, perhaps, be necessary to observe that in a little tour I made about the falls, after traveling fourteen miles by the side of the Mississippi, I came to a river nearly twenty yards wide which ran from the northeast, called Rum river. And on the 20th of November came to another termed Goose river, and about twelve yards wide. On the 21st I arrived at the St. Francis which is about thirty yards wide. Here the Mississippi itself grows narrow, being not more than ninety yards over ; and appears to be chiefly composed of small branches. The ice prevented me from noticing the depth of any of these rivers.f The country in some places is hilly, but without large mountains, and the land is tolerably good. I observed here many deer and carraboes, some elk, with abundance of beavers, otters and other furs. A little above this to the northeast, are a number of small lakes, called the Thousand lakes ; the parts about which, though but little frequented, are the best within many miles for hunting, as the hunter never fails of returning loaded beyond his expectations. CARVER ASCENDS THE MINNESOTA. On the 25th I returned to my canoe which I had left at the mouth of the river St. Pierre ; and here I parted with regret from my young friend the prince of the Winnebagoes. This river being clear of ice by reason of its southern situation, I found nothing to obstruct my passage. On the 28th, being advanced about forty miles, I arrived at a small branch that fell into it from the north ; to which as it had no name that I could distinguish it by, I gave my own, and the reader will find it in the plan of my travels denominated Carver's river. About forty miles higher up I came to the forks of the Verd and Red Marble rivers, which join at some little distance before they enter the St. Pierre. The river St. Pierre, at its junction with the Mississippi, is about a hundred yards broad, and continues that breadth nearly all the way I sailed upon it. It has a great depth of water, and and in some places runs very briskly. About fifty miles from its mouth are some rapids, and much higher up there are many others. I proceeded up this river about two hundred miles, to the country of the Nadowessies of the Plains, which lies a little above the forks formed by the Verd and Red Marble rivers [i. e. The Blue Earth and Watonwan rivers,— N. H. W.] just mentioned, where a branch from the south nearly joins the Messorie river.! By the accounts I received from the Indians I have reason to believe that the river St. Pierre and the Messorie, though they enter the Mississippi twelve hundred miles from each other, take their rise in the same neighborhood, and this within the space of a mile. The river St. Pierre's northern branch [i. e. The main river. — N. H. W.] rises from a num- ber of lakes [Big Stone L.— N. H. W.] near the Shining Mountains, and it is from some of these, also, that a capital branch [Red River of the North.— N. H. W.] of the river Bourbon [Nelson river.— N. H. W.] which runs into Hudson's bay, has its sources. * * * I have learned that the four most capital rivers of North America, viz., the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the river Bourbon, and the Oregon, or River of the West, have their sources in the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former, are within thirty miles of each other ; the latter, however, is rather farther west.? *A young "prince" of the Winnebago Indians whom be had encountered a few miles below the Minnesota river. fThe distance to Rum river is approximately correct. The Goose river is now the Crow river, and the Elk, -which is now sometimes styled the St. Francis river (though Hennepin applied the name to the outlet of L. Buade) is the only one to which Carver can refer, said to be 30 yards wid». JThe sources of the Waraju river are near those of the Bock river, the latter being a branch of the Missouri. Car- ver wintered at the mouth of the Waraju (or Cottonwood) river. £This idea of the proximity of the source of the Oregon to those of the other rivers mentioned is represented on the map accompanying Du Pratz' Histoire de la Louisiane, 24 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Carver, 1766. This shows that these parts are the highest lands in North America ; and it is an instance not to be paralleled on the other three quarters of the globe, that four rivers of such magnitude should take their rise together, and each, after running separate courses, discharge their waters into dffereut oceans at the distance of two thousand miles from their sources. CARVER'S OPINION OF THE MINNESOTA VALLEY. The river St. Pierre, which runs through the territories of the Naudowessies, flows through a most delightful country, abounding with all the necessaries of life that grow spontaneously, and with a little cultivation it might be made to produce even the luxuries of life. Wild rice grows here in great abundance ; and every part is filled with trees bending under their loads of fruit, such as plnms, grapes and apples ; the meadows are covered with hops, and many sorts of vegetables ; whilst the ground is stored with useful roots, with angelica, spikenard, and ground-nuts as large as hen's eggs. At a little distance from the sides of the river are eminences from which you have views that cannot be exceeded even by the most beautiful of those I have already described ; amidst these are delightful groves, and such amazing quantities of maples that they would produce sugar sufficient for any number of inhabitants. THE ST. PETER SANDSTONE. A little way from the mouth of this river, on the north side of it, stands a hill, one part of which, that toward the Mississippi, is composed entirely of white stone, of the same soft nature as that I have before described ; for such indeed is all the stone in this country. But what appears remarkable is, that the color of it is as white as the driven snow, The outward part of it was crumbled by the wind and weather into heaps of sand, of which a beautiful composition might be made ; or, I am of opinion, that when properly treated, the stone itself would grow harder by time, and have a very noble effect in architecture, Near that branch which is termed the Marble river, is a mountain , from which the Indians get a sort of red stone, out of which they hew the bowls of their pipes. [This, doubtless, is a reference to the catlinite of Pipestone county. — N. H. W.] Carver's work contains a dissertation on the origin, manners, customs, religion and language of the Indians, followed by a chapter on the leading species of animals, particularly the game animals, and on the trees, shrubs, roots, herbs and flowers of the interior parts of North America, but as he assigns none of them to their habitats, they cannot be claimed as indigenous to Minnesota, though doubtless most of them are. Carver gives a description and location of many of the lakes northwest from Grand Portage, and of some in northern Minnesota, about the head- waters of the Mississippi and the Eed river of the North, but as he did not visit them, and his account is based wholly on descriptions derived from the Indians and traders, it is quite incorrect in some particulars. He states that "the most remote source" of the Mississippi river is a lake not far from Red lake, a little to the southwest, called White Bear lake, of about the same size as Red lake.* It is now known as lake Whipple. *The map accompanying Carver's book (London edition) shows the general inaccuracy of Carver not only in depicting his own observations, but also in reproducing those of earlier writers. "The country of peace]' and the Red Marble river, are so named doubtless from the red quartzyte and catlinite (the latter used for making the peace calumet) about the headwaters of the Watonwan and Cottouwood rivers, and should be represented on the w^st Fork of the Verd river instead of the east. The mountains of "The country off " Mountains o? the Prairie." Compare Keating's strictures upon Carve the Verd river instead of the east. The mountains of "The country of peace" are a poetic exaggeration, like Hiawatha's " jating's strictures upon Carver in Long's Expedition in 1823, Vol. 1, p. 336. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 25 1805, Pike.] Captain Carver did not give up his design of reaching the " straits of Annian" through the headwaters of the great streams flowing east and west from Minnesota, and organized a party to carry out the purpose in which he had failed, on his return to England. This was to be under the auspices of Richard Wentworth, Esq., member of Parliament for Stafford, and was to set out in 1774, when the troubles incident to the Revolutionary war put a stop to the enterprise. II. PERIOD OF TERRITORIAL EXPLORATION, 1783 TO 1858. The war of the Revolution which left the east bank of the Mississippi in the possession of the United States and the west bank in the possession of the French, operated not only to terminate English and French explora- tion, but to retard that of the United States. It was not till after the cession of Louisiana by France that the United States government instituted meas- ures for the exploration of the unknown country west of the Mississippi, when, in 1805, Captains Lewis and Clarke were dispatched to explore the Missouri river, and Lieutenant Z. M. Pike to ascend the Mississippi to its source. Lieut. Pike found the upper Mississippi country occupied by trading posts of the Northwest Fur Company, over which was still flying the English flag, a fact which attests the isolation of that region since the peace con- cluded in 1783. One of these posts was found at Red Cedar lake, (north of Mi lie Lacs) one at Sandy lake and two at Leech lake, whose influence extended " from the head of lake Superior to the source of the Mississippi and down Red river." This company had employed Mr. David Thompson as explorer and geographer for many years, and Lieut. Pike refers to his having established the latitude of Red Cedar lake (now Cass L.) supposed to be the source of the Mississippi, in 1798, finding this Post to be in latitude 47° 38'. Mr. Thompson's maps and papers never having been published. Lieut. Pike is to be accredited with the first authenticated examination of the Mississippi valley from the St. Francis river to Red Cedar lake.* « An account of expeditions to the sources of the Mississippi, and through the western parts of Louisiana * » P^?r!f"v ,b,y °,r='!er of the Government of the United States during the years 1805, 1806 and 1807, by Major Z M. i ike. Jrtinaurlpmu, 181U. 26 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Morrison, 1804. MORRISON DISCOVERS ITASCA LAKE IN 1804. The country of the upper Mississippi was pretty well known to the coureurs des bois of the various fur companies probably, before the advent of Pike, but there is almost nothing preserved of all their explorations. Mr. William Morrison, however, has given in a brief letter to the Minnesota Historical Society* a statement of his own discovery of Elk lake (now called Itasca) in 1804, mentioning also Cross lake, (Pemidji lake), Red Cedar lake and Leech lake for the first time. He also states that he wintered at Rice lake, tributary to Rice river, a branch of the Red river of the North, in 1803-4. In order to reach it he made a portage from the Mississippi, a short distance below Elk lake, westward, known as the Portage of the Height of Land, or the dividing ridge that separates the waters of the Mississippi from those that empty into the Red river of the North. LIEUT. Z. M. PIKE. Reaching the falls of St. Anthony Lieut. Pike made a careful survey, and wrote a description of the portage route in his journal, and a brief description of the falls in a letter to General Wilkinson at St. Louis. He added nothing of value to the natural history and geography of the Mississippi valley below the falls of St. Anthony. With twenty soldiers he attempted to reach Leech lake, but by stress of weather and early snow was compelled to erect a winter stockade on the west side of the Mississippi a short distance below Pike rapids. Here having deposited the most of his baggage and supplies, he pushed forward in midwinter, with indefatigable energy and industry, with a foot-party, as far as Sandy lake. Thence he proceeded toward Leech lake (then denominated lake La Sang Sue) by way of the Willow river valley and Pokegama lake, where he arrived February 1st, 1806. A few days later, having visited the N. W. Co.'s station at Red Cedar lake and ascertained its latitude (47° 42' 40"), where he found a hospitable Canadian named Roy, he set out on his return to his stockade, by a different route, traveling south- eastwardly by way of lakes to Whitefish lake, which he states may be considered the main source of Pine river, reaching the Mississippi at the mouth of a creek about nine miles above the mouth of Pine river. Making •Minnesota Historical Collections, Volume I. p. 417. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 27 1806, Pike.] a short visit to Mr. Grant's trading-post on "Red Cedar lake"* he left on the 28th of February on his descent to his stockade, where he stayed till the ice broke up in the spring, when he returned to St. Louis. LIEUTENANT PIKE ON THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. In order to complete the history of the falls of St. Anthony from the time of their discovery to the final occupancy of the place by permanent settlements, with a view to ascertaining their rate of recession by means of the islands which have undergone changes from time to time, as noted by different visitors, Lieut. Pike's description is herewith given, as one of the most exact and reliable. In the appendix to his journal is found a letter addressed to Gen. Wil- kinson, dated "26th Sept. above the falls of St. Anthony" containing the following: The place where the river falls over the rocks appears to be about fifteen feet perpen- dicular, the sheet being broken by one large island on the east and a small one on the west, the former commencing below the shoot, and extending 500 yards above ; the river then falls through a continued bed of rocks, with a descent of at least 50 feet perpendicular in the course of half a mile — from thence to the St. Peters, a distance of eleven miles by water, there is almost one con- tinued rapid, aggravated by the interruption of twelve small islands. The carrying place has two hills, one of 25 feet, the other of 12, with an elevation of 45", and is about three-fourths of a mile in length. Above the shoot the river is of a considerable width, but below (at this time) 1 can easily cast a stone over it. The rapids, or suck, comes about a half a mile above the shoot, when the water becomes calm and deep. He adds that this is merely a coup d' ceuil. On page 51, of the same appendix, he gives further particulars concern- ing the falls, viz: As I ascended the Mississippi the falls of St. Anthony did not strike me with that majestic appearance which I had been taught to expect from the description of former travel«rs. On an actual survey I find the portage to be 260 poles ; but when the river is not very low, boats ascend- ing may be put in 31 poles below, at a large cedar tree, which would reduce it to 229 poles. The hill over which the portage is made is 69 feet ascent, with an elevation at the point of debarkation of 45°. The fall of the water between the place of debarkation and reloading is 58 feet ; the perpendicular fall of the shoot is 16 J feet. The width of the river above the shoot is 627 yards; below 209. For the form of the shoot see a rough draught herewith. In high water the appear- ance is much more sublime, as the great quantity of water then forms a spray which in clear weather reflects from some positions the colors of the rainbow, and when the sky is o'ercast, cover the falls in gloom and chaotic majesty. LIEUT. PIKE ABOVE THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. From the falls of St. Anthony to Rum river, the Mississippi is almost one continued chain of rapidsj with the eddies formed by winding channels. Both sides are prairie, and scarcely any timber but small groves of scrub oak. Rum river is about 50 yards wide at its mouth, and takes its source in Le Mille Lac, which is about thirty-five miles south of Lower Red Cedar lake. The small Indian canoes ascend this river quite to the lake, which is considered as one of the best *This Red Cedar lake in other places is styled Lower Red Cedar lake, and is a few miles southwest of Aitkin. 28 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Pike, ilo6. fur-hunting grounds for some hundreds of miles, and has been long a scene of rencounters between the hunting parties of the Sioux and Sauteaux. The last winter a number of the Fols Avoins and Sioux, and some Sauteaux, wintered in that quarter. From Rum river to Leaf river, (called by Father Hennepin and Carver the river St. Francis, and was the extent of their travels) the prairies continue with a few interruptions. The timber, scrub oak, with now and then a lonely pine. Previous to your arrival at Leaf river you pass Crow river on the west, about 30 yards wide, which bears from the Mississippi S. W. Leaf river is only a small stream of not more than 15 yards over and bears N". by W. The elk begin to be very plentiful ; some buffalo, quantities of deer, raccoons, and on the prairie a few of the animals called by the French brelaws. From thence to Sac river [Sank river] a little above the Grand rapids, both sides of the river are generally prairie, with skirts of scrub oak. The navigation still obstructed with ripples, but with some intermissions of a few miles. At the Grand rapids the river expands itself to about 3-4 mile in width (its general width being not over 3-5 mile) and tumbles over an unequal bed of rocks for about two miles, through which there cannot be said to be any channel ; for notwithstanding the rapidity of the current, one of my invalids who was on the W. shore waded to the E. (where we were encamped.) The east bank of the rapids is a very high prairie, the west scrubby woodland. The Sac river is a consid- erable stream which comes in on the west, and bears S. W., and is 200 yards wide at its mouth. The quantity of game still increasing from the Sac river to Pine creek, (the place where I built my stockade and left part of my party) the borders are prairie, with groves of pine on the edge of the bank ; but there are some exceptions, where you meet with small bottoms of oak, ash, maple and lynn. In this distance there is an intermission of rapids for about 40 miles when they commence again and are full as difficult as ever. There are three small creeks emptying in on the west scarcely worthy of notice, and on the east are two small rivers, called Lake and Clear rivers.* The former quite a small one bears N. W. and is about 15 yards wide at its mouth ; and about three miles from its entrance is a beautiful small lake, around which resort immense herds of elk and buffalo. Clear river is a beautiful little stream of about 80 yards in width, and heads in some swamps and small lakes on which the Sauteaux of Lower Bed Cedar lake, and Sandy lake, frquently came to hunt. The soil of the prairies from above the falls is sandy, but would raise small grain in abundance ; the bottoms rich and fit for corn or hemp. Pine creekf is a small stream which comes in on the west shore and bears nearly west. It is bounded by large groves of white and red pine. From Pine creek to the Isle De Corbeau, (or river of that name) two small rivers come in on the west shore. The first is of little consequence ; but the second, called Elk river is entitled to more consideration from its communication with the river St. Peters. They first ascend it to a small lake, cross it, then ascend a small stream, [Long Prairie river] to a large lake, [Carlos lake] from which they make a portage of four miles west and fall into the Sauteaux river, [Little Chippewa] which they descend into the river St. Peters. On the east side is one small stream, (Nunkesebe river) which heads toward Lower Red Cedar lake, and is bounded by hills. The whole of this distance is remarkably difficult to navigate, being one continued succession of rapid shoals and falls; but there is one deserves to be more particularly noticed, viz : the place called by the French Le shute de la Roclie Peinture, which is certainly the third obstacle in point of navigation which I met with in my whole route. The shore where there is not prairie is a continued succession of pine ridges. The entrance of the river De Corbeau is partly hid by the island of that name, and discharges its waters into the Mississippi above and below it ; the lowest channel bearing from the Mississippi N. 65° W. This (in my opinion) should be termed the forks of the Mississippi, it being nearly of equal magnitude and heading not far from the same source ; although taking a much more direct course to their junction. It may be observed on the chart, that from St. Louis to this place, the course of the river had been generally N. to the W. and that from here it bore N. E. This river affords the best and most approved communication with the Red river, and the navigation is as follows. You ascend the river De Corbeau 180J miles to the entrance of the river Des Feuilles, which comes from the N. W. This you ascend 180 miles also. •Lake river is now called Little Rock creek, and Clear river is the Platte. tNow called Swan river. {Pike's distances are generally too great. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 29 1806, Pike.] then make a portage of half a mile Into Otter Tail lake which is a principal source of Red river. The other branch of the river De Corbeau [Long Prairie R.] bears S. W. and approximates with the St. Peters. The whole of this river is rapid, and by no means affording so much water as the Mississippi. Their confluence is in lat. 45° 49' 50" N. In this division the elk, deer and buff alo were probably in greater quantities than in any other part of my whole voyage. From thence to Pine river the Mississippi continues to become narrower and has but few islands. In this distance I discovered but one rapid which the force of the frost had not entirely covered with ice. The shores in general presented a dreary prospect of high barren knobs covered with dead and fallen pine timber. To this there were some exceptions of ridges of yellow and pitch pine, also some small bottoms of lynn, elm, oak and ash. The adjacent country is (at least two-thirds) covered with small lakes, some of which are three miles in circumference. This renders the communica- tion impassable in summer, except with small bark canoes. * * * The Pine river bears from the Mississippi north 30° east, although it empties in on that which has hitherto been termed the west shore. It is 80 yards wide at its mouth, and has an island immediately at the entrance. It communicates with the lake La Sang Sue by the following course of navigation: In one day's sail from the confluence you arrive at the first part of Wliitefish lake, which is about six miles long and two wide. From thence you pursue the river about two miles, and come to the Second Whitefish lake, which is about three miles long and one wide ; then you have the river three miles to the third lake, which is seven miles long and two in width (which I crossed on my return from the head of the Mississippi, on the of February, and is in 46° 32' 32" N. latitude). From thence you follow the river a quarter of a mile to the fourth lake, which is a circular one of about five miles in circumference. From thence you pursue the river one day's sail to a small lake ; from thence two days' sail to a portage, which conveys you to another lake ; from whence, by small portages from lake to lake, you make the voyage to Leech lake. The whole of this course lays through ridges of pines or swamps of pinenet, sap pine,* hemlock, &c., &c. From the river De Corbeau to this place the deer are very plenty, but we found no more buffalo or elk. From this spot to Bed Cedar lake the pine ridges are interrupted by large bottoms of elm, ash, oak and maple, the soil of which would be very proper for cultivation. From the appearance of the ice (which was firm and equal) I conceive that there can be but one ripple in this distance. Eed Cedar lake lays on the east side of the Mississippi, at the distance of 6 miles from it, and very near equally distant from the river De Corbeau and lake De Sable. Its form is an oblong square, and may be ten miles in circumference. From this to lake De Sable, on the] E. shore, you meet with Muddy river ,t which discharges itself into the Mississippi by a mouth twenty yards wide, and bears nearly N. E. We then meet with Pike river! on the west, about 77 [17?] miles below Sandy lake, and bears nearly due north, up which you ascend with canoes four days' sail and arrive at a wild-rice lake, which you pass through and enter a small stream, and ascend it two leagues ; then cross a portage of two acres into a lake seven leagues in circumference ; then two leagues of a river into another small lake. From thence you descend the current N. E. [N. W?] into Leech lake. The banks of the Mississippi are still bordered by the pines of the different species, except a few small bottoms of elm, lynn and maple. The game scarce, and the aborigines subsist almost entirely on the beaver, with a few moose and the wild rice or oats. Sandy lake river (or the discharge of said lake) is large, but is only six miles in length from the lake to its confluence with the Mississippi. Lake De Sableft is about 25 miles in circum- ference, and has a number of small rivers running into it ; one of those is entitled to particular mention, viz., the river Savanna, which by portage of three miles and three-quarters, communicates with the river St. Louis, which empties into lake Superior at the Fond du Lac, and is the channel by which the N. W. Company bring all their goods for the trade of the upper Mississippi. Game is very scarce in this country. In ascending the Mississippi from Sandy lake, you first meet with Swan river on the east, which bears nearly due E. and is navigable for bark canoes ninety miles to Swan lake. You then meet with the Meadow river,|| which falls in on the east, and bears nearly E. by N., and is navigable for canoes 100 miles. You then in ascending meet with a very strong ripple, and an expansion of the river, where it forms a lake. This is three miles below the falls of Packegamau, and from which the noise of the shoot might be heard. The course of the river at the falls was X. 70° W., and just below, the river is a quarter of a mile in width, but above the "Tamarac and baUam fir; but hemlock does not occur. tRice River. J Willow river. gSandy lake. (Prairie river. 30 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Long, 1817. shoot not more than 20 yards. The water thus collected, runs down a flat rock which has an elevation of about 30 degrees. Immediately above the fall is a small island of about 50 yards in circumference, covered with sap-pine.* The portage, which is on the E. (or N.) side is no more than 200 yards, and by no means difficult. Those falls, in point of consideration as an impedi- ment to navigation, stand next to the falls of St. Anthony, from the source of the river to the gulf of Mexico. The banks of the river, to the Meadow river, have generally either been timbered by pine, pinenett, hemlock, sap-pine, or the aspen tree. From thence it winds through high-grass meadows (or savannas), with the pine swamps at a distance appearing to cast a deeper gloom on the borders. From the falls in ascending you pass the lake Packegamau on the west, celebrated for its great production of wild rice ; and next meet with the Deer river on the east, the extent of its navigation unknown. You next meet Riviere Le Cross, on the east side, which bears nearly north, and has only a portage of one mile to pass from it into the lake Winipequef branch of the Mississippi. We next come to what the people of that quarter call the Forks of the Mississippi, the right fork of which bears N. W. and runs eight leagues to lake Winnipeque, which is of an oval form of about 36 miles in circumference. From lake Winnipeque the river continues 5 leagues to Upper Red Cedar lakej, which may be termed the upper source of the Mississippi. The Leech lake branch bears (from the forks) S. W. and runs through a chain of Meadows. You pass Muddy lake, which is scarcely anything more than an extensive marsh of 15 miles in circumference; the river bears through it nearly N., after which it turns again W. In many places this branch is not more than ten or fifteen yards wide, although 15 or 20 feet deep. From this to Leech lake the communication is direct, and without any impediment. This is rather considered as the main source, although the Winnipeque branch is navigable the greatest distance. To this place the whole face of the country has the appearance of an impenetrable morass, or boundless savanna. But on the borders of the lake is some oak, and large groves of sugar maple, from which the traders make sufficient sugar for their consumption the whole year. Leech lake communicates with the river De Corbeau by seven portages, and the river Des Feuilles also, with the Red river by the Otter Tail lake on the one side, and by the Red Cedar lake and other small lakes to Red lake on the other. Out of these small lakes and ridges rise the upper waters of the St. Lawrence, Mississippi, and Red river,? the latter of which discharges itself into the ocean by lake Winipie and Hudson's Bay. All those waters have their upper sources within 100 miles of each other, which I think plainly proves this to be the most elevated part of the N. E. continent of America. But we must cross (what is commonly termed) the Rocky Mountains, or a spur of the Cordeliers, previous to our finding the waters whose currents run westward and pay tribute to the western ocean. In this quarter we find moose, a very few deer and bear, but a vast variety of fur animals of all descriptions. MAJOR S. H. LONG AT THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. In 1817 Major Stephen H. Long, of the United States Army, made a visit to the falls of St. Anthony, || and has made so correct a description of them that, by comparison with that of Pike, in 1805, such changes are seen to have taken place that some idea of their rate of recession can be gained. The perpendicular fall of the water at the cataract, as stated by Pike in his journal, is 16 J feet, which I found to be true by actual measurement. To this height, however, four or five feet may be added for the rapid descent which immediately succeeds the perpendicular fall within a few yards below. Immediately at the cataract the river is divided into two parts by an island which extends considerably above and below the cataract, and is about 500 yards long. *Balsam Fir. fWumibigoshish. JCass Lake. gPike has this footnote: Red river discharges itself into Hudson's Bay by lake Winipie and Nelson's river. (Minnesota Historical Collections, Vol. II.— Voyage in a six-oared skiff to the falls of St. Anthony in 1817, by Major Stephen H. Long, with an introductory note by Edward D. Neill. HISTORICAL SKETCH 31 1820, Cass.] The channel on the right side of the island is about three times the width of that on the left. The quantity of water passing through these is not, however, in the same proportion, as about one-third part of the whole passes through the left channel. In the broadest channel, just below the cataract, is a small island also, about fifty yards in length, and thirty in breadth. Both of these islands contain the same kind of rocky formation as the banks of the river, and are nearly as high. Besides these, there are immediately at the foot of the cataract, two islands of very inconsiderable size, situated in the right channel also. The rapids commence several hundred yards above the cataract, and continue about eight miles below. The fall of the water, beginning at the head of the rapids, and extending two hundred and sixty rods down the river to where the portage road commences, below the cataract, is, according to Pike, fifty-eight feet. If this esti- mate be correct the whole fall from the head to the foot of the rapids is not probably much less than one hundred feet. But as I had no instrument sufficiently accurate to level, where the view must necessarily be pretty extensive, I took no pains to ascertain the extent of the fall. The mode I adopted to ascertain the height of the cataract was to suspend a line and plummet from the table rock on the south side of the river which at the same time had very little water passing over it, as the river was unusually low. The rocky formations at this place were arranged in the following order from the surface downward : A coarse kind of limestone in thin strata contain- ing considerable silex ; a kind of soft friable stone of a greenish color and slaty fracture, probably containing lime, alumina and silex ; a very beautiful stratification of shell limestone, in thin plates, extremely regular in its formation and containing a vast number of shells, all apparently of the same kind. This formation constitutes the table rock of the cataract. The next in order is a white or yellowish sandstone so easily crumbled that it deserves the name of sand-bank rather than that of a rock. It is of various depths, from ten to fifty or seventy-five feet, and is of the same character with that found at the caves before mentioned. The next in order is a soft, friable sandstone, of a greenish color, similar to that resting upon the shell limestone.* These stratifica- tions occupy the whole space from the low-water mark nearly to the top of the bluffs. On the east, or rather north side of the river, at the falls are high grounds at the distance of half a mile from the river, considerably more elevated than the bluffs, and of a hilly aspect. GOVERNOR LEWIS CASS' EXPEDITION TO THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI. In 1820 Gov. Lewis Cass, of Detroit, conducted an exploring expedition from Detroit to the upper Mississippi region, coasting the shores of lakes Huron and Superior in canoes. From the head of lake Superior he fol- lowed the route, then much traveled, for canoes, by portaging, to Sandy lake and the upper Red Cedar lake, the latter of which was denominated Cass lake, by Mr. H. R. Schoolcraft, the chief narrator of the expedition.! This lake was considered by him, as by Lieut. Pike, the chief head of navigation of the Mississippi. In passing the falls of Pokegama, Mr. Schoolcraft made the observation, that " the Mississippi at this point forces its way through a quartzy rock, during which it sinks its level, as estimated, twenty feet, in a distance of about three hundred yards. There is no perceptible cascade, or abrupt fall. •Major Long here seems to have made an error similar to that of Keating at Fort Snelling, taking fallen fragments to be in situ, fSummary narrative of an exploratory expedition to the sources of the Mississippi in 1820, resumed and com- pleted by the discovery of its origin in Itasca lake in 1832, with appendixes. By Henry E. Schoolcraft. 32 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Schoolcraft, 1820. but the river rushes with the utmost velocity down a highly inclined rocky bed toward the northeast." " Immediately above the fall is a small rocky island bearing a growth of spruce and cedars." Schoolcraft states that the Mississippi, instead of having its source in Cass lake, or even in Turtle lake, enters Cass lake from the south at a dis- tance of eight or ten miles from the mouth of Turtle river.* Mr. Schoolcraft's geological and mineralogical resume of the expedition is quite full, but embraces much territory beyond the limits of Minnesota. He is the first to give a geological account of the lower valley of the St. Louis river, but his statements about its tributaries being from " the north- west of the Rainy lakes," and Vermilion lake tributary to its volume, while in'keeping with a general looseness in his statements, show still a lack of geographical knowledge of that region. He estimates its descent from Knife falls, through the " Cabotian Mountains," at about 418 feet. He says that the red sandstone at Fond du Lac is succeeded, up the river further, by " trap, argillite and grauwacke." * * * " The river is continually in a foam for nine miles, and the wonder is that such a furious and heavy volume of water should not have prostrated everything before it. The sandstone, grauwacke, and the argillite, the latter of which stands on its edges, have opposed but a feeble barrier ; but the trap species, resisting with the firm- ness, as it has the color, of cast - iron, stand in masses which threaten the life and safety of everything that may be hurled against them. I found a loose specimen of sulphuret of lead, and some common quartz, in place in the slate rock, a vein of chlorite slate, and a locality of coarse graphite, to reward my search." *Reaulting from the expedition of Gov, Cass, were several scientific papers, which at the date of their publication were valuable additions to the natural history of the region, viz: 1. Results of observations for latitude and longitude during the expediton of 1820. By Capt. David B. Douglass. 2. Report on the copper mines of lake Superior. H. R. Schoolcraft. 3! Observations on the Mineralogy and Geology of the country embracing the sources of the Mississippi river and the Great Lake Basins. By Henry R. Schoolcraft. 4. Report in reply to a resolution of the U. S. Senate on the value and extent of the mineral lands on lake Supe- rior. By Henry K. Schoolcraft. 5. Rapid glances at the Geology of Western New York, beyond the Rome summit, in 1820. By Henry R. School- ' 6. A memoir on the Geological position of a fossil tree in the secondary rocks of Illinois, 1822. By Henry R. 7 List of plants collected by rapt. D. B. Douglass, at the sources of U»e Mississippi river. From the 4th Volume of Silliman's Journal of Science. By Dr. John Tol rey . 8 A letter embracing notices of the Zoology of the Northwest, addressed to Dr. Mitchell, on the return of the >C 9 '^Species of Bivalves collected by Mr. Schoolcraft and Capt. Douglass in the Northwest. From the Cth Volume of the American Journal of Science. D. H. Barnes. 10 Fresh water shells collected by Mr. School raft in the valleys of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers. From the 5th Volume of the American Philosophical Transactions. By Isaac Lea. 11 Summary remarks respecting the Zoological species noticed in the expedition. By Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell. 12 Xu» biuartu*. Medical Repository. Vol .21. By Dr. Samuel L. M.tchell. 13~ Srfuru* Iridccem-striaUui. Medical Repository, Volume 21. By Dr. Samuel L Mitchell. H' Proleus of the lakes. Am. Jour. Sci., Vol 4. Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell. 15 Memoranda on Climatic Phenomena and the Distribution of Solar Heat, in 1820. By Henry R. Schoolcraft. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 33 1823, Keating.] SCHOOLCRAFT AT LITTLE FALLS AND 8AUK RAPIDS. In descending the Mississippi below the Pakagama, the first stratum of rock, which rises through the delta of the river, occurs between the mouth of the Nokasippi and Elm rivers below the influx of the Great De Corbeau. This rock, which is greenstone trap, rises conspic- uously in the bed of the stream in a rocky isle seated in the rapid called— I know not with what propriety— the BIG FALLS or Grand Chute. The precipitous and angular falls of this striking object decide that the bed of the stream is at this point on the igneous, granitical and greenstone series. This formation is seen at a few points above the water, until we pass some bold and striking eminences of shining and highly crystalline hornblendic sienite, which rises in the eleva- tion called by us Peace Rock, on the left bank near the Osaukis rapids. This rock lies directly opposite to the principal encampment on the 27th of July, which was on an elevated prairie on the west bank. To this point a delegation of Sioux had ascended on an embassy of peace from Fort Snelling to the Chippewas, having affixed on a pole what the exploring party called a bark letter, the ideas being represented symbolically by a species of picture writing or hieroglyphics. In allu- sion to this embassy, this locality was called the Peace Rock. This rock is sienite. It is highly crystalline, and extends several miles. Its position must be, from the best accounts, in north latitude 44° 30'. From this point to Rum river, a distance of seventy miles, no other point of the intrusion of this formation above the prairie soil was observed. The rock at the falls of St. Anthony Mr. Schoolcraft regards as belong- ing "to the great carboniferous and metalliferous formations, which for so great a length, and in so striking a manner characterize both banks of the Mississippi below St. Anthony falls." The white sandstone at the falls is said to be overlain by the "metalliferous limestone." The grains of sand- rock are held together by "the cohesion of aggregation," and embrace, sparingly, "orbicular masses of hornblende." The overlying limestone is the "same in character, which assumes at some points a siliceous, and at others a magnesian character. It is manifestly the same great metalliferous rock which accompanies the lead ore of Missouri and mines of Peosta or Dubuque." Eeferring to Chimney and Castle rocks, in Dakota county, Mr. Schoolcraft thinks they are the result of degradation and wasting away, on the Huttonian theory, of all but these, probably harder, portions of the strata. KEATING'S NARRATIVE OP MAJOR LONG'S EXPEDITION IN 1823, TO THE SOURCE OF THE ST. PETER RIVER. Major S. H. Long, who had, in 1817, visited the falls of St. Anthony, was directed by the United States Secretary of War, in 1823, to conduct a party of exploration to the source of the St. Peter river, and to lake Winnipeg. He was accompanied by a number of scientific gentlemen of Philadelphia, including Prof. William Keating of the University of Pennsylvania, who embodied the notes and manuscripts of the various members of the party, 34 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Keating, 1823- in a work of two volumes, published in 1825, in London. The appendix embraces a general list of animal species observed by Thomas Say, and a list of plants by Lewis D. de Schweinitz, also astronomical and meteorological data by J. Edward Colhoun and Dr. Joseph Lovell, concluding with a vocab- ulary of Indian words by Mr. Keating.* This work may be correctly pronounced the first attempt to apply the accurate methods of modern science to the exploration of any portion of Minnesota. Although the progress of the party was much too rapid for geological examinations, yet the collections made, the notes on geographical features recorded, and the few geological facts stated, constitute a good preliminary account of the western portions of the state. The party returned to lake Superior from lake Winnipeg, by way of a route through British territory to the lake of the Woods ; thence following the northern boundary line to the west end of Hunter's island, they again turned north- ward, and reached lake Superior at Fort William, by way of the route of Sir Alexander McKenzie. The map accompanying the report is an embodi- ment of information from several sources, besides the observations of the party, chiefly the report of Lieut. Pike on the upper Mississippi, Buchett's map of Upper and Lower Canada, statements by officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, and by Dr. J. J. Bigsby, of the English Commission for deter- mining the boundary between the United States and the British possessions. On this map are given for the first time the names and positions of numer- ous streams in the western part of Minnesota, and in eastern Dakota, and of some flowing north in the northern part of the state. KEATING'S VISIT TO THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. On the 6th of July we walkedf to the falls of St. Anthony, which are situated nine m iles along the course of the river, seven by land) above the fort. The first glimpse which we caught of the fall was productive of disappointment, because it yielded but a partial view ; but this was amply redeemed by the prospect which we obtained of it when the whole fall opened itself before us. We then discovered that nothing could be more picturesque than this cascade. We had been told that it appeared like a mere mill-dam, and we were apprehensive lest a fall of sixteen feet would lose all its beauty when extended upon a breadth of several hundred yards, but we soon observed that this was by no means the case. The irregular outline of the fall, by dividing its breadth, gives a more impressive character. An island stretching in the river, both above and below the fall, separates it into two unequal parts, the eastern being two hundred and thirty yards wide, and the western three hundred and ten. The island itself is about one hundred yards wide. From *Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of the St. Peter's river, lake Winnepeek, lake of the Woods, &c , per- formed in the year 1823, under command of Stephen H. Long. Compiled by Wra. H. Keating. In two volumes. London, 1825. tFrom FortSnelllng. HISTORICAL SKETCH 35 1813, Keating.] the nature of the rock, which breaks into angular, and apparently rhomboidal fragments of a huge size, this fall is subdivided into several cascades, which adhere to each other, so as to form a sheet of water, unrent, but composed of an alternation of retiring and salient angles, and presenting a great variety of shapes and shades ; each of these forms in itself a perfect cascade; but when taken together in one comprehensive view, they assume a beauty of which we could have scarcely deemed them susceptible. We have seen many falls, but few which present a wilder and more picturesque aspect than those of St. Anthony.* Prof. Keating gives the following section of the bluff at Fort Snelling, in descending order: 1. Limestone, of a distinct slaty structure ; compact, but with a splintery uneven fracture ; filled with organic remains (Producti) ; of a light grayish-yellow color ; 8 ft. 2. Limestone, of a blue color, destitute of fossils ; an excellent stone for building, and good for quicklime. 15—20 ft. 3. Sandstone, constituting the principal mass of the bluff. This is friable, but every frag- ment, examined with care, seems to be a regular crystal. Keating inclines to the opinion that it must have been from a chemical precipitation, and not from mere mechanical deposition. The proc- ess of its formation may have been a very rapid one, such as is obtained in the manufacture of fine salt ; and to this may be attributed the circumstance of its fine texture. The color is white — sometimes a little grayish, when it resembles the finer varieties of Muscovado sugar. 60 ft. 4. Limestone ; slaty, striped with curved zones ; very argillaceous, softer than the preced- ing ; structure quite earthy ; color light yellow. 10 ft. 5. Limestone ; bluish, or yellowish gray, conglomeritic with small black pebbles of quartz ; more crystalline than the last ; vesicular ; rises four feet above the level of the river. 7 ft. 6. Limestone ; much finer grained and more earthy than the last. The bed of the river near the fort is excavated in this limestone.! 4 ft. He remarks that at the falls of St. Anthony the same section may be een, except that the lower limestones are not there visible. The foregoing limestones, stated to lie below the sandstone at Fort Snelling, must have been large fallen fragments from the top of the bluff, since no subsequent observer has ever reported them. Mr. Featherstonhaugh makes the same correction. KEATING ON THE MINNESOTA EIVEE. At the Indian village of Taoapa, estimated at thirty-seven and one-half miles from Fort Snelling, probably the same place as Shakopee, Major Long observed limestone which appeared to him to be in situ. Keating mentions the rapids at Carver, "caused by two bars of sandstone," the first forming a fall of four feet in twenty yards. Half a mile above this is a second bar. The aggregate fall is estimated to be seven feet. This sandstone is seen in the bank, and "resembles that at Fort Snelling. It •Major Long's party forded the river above the falls, walking on the rock from the west to the east side Prof Keating, who was debilitated by a fever, succeeded in reaching only the island dividing the fall, and with great difficulty returned to the west bank. tOompare Bulletins of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, Vol. 1, p. 91. 36 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Keating, 1823. has a fine crystalline grain and a color varying from white to yellow."* Apparently not observing that this sandstone rises gradually higher in ascending the valley, he refers to several " hills " located near the river, one of which, "composed principally of loose sand," was estimated at about one hundred and fifty feet in hight. At Camp Crescent (old Travers des Sioux), Major Long's party abandoned the canoes and followed the trail to Redstone, thus cutting off the great bend where the Blue Earth river enters the Minnesota, and losing the opportunity of examining the copper mine of Le Sueur. Up to the point of abandoning the canoes the banks of the Minnesota are stated to be composed chiefly if not altogether of sandstone. On the last day of travel in the canoes, a bluff was seen rising sixty to eighty feet, consisting of white sandstone, and called White Rock, probably near Ottawa. He also observed at a distance horizontal ledges of rock that he considered "the limestone that lies on the sandstone." This point was probably at or near Kasota. The only streams that are regarded worthy of mention up to Camp Crescent, are the Elk, entering on the right bank, said to be about twenty miles above the fort, now called Credit river, and "the small rivulet which comes in from the left bank about forty miles above the fort, and which is probably the same as Carver's river." The forest was found to consist chiefly of maple, white walnut, hickory, oak, elm, ash and linden, inter- spersed with grapevines, &c., and the absence of black walnut was particu- larly observed. The party seem not to have passed near enough to the red quartzyte outcrop near New Ulm to have noticed it, since Keating makes no mention of it. The Blue Earth is said to take its rise "in the Coteau des Prairies, a highland that stretches in a northerly direction between the Missouri and the St. Peter." This is the first mention of this natural phenomenon under that name. BOULDERS OF PRIMITIVE ROOK IN THE MINNESOTA VALLEY. In reference to the granite and gneiss of the valley Keating makes the following observation: *The sandstone here mentioned by Keating i> the Jordan sandstone lying below the Shakopee limestone. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 37 1 823, Keating.] A feature which struck us was the abundance of fragments of primitive rocks which are strewn in this valley ; they were for the most part deeply imbedded in the ground, and bore but few traces of attrition ; their bulk was very large. For a while we doubted whether we were not treading upon a crust of a formation of primitive rocks, which pierced through the superincumbent formations ; but a close observation evinced such a confusion and diversity in the nature of the primitive blocks, as well as such signs ot friction, as satisfied us that these were out of place; still they appeared to warrant the geologist in his prediction, that the party was approaching to a primitive formation, and that certainly the valley of the St. Peter had been one of the channels through which the primitive boulders had been removed from their original site. This assertion was fully substantiated two days afterward by the discovery of the primitive rocks in situ. A very considerable swell between the river and the right bank of the valley was supposed to be formed by the primitive rocks rising to a greater level than usual. If it be occasioned by an accumulation of fragments and boulders, as the nature of its surface might lead to believe, it is a very interest- ing feature in the valley. In traveling up the valley of the Minnesota river, on the south side, various interesting observations were recorded, respecting the fauna and flora of the prairies, from which is the following extract: Among the birds observed on the prairie, besides the sand-hill crane, are the red-bird, black- bird, yellow-headed black-bird, the black-breasted tern, the last of which was very abundant. Mr. Say shot the female of the Mergus cucullatus and a blue-winged teal. Among the reptiles, besides the common garter-snake, there was one with lateral red spots. A coluber like the melan- oleueus, but spotted, and similar to that found on the Missouri, was killed on these prairies. In several of the marshes the huts of the muskrat were found very abundant. The herbarium was enriched by the addition of a beautiful specimen of the Lilium Philadelphicum, which was still seen flowering, though it had nearly ceased to bloom. Another great ornament of the prairies is the Lilium superbum. The Gerardia was still occasionally seen. This plant is, as we were informed, considered by the Indians to be a specific against the bite of a rattlesnake ; the root is scraped and the scrapings applied to the wound ; it is said that, if used upon a recent wound, a single application will suffice. The boulders which are so common in the valley of the St. Peter, are but seldom seen on the prairies. No further geological notes are made till reaching the Redwood river, when he makes the statement that its banks "are formed of a fine white sandstone." It is probable that he mistook at a distance, the white kaolin bluffs which occur at that point, derived from the decomposition of the granite in situ, for sandstone. There is a little sand in the Cretaceous at that point, but there are no bluffs of white sand. The red pipestone was said to exist on its banks at three days' journey from its source. No primitive rock in situ was noted, although it occurs at frequent inter- vals between New Ulm and Big Stone lake, till he reached a point several miles above Patterson's rapids. He notes " a very interesting fragment of rock" at the place where the Redwood joins the Minnesota, said to be forty or fifty feet in circumference, evidently out of place, of an enormous mass, and irregular hemispherical form, cleft by lightning. This mass was said to be granitic, presenting "very distinctly the appearance of a formation of 38 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Keating, 1833. concentric shales." The rock at Patterson's rapids was considered as primi- tive, but was not carefully examined. GRANITE IN THE MINNESOTA VALLEY. On the afternoon of the 18th of July, Major Long's party first met with unmistakable primitive rock in situ, at a point a few miles below the mouth of the Yellow Medicine river. Of this Keating remarks : When descending into the valley from the prairie, with a view to select a suitable spot for our evening's camp, our attention was suddenly called to the new features which it displayed. Hjgh rocks of a rugged aspect arose in an insulated manner in the midst of the widened valley through which the St. Peter winds its way. We spent the rest of the afternoon in examining them, and experienced no little satisfaction in finding them to be primitive rocks in situ. The pleasure we experienced sprang not from the mere associations of home, connected with the view of a primitive formation which we had not seen since the first five days of our journey; but it resulted also, in a great measure, from the certainty that we had at last arrived at what we had long been looking for in vain. We had traced those scattered boulders which lay insulated in the prairies from the banks of the Muskingum to this place ; we had seen them gradually increasing in size and number, and presenting fewer signs of attrition as we advanced further on our journey. Two days before, their number, size and features had induced the geologist of the party to predict our speedy approach to the primitive formations, and it was a pleasing confirma- tion of his opinions to find these rocks really in situ, within thirty miles, in a straight line, of the place where he had made this assertion. The character of these rocks was examined with care, and found very curious. It seemed as if four simple minerals, quartz, fieldspar, mica and amphi- bole, had united here to produce almost all the varieties of combination which can arise from the association of two or more of these minerals ; and these combinations were in such immediate contact that the same fragment might, as we viewed one or the other end of it, be referred to different rocks ; while, in some places, granite was seen perfectly well characterized, varying from the fine to the coarse grained ; in others a gneiss, mica slate, greisen (quarts and mica) compact feldspar (weisstein of Werner), sienite, greenstone, and the sienite with the addition of quartz forming the amphibolic granite of D'Aubuisson, were equally well characterized. The only rock composed by the union of two of these principles which we did not observe, but which may perhaps exist there, is the graphic granite (pegmatite, Hauy). These rocks are not very extensive ; the circumference of the largest probably does not exceed one-quarter of a mile ; they rise to about thirty-five feet above the level of the water. Their form is irregular ; their aspect, rugged and barren compared with the fertile bottom of the valley ; their general color is of a dark gray ; they appear to be the summit or crest of primitive rocks which lie beneath this valley, and which pro- trude at this place through the superior strata. As the adjoining prairies are elevated about fifty feet, above the level of the river, these primitive rocks are observable only in the valley ; they doubtless constituted at one time a continuous ridge, but have been divided into insulated masses by the corroding action of the stream, whose very circuitous bed winds between them. They extend upon a distance of about six miles in the direction of the valley. After having examined almost every one of these masses, I feel unwilling to decide, with certainty, which of the primitive combinations predominates, for the passage of the one into the other is more constant and more sudden than in any other primitive formation that has ever come under our notice. Indeed we know of none with which to compare it, except it be that which we observed at a subsequent period of the expedition between lake Winnipeek and the lake of the Woods ; but even there the features were somewhat different, for they were on a larger scale. The passages which we there observed were sometimes to be traced only upon large masses; whereas on the St. Peter it would have been difficult to break off a fragment of a cubic foot in size presenting an uniform character of com- position. It is however probable, as far as our observations extended, that granite is th8 pre- dominating rock. These masses bear very evident signs of a crystalline origin, but the process HISTOBICAL SKETCH. 39 1833, Keating.] must have been a confused one. Tourmaline is found disseminated throughout the rock, yet in no great abundance. In one or two spots where the mass assumed a more slaty appearance than in other places a faint tendency to a stratification, directed from the north-northeast to the south- southwest, with a dip toward the south, was observed. Viewing the insulated masses from the prairie, they appeared to be directed in a transverse line through the valley, and in a northeast- erly course, so that this may be the remains of a dike which existed across the valley, but which was finally broken. This observation was, however, a partial one, and it would be improper to attach much weight to it. When calling the attention of our guide to the difference between these rocks and those observed below, he appeared to have been aware of it himself, and stated that rock similar to these extended down the valley to about four miles below Kedwood rivulet. It was partly from this circumstance that we inferred that Patterson's rapids were probably formed by a bar of these rocks rising across the bed of the river. This appeared to us to be the more probable from the circumstance that a rapid known by the name of the Little falls, occurs just above the place of our encampment of the 18th, and that it is occasioned by a ledge of granite rocks over which the river passes at this place. In the examination of this spot two points appeared to us chiefly to deserve our attention, in order to avoid all source of error; the first was to ascertain that the rocks were really in situ ; the second, that they were primitive and crystalline, not conglomerated or regenerated rocks, such as are sometimes observed. But upon these two points we think that not the least doubt can be entertained. The immense mass of these insulated rocks, the uniform bight to which they attain, the uniform direction in which they lie, prove them to be in place ; while an attentive inspection of their nature shows them to be really crystalline. There is a gradual, though rapid, passage of the granite into the sienite, which proves them to be of contemporaneous formation, and which precludes the idea that the rock is formed by the union of fragments of granite, sienite, &c., cemented together. The discovery of this granitic formation here appeared the more interesting, as its small extent might easily have prevented us from observing it. had not chance brought us to the river at this place ; for if we had been traveling on the prairie, within half a mile of the edge of the bank, the greater hight of the bluff would have concealed these rocky islands from our view. We feel, therefore, unable to decide whether they do not occur at some other bends of the river which we avoided ; yet from the character of the stream itself we doubt it. For we find that as soon as these rocks protrude into the valley, they occasion rapids and falls in the river, while other- wise its course is smooth. Had we not seen the " Little rapids ", which we passed on the llth, we might have been induced to consider them as resulting from the appearance of the primitive rocks at the surface, but having examined with care the sandstone rocks, by which they are pro- duced, and having ascertained that no other rapids are found in the St. Peter, between these and the Patterson falls, we are induced to believe that this is the only place where granite may be seen in situ. In attempting to connect this primitive formation with those observed elsewhere, we find that it lies in a direction about W. S. W.. at a distance probably not exceeding eighty miles, of the "granitic and hornblendic rocks" which Mr. Schoolcraft states as having seen "occasionally rising in rugged peaks and beds" on the Mississippi.* We feel , however, disposed to consider all this section of our country as reposing on this granite, and we entertain but little doubt of its identity with the sienitic granite observed at a later period of our journey, and which we first struck near fort Alexander at the mouth of the Winnipeek river. Subsequently Mr. Keating observed that these rocks, which were made out to be in latitude 44° 41' 26" N., did not extend far in the valley. The last of them were seen at about four miles above the little falls, and he was assured by the guide that they did not recur for a considerable distance. Still he observed, at a distance, a rocky island in the bed of the river, which had the same kind of rock as that at Patterson's rapids; and again at points further up the valley rocky knolls were observed. 'Schoolcraft's Narrative, p. 288. 40 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Keating. 1823. The recurrence of these primitive knobs disturbs the current of the river, and renders the navigation difficult and hazardous. Five miles below the encampment of the 19th there is a place where the boats and their loads are carried for the distance of a mile ; from which circum- stance the place is called the Grand Portage. By this portage the canoes avoid thirteen rapids ; these, with twenty-six other rapids, constitute all the obstructions to the navigation of the river from its source to its mouth. In a good stage of the waters, there are, however, but two portages, of which this is one. Among the tributaries passed that day only one deserves to be mentioned. It is called the Pejehata Zeze Watapan (yellow medicine) It is about the same size as the Redwood, and rises, in like manner, at the base of the Coteau des prairies. Nearly opposite to it a small stream falls in ; the Indians call it the Chataba (that hatches sparrow-hawks); the traders term it L\Eau de Vie. On our map we have retained the name Epervier, which being in use among some of the traders, and intelligible both to French and English travelers, appears likely to prevail. The foregoing exposures were wholly below Lac qui Parle, which is said to be a short day's journey further up, consisting of an expansion of the river, similar to lake Pepin, about seven and a half miles long, and from one-quarter to three-quarters of a mile wide. Mention is made of the Chippewa river, coming in from the north, said to interlock with the headwaters of the Red river, also of " Beaver rivulet " (Lac qui Parle river) which, with steep and high banks consisting of loose, white sand, joins the St. Peter near the foot of Lac qui parle. Of the countiy about Lac qui parle Keating notes that the elevation evidently became greater as they advanced, but with no hills of any magnitude, the only ascents being the river bluffs, which sometimes reach or exceed one hundred feet. The sur- rounding undulated plains were destitute of wood, the only trees seen skirting along the water-courses. Above the lake the bluffs are said to diminish in hight, not being more than forty feet, the high prairie some- times blending gradually with the river valley. Above the lake the St. Peter was found to be only a rivulet from twenty to thirty feet wide, very much obstructed with high grass and wild rice, and stagnant water. Five leagues higher the Spirit Mountain* creek joins the St. Peter from the south, so named from a hill near which it is said to rise. Near the mouth of this stream the primitive rock is again noted scattered here and there across the valley, one exposure in particular being remarkable for the beauty of its feldspar, which is described as "very lamellar, with an easy cleavage, and intermixed with quartz, giving it almost the appearance of graphic granite." Big Stone lake is described, as the " last expansion of the river, improperly called a lake." •Yellow Bank river. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 41 1823, Keating.] THE COTEAU DBS PRAIRIES. Although the party did not visit the Coteau des Prairies, Prof. Keating makes 'some interesting notes on its character and direction, which may be summarized briefly thus: Its hight above the St. Peter, at Big Stone lake, is thought to be not short of 1,000 feet. According to the best infor- mation he could obtain, " this ridge commences about the 49th parallel of north latitude, and between the 98th and 99th degrees of west longitude from Greenwich. It proceeds in a direction nearly south south-east, passes east of the group of small lakes called Devil's lake, divides the tributaries of the St. Peter from those of the Missouri, and extends southerly as far as the head of the Blue Earth, where it gradually widens and sinks to the level of the surrounding country." He mentions a second ridge or coteau, commencing at the southern bend of Mouse river, running in a direction nearly parallel with that of the other, from near the 48th parallel to beyond the 44th parallel, in a southeasterly course for about eighty miles, when it turns to the west of south and likewise sinks and disappears, the valley of the James river being between the two ridges. Mr. Keating was informed that no rocks can be seen composing the Coteau, but that it presents a uniformly smooth, prairie-like appearance, the ascent being gradual aud easy on both sides. He however was of the opinion that it is formed by an elevation of the granite rocks above their usual level, although, perhaps, covered as with a mantle by the secondary and alluvial rocks, predicting that if its whole course were to be followed "from the Assini- boine to the Blue Earth " the geologist would be rewarded by the discovery of the "granite formations, if not along the whole of its crest, at least in some of the ravines which head near it." Above Big Stone lake the St. Peter is said to divide itself into two branches, coming from the west, heading in the Coteau, one of which comes from west by south for abont twelve miles. The northern, and larger branch, has its source in Polecat lake, about twenty-four miles distant, west by north, from the point where they join Big Stone lake. That lake is one and a half miles long, and half a mile wide, and frequently dry. There are many indications in the narrative that this hasty reconnoissance of the Minnesota valley was not satisfactory to Prof. Keating. 42 THE GEOLOGY OP MTSrSTESOTA. [Keating, 1813. In the Red River valley Keating mentions numerous salt springs, one being situated at the confluence of Red Lake river with the Red river of the North; states that although the soil of the prairies is occasionally sandy, it is generally argillaceous and rather dry, yielding along the river valley and its tributaries a good grass, though at a distance a rather scanty growth, but being extremely fertile wherever trees were seen to be growing ; and attributes to the annual fires that run over the prairies the principal agency in keeping the country treeless. ON THE NORTHERN BOUNDARY. Respecting the northern boundary of Minnesota, Prof. Keating gives the first geological information, besides naming for the first time several of the principal rivers in that part of the state. Ascending the Winnipeg river from lake Winnipeg he found a great contrast between the adjacent country and that through which he had been traveling hitherto. The country is rocky very soon after leaving lake Winnipeg, with the crystalline rocks common to the northern part of Minnesota, there being between lake Winnipeg and the lake of the Woods several alternations from red granite and gneiss to slate and schists. The timber which sets in with this change in the character of the rocks, consists of a great abundance of evergreens, deciduous trees being rather the exception. The conifers were found to be tamarack, juniper, spruce, white pine, pitch pine &c., interspersed with spots where aspen and birch were found common, and other spots of hazel, willow and cherry. The rocks and the general characters of the country at the lake of the Woods were stated to be similar to those of the Winnipeg river. The lake is filled with islands, all resting on the solid rock which was found to be generally a greenish or micaceous slate. One island, known as Red Rock island,* was of a reddish granite. The direction of the "strata" of the mica slate was stated to vary from N. 60° to N. 80° E. and the angle of inclination to vary from 65° or 70° to perpendicular; but it is quite prob- able that Keating here refers to the direction and dip of the slaty cleavage. Although no limestone in situ is reported by Keating, he refers to the fact that Dr. Bigsby, whom he met on the British Northern Boundary Com- •Subsequently named Keating Island by Mr. G. M. Dawson. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 43 1823, Keating.] mission, states that it exists on the shore of the lake.* In Rainy-lake river he mentions two places only, where canoes are lightened and towed up, the current of this river being generally steady and of greater depth. The face of the country also changed very perceptibly, becoming more cheerful, and the grass " of a livelier green." At its mouth the banks of the stream are low and marshy; beyond this eastward they rise somewhat, but do not become hilly; the river having often a pebbly bed, leading to an anticipa- tion of limestone rocks in situ. The rocks, however, seldom appeared in place along the river, and when seen consisted of mica slate and syenite ; the slate containing, according to Dr. Bigsby, the mineral staurotide.f The fall at Rainy Lake fort is surpassed by two or three only of those on Win- nipeg river. " The whole of the waters of the lake discharge themselves into the river by these falls, the hight of which is about twenty-five feet. The beauty of the spot depends much on the wildness of the rocky scenery, occasioning a foaming or dashing of waves that are very striking. The rock is chiefly sienite, in which we thought we could distinguish a tendency to a stratification directed about northeast and inclining about 65° to the southeast. This, however, may have been a local feature. The principal growth about the lake is the pitch pine, white pine and spruce. The soil is rather light, but in the immediate vicinity of the fort it is excellent ; potatoes and wheat are cultivated, together with maize, pease, pumpkins, beans, water and musk melons, &c., &c. The wild strawberry seemed to be more abun- dant there than elsewhere. Our soldiers were kept busy, while encamped at the fort, in fishing for the pike and freshwater salmon, which are found in great abundance and excellence at the falls." Throughout Rainy lake are many small islands, which, according to Keating, are based on a rock which for the most part is a mica-slate, with strata directed north 70° east,, and nearly vertical ; but in a few places may be seen granite and syenite, the lake thus resembling in most of its characters the physical features of the lake of the Woods. East of Rainy lake the party pursued the boundary line canoe-route as far as the east end of Sturgeon island and there diverged northward, reaching Fort William through a region of successive lakes, and a rocky country, descending what was known as Dog river, but now as Kamanistigoia. *Dr. J. J. Bigsby reports limestone in situ on the shores of the southwest part of the lake, "some miles off in a low country, and buried beneath mounds of quartzose, sand, clay, and immense assemblages of blocks from the north." t See Bigsby's List of minerals and organic remains, in Am. Jour. Sci. (1) VIII, p. 60, and Jour. Qeol. Soe. London, 44 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Long, 1823. MAJOR LONG'S RESUME OP THE EXPEDITION. In a general topographical report of the expedition Major Long men- tions the chief physical features of the country traversed, repeating many of the facts given by Keating in his journal. The Coteau des Prairies, he says, is a very remarkable feature in the aspect of the country about the head- waters of the Minnesota river. He regards it not only as the dividing ridge between the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers, but as a "grand dike," obstructing the latter in its progress eastward. Its elevation he gives at one thousand feet above the common level of the country. He mentions a second ridge west of the main one, with the James river between them, the two being thirty or forty miles apart. Of the Red river he says it is navi- gable for canoes, and even for pirogues of two tons burden, from its mouth to its source, as also to the sources of several of its tributaries when swollen by freshets. "On such occasions canoes have been known to pass from lake Travers, its source, into the St. Peter, and back again, without inconven- ience." He estimates the descent from lake Traverse to lake Winnipeg at 200 feet, and that from the lake of the Woods at 400 feet. Lake Winnipeg he places at 630 feet above the ocean, Rainy lake 1100 feet, and lake of the Woods at 1040 feet, and the general elevation of the country containing the sources of the streams tributary to lakes Superior and Winnipeg, and to the Mississippi river, at 1200 feet. BELTRAMI DISCOVERS THE JULIAN SOURCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. In Major Long's party for the exploration of the St. Peter's river, was an educated Italian gentleman, a political exile, of a romantic and senti- mental cast of mind, named J. C. Beltrami, who, having joined the expedi- tion at Fort Snelling, accompanied it as far as "Pembinar," where, considering himself rather discourteously treated by Major Long, and wishing to signalize his visit to the Northwest by some noteworthy discovery on his own account, he parted from Major Long and reached the upper Mississippi at Red Cedar lake, by way of Bloody river,* Red lake, and Turtle lake, and descended it as far as New Orleans, where he published his notes in French,! at a date •Now the Red Lake river. t La Deeouverte des Sources du Mississippi et de IK riviere Sanglante. One volume Ivo. 328 p., New Orleans, 18S4 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 1823, Bcltrami.] 45 considerably earlier than the appearance of any of the official papers ot Major Long, and several years earlier than Keating's "Narrative.'" It was subsequently enlarged and reprinted in London in English.* Although his " letters," constituting as they do a gossipy and literary curiosity in the field of exploration, maybe justly styled a romance in the discovery of the upper Mississippi, and although they are characterized by numerous errors, both historical and geographical, as well as ethnological and zoological, they still give some additional information respecting the geography of the upper Mississippi and Red lake. The Minnesota legislature having set aside a large tract, under the name of Beltrami county, covering the Julian sources of the Mississippi, it is to be hoped that the names applied by Mr. Beltrami to the lakes and streams he visited may be preserved in the future settlement of the region, which, however, is still nearly as wild and unin- habited as when Mr. Beltrami passed through it. FIGURE 4. BELTRAMI'S MAP OF THE JULIAN SOURCES. [Fac-simile.] The above fac-simile of that portion of Beltrami's map embracing the region of the Julian sources of the Mississippi, coincides with his statement with a < court in » Europe and America, leading to the discovery of the sources of the Mississippi and Bloody river ' by J- c- Beltrami- E5tl- formerly Jud 46 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Beltrami, 1813. that he traveled almost due south from Red lake to Red Cedar lake. But in fact Red Cedar lake is considerably to the eastward of Red lake, and his course of travel was necessarily about southeast. The river which he first struck in traveling from " Pembinar" was the Thief river. His map names it Valeuse, and his book Robbers' river. His Indian guides found here their canoe which they had secreted for a murderous foray on the Sioux the previous week. Before reaching Red lake he was attacked by the Sioux, and one of his Chippewas was wounded in the arm. This caused them to desert him and pursue the route by land to Red lake. Then he started alone to drag the canoe containing his baggage to the lake by a cord, being unable to paddle it in the manner of the Indian. Meeting a party of Indians descending the " Bloody" river, he prevailed on one of their number to con- duct him to the lake. Employing there a bois bruU, he ascended the stream that led him to Turtle lake, first making a long portage, to avoid an exten- sive wind-fall which had thrown many large forest trees across the stream. To the southwest of Red lake he visited and named a series of eight small lakes, which all communicate with each other, of which Gravel river (Kahasini- lague) is the outlet into Red lake. These he named Alexander, Lavinius, Everard, Frederica, Adela, Magdalena, Virginia and Eleonora, names of a • family to which he was " united by the most cordial friendship." On the western side the lake receives the river Broachus (Kinongeo) and that of the Great Rock (Kisciacinabed). The next, on the south shore, are the Gravel river and the Gold Fish river (Kiogokague), also the Great Portage (Madaoanakan). On the southeast is the Cormorant river (Cacakiscin). The northern portion of Red lake receives the Sturgeon river (Amenikanions) which communicates by means of two portages, with lake Superior and the waters of Hudson's bay. He regarded the Great Portage river as the real continuation of the Bloody river and cites the opinion of the Indians to that effect. "According to the theory of ancient geographers the sources of a river which are most in a line with its mouth should be considered as its principal sources, and particularly when they issue from a cardinal point and flow to one directly opposite." For the purpose of ascending this river he was compelled to make a portage of twelve miles, beginning on the lake between it and Gold Fish river. A small lake, about half way on this portage, he styled Avernus, and another near the end of the portage he HISTOKICAL SKETCH. 47 1823, Beltrami.] named lake of the Pines, " from the immense number of those trees with which it is surrounded." Its outlet is into the series of eight lakes that are discharged by Gravel river. From this lake he made another portage of four miles and reached the Grand Portage river. Ascending this river he passed two lakes which he denominated Manomeny-Kany-aguen, or Wild Rice lakes. These were formed by the enlargement of the waters of the river. The third lake, formed in the same way, the Indians called Puposky- wiza-Kany-aguen, or end of the shaking lands, nearly all the region traversed from the lake of the Pines, being so low and nearly level as almost to float upon the water. About six miles further south the real source of the Bloody river was found. It " springs out of the ground in the middle of a small prairie, and the little basin into which it bubbles up is surrounded by rushes. We approached the spot within fifty paces in our canoe." LAKE JULIA. Making a short portage from this spring, over a hill, Mr. Beltrami approached a wonderful lake. It is situated on a hill, with no higher land about it, in "the whole extent of the clearest and widest horizon." Mr. Beltrami's florid description is in these words : " All places around it are, on the contrary, considerably lower. I have made long excursions in all its environs, and have been unable to perceive any volcanic traces, of which its banks are equally destitute. Yet its waters boil up in the middle ; and all my sounding lines have been insufficient to ascertain their depth ; which may be considered as indicating that they spring from the bottom of some gulf, the cavities of which extend far into the bowels of the earth; and their limpid character is almost a proof that they become purified by filtra- ting through long subterraneous sinuosities; so that time may perhaps have effaced the exterior and superficial traces of a volcano, and the basin of the lake have been, nevertheless, its effect and its crater. Whither do these waters go? This I conceive may be more easily answered, although there is no apparent issue for them." From this lake with no visible outlet he supposes there is a filtration northward so as to supply the water of lake Puposky, thus becoming the source of Bloody river, and also southward, where they appear in a little basin at the foot of the hill, about eighty feet in circumference, thus becom- 48 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Beltrami, 1823. ing also "the actual sources of the Mississippi." This remarkable lake, which he styled lake Julia, is described as "about three miles around, in the shape of a heart, and it may be truly said to speak to the very soul. Mine was not slightly moved by it. It is but justice to draw it from the silence in which geography, after so many expeditions, still suffered it to remain, and to point it out to the world in all its honorable distinction." The stream from the small basin that has been noticed, on the south side of the hill, runs directly south, and after three miles reaches Turtle lake. " The majestic river, which embraces a world in its immense course, and speaks in thunder in its cataracts, is at these, its sources, nothing but a timid Naiad, stealing cautiously through the rushes and briars which obstruct its passage. The famous Mississippi, whose course is said to be twelve hundred leagues, and which bears navies on its bosom, and steam- boats superior in size to frigates, is at its source merely a petty stream of crystalline water, concealing itself among reeds and wild rice which seem to insult over its humble birth." TURTLE LAKE. Turtle lake, including its bays, he estimates at more than one hundred miles in circumference. The first lake below he christened Jeroniine, from the countess to whom his letters were addressed. Another, seven or eight miles further east-southeast, he named Monteleone. A stream coming into the Mississippi from the northwest the Indians styled Scisaiaguay, or Heron river. He passed up this tributary, and found it drained a number of small basins, the highest of which he named lake Torrigiani, "from the stately and spreading trees which overhang its banks." From this he made a port- age northward and came to another lake of an oval form, which he named Antonelli, four or five miles across. This discharges into Turtle lake near the point at which the Mississippi leaves it. Descending below Turtle lake he passed four lakes, which he named Providence lakes, on account, as he says, of the fields of wild rice which Providence has formed there, the ears of which resemble those of the land of promise. The river, throughout, to Bed Cedar lake, is described as having a deep, steady and uniform channel and current, the land all being low and frequently submerged or shaking. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 49 1823, Beltrami, ; BELTRAMl's OPINION OF THE ITASCAN SOURCE. Mr. Beltrami heard of the Itascan branch of the upper Mississippi, but he regarded it as a subordinate tributary, and did not pursue it. Had he not rested his claim to the discovery of the true source of the Mississippi, con- fidently on the principle stated, he certainly would have penetrated to its "western sources". He was a man of zeal, adventure, energy and ambition, and never would have left the region without visiting what he styles Doe Jake, had he supposed there was a possibility of doubting the actuality and correctness of his discovery. This western branch he learned of under the name of the River of lake Traverse, and says that above lake Traverse (Pemidji), it issues from a lake "which receives no tributary stream, and seems to draw its waters from the bosom of the earth. It is here, in my opinion, that we shall fix the western sources of the Mississippi." Respecting the geology of the country, a single extract from Mr. Bel- trami's pen will show at once the amount and character of the information he gives us. The following is his comment on the valley of the Redwood river, near its mouth, where the expedition passed. BELTRAMl AT THE MOUTH OF THE REDWOOD RIVER. We now reached a valley of the most lovely and interesting character. Never did a more striking illusion transport my imagination back to the classic lands of Latium and Magna Graecia. Rocks scattered, as if by art, over the plain, on plateau, and on hills, were, at a little distan3e, perfect representations of every varied form of the ruins of antiquity. In one place you might think you saw thermal substructures, or those of an amphitheatre, a circus, or a forum; in another the remains of a temple, a cenotaph, a basilicon, or a triumphal arch. I took advantage of the time which chance procured me, to survey this enchanted ground; but I went alone, that the deli- cious reverie it threw me into might not be broken by cold heartedness or presumption. My eyes continually met new images; at length they rested on a sort of tomb, which for some time held me motionless. A thousand afflicting recollections rushed to my heart; I thought I beheld the tomb of Virtue and of Friendship; I rested my head upon it, and tears filled my eyes. The spot was of a kind to soften and embellish grief, and I should have long given myself up to its sweet influence had I not been with people who had no idea of stopping for any thing but a broken saddle, or some such important incident. The rocks are granitic, and of so beautiful and varied a quality, that the tricking dealers of the Piazza Navona, at Rome, would sell them to the most enthusiastic, and, — in their own opinion, — the most learned antiquarians, as oriental and Egyptian porphyry or basalt, which are now generally admitted to be merely granite more elaborated by time and water. BELTRAMI AT THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. What a new scene presents itself to my eyes, my dear Madam I How shall I bring it before you without the aid of either painting or poetry? I will give you the best outline I can, and your imagination must fill it up. Seated on the top of an elevated promontory, I see, at half a mile dis- 4 50 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Schoolcraft, 1833. tance, two great masses of water unite at the foot of an island which they encircle, and whose majestic trees deck them with the loveliest hues, in which all the magic play of light and shade are reflected on their brilliant surface. From this point they rush down a rapid descent about 200 feet long, and, breaking against the scattered rocks which obstruct their passage, they spray up and dash together in a thousand varied forms. They then fall into a transverse basin, in the form of a cradle, and are urged upwards by the force of gravitation against the side of a precipice, which seems to stop them but a moment, only to increase the violence with which they fling themselves down a depth of twenty feet. The rocks against which these great volumes of water dash, throw them back in white foam and glittering spray ; then, plunging into the cavities which this mighty fall has hollowed, they rush forth again in tumultuous waves, and once more break against a great mass of sandstone forming a little island in the midst of their bed, on which two thick maples spread their shady branches. SCHOOLCRAFT AT ITASCA LAKE IN 1832. In 1832 Mr. Henry R. Schoolcraft conducted an expedition to the source of the Mississippi river, pursuing nearly the same route from Sault St. Mary, as in 1820. From Upper Red Cedar lake he passed up the Mississippi under the guidance of a Chippewa chief named Ozawindib, accompanied by Dr. Douglass Houghton, afterward state geologist of Michigan, Lieut. James Allen, U. S. A., and Rev. W. T. Boutwell, and a sufficient number of packers and canoe-men. Mr. Schoolcraft regarded himself as the discoverer of the true source of the river, and in the absence of published accounts by other travelers it was a just claim. Still there is no doubt that among the coureurs des bois of the fur companies there were several who knew well that the Mississippi could not be followed further than to Itasca lake. Mr. Schoolcraft's claim was generally scouted among the white residents of the northwest who were at all conversant with the country during the previous twenty-five years. The statement of Mr. Morrison of his visit to the lake in 1804 has already been referred to, and to him it is just to accord the discovery of the source of the great river, although first published so late as 1856. Mr. Schoolcraft's expedition, however, enjoyed the zest, as it received the popular acceptance, of a first discovery, and he fully described the route he took, giving several names to lakes before unknown. He named the first lake west of Cass lake, formed by the expansion northward of the Mississippi, lake Andrusia. This is in T. 146, R. 31. The next, which enlarges toward the south, situated in T. 146, R. 32, he styled the Twin of lake Andrusia. Its Indian name was Pamitascodiac, preferable to that which he applied. A few miles above this point begin a series of rapids, ten in number, styled Metoswa rapids. The Indian name Pemidjegumaug HISTORICAL SKETCH. 51 1832, Schoolcraft.] (now lake Pemidji), which is the Chippewa for Lac Trovers, Mr. School- craft saw a good reason for rejecting in favor of Queen Anne, whose name he applied to that lake. The little lake immediately south of it he dedi- cated to Washington Irving. Half a mile above this he reached what he styled the "primary forks of the Mississippi," that from the west, or Itascan fork, bearing the larger volume of water. Under the guidance of Oza- windib, the party took the southern fork, through which, by a series of lakes, they attained a point nearly east from Itasca lake. They then made a grande portage over the drift hills intervening, to Itasca lake, descending the other fork to Pemidji lake the following day. He bestowed the name of Marquette on the first of the lakes of the south fork, and on the second that of La Salle. The third lake, of larger dimensions, deemed by Lieut. Allen to be ten miles long, he named Plantagenet. Passing the junction of the Naiwa river and at the same time ascending a rapid by means of a portage trail of about two miles, the stream was again struck at a point a few miles below Assawa or Perch lake. A short distance above this lake the party left the south fork, by portage to Itasca lake,* the eleva- tion passed over being estimated at 1695 feet above the gulf of Mexico. In descending the other fork of the river, from Itasca lake, Mr. School- craft found the outlet to be " quite a brisk brook, with the mean width of ten feet and the depth of one foot." After passing some severe rapids he mentions a river by the name of Chemaun, entering on the right bank, which nearly doubles the volume of the stream. Further down enters a stream, with a lake near its mouth, which the Indians styled Piniddiwin (or Carnage) river, but which he denominated De Soto river. Both these streams enter the Mississippi in T. 146, R. 35. A small stream below, orig- inating in a lake, in T. 146, R. 34, coming in on the left, he designated Allenoga, " putting the Iroquois local terminal in oga to the name of the worthy officer who traced out the first true map of the actual sources of the Mississippi.'' He also applies names to a series of lakes between Leech lake and the headwaters of the Crow Wing river, but his descriptions cannot be made to agree with any published maps of that country, particularly in respect to distances traveled, and the sizes of the lakes, although they are ^"Having previously got an inkling of some of their mythological and necromantic notions of the origin and mutations of the country uhich permitted the use of a female name for It, I denominated it Rasca." -Schoolcraft Disc. Sources Miss Mr. Neill lias stated on the authority of Rev. W. T. Boutwell, who accompanied the expedition, that the name Itasca waa derived by Schoolcraft from the Latin words veritas and caput, meaning true source. 52 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Allen, 1832. represented on the map accompanying his Narrative, published in 1834. Like nearly all pioneer travelers he over-estimates distances. The following names he applies to lakes between Leech lake and the mouth of Shell river, and they should be perpetuated on the settlement of the country, viz.: Warpool, Little Long, lake of the Mountain, lake of the Isle, Longwater lake (the source of this branch of Crow Wing river), Little Vermilion, Birch, Lac Pie, Assowa, Lac Vieux Desert, Long Rice, Allen, llligan and Douglass. Schoolcraft descended the Crow Wing river to its union with the Missis- sippi, being the first to explore it, and to render an account of its course.* LIEUT. JAMES ALLEN'S REPORT OF SCHOOLCRAFT's EXPEDITION OF 1832 TO THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Lieut. Allen's reportf is accompanied by a map of the country from the Red river of the North to the Bois Brule river of Wisconsin, extending from lake Pepin to Red lake. On this map the Cloquet river is named Rapid river. The principal sources of the St. Louis river are represented to come from Vermilion lake and White Wood lake, the latter probably being intended for what is now known as Basswood lake. The branches of the St. Croix river from the west, in descending order, are Pine river, Nenandag river, Fowle river, Kettle river, Snake river, and three others above St. Croix lake. One also joins St. Croix lake from the west. Ascending the Mississippi river above the falls of St. Anthony, the following are represented as its eastern tributaries, Raccoon river (now Coon creek in Anoka county), Rum river, Leaf or St. Francis river, Elk river, Clear river, Long river (having its source in Long lake situated west of Mille Lacs), Muddy creek, West Savanna river, Swan, Trout, Prairie and Deer rivers; the last being the first stream above Pokegama falls. The western branches above the falls of St. Anthony, * Resulting from this expedition were the following scientific papers: — 1. Limits of the range of the Cervus tylvestris, in the northwestern part of the United States. By Henry K. School- craft. [Northwest Journal.] 2. Description of the Fringilia vespertina, discovered by Mr. Schoolcraft in the Northwest, By William Cooper. [An. N. Y. Lye Nat. Hist.] 3. List of shells collected by Mr. Schoolcraft in the western and northwestern territory. By William Cooper. 4. List of species and localities of plants collected in the northwestern expeditions of Mr. Schoolcraft, of 1831 and 1833. By Douglass Houghtor.. M. D. 5. A report on the existence of deposits of copper in the geological basin of lake Superior By Dr. D. Houghton. 6. Remarks on the occurrence of native silver and ores of silver in the stratification of the basins of lakes Huron and Superior. ByHeniyR Schoolcraft. 7. A general summary of the localities of minerals observed in the Northwest in 1831 and 1832. By Henry R. Sehoolcraft. 8. Geological outline of the Taquiinenon valley of Jake Superior. By Henry R. Schoolcraft. 9 Suggestions respecting the geological epoch of the deposit of sandstone rock at St. Mary's falls. Ry Henry R. Schoolcralt. Of the above, those not otherwise noted, are in the appendix to Schoolcraft's work, Discovery of the Sources of the Mississippi. fAmerican State Papers Vol. V. Military Affairs p. 312. HISTOKICAL SKETCH. 53 1832, Allen. | so far as named, are Rice (probably Shingle creek in Hennepin county), Crow, Sac, Elk, Swan, Crow Wing, Pine, and Willow. The Crow Wing has a northern tributary near its mouth called Salt river, coming from Gull lake. The Shell river rises in Shell lake, and the Leaf river is not named. Although his journal alludes to Leaf river, giving it a size nearly as large as the Crow Wing where they join, and states its source is in Leaf lake fifty miles above its mouth, yet neither is represented on his map. He has incorrectly named it " Shell river," which really joins the Crow Wing much higher up, as represented by Schoolcraft, and later by Nicollet. A large tributary of the St. Peter's river from the north is Beaver river, undoubtedly the Pomme de Terre (or Tipsinah) river. Big Stone lake is named Big Salt lake, and the Minnesota river above that lake is called Cold creek. The head of the Coteau is styled "Thunder Nest Mountains," and a series of " salt ponds " is represented just to the east. The eastern branches of the Red river of the North are the Chippewa, the Wild Rice, Plum, Sand Hill and Red Lake rivers. The map is characterized by the representation of marked hill-ranges, sometimes called mountains. The great moraine of western Minnesota is shown from a point north of Cass lake southward to near the source of the Crow river, under the name, " Dividing Ridge between the Mississippi and Red rivers." The " Cabotian Mountains" begin between the Cloquet river and lake Superior and extend southwestwardly across the St. Louis river, forming the Dalles, and several miles further. A range designated " Pine hills ", extends from the upper St. Croix lake westward nearly to the source of Snake river. The Nemadji, or Left Hand river, entering lake Superior near Superior City, is named " La Riviere a Gauche." Red Cedar lake is near the Mississippi northwest of Mille Lacs, and Red lake is between *fc and Long lake toward the southwest, and empties into the Mississippi by a small stream. Lieut. Allen further defines the geography of the upper Mississippi in his journal, mentioning various streams and lakes that are not put down on his map. In first making the "grand portage" through the Cabotian mountains, he describes it as running back from the river in some places four or five miles but touching it at " La Roche Galet." The rock in the river at the upper end of the portage is described as "coarse, hard, argillite rock," and the country through which it passes as rich, and timbered with 54 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Allen, 1835. birch, pine and sugar maple. " Three miles" above the grand portage begins the portage a couteau, or knife portage, on the west side of the river, beginning at a small island of argillyte which rises abruptly to the hight of 100 feet, in the midst of the river at the foot of a strong rapid. This portage is stated to be a mile and a half long. " Nine and a half miles" above the knife portage he mentions continued rapids through argillyte rock for about four miles. The St. Louis river of the map he styles Fond du Lac river in his journal. The country on the portage to the West Savanna river is described as very swampy, but divided by a ridge of higher land timbered with sugar maple, birch and linn, running southeastwardly, about a mile and a half from the West Savanna river. It is less than half a mile wide, and is suc- ceeded by swamps again on its west or Mississippi side, which extend with some alternating ridges of higher land to the West Savanna river. The highest point on the portage is about 150 feet above the Savanna rivers. Sandy lake overflows with the Mississippi, and the great flood covers the country for many miles around. At " Pacagama falls " the descent of the river is between twenty and thirty feet in the distance of a hundred yards, and is nowhere perpendicular, but the channel is much contracted. In one place the whole water runs down the surface of a smooth, plain rock for a distance of forty feet, with a pitch of about twelve degrees. The river is here said to break through a low ridge that traverses its course perpen- dicularly in a northeast and southwest direction, the rock being of granular quartz. At a small stream which joins the Mississippi a short distance above the falls, from the west, commence the great swamps and savannas which border the Mississippi on one or both sides for a great distance above. By way of Lac la Crosse (remarkable for the fine whitefish it afforded) and a small river extending three or four miles to another little lake, he left the Missis- sippi, at last, making a portage of 800 yards to Little Winnipeg lake, through which the Mississippi runs. A few miles further up he reached Big Winnipeg lake, from which he says there is a short portage to a river of Rainy lake, probably the Big Fork river. Red Cedar lake, the former name of Cass lake, derived its name from a little high island called Red Cedar island. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 55 1831, Allen.] LIEUT. ALLEN AT THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI, AND ON THE GROW WING RIVER. In company with Mr.-Schoolcraft, Lieut. Allen left Cass lake under the guidance of Yellow Head, an Indian of the Cass lake band, for the explora- tion of the Mississippi river to its source. Passing Lac Travers, now lake Pemidji, which he describes as a beautiful lake about ten miles long from north to south and about half as broad, surrounded by pine woods which rise into high hills on the noi'th and northwest, forming a part of the chain dividing the waters of the Mississippi from those of the Red river, he followed a broad channel, 100 yards long, and reached another small lake. Half a mile above this he reached the forks of the river, the branches being nearly of the same width, but the right hand branch having the most water discharge. He ascended the left branch, and in about twelve miles reached lake Rahbahkanna, or Resting lake, which is four miles in diameter and nearly round. Ascending the river still further, a distance estimated by him between fifty and sixty miles, he reached Usaw-way, or Perch, lake, which is about two miles long and half a mile broad. From this lake he set out overland to Lac la Biche, which was supposed to be the source of the larger fork of the Mississippi, making a portage of six miles, and struck the lake near the end of its southeastern bay. The portage passed over a rough country, two or three hundred feet above the lake, with tamarack swamps and Banks' pine, the latter growing in a poor and sandy soil, hung with lichens and without animal life. Mr. Schoolcraft hoisted a flag on a high staff, on the island, and left it flying. Lac la Biche is said to be about seven miles long and from one to three broad, but of irregular shape, conforming to the bases of the pine hills which for a great part of its circumference rise abruptly from its shore. Its shores are formed of boulders of primitive rock but have no rock in place. School- craft island is 150 yards long and 50 yards broad. The Indian who acted as guide declared this lake to be the "true source and fountain of the long- est and largest branch of the Mississippi." He had hunted all round it, and said there was a little creek too small for the smallest canoes to ascend, emptying into the south bay of the lake and having its source "at the base of a chain of high hills, which we could see not two miles off." "To the 56 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Allen, 1832. west he saw distinctly "a range of almost mountains, covered with pine, which was undoubtedly the chain dividing us from the waters of the Red river." Respecting the "Julian sources" Lieut. Allen says: "There is, how- ever, a little stream, Turtle river, entering Cass lake from the north, iu the route of traders to Turtle lake and Red lake, but it is a very small and insig- nificant stream, and is only forty-five miles in length." On leaving Lac la Biche he found the Mississippi twenty feet broad and two feet deep with a current two miles per hour. It soon ran through a chain of high pine hills, where the channel contracted very much and numerous rapids occurred, ot very great fall over boulders of primitive rock, the river running for a dis- tance in a deep ravine. Lieut. Allen made a series of portages, and traverses of little lakes, from the south end of Leech lake "to Long lake, the source of Crow Wing river. These portages were all short, and over pine ridges, with yellow and pitch pine; the lakes were deep, clear and beautiful, with pine hills coming down to the water. The lakes had neither inlet nor outlet, and from the summits of the hills several could be seen at once. Long lake is only the beginning of a chain of eleven pretty little lakes near together, from two to five miles in length, from which the Crow Wing takes its rise. " In descending the Crow Wing river Lieut. Allen mentions the Leaf and the Shell rivers, but gets their names interchanged; also the Long Prairie river, but he does not name it on his map. LIEUT. ALLEN ON THE MISSISSIPPI. At the "little falls" he describes the river as forming a chute, and con- tracted from 300 yards to fifty yards, the fall amounting to ten feet in sixty, " through a formation of talcous slate rock, the first rock we had seen in place since leaving the falls of Pacagama. A little further down we passed Pike rapids, and the site of Pike's blockhouse, where Lieut. Pike wintered his command in 1805-'6 ; and a little further a chain of rapids called the ' grand rapids,' where the river runs over an extensive rock formation of granular quartz." He also mentions another rapid at the mouth of Elk river, and the "big falls" at the mouth of Sac river, and a short distance above tne latter the mouth of the Little Sac, or Wattah, river ; also, the HISTORICAL SKETCH. 57 1835, Featherstonhaugh.] " mouth of the St. Francis, or Parallel, river, a considerable stream running parallel with the Mississippi, and navigable for canoes 150 miles." The Rum river, on the same side, is said to be navigable for canoes 150 miles to " Mil Lac, a lake almost as large as Cass lake." The whole descent at the falls of St. Anthony, including the rapids, he estimated at eighty feet, the perpendicular fall at eighteen feet. LIEUT. ALLEN ON THE ST. CKOIX RIVER. The St. Croix enters the Mississippi by a mouth seventy-five yards broad, opposite an island of the latter, and fifty miles below Fort Snelling. Its right bank at the mouth is a perpendicular rock eight or ten feet high (calcareous sandrock) and the left is a low acute point. A few hundred yards from the mouth it opens into a long, narrow lake, lake St. Croix, which seems to fill or lie in a valley, the hills rising to form its banks, on each side, in green gentle slopes. * * A few miles above where I encamped, the river is traversed by a primitive rock which for a distance of one or two hundred yards, confines the channel within perpendicular walls fifty feet high, and rises in a high abrupt little island in the middle of the stream, but occasions no rapid. Above this the banks are high and steep, but not rocky, till within a mile of the falls, when the channel becomes suddenly contracted to from fifteen to thirty yards, by rocks forming mural precipices on each side fifty and a hundred feet high, between which the river, though very deep, is urged with great velocity. This rock and the narrow channel continues, with a few interruptions of caves and fissures, one mile up, to the falls, where the river is but forty feet broad, and rushes with great force and violence down a fall of fifty feet in three hundred yards. The whole of this rock is greenstone trap, and its surface presented to the river in high cliffs is exceedingly rugged and broken, prismatic fragments being continually detached from it and tumbled down. In the further ascent of the St. Croix river to the upper St. Croix lake, Lieut. Allen encountered great difficulties, on account of being abandoned by Mr. Schoolcraft and his party, and on account of the almost intermina- ble rapids. His description of this stream above the falls of St. Croix con- firms Duluth's assertion as quoted by La Salle, that in descending it he "had passed forty leagues of rapids.'1 G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH, TJ. 8. GEOLOGIST. In the summers of 1834 and 1835, an English gentleman, under the title of U. S. Geologist, was commissioned by Col. J. J. Abert, of the bureau of topographical engineers, with loose and apparently aimless instructions, to execute rambling explorations in the western country. The first year he visited the Red river of Arkansas, and the second he proceeded to the vicinity of that 'elevated ridge which separates the Missouri river from the St. Peter's. From the latter expedition resulted two works — one entitled " Report of a geological reconnoissance made in 1835, from the seat of govern- 58 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Featherstonhaugh, 1835. ment by the way of Green bay and the Wisconsin territory to the Coteau des Prairies, an elevated ridge dividing the Missouri from the St. Peter's river," printed by order of the Senate in 1836, and the other "A Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotar," published in London in 1847. The latter is taken up largely with personal and journalistic details, and the former with a statement of geological principles, as understood by English geologists of that day. In his geological report proper Mr. Feath- erstonhaugh ascribes the existence of lake Pepin to the entrance of the Chippewa river, nearly at right angles to the Mississippi, damming up the water above it ; mentions Castle rock as an instance of how " the mineral level has been reduced," and gives an illustration of it, in which it appears very much as it does at the present day; visited Fountain cave near St. Paul, and describes it under the impression that it is that visited by Carver; speaks of the " carboniferous limestone " at Fort Snelling, correcting Mr. Keating's error in supposing fallen pieces of limestone from the top of the bluff were in situ at the level of the river, and gives the following account of the falls of St. Anthony: • FEATHERSTONHAUGH AT THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. An island about 450 yards long divides the Mississippi into two parts at the falls of St. Anthony, which have a very irregular outline, owing to the soft sandstone being washed out une- qually in places, and the superincumbent strata of limestone falling down in large blocks ; these are piled up in large quanities on the bed of the river immediately at the foot of the falls. That part of the river on the north side of the island is about 220 yards wide. There is a very fine, smooth section of the rocks here to the water, about ninety feet high. I should think the fall would not average more than twenty feet. The immense slabs which have fallen from the lime- stone beds at the top are covered with producta, mixed with spirifers and cardia. On the south side of the river the line of the falls is a very irregular curvature, and measures about 450 yards to the island ; the hight of the fall does not appear so great on this side, owing perhaps to the bed of the river being so much choked up with the fallen slabs. It is a wild rocky scene, but deficient in interest as a waterfall on account of its want of hight. To a geologist, however, it is exceedingly interesting, finding here the uninterrupted continuation, for one thousand miles, of the carboniferous limestone with its characteristic fossils. At the south side of the falls 1 got some exceedingly fine ones, including beautiful specimens of delphinula, bellerophon, nautilus, euomphalus, &c. FEATHERSTONHAUGH ASCENDS THE MINNESOTA RIVER. Mr. Featherstonhaugh's geological notes on the Minnesota river may be summarized somewhat as follows. Mentioning Carver's river, he says : " Something short of fifty miles from the fort there is a short rapid with HISTORICAL SKETCH. 59 1835, Feathentonhiugh.] a strong current. Above this is another rapid, with sandstone in place on the right bank, the same as at the fort." This is probably the rapid near Carver. Further up the Bois Franc district, a stream comes in from the left bank called Wee-tah Wakatah, or Tall island,* and about five miles higher up some ledges of horizontal fawn-colored limestone jut out on the right bank, very cherty and somewhat vesicular ; near the surface it takes a reddish salmon-color, resembling very much some beds I had previously seen on the Wisconsin and upper Mississippi. Within a few yards of these ledges, and north of them, a beautiful pellucid stream comes in, containing the purest water I had seen in the country. 1 could not learn that any name had been given to it, and as it is in the immediate vicinity of the first calcareous rock I had met with in place here, and its purity rendering it a very rare stream in a country where all are turbid, I named it Abert's run, after Col. Abert, of the United States army, and chief of the topographi- cal bureau.t Eight or nine miles below Traverse des Sioux is Myah Skah, or White Rock,:}: where he mentions an escarpment consisting of forty feet of granular sandstone surmounted by ten feet of fawn-colored limestone, the same as that at Abert's run. This sandstone, he says, is formed of semi-transparent grains loosely adhering, with nodules here and there, where they are cemented by a paste of clear siliceous matter; the whole making a hard flinty mass resembling siliceous oolite. At the j unction of the limestone with the sandstone he notes a seam of marly, mineral matter " containing a great deal of silicate of iron," of a bluish - green color. About two miles above Moon creek§ (or camp Crescent, of Keating) he saw the sandstone and lime- stone again in place ; again, at a point three miles higher, a long bluff twenty-five feet in hight. Five miles further the White Earth bluff occurs, where he mentions multitudes of large boulders on the prairie, some of which he estimates at 100 tons' weight. Beyond this point, having passed an island about 400 yards long, the current becoming very strong, with bold bluffs and many boulders, he judged that the river had worked its way through a ridge. Sixteen miles beyond this point he estimated the bluffs at 150 feet in hight, and found the current of the river swift, this being near the mouth of the Makato, or Blue Earth river. In searching for the supposed copper mines of Le Sueur, under the guidance of his interpeter, Milor, he could ascertain nothing, not even a traditional report, of anything like a copper mine in that region. The * High Island creek, four miles north of Henderson. f The inaccuracies of Mr. Fcatherstonhaugh's description, even with the aid of his small map. render it impossible to state what stream is here meant ; but the bluff of rock seems to be that situated at Rocky point, Sec. 30, Blakely. : Near Ottawa. \ Keating ascribes the name Crucenttoa, bend in the Minnesota river, but Mr. Featherstonhaugh says it Is due to a •eries of half-moon turns in the little creek that enters from the east a short distance below the Traverse des Sioux. 60 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Featherstonhaugh, 1835. Indians concurred in saying that there were some bluffs a few miles beyond the St. Peter's where they procured a blue earth with which to paint them- selves; and this point was so precisely described that he had no difficulty in finding it. In passing up he evidently regarded the Le Sueur as the main stream, and refers to the fork now styled the Blue Earth, as " a fork of the river from the left bank." This he ascended, finding little current, and at a place estimated at two miles from the fork, came to a bluff about 150 feet high on the left bank, containing the blue-earth locality. "On climbing it I found the same horizontal limestone and siliceous sandstone common to the whole country. • Toward the top was a broad seam of bluish clay inter- mixed in places with silicate of iron, being a continuation of the deposit I had seen before at Myakah, and valuable only for the savages to paint them- selves with. From this bluff I advanced in a westerly direction about two miles, over a part of the country grown up with small poplars, hazels, wild roses and grass, in the hope of seeing the Coteau des Prairies, and of making arrangements to proceed to it from this quarter; but I saw nothing of the kind from any eminence which I could gain, and having in my hand, and reading on the spot, what had been said by M. Le Sueur, his mountains and his copper mines, I found myself obliged to come to the conclusion that these discoveries were fables invented to give himself influence at the court of France. Before I left the northwest country, and after I had visited the Coteau des Prairies, I found it was distant at least sixty miles from this spot, which leaves only the bluffs of the river to represent the mountains spoken of in the manuscript of La Harpe."* Twenty miles above the mouth of the Blue Earth, he states that the Minnesota " has made a recent cut-off and abandoned its old bed ; not far from this place a large mass of sandstone is in place in the middle of the river." Swan lake lies nearly five miles north of this place. FEATHERSTONHAUGH DESCRIBES THE QUARTZYTE AT REDSTONE. "About twenty-five miles above Makato some red earth bluffs occur on the left bank, with numerous boulders. From this point the general appearance of the soil and country begins to vary, and announces a change •The deposit containing the pigment he places in that seam "which divides the limestone from the sandstone," when describing this locality in the •' Canoe Voyage." HISTORICAL SKETCH. 61 1835, Featherstonhaugh.J in the formations, and five miles further some rocky bluffs come in on the left bank, the lower beds of which are a brick red color and of a fine grain. On landing and leaving the bank I found the country covered with beds of red gritstone of a very hard quality, inclined about fifteen degrees. These rocks are full of potholes, some of them a foot in diameter and eight inches deep, and are as smooth as metal. The carboniferous limestone formation seems to terminate here, and to be stopped by a conglomerate resembling in its mineralogical characters the upper beds of the Old Red sandstone. The river has in old times passed over these rocks, worn the pot-holes, and made them so glassy smooth." He mentions the first granite met, known as " little rock," and says that no other kind of rock was seen in place during his further progress toward the northwest. THE COTEAU DBS PRAIRIES. He estimated the Coteau to rise 450 feet above the level of the general prairie; the ascent being so gentle that one is hardly aware of going up hill. The ascent perhaps continues two and a half miles, and is not more than at the rate of 160 feet to the mile. "The Coteau itself is only. another upland prairie, somewhat more diversified than that I had left behind, having numerous small wooded lakes on its surface, which have a very picturesque appearance. From the plateau here there is an extensive view of the prairies below, with the lakes. The prairies in every direction are bounded only by the horizon; a few occasional trees indicate stagnant water. It is two good days' march from here to the Shyan, and eight further to Pembina, on Red river of lake Winnipeg, the whole of it over a prairie country with many small lakes and occasional wood. The Nid de Tonnere, or Nest of Thunder, a name derived from some Indian tradition, comprehends a small tract of country with a very irregular surface, where knolls, depressions and small wooded lakes prevail. The sand-hills I have before spoken of as lying in front of the Coteau des Prairies, extend into this vicinity and still further to the northwest. Farther to the northwest are several saline lakes, one of which, named Saline lake on the map, is about ten miles long. On the shores of these lakes crystallized salt is found in dry seasons, when the sur- face has been much evaporated; muriate of lime appears to be mixed with 62 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Catlin, 1837. it. As there is no rock in place around here, conjectures only can be formed upon the nature of the subjacent beds. ******* -^ne Coteau des Prairies, about which very little has been known, is a very broad ridge of land dividing the waters tributary to the Missouri from those which dis- charge themselves into the St. Peter's and into the Red river of lake Win- nipeg. Its general direction is about north-northwest and south-southeast, though in places in appears to be irregular. To the south it comes down to the sources of the Makato, whilst to the north it terminates for a while near the sources of the Psee, where a flat country comes in. intersected by the Shyan and the Goose rivers. Lac du Diable is in this area with Turtle river. Here the Coteau rises again, to the north, but it is called the ' Pembina hills' by the traders; these extend beyond the Assinaboin river and die away about Flat lake, near seventy miles from lake Winnipeg. East of the Pem- bina hills there are salt springs, and from the somewhat vague accounts I received from the Indians, there is coal in their vicinity. A very respectable trader informed me he had once picked up some bituminous coal on the shore of lake Traverse.'' GEORGE CATLIN AT THE RED PIPESTONE QUARRY. Although Mr. Catlin is best known as an Indian delineator, he has also left a brief geological description of the pipestone country.* He was the first to carry a sample of the red pipestone away with him, and take measures to have it subjected to chemical examination. Such examination was made by Dr. C. T. Jackson, of Boston, who gave the substance the mineralogical name of catlinite.^ Mr. Catlin had plans laid for visiting the pipestone quarry in 1835, when at Fort Snelling, but hearing of the expedition of Mr. Featherston- haugh, under government directon to explore the Coteau des Prairies, he abandoned his project. Subsequently hearing that that gentleman did not •American Journal of Science, First Series, Vol. 38, p. 138. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 63 1837, Catlin.J visit the quarry, he carried out his design, starting from New York, "a dis- tance of. 2, 400 miles, for which purpose I devoted eight months, traveling at a considerable expense, and for a great part of the way with much fatigue and exhaustion." Starting on horseback from the falls of St. Anthony, in company with "a young gentleman from England of fine taste and education," and under the guidance of a faithful Indian, he followed the usual route along the south side of the Minnesota river to the Traverse des Sioux, where he crossed the river; he recrossed it at a point about thirty miles above the mouth of the " Terre Bleue," near the mouth of the Waraju, and thence, leaving the Minnesota, pursued a course "a little north of west," steering for the Coteau des Prairies. He represents the vast prairie that he passed over as one of the most beautiful countries in the world, for a distance of one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty miles. It everywhere showed the richest soil, and an abundance of good water which flowed from a thousand living springs. For many miles in the distance before us we had the Coteau in view, which looked like a blue cloud settling down in the horizon ; and when we had arrived at its base, we were scarcely sensible of the fact, from the graceful and almost imperceptible swells with which it commences its eleva- tion above the country about it. Over these swells, or terraces, gently rising one above the other, we traveled for a distance of forty or fifty miles, when we at length reached the summit, and also the pipestone quarry, the object of our campaign. From the base of this majestic mound to its top, a distance of forty or fifty miles, there was not a tree or a bush to be seen in any direction. The ground was even where covered with a green turf of grass, about five or six inches high ; and we were assured by our Indian guide that it descended to the west, toward the Missouri, with a sim- ilar inclination, and for an equal distance, divested of everything save the grass that grows and the animals that walk upon it. On the very top of this mound or ridge, we found the far-famed quarry, or fountain, of the Red Pipe, which is truly an anomaly in nature. The principal and most striking feature of this place is a perpendicular wall of close-grained, compact quartz, of twenty-five or thirty feet in elevation, running nearly north and south, with its face to the west, exhibiting a front of nearly two miles in length, when it disappears at both ends by running under the prairie, which becomes there a little more elevated, and probably covers it for many miles, both to the north and south. The depression of the brow of the ridge at this place has been caused by the wash of a little stream, produced by several springs on the top of the ridge, a little back from the wall, which has gradu- ally carried away the superincumbent earth, and having bared the wall for a distance of two miles, is now left to glide for some distance over a perfectly level surface of quartz rock, and then to leap from the top of the wall into a deep basin below, and from thence to seek its course to the Missouri, forming the extreme source of a noted and powerful tributary called the Big Sioux. This beautiful wall is perfectly stratified in several distinct horizontal layers, of light, gray and rose, or flesh-colored, quartz ; and through the greater part of the way, both on the front of the wall, and over acres of its horizontal surface, it is highly polished, or glazed, as if by ignition. At the base of this wall, and running parallel to it, there is a level prairie of half a mile in width, in any and all parts of which the Indians procure the red stone for their pipes by digging through the soil and several slaty layers of the red stone to the depth of four or five feet. From the very numerous marks of ancient and modern digging, or excavations, it would appear that this 64 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Catlin, 1837. place has been, for many centuries, resorted to for the red stone, and from the great number of graves and remains of ancient fortifications in the vicinity (as well as from their actual traditions) it would seem that the Indian tribes have long held this place in high superstitious estimation, and also that it has been the resort of different tribes, who have made their regular pilgrimages here to renew their pipes. It is evident that these people set an extraordinary value on the red stone, independently of the fact that it is more easily carved and makes better pipes than any other stone ; but whenever an Indian presents a pipe made of it, he gives it as something from the Great Spirit ; and some of the tribes have a tradition that the red men were all created from the red stone, and that it thereby is " a part of their flesh." Such was the superstition of the Sioux on this subject, that we had great difficulty in approaching it, being stopped by several hundred of them, who ordered us back and threatened us very hard, saying that no white man had ever been to it, and that none should ever go. * * * * * The red pipe-stone will, I suppose, take its place, amongst interesting minerals ; and the " Coteau des Prairies," will become hereafter an important theme for geologists, not merely from the fact that it is the only known locality of that mineral, but from other phenomena relating to it. The single fact of such a table of quartz resting in perfectly horizontal strata on this elevated plateau is of itself, as I conceive, a very interesting subject for investigation, and one which calls upon the scientific world for a correct theory with regard to the time when, and the manner in which, this formation was produced. That it is a secondary and sedimentary deposit, seems evident ; and that it has withstood the force of the diluvial current, while the great valley of the Missouri, from this very wall of rocks to the Rocky mountains, has been excavated and its debris carried to the ocean, I confidently infer from the following remarkable fact. At the base of the wall, and within a few rods of it, and on the very ground where the Indians dig for the red stone, rests a group of five stupendous boulders of gneiss leaning against each other, the smallest of which is twelve or fifteen feet, and the largest twenty-five feet in diam- eter, weighing, unquestionably, several hundred tons. These blocks are composed chiefly of feldspar and mica, of an exceedingly coarse grain (the feldspar often occurring in crystals of an inch in diameter). The surface of these boulders is in every part covered with a gray moss, which gives them an extremely ancient and venerable appearance, while their sides and angles are rounded by attrition to the shape and character of most other erratic stones which are found throughout the country. That these five immense blocks, of precisely the same character, and differing materially from all other specimens of boulders which I have seen in the great valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri, should have been hurled some hundreds of miles from their native bed, and lodged in so singular a group on this elevated ridge, is truly matter of surprise for the scientific world, as well as for the poor Indian, whose superstitous veneration for them is such that not a spear of grass is broken or bent by his feet within three or four rods of the group ; where he stops, and in humble supplication, by throwing plugs of tobacco to them, solicits their permission (as the guar- dian spirit of the place) to dig and carry away the red stone for his pipes. The surface of the boulders I found in every part entire and unscratched by anything, and even the moss was every- where unbroken, which undoubtedly remains so at this time, except where I applied the hammer to obtain some small specimens, which I brought away with me.* The fact alone that these blocks differ in character from all other specimens which I have seen in my travels, amongst the thousands of boulders which are strewed over the great valley of the Missouri and Mississippi, from the Yellowstone almost to the gulf of Mexico, raises in my mind an unanswerable question as regards the location of their native bed, and the means by which they have reached their isolated position like five brothers, leaning against and supporting each other, without the existence of another boulder of any description within fifty miles of them. There are thousands and tens of thousands of boulders scattered over the prairies, at the base of the Coteau on either side, and so throughout the valley of the St. Peter's and Mississippi, which are also subjects of very great interest and importance to science, inasmuch as they present to the world a vast variety of characters, and each one, although strayed from its original position, bears incontestable proof of the character of its native bed. The tract of country lying between the * In a specimen with which we are favored by Mr. Catlin, the feldspar is in distinct crystals, is tinted red, and greatly abounds; the quartz is gray and white, and the mica black, while the moss covers nearly half the mass.— Eds. HISTOEICAL SKETCH. 65 1837, Catlin.] • St. Peter's river and the Coteau, over which we passed, presents innumerable specimens of the kind, and near the base of the Coteau, they are strewed over the prairie in countless numbers, presenting almost an incredible variety of rich and beautiful colors, and undoubtedly traceable (if they can be traced,) to separate and distinct beds. Amongst these beautiful groups it was sometimes a very easy matter to sit on my horse and count within my sight some twenty or thirty different varieties of quartz and granite in rounded boulders, of every hue and color, from snow white to intense red and yellow and blue, and almost to a jet black, each one well characterized and evidently from a distinct quarry. With the beautiful hues and almost endless characters of these blocks, I became completely surprised and charmed, and I resolved to procure specimens of every variety, which I did with success by dismounting from my horse and breaking small bits from them with my hammer, until I had something like a hundred different varieties containing all the tints and colors of the painter's pallet. These I at length threw away, as I had on several former occasions other minerals and fossils, which I had collected and lugged along from day to day, and sometimes from week to week. Whether these varieties of quartz and granite can all be traced to their native beds, or whether they all have originals at this time exposed above the earth's surface, are generally matters of much doubt in my mind. I believe that the geologist may take the varieties which he may gather at the base of the Coteau in one hour, and travel the continent of North America all over without being able to put them all in place ; coming at last to the unavoidable conclusion that numerous chains or beds of primitive rocks have reared their heads on this continent, the summits of which have been swept away by the force of the diluvial currents; and their fragments jostled together and strewed about, like foreigners in a strange land, over the great valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri, where they will ever remain and be gazed upon by the traveler as the only remaining evidence of their native ledges, which have again been submerged or covered with diluvial deposits. There seems not to be, either on the Coteau, or in the great valleys on either side, so fai as I have traveled, any slaty or other formation exposed above the surface, on which grooves or scratches can be seen, to establish the direction of the diluvial currents in those regions; yet I think the fact is pretty clearly established by the general shapes of the valleys, and the courses of the mountain ridges which wall them in on their sides. The Coteau des Prairies is the dividing ridge between the St. Peter's and the Missouri rivers; its southern termination or slope is about in the latitude of the falls of St. Anthony, and it stands equi-distant between the two rivers, its general course bearing two or three degrees west of north, for the distance of two or three hundred miles, when it gradually slopes again to the north, throwing out from its base the headwaters and tributaries of the St. Peter's on the east ; the Red river and other streams which empty into the Hudson's bay on the north ; " La Eiviere Jacques " and several tributaries to the Missouri on the west ; and the Red Cedar, the loway and the Des Moines on the south. This wonderful anomaly in nature, which is several hundred miles in length, and varying from fifty to an hundred in width, is undoubtedly the noblest mound of its kind in the world. It gradually and gracefully rises on each side, by swell after swell, without tree, or bush, or rocks (save what are to be seen at the pipestone quarry), and is everywhere covered with green grass, affording the traveler, from its highest elevations, the most unbounded and sublime views of — nothing at all, save the blue and boundless ocean of prairies that lie beneath and all around him, vanishing into azure in the distance, without a speck or spot to break their softness. The direction of this ridge clearly establishes the course of the diluvial current in this region, and the erratic stones which are distributed along the base I attribute to an origin several hundred miles northwest from the Coteau. I have not myself traced the Coteau to its highest points, nor to its northern extremity, but on this subject I have closely questioned a number of travelers who have traversed every mile of it with their carts, and from thence to lake Winnipec on the north, who uniformly tell me that there is no range of primitive rocks to be crossed in traveling the whole distance, which is one connected and continuous prairie. The surface of the sides and the top of the Coteau is everywhere strewed over with granitic sand and pebbles, which, together with the fact of five boulders resting at the pipestone quarry, shows clearly that every part of the ridge has been subject to the action of these currents, which could not have run counter to it without having disfigured or deranged its beautiful symmetry. 66 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Lea, 1836. The glazed or polished surface of the quartz rocks at the pipestone quarry, I consider a very interesting subject, and one which will hereafter produce a variety of theories as to the manner in which it has been formed and the causes which have led to such singular results. The quartz is of a close grain and exceedingly hard, eliciting the most brilliant sparks from steel, and in most places where it is exposed to the sun and air, its surface has a high polish, entirely beyond any result which could have been produced by diluvial action, being perfectly glazed as if by ignition. I was not sufficiently particular in my examination to ascertain whether any parts of the surface of these rocks under the ground, and not exposed to the action of the air, were thus affected, which would afford an important argument in forming a correct theory with regard to it ; and it may also be a fact of similar importance that the polish does not extend over the whole wall or area, but is distributed over it in sections, often disappearing suddenly and reappearing again, even where the character and exposure of the rock are the same and unbroken. In general, the points and parts most projecting and exposed, bear the highest polish ; which would naturally be the case, whether it was produced by ignition or by the action of the air and sun. It would seem almost an impossibility that the air in passing these projections for centuries, could have produced so high a polish on so hard a substance, and, in the total absence of all igneous matter, it seems equally unaccountable that this effect could have been produced by fire. I have broken off speci- mens and brought them home, which have as high a polish and luster on the surface as a piece of melted glass; and then as these rocks have certainly been formed where they now lie, it must be admitted that this strange effect has been produced either by the action of the air or by igneous influence, and if by the latter cause, we can come to no other conclusion than that these results are volcanic ;* that this wall has once formed the side of an extinguished crater, and that the pipestone, lying in horizontal strata, was formed by the lava which issued from it. I am strongly inclined to believe, however, that the former supposition is the correct one, and that the pipestone, which dif- fers from all known specimens of lava and steatite, will prove to be a subject of great interest, and worthy of careful analysis. The first plate-page is designed to show at a glance the history of geo- graphical exploration in Minnesota, from the time of the earliest French exploration to the date of Catlin's visit to the pipestone quarry. Plate-page No. 2 is a reduced copy of Franquelin's map of 1688, being the oldest known map of the region west of lake Superior. LIEUT. ALBERT M. LEA ON THE BLACK HAWK PURCHASE. Lieut. A. M. Lea's map, accompanying his report on the "Black Hawk purchase," entitled " Notes on the Iowa District of Wisconsin Territory," 1836, shows the southern and southeastern counties of Minnesota, and the tributaries of the Mississippi river as far north as the foot of lake Pepin. The Whitewater river, by this map, joins the Embarras river just before the latter reaches the Mississippi. A tributary of the Whitewater from the south is named Swallow creek. Lake Albert Lea is there styled Fox lake. Fountain lake he styled Chapeau lake. A branch of the Blue Earth river is represented, and Council lake as one of its tributaries. This is probably Walnut lake, of Faribault county. The head of Lime creek is *Tliese smoothed surfaces are due to the polishinR effect of sand and dust driven by the high winds.— N. II. W. , . - , -. - ,-s HISTORICAL SKETCH. 67 1836, Nicollet.] Trail lake, with a smaller one flowing into it from the northwest. North- west from Chapeau lake, and between its two affluents from the northwest is "Paradise Prairie." A "trading house" is represented at lied Wing's village, at the foot of lake Pepin. Lieut. Lea's brief general notes pertain wholly to the region south of Minnesota, though his return ti-ail passes through our southern counties. JEAN N. NICOLLET. From 1836 to 1843, Mr. Jean N. Nicollet prosecuted the geographical exploration of the upper Mississippi. He died while his report, intended to show the result of his labors, was undergoing print and revision.* It is accompanied by a map, which, up to that time, was the most complete and correct of the upper Mississippi region. It covered not only the whole ot Minnesota but also Iowa, about one-half of Missouri and much of Dakota, Wisconsin and Illinois. It has been pronounced by high authority! "one of the greatest contributions ever made to American geography.'' That part of his map covering Minnesota, where the greater part of his time was spent, and where he brought out the most interesting and matured results, is reproduced in plate-page No. 7. He not only expresses the names ol streams and lakes, but gives the first representation of the striking topo- graphical features of the western and northern portions of the state. Without any just idea of the origin of the immense "erratic deposite" which charac- terizes the western and northern part of the state, he has, with tolerable correctness, delineated the course of a series of knolls and hills, made up of drift, under the names, Plateau du Coteau des Prairies, Coteait du Grand Bois. HiyJit of Land, Missabay Hif/htx, which extend through Minnesota and mark the continuous limit of the ice-sheet at the time of the last glacial epoch. He aims to locate correctly, by astronomical observations, the numerous streams and lakes, and the main geographical features of the state, filling in by eye-sketching, and by pacing, the intermediate objects. His methods, allowing for the imperfection of his appliances, and the meagerness of his outfit and supplies, were established on the same principles as the most approved geodetic surveys of the present day. It would, perhaps, have been * Report intended to illustrate a Map of the Hydrographical Basin of the Upper Mississippi river, made by J. N. Nicollet, while in employ under the Bureau of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. Feb. 16, 1H1, Washington. Senate docu- ment No. 237. 26th Congress, 2d Session. tGen. G. K. Warren, Pac. R. R. Reports. Vol. XL, p. 41. 68 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Nicollet, 1839. well if the methods of Nicollet could have been adhered to in the further surveying and mapping of the western territories. Their geography would have been less rapidly developed, but it would have been done more cor- rectly. Nicollet' s map embraces a multitude of names, including many new ones, which he applied to lakes and streams. These are not represented on the general historical map, but may be seen on referring to Nicollet's map as reproduced. Mr. Nicollet makes but few references to the geology and natural history of the region he surveyed, his main purpose being geographical information. Lieut. J. C. Fremont was his principal aid. He also employed Mr. Charles Geyer as a practical botanist, whose collections were named by Prof. John Torrey. His fossils were named by himself, or by the assistance of Vanuxem and Conrad of the New York Geological Survey, then lately instituted. MR. NICOLLET ON THE COTEAU DES PKAIRIES. The basin of the upper Mississippi is separated in a great part of its extent from that of the Missouri, by an elevated plain, the appearance of which, seen from the plain of the St. Peter's, or that of the river Jacques, looming as it were a distant shore, has suggested for it the name of Coteau des Prairies. Its more appropriate designation would be that of plateau, which means something more than is conveyed to the mind by the expression, a plain. Its northern extremity is in latitude 46°, extending to 43° ; after which it loses its distinctive elevation above the surrounding plains, and passes into rolling prairies. Its length is about two hundred miles, and its general direction N. N. W.and S. S. E. Its northern termination, (called Tete du Coteau, in consequence of its peculiar configuration,) is not more than fifteen to twenty miles across ; its elevation above the level of the Big Stone lake is 890 feet, and above the ocean 1916 feet. Starting from this extremity {that is, the head of the Coteau,) the surface of the plateau is undulating, forming many dividing ridges which separate the waters flowing into the St. Peter's and the Mississippi from those of the Missouri. Under the forty-fourth degree of latitude, the breadth of the Coteau is about forty miles, and its mean elevation is here reduced to 1450 feet above the sea. Within this space its two slopes are rather abrupt, crowned with verdure and scolloped by deep ravines thickly shaded with bushes, forming the beds of rivulets that water the subjacent plains. The Coteau itself is isolated, in the midst of boundless and fertile prairies, extending to the west, to the north, and into the valley of the St. Peter's. The plain at its northern extremity is a most beautiful tract of land, diversified by hills, dales, woodlands and lakes, the last abounding in fish. This region of country is probably the most elevated between the gulf of Mexico and Hudson's bay. From its summit, proceeding from its western to its eastern limits, grand views are afforded. At its eastern border, particularly, the prospect is magnificent beyond description, extending over the immense green turf that forms the basin of the Bed river of the North, the forest-capped summits of the hauteurs des terres that surround the sources of the Mississippi, the granitic valley of the upper St. Peter's, and the depressions in which are lake Traverse and the Big Stone lake. There can be no doubt that in future times this region will be the summer resort of the wealthy of the land. * The other portions of the Coteau, ascending from the lower latitudes, present pretty much the same characters. This difference, however, is remarkable : that the woodlands become HISTORICAL SKETCH. 69 1838, Nicollet.J scarcer, whilst the open prairies increase in extent. It is very rarely only that groves are met with, to which the NdakotaJis, or Sioux, have given the name of Tchan Witah, or Wood islands. When these groves are surrounded by water they assume some resemblance to oases, and hence I have assigned this name to some of them on my map. These oases, possessed of a good soil, well wooded, offering an abundance of game, and waters teeming with fish, offer inducements for permanent settlements. In this region there are frequent instances of a marsh, or lake, furnishing waters to different hydrographical basins— a fact observed by the Sioux, and which they express, in the compound word of their dialect, mini dkipan kaduza; from mini, water, akipan, division, share, and kaduza, to flow, to run out. There are, besides, other fine lakes, that would furnish, on their borders, eligible sites for such villages as were formerly occupied by some of the Ndakotah tribes, previous to the war of extermination waged against them by the Sac and Fox Indians. Among them may be numbered the series of lakes designated as the Shetek, Benton, Titan-kahi, Poinsett, Abert, Spirit, and Tizaptonan lakes. Whatever people may fix their abode in this region must, necessarily, become agriculturists and shepherds, drawing all their resources from the soil. They must not only raise the usual agricultural products for feeding, as is now but too generally done in some parts of the west, but they will have to turn their attention to other rural occupations, such as tending sheep for their wool; which would greatly add to their resources, as well as finally bring about a more extended application of the industrial arts among them. * The plateau of the Coteau des Prairies is composed in a great measure, of the materials belonging to what I have named the erratic deposite, as is evidenced by the nature of the soils, the physiognomy of the ridges and hillocks that diversify its surface, the deep ravines by which it is flanked, and the innumerable erratic blocks strewed over the borders of its lakes. We have no data by which to determine the inferior limits of this deposite ; still there is reason to think that it rests upon such primary rocks as show themselves along the line of rapids of the upper St. Peter's, consisting of granite, sienite and other metamorphic rocks. Nevertheless, over the vast extent of this plateau, there is, apparently, but one spot where the subjacent rock makes its appearance, and this is at the Indian red pipestone quarry, so-called. NICOLLET AT THE BED PIPESTONE QUARRY. The Indians of all the surroimding nations make a regular annual pilgrimage to it unless prevented by their wars or dissensions. The quarry is on the lands of the Sissiton tribe of Sioux. The idea of the young Indians, who are very fond of the marvellous, is, that it has been opened by the Great Spirit, and that whenever it is visited by them, they are saluted by lightning and thunder. We may cite as a coincidence, our own experience in confirmation of this tradition. Short of half a mile from the valley, we were met by a severe thunder-storm, during which the wind blew with so much force as to threaten the overthrowing of Mr. Eenville's wagon ; and we were obliged to stop for a few minutes during the short descent into the valley. If this mode of reception was at first to be interpreted as an indication of anger on the part of the Great Spirit for our intrusion, we may add that he was soon reconciled to our presence ; for the sun soon after made his appearance, drying both the valley and our baggage. The rest of the day was spent in pitching our tent on the supposed consecrated ground, and in admiring the beautiful effects of lights and shadows produced by the western sun as it illumined the several parts of the bluff, composed of red rock of different shades, extending a league in length, and presenting the appearance of the ruins of some ancient city built of marble and porphyry. The night was calm and temperate, of which we took advantage to make astronomical observations. ********** The valley of the " Red Pipestone" extends from N. N. W. to S. S. E. in the form of an ellipsis, being about three miles in length, with a breadth at its smaller axis of half a mile. It is cradle- shaped, and its slope to the east is a smooth sward, without trees and without rocks. Its slope to the west is rugged, presenting a surface of rocks throughout its whole length, that form a very picturesque appearance, and would deserve a special description if this were the place to do so. But I am now more particularly interested in defining its geological features. 7(1 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Nicolkt, 1838. The principal rock that strikes the attention of the observer in this remarkable inland bluff, is an indurated (metamorphic) sandrock, or quartzyte, the red color of which diminishes in intensity from the base to the summit. It is distinctly stratified; the upper beds being very much weather-worn and disintegrated into large and small cubic fragments. The whole thickness of this quartzyte, which immediately overlies the bed of the red pipe- stone is 26i feet. Its strata appear to have a small dip to the N. E. The floor of the valley, which is higher than the red pipestone, is formed by the inferior strata of the quartzyte, and in the spring of the year is most generally under water; the action of which upon the rock is apparent in the great quantity of fragments strewed over the valley, so as to render it uncomfortable to walk over them. The creek by which the valley is drained, feeds in its course three distinct small basins at different elevations, that penetrate down as far as the red pipestone. This red pipestone, not more interesting to the Indian than it is to the man of science, by its unique character, deserves a particular description. In the quarry of it which I had opened, the thickness of the bed is one foot and a half ; the upper portion of which separates in thin slabs, whilst the lower ones are more compact. As a mineralogical species it may be described as fol- lows: compact; structure slaty; receiving a dull polish; having a red streak; color blood-red, with dots of a fainter shade of the same color ; fracture rough ; sectile ; feel somewhat greasy; hardness not yielding to the nail ; not scratched by selenite, but easily by calcareous spar ; specific gravity 2.90. The acids have no action upon it ; before the blowpipe it is infusible per se, but with borax gives a green glass. According to Prof. Jackson, of Boston, who has analyzed and applied to it the name of catlinite, after Mr. Catlin, it is composed of — Water 8.4 Silica 48.2 Alumina 28.2 Magnesia 6.0 Peroxide of iron 5.0 Oxide of Manganese 0.6 Carbonate of lime 2.6 Loss (probably magnesia) 1.0 Total : 100.0 But Prof. Jackson assimilates it to the agalmatolite, from which it differs, however, very materially by its general aspect, its conduct before the blowpipe, and its total insolubility in sul- phuric acid.* Another feature of the Bed Pipestone valley is the occurrence of granitic boulders of larger size than any I had previously met. One of these measured about sixty feet in circumference, and was from ten to twelve feet thick. They are strewed over the valley, in which it is remark- able that there are no pebbles. The name of Mr. Nicollet, and the initials of his companions, are hand- somely cut in the hard quartzyte at the top of the ledge near the Leaping Rock, a little north of where the creek passes over the brow of the escarp- ment, as here represented and arranged, viz : J. N. Nicollet. C. F. &JJ1 C. A. G. * -g J. L. oo 2: J. E.F. 5»| J. R. *The red pipestone in also found on the upper part of the Mishkwagokag, or Red Cedar river, which falls into the Chippeway river that empties itself into the Mississippi river below lake Pcpin. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 71 1838, Nicollet.] THE UNDINE REGION. I shall now proceed to give a short account of some of the regions of country adjoining the Coteau des Prairies, omitting those which have already found a place in the geography of the' United States, so as to be more particular concerning such as are but little or not at all known. Among these, that which appeared to me the most favorable, is the one watered by the bold Man- kato or Blue Earth river, and to which I have given the name of Undine region. The great number of the navigable tributaries of the Mankato, spreading themselves out in the shape of a fan ; the group of lakes surrounded by well-wooded hills ; some wide-spreading prairies with fertile soil ; others apparently less favored, but open to improvement ;— the whole together bestow upon this region a most picturesque appearance. It was while on a visit to lakes Okmnanpidan and Tchanhassan( Little Heron and Maplewood lakes), that u occurred tome to give it the name that I have adopted, derived from that of an interesting and romantic German tale, the heroine of which belonged to the extensive race of water-spirits living in the brooks and rivers and lakes, whose father was a mighty prince. She was, moreover, the niece of a great brook (the Mankato) who lived in the midst of forests, and was beloved by all the many great streams of the surrounding country, etc., etc. I do not know why I fancied an analogy between the ideal country described in the tale, and that of the one before me ; but I involuntarily, as it were, adopted the name.* The limit of this region is the N. E. prong of the Coteau des Prairies, which takes in «be sources of the Mankato and of the La Hontan rivers, subdividing itself into undulations whence proceed the waters of the Wazioju, or Pine river, Miniska, or White Water river, Okah, or Heron run, &c., &c., all emptying into the Mississippi. The Mankato becomes navigable with boats within a few miles of its sources. It is deep, with a moderate current along a great portion of its course, but becomes very rapid on its approach to the St. Peter's. Its bed is narrowly walled up by banks rising to an elevation of from sixty to eighty feet, and reaching up to the uplands through which the river flows. These banks are frequently cliffs, or vertical escarpments, such as the one called by the Sioux Manya kichaksa, or cleft elevation. The breadth of the river is pretty uniformly from 80 to 120 feet wide ; and ttie average breadth of the valley through which it flows scarcely a quarter of a mile. The latter, as well as the high grounds, are well-wooded ; the timber beginning to spread out on both shores, especially since they have become less frequented by the Sioux hunters, and are not so often Bred. But the crossings of the river are hard to find, requiring to be pointed out by an experienced guide. I have laid down on the map my route over the Undine region, and the geographical posi- tions of the crossing places will be fonnd in the table at the end of the report. On the left bank of the Mankato, six miles from its mouth, in a rocky bluff composed of sandstone and limestone, are found cavitives in which the famed blue or green earth, used by the Sioux as their principal pigment, is obtained. This material is nearly exhausted, and it is not likely that this is the spot where a Mr. Le Sueur (who is mentioned in the narrative of Major Long's Second Expedition, as also by Mr. Featherstonhaugh) could, in his third voyage during the year 1700, have collected his four thousand pounds of copper earth sent by him to France. I have reason to believe that Le Sueur's location is on the river to which I have affixed his name, and which empties into the Mankato three quarters of a league above Fort L'Huillier, built by him, and where he spent a winter. This location corresponds precisely with that given by Charlevoix, while it is totally inap- plicable to the former. Here the blue earth is abundant in the steep and elevated hills at the mouth of this river, which hills form a broken country on the right side of the Mankato. Mr. Fremont and myself have verified this fact— he during his visit to Le Sueur river; and I upon the locality designated by Mr. Featherstonhangh, where the Ndakotahs formerly assembled in *Thc beautiful poetic conceit of Nicollet in applying the name of Undine to this region should be perpetuated. Undine was a water-sprite, that had control of the waters so as to accomplish her designs. Her uncle, Kuhleborn, who possessed a great stream, was influential over many, and caused sudden floods to stop travel, and to intercept fugitives. His passage from province to province was often subterranean, and brought him into numerous lakes, He made his realm obedient to Undine, and aided her ambitious design to captivate a rich and noble knight. The story is one of the eighteenth century, written by Fouque. The multiplicity of streams, springs, and lakes in this region, with occasional subterranean channels ('see Geology of Klur, Earth County,) greatly in contrast with the monotonous, treeless prairies on either side, make it an image of the domain of Kuhleborn, and suggest that it is the habitation of Undine, and her associate water-nymphs. The valleys, and some of the uplands, in this region, are wooded and the streams sometimes run in deep, rock-bound gorges. 72 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Nicollet, 1838. great numbers to collect it, but to which they now seldom resort, as it is now comparatively scarce — at least so I was told by Sleepy Eye, the chief of the Sissitons, who accompanied me during this excursion. As I did in the case of the red pipestone described above, I will state the mineralogical character of the Indian blue earth or clay. It is massive, somewhat plastic, emits an argillaceous odor when breathed upon ; color bluish green ; easily scratched with the nail, when formed into hardened balls. The acids have no action upon it ; it is infusible before the blowpipe, but loses its color and becomes brown. This color is due to the peroxide of iron which it contains in the proportion of ten per cent, at least. It contains no potash and but a small proportion of lime. It is a very different mineral from that described by Dr. Thompson under the name of pipe-clay. Next comes the region of country between the St. Peter's and the upper portions of La Hontan and Le Sueur rivers, above referred to. This is an extensive district, thickly set in forests amidst which there are reported to be many large lakes. The French give to the forests the name of Bois-francs, or Bois-forts, whenever they are not composed principally of trees belonging to the family of the Coniferce. To complete an account of the physical geography of the country, including the Undine region with the last mentioned, I will now enumerate some of the most important trees, shrubs and plants that characterize its sylva and flora. The whole country embraced by the lower St. Peter's and the Undine region exceeds any land of the Mississippi above Wisconsin river, as well in the quality and quantity of its timber as the fertility of its soil. The forests of the valley on the right bank are connected by groves and small wooded streams of the adjoining prairies with the forest called Bois francs, and they extend so far southwest as to include the lands of the upper waters of the Mankato river. The forest trees, as reported to me by Mr. Geyer, are chiefly soft maple, American and red elm, black walnut, the nettle tree, basswood, red and white ash ; the undergrowth, the common hawthorn, prickly ash, high cranberry, red root, gray dogwood, fox grapes, horse-briar and moon- seed. Among the herbs are the wild and bristly sarsaparilla, Indian turnip, the gay orchis and others; rushes and the flowering ferns are abundant along the low banks of the rivers. The valley prairies are rich in pasture grasses and leguminous and orchideous plants, such as the yellow lady's slipper, American and tufted vetch, and others. The lowest parts near the borders of the woods, and those subject to inundations, are filled with the high weeds common to such places— as the ragged cup, tall thistle, great bitterweed, the tuberous sunflower, and others. Swamps are frequent, and some of them contain extensive tracts of tamarack pines. Cedars grow, intermixed with red birch, on the rocky declivities of the lower Mankato river. Red and bur oak, with hazel, red-root, peter's-wort, and the wild rose, are the trees and shrubs of the uplands. There are, besides, thickets of the poplar birch that are frequent in the elevated prairies near the river. The prairies are very luxuriant, and generally somewhat level and depressed ; the gum- plant and button snake-root are their most abundant and conspicuous herbs. To give animation to the Undine region, and to the valley of the St. Peter's, as well as to develop trade between the British possessions, the territory of Iowa and the state of Missouri, it would be necessary for government to open routes of communication between St. Peter's and the Travese des Sioux, through the Bois francs mentioned above ; between St. Peter's and the Prairie du Chien ; between Dubuque and the Lac-qui-parle ; through the Undine region, with a fork in the direction of the Traverse des Sioux, passing by Fremont* and Ofcomanf lakes, (which latter is at the headwaters of La Hontan river,) and in other directions that would naturally suggest themselves. The geological formation that characterizes the Undine region as well as the St. Peter's, as far nearly as the mouth of the Waraju, is the same as that of Fort Snelling which I shall describe further on. It consists mainly in a thick stratum of friable sandstone as the basis, succeeded by a deposit* of limestone, which is sometimes magnesian, and occasionally contains fossils ; the whole covered by what I have called the erratic deposite. The sandstone forms the Little rapids of the St. Peter's, and, reappearing at the Traverse des Sioux, determines other rapids that are observed in a beautiful stream! two miles northeast of * Probably Clear Lake, near Waseca, f Lake Elysian. i Moon creek, now called Cherry creek, at Ottawa. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 73 1838, Nicollet.] the trading-post in this place. At other intermediate localities the sandstone and limestone both appear ; but further on the limestone disappears altogether ; because it goes thinning out as the western limits of the formation are approached. This may be observed near the Waraju, and toward the upper parts of the Mankato, where the limestone, and indeed the sandstone, are replaced by beds of clay or of calcareous marl. In the argillaceous deposits last referred to there are red ochre, other ferruginous minerals, and lignites. Between the sandstone and the limestone there is a bed of whitish clay, enclosing nodules of the blue earth ; and sometimes, between the strata of limestone, bands of argillaceous iron ore, intermixed with siliceous and calcareous incrustions. The account given above applies equally to the rocky cliffs on the upper part of the La Hontan river, and especially to the interesting locality* at the entrance of its south fork, which is four miles to the east of lake Tt-tanka-tanninan.'f LA HONTAN'S KIVIEKE LONGUE. Those who have read the travels of Baron La Hontan, in which he mentions his discovery of a certain long river coming from the west, and falling into the Mississippi, may, perhaps, think that, by giving his name to a river upon my map, I meant to clear up the doubt which has existed, for more than 150 years, as regards the veracity of this officer. Such was not originally my intention ; but I am forced into it after terminating my explora- tion of the Undine region. Having afterward procured a copy of La Houtan's book, in which there is a roughly made map of his Long river, I was struck with the resemblance of its course, as laid down, with that of Cannon river ; which I had previously sketched in my own field-book. I soon convinced myself that the principal statements of the Baron, in reference to the country, and the few details he gives of the physical character of the river, coincided remarkably with what I had laid down as belonging to the Cannon river. Thus the lakes and swamps corresponded ; traces of Indian villages mentioned by him might be found in the growth of a certain grass that propagates itself around all old Indian settlements. Some of the names which he assigns to them may be referred to dialects of the Sioux tongue ; and even his account of the feasting of his men on the large number of the American hare which he found there, is substantiated by the voyageurs. His account, too, of the mouth of the river, is particularly accurate. The most scrupulous geographer, describing it at this time, would have but little to alter. As this locality is in the way of travelers going to St. Peter's, I will quote from the text of La Hontan, so that they may judge of the truth of my assertion. " We entered," he says, " the mouth of this long river, which is a sort of large lake filled with canebrakes (joncs); in the midst of which we discovered a narrow channel, which we followed up," &c. I do not pretend, however, to justify his gross exaggeration of the length of the river ; of the numerous population on its banks ; and his pretended information respecting the nations inhabiting the more remote regions. This sort of exaggeration seems to have belonged to the period ; but there is apparently a more serious objection to be made to his narrative — namely, that it appears, from his text, he traveled during the months of November and December ; at which period of the year the rivers in these parts are mostly frozen over, and the voyage there- fore impracticable. But the received opinion, on the other hand, is, that it is one of the last to freeze, and is the last resort of the wild fowl. The Sioux are said to congregate, in consequence upon its banks in large numbers ; relying on this resource, whilst they are otherwise collecting their peltries, insomuch that the American Pur Department at St. Peter's has always kept up this post for the purpose of securing the advantages of this trade. Besides, this river is fed by a great number of springs ; and the upper portion of its course is in a remarkable manner pro- tected from sudden changes of temperature by high rocky banks and thick forests that cover them. Under all these circumstances I have thought proper to notice these facts, that seem to possess sufficient interest in the history of the geography of the west; I have stated what appeared to me the true facts in the case; and I may add, in conclusion, that if La Hontan's claims to dis- coveries are mere fables, he has had the good fortune or the sagacity to have come near the truth. * The vicinity of Faribault. t Cannon lake, in Rice county. 74 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Nicollet, 1838. Further, in reference to La Hontan river : when the French were in possession of the country it was known by the name Riviere aux Canots or Canoe river, as it was there that the traders were in the habit of concealing their canoes. Its present name of Cannon river is evidently a corruption of the French one. The one which it bore among the Sioux in 1700, when Le Sueur ascended the Mississippi (and which it still bears) was Inyan-bosndata, or Standing Rock. CASTLE ROCK, LONE BOCK AND CHIMNEY ROCK. This Indian name (Inyan-bosndata) is that of a natural obelisk which occurs on a low and sandy plain four miles to the north of the crossing place, on the "north fork of La Hontan river."* This heap of disintegrated sandstone rock is thirty-six feet high. It is a curious specimen of the weatheiing of the sandstone of the west, that may be compared to the earth pillars left behind by workmen to mark the extent of their excavations, and is possibly a relic of the thickness of the formation previous to the devastating agency of the elements, that has altered the original level of the surface of the country. My friend, the Viscomte de Montmort (then an attache to the French legation at Washington, who accompanied me in this excursion), has furnished me with an admirable drawing of it, as well as of the natural monument next to be mentioned. Twelve miles north of the natural obelisk which I have just described, near the crossing place of the Vermilion river, there are other evidencesf of the great denudation of the surface that has taken place in this region. One of them is also remarkable by its symmetrical outlines, bearing the appearance of a dilapidated castle of feudal times, such as are seen in the Alps and other places ; hence its name. I have thought it of sufficient importance to indicate their situa- tions on my map. These natural monuments are mentioned by Mr. Featherstonhaugh upon infor- mation received from others, but he did not visit them. THE DBS MOINES CONNECTED WITH THE MINNESOTA. Mr. Nicollet called attention to the hydrographical relations of the Des Moines river with the Blue Earth, the Minnesota and the Mississippi rivers. The point of geographical interest is found in latitude 43° 45', lon- gitude 95° 12', where there is a lake very near the Des Moines, called Tclian shetcha or Dry Wood lake. The Blue Earth river, by means of its tributary, the Watonwan, has one of its sources in this lake, and the land separating it from the Des Moines is not more than a mile or a mile and a half in width. Thus a short canal would bring the Des Moines into communica- tion with the Minnesota. This interesting fact was formerly taken advan- tage of by the Indian fur traders, who, after spending the winter on the headwaters of the Des Moines, tound it convenient to bring their peltries by water communication through the Watonwan valley and the Blue Earth to the mouth of the Minnesota river. * Chub creek in Dakota county. t Lone rock and Chimney rook. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 75 1836, Nicollet.] NICOLLET ASCENDS THE MISSISSIPPI. In July. 1836, Mr. Nicollet ascended the Mississippi to its source in Itasca lake. He says that above the falls of St. Anthony the rocky formations assume another type, " being the several varieties of greenstone, and finally passing into talcose slate," as seen at the falls of the Wabezi, or Swan river, and the Omoshkos, or Elk river. Along with Schoolcraft, he mentions, among other trees, the walnut, as one of those native to the Mississippi valley above the falls of St. Anthony. He mentions, as a prominent geological feature ot the country, the outcrop of syenitic rock on the east side of the river, a little below the Pik-irabik, with a flesh-colored feldspar, extending a mile in length, with a breadth of half a mile, and an elevation of eighty feet, known as little rock* At the foot of Knife rapids, f higher up, on the same side of the river, "there are sources that transport a very fine, brilliant and bluish sand, accompanied by a soft and unctuous matter. This appears to be the result of a decomposition of a steaschist, probably interposed between the sienitic rocks previously mentioned. The same thing is observed at the mouths of Wabezi and Omoshkos." From Crow Wing river Mr. Nicollet pursued a new route to Itasca lake. At a distance of three miles from its mouth he ascended GayasJtk, or Gull river, and the lake having the same name. Then portaging northeast, he reached Pine river and visited Whitefish lake. Ascending the east fork of Pine river, he reached Kwiwisens, or Little Boy river. This he descended through a succession of lakes and over small rapids, as far as Leech lake, where he spent a week, and was befriended from the Indians in an emergency, by Rev. Mr. Boutwell, who had accom- panied Mr. Schoolcraft in 1832. From Leech lake he passed westward, through lake Kabekonany and Kabekonang river, and made a portage of five miles to the La Place river, which is the same that Mr. Schoolcraft called the East Fork of the Mississippi, in 1832. He ascended this to lake Assawa where he found an old camp of Mr. Schoolcraft. The last portage, one of six miles, to Itasca lake, was found to be very arduous, being across numerous sloughs, with low intervening ridges. The soil was found to be sandy and gravelly, overspread with erratic blocks, with a great variety of evergreens. The last of the series of ridges, being also the highest, is 120 feet above the waters of lake Itasca. * The same ae Schoolcraft's peace rock, situated in See 27, Watab, Benton county. t Pike Rapids. 76 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [N (collet, 1836. NICOLLET AT THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI. The Mississippi holds its own from its very origin ; for it is not necessary to suppose, as has been done, that lake Itasca may be supplied with invisible sources, to justify the character of a remarkable stream, which it assumes at its issue from this lake. There are five creeks that fall into it, formed by innumerable streamlets oozing from the clay-beds at the bases of the hills, that consist of an accumulation of sand, gravel and clay, intermixed with erratic fragments ; being a more prominent portion of the erratic deposite previously described, and which here is known by the name of Hauteurs des Terres, hights of land. These elevations are commonly flat at top, varying in hight from eighty-five to one hundred feet above the level of the surrounding waters. They are covered with thick forests in which the coniferous plants predominate. South of Itasca lake they form a semi-circular region, with a boggy bottom, extending to the southwest a distance of several miles ; thence these Hauteurs des Terres ascend to the northwest and north, and then stretching to the northeast and east, through the zone between 47° and 48° of latitude, make the dividing ridge between the waters that empty into Hudson bay and those which discharge themselves into the gulf of Mexico. The principal group of these Hauteurs des Terres is subdivided into several ramifications, varying in extent, elevation and course, so as to determine the hydrographical basins of all the innumerable lakes and rivers that so peculiarly characterize this region of country. One of these ramificationa extends in a southerly direction under the name Coteau du Grand Bois ; and it is this which separates the Mississippi streams from those of the Bed river of the North. The waters supplied by the north flank of these hights of land, still on the south side of lake Itasca, give origin to the five creeks of which I have spoken above. These are the waters which I consider to be the utmost ?ources of the Mississippi. Those that flow from the southern side of the same hights, and empty themselves into Elbow lake, are the utmost sources of the Ked river of the North ; so that the most remote feeders of Hudson bay and the gulf of Mexico are closely approximated to each other. Now, of the five creeks that empty into Itasca lake (the Omoshkos Sagaigon, of the Chippe- ways, or the Lac a la Siche, of the French, or the Elk lake of the British) one empties into the east bay of the lake ; the four others into the west bay. I visited the whole of them ; and among the latter there is one remarkable above the others, inasmuch as its course is longer and its waters more abundant; so that, in obedience to the geographical rule "that the sources of a river are those which are most distant from its mouth," this creek is truly the infant Mississippi ; all others below, its feeders and tributaries. The day on which I explored this principal creek, (Aug. 29, 1836) I judged that, at its entrance into Itasca lake, its bed was from fifteen to twenty feet wide, and the depth of water from two to three feet. I stemmed its pretty brisk current during ten or twenty minutes; but the obstructions occasioned by the fall of trees compelled us to abandon the canoe, and seek its springs on foot, along the hills. After a walk of three miles, during which we took care not to lose sight of the Mississippi, my guides informed me that it was better to descend into the trough of the valley ; when, accordingly, we found numerous streamlets oozing from the bases of the hills. The temperature obtained at a great number of places, by plunging the thermometer hi the mud whence these springs arose, was always between 43° 5' and 44° 2' Fah.; that of the air being between 63° and 70°. Having taken great pains in determining the temperature, I have a right to believe that it represents pretty accurately the mean annual temperature of the country under examination. As a further description of these headwaters, I may add that they unite at a small distance from the hills whence they originate, and form a small lake, from which the Mississippi flows with a breadth of a foot and a half, and a depth of one foot. At no great distance, however, this rivulet, uniting itself with other streamlets, coming from other directions, supplies a second minor lake, the waters of which have already acquired a temperature of 48°. From this lake issues a rivulet, necessarily of increased importance— a cradled Hercules, giving promise of the strength of his maturity ; for its velocity has increased ; it transports the smaller branches of trees ; it begins to form sand-bars ; its bends are more decided, until it subsides again into the basin of a HISTORICAL SKETCH 77 1836, Nicollet.] third lake somewhat larger than the two preceding. Having here acquired renewed vigor, and tried its consequence upon an additional length of two or three miles, it finally empties itself into Itasca lake, which is the principal reservoir of all the sources, to which it owes all its subsequent majesty. The stream which Messrs. Schoolcraft and Allen have designated as the East Fork of the Mississippi, and which I have named after the illustrious La Place (on which there is a lake that I have called after the celebrated translator of the Mechanique Ceteste, Mr. Bowditch), has its source, perhaps, as distant as that to which I have exclusively perserved the name of Mississippi; but as it is less important, from having less water, I have considered it only a tributary to that to which it unites itself. The honor of having first explored the sources of the Mississippi, and introduced a knowledge of them in physical geography, belongs to Mr. Schoolcraft and Lieut. Allen. I come only after these gentlemen ; but I may be permitted to claim some merit for having completed what was wanting for a full geographical account of these sources. Moreover, I am, I believe, the first traveler, who has carried with him astronomical instruments and put them to profitable account along the whole course of the Mississippi, from its mouth to its sources. Mr. Nicollet returned from lake Itasca by way of lake Pemidji, the Metoswa rapids, and Cass and Leech lakes, stopping again with Rev. Mr. Bout- well. Of this last lake he says that its name, both in English and Chippe- way, implies that "its waters contain a remarkable number of leeches." The Pokegama falls ("rapids") are said to have a fall of nine feet in the distance of eighty yards. The rock over which the water passes is styled a gray quartzyte, seen in the banks and bed of the river. He parallelizes it with the rocks on the St. Louis river, " where are found calciferous and argillaceous steachists, conglomerates formed of quartz pebbles, and bound together by steachist, containing sulphuret of iron, and a sandstone which may be possibly referred to the 'old red sandstone.' " THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI COUNTRY. Over the whole route which I traversed after leaving Crow Wing river, the country has a different aspect from that which the banks of the Mississippi above the falls of St. Anthony present. The forests are denser and more varied ; the soil, which is alternately sandy, gravelly, clayey and loamy, is, generally speaking, lighter, excepting on the shores of some of the larger lakes. The uplands are covered with white and yellow pines, spruce and birch, and the wet low lands by the American larch and the willow. On the slopes of sandy hills, the American aspen, the canoe birch, with a species of birch of dwarfish growth, the alder and wild rose, extend to the very margin of the river. On the borders of the larger lakes, where the soil is generally, better, we find the sugar maple, the black and bur oaks (also named over-cup white oak, but differing from the white oak), the elm, ash, lime tree, &c. Generally speaking, however, this woodland does not extend back farther than a mile from the lakes. The white cedar, the hemlock,* spruce pine, and fir, are occasionally found ; but the red cedar is scarce throughout this region, and none, perhaps, is to be seen, except on islands of those Jakes called by the Indians Bed Cedar lakes. The shrubbery consists principally of the wild rose, hawthorn, and wild plum; and raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and cranberries are abundant. The aspect of the country is greatly varied by hills, dales, copses, small prairies, and a great number of lakes ; the whole of which I do not pretend to have laid down on my map. The •The hemlock, Abies Canndetuis. does not grow in the state of Minnesota. — N. H. VV. 78 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. (Nicollct, 1836 natural beautif-s of the country are, however, impressed with a character of sternness and melan- choly ; the silence and solitude of which are interrupted or revived only by the water-fowl that congregate about its waters to nestle amidst and fatten upon the wild rice. The naturalist, however, has still an endless field of observations, in the insect world ; for everywhere life mani- fests itself in some form or other. It is, indeed, remarkable that the more we advance to the north (to within a certain extent, nevertheless), the more the mosquito appears to be abundant, as every voyageur knows by sad experience. The lakes to which I have just alluded are distributed in separate groups, or are arranged in prolonged chains along the rivers, and not unfrequently attached to each other by gentle rapids. It has seemed to me that they diminish in extent, on both sides of the Mississippi, as we proceed southwardly, as far as 43P of north latitude ; and this observation extends to the arctic region, commencing at Bear's lake, or Slave lake, Winnipeg lake, &c. It may be further remarked that the basins of these lakes have a sufficient depth to leave no doubt that they will remain charac- teristic features of the country for a long time to come. Several species of fish abound in them. The white-fish (Corregonus albus) is found in all the deeplakes west of the Mississippi, and indeed from lake Erie to the Polar sea. That which is taken in Leech lake is said by amateurs to be more highly flavored than even that of lake Superior, and weighs from three to ten pounds. There is another species of this white-fish, called by the Indians tuliby or ottuniby (the Corregonus ariedi) which resembles it, but is much less esteemed. Both species furnish a wholesome and palatable food. Among the other species of fish that inhabit these waters, are the mashkinonye, or mashkilonge ; the pike or jack-fish ; the pickerel or gilt carp ; the sucker or true carp ; the perch ; a species of trout called by the Chippeways naniogim, &c., &c. These lakes, which are somewhat deep, swarm with leeches ; and among the amphibious reptiles there are several species of terrapin and turtle, of which Mr. Say has described three of each kind in the appendix to the second expe- dition of Major Long. FOSSILS COLLECTED BY MR. NICOLLET. Appendix C of Mr. Nicollet's report contains names of fossils collected at different points in Iowa, Missouri, Dakota, and the following at the falls of St. Anthony in Minnesota : Strophomena, allied to S. (ilternata. Strophomena, new species. Orthis testudinaria ? (Murch. Sil. Syst. pi. 20, fig. 10). Orthis poly gramma? (Murch. Sil. Syst. pi. 21, fig. 4°). Orthis (three new species). Steriocisma (resembling Twbnifiila xchlothriini. Dal.) Atrypa (new species). Pleurototnaria (new species — numerous). Euomphalm, allied to Maclun'tex mwjna (Des.) Euomphalus, resembling E. sculptun (Sowerby). Phratymolites, same as in the Trenton limestone in N. Y. Phragmolites, new species. Bellerophon bilobatm. Orthoceras (two species, undetermined). HISTORICAL SKETCH. 79 1844, Allen.] Crinoulfil mudhtN of peculiar forms, one resembling Lipocrinites. Turbinolopsis bind ? (Sil. Syst. pi. 16 bis, fig. 5.) Fdvosiles lycoperdon (Say). Trenton limestone fossil. Favosiiex (two new species). Fucoides (obscure). Cyathophyllvm ccmtites ? Turrltella. Of the list of plants determined by Dr. Torrey for Mr. Nicollet, the greater part were collected in Dakota or in Missouri, nut fifty-six species being assigned to Minnesota. CAPT. j. ALLEN'S EXPEDITION TO THE SOURCE OF THE DBS MOINES IN 1844. This expedition reached a lake which was found by observations of the sun with a small sextant to be in lat. 43° 57' 32". This was probably what is now known as lake Shetek, which is somewhat above 44° of latitude.* This lake he named lake of the Oaks. He described it as remarkable for a singular arrangement of the peninsulas running into it from all sides, and for a heavy growth of timber that covers these peninsulas and the borders of the lake. He explored the country north from this lake thirty- seven miles, and thence eastward to the St. Peter's river. Returning to lake Shetek he traveled westward to the Big Sioux river which he followed to its mouth. ELK AND BUFFALO ON THE DBS MOINES IN 1845. " From Lizard creek of the Des Moines to the source of the Des Moines, and thence east to the St. Peter's, is a range for elk and common deer, but principally elk. We saw a great many of the elk on our route and killed many of them ; they were sometimes seen in droves of hundreds, but were always difficult to approach, and very difficult to overtake in chase, except with a fleet horse and over good ground. No dependence could be placed upon this game in this country for the subsistence of troops marching through it. " Twenty-five miles west of the source of the Des Moines we struck the range of the buffalo and continued in it to the Big Sioux river, and down * Ex. Docs., First Session, 29th Congress, 1845-'6, Vol. VI. No. 168. 80 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Allen, 1844. that river about eighty -six miles. Below that we could not see any recent signs of them. We found antelope in the same range with the buffalo, but no elk, and very seldom a common deer. While among the buffalo we killed as many as we wanted, and without trouble." THE UPPER DBS MOINES RIVER. Upon approaching the region of the boundary line between Iowa and Minnesota he became penned among numerous lakes, and was compelled to cross a narrow strait by swimming 200 yards. This was probably across a narrow spot in Swan lake, in Emmett county, Iowa. From there he sent a party to examine the country toward the east. This party reached Iowa lake (on the boundary line) and explored its outlet toward the east and into the East Chain of lakes, reaching the conclusion that the water was tribu- tary to the Blue Earth, " or of an unknown tributary of the Big Cedar." He passed by Eagle lake, and Independence lake, camping at each, and arrived in the vicinity of Windom where he describes the country as a " wonderfully broken surface, rising and falling in high knobs and deep ravines, with numerous little lakes in the deep valleys, some of them clear and pretty and others grassy." A party which visited the Blue mounds, near Windom, found an artificial mound of stone on the highest peak. He visited Talcott lake, where he rested his men in camp, and himself visited lake Shetek, which he pronounced the highest source of the Des Moines worth noticing as such, though he also mentions an inlet from the north- ward, "but of no size or character." He crossed the Cottonwood nearly north from lake Shetek, also the Redwood river still further north, and the latter again near Redwood falls. From the mouth of the Redwood he explored the south shore of the Minnesota several miles up and down, and returned to lake Shetek. He crossed the Coteau des Prairies in Cottouwood county, styling it the " Big Prairie." He reached the Big Sioux river without finding any such stream as that which had been shown on the maps as "Floyd's river." CAPT. E. v. SUMNER'S EXPEDITION IN 1845. The expedition of Capt. E. V. Sumner* seems to have been made more •Executive Documents, 1st Seas., 29th Congress, 1845-46. No. 2. p. 217. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 81 1850, Owen. for the purpose of impressing the Indians with the power of the government and the necessity of committing no depredations on the settlers, than for the purpose of learning the nature of the country. He left Fort Atkinson, June 3d, and arrived at "Traverse des Sioux" June 22d, having met Lieut. Allen June 13th, about midway between Fort Atkinson and the St. Peter's river. The companies continued together from that time. From Traverse des Sioux they marched to Lac qui Parle, where Capt. Sumner had an important conference with the Warpvton Sioux, whom he distinguishes as the "upper Sioux." He reached Big Stone lake on the 5th of July, where he met in council a large band of Sissitons. He reached " Devil's lake" on the forty-eighth degree of north latitude, on July 18th, where he had a conference with a party of the Winnipeg half-breeds, numbering about one hundred and eighty. He reached Traverse des Sioux on his return, the 7th of August; whence he repaired to Fort Atkinson on the llth, Capt. Allen returning to Fort Des Homes. THE SURVEY OF D. D. OWEN, 1847^1850. The fine quarto volume which resulted from Dr. Owen's survey of Wis- consin, Towa and Minnesota, was a report made in pursuance of instructions from the Treasury Department, Washington, addressed to Hon. J. Butter- field, Commissioner of the General Land Office, and was published by Lip- cott, Grrainbo & Co., Philadelphia, in 1852. While it was not the first of the scientific reports published by the IT. S. government relating to the geology of the territories, it was the first of note conducted and published by other than the Department ot War. It has proved to be the worthy sire of a numerous progeny, the initiation and exemplar of a series of scientific publi- cations by the U. S. government, partly under the War Department and partly by the Department of the Interior, which have caused American science to illumine the whole world. The work of Owen was continued by Foster and Whitney, and revived and extended by Hayden. Dr. Owen's field extended from St. Louis to the British line, and from the west shore ot lake Michigan to the Missouri river. Its primary object was to derive information for the removal of such lands as were valuable for their min- eral resources from sale, in the land office at Washington. Such an inquiry e 82 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Owen, 1850. necessarily embraced many geological and chemical questions, and required at least a preliminary geological survey. The earlier reconnoissances ot Majors Long and Pike, and Mr. School craft, embraced many isolated impor- tant facts bearing on the geology and natural history of Minnesota, made incidentally along the routes they took, but Dr. Owen's survey was more comprehensive and more detailed. Its primary object being an examination of the country and not a military reconnoissance, it did not contend with the difficulties incident to rapid marching, complained ot by Keating and Beltrami. His report throws the first real light, derived from the system- atized science of modern times, on the geology and the present fauna and flora of Minnesota. The work was sufficiently prolonged to enable the naturalists who co-operated with him to gather reliable facts enough to lay down correctly the ground-work ot a vast extent ot scientific research. His report not only corrected prevalent errors, but established on correct paleontological evidence the age ot most of the bedded rocks of Minnesota, and disseminated information concerning its topography and soil.* *Dr. Owen's corps consisted of the following gentlemen: J. O. NORWOOD. Assistant Geologist; J.EVANS B F SHUMABD, B. C, MACY, C. WHITTLKSEY, A. LITTON, K. OWEN, heads of sub-corps; G. WARREN, H. PRATTEN, F. B. MEEK, J. BEAL, sub-assistants. Dr. Owen's own report, covering the first 206 pages of the volume, is divided into six chapters. He gives a brier history of the explorations of the various corps, sketches the difficulties and adventures that befell them, and names the salient points of interest in the progress, and the results of the survey, in the Introduction. The chapters are as follows : 1. Formations of the upper 5lississippi and its tributaries, belonging to the Silurian Period. 2. Formations of the Cedar, and part of the lower Iowa river, belonging to the Devonian Period. 3. Carboniferous rocks of southern and western Iowa. 4. Formations of the interior of Wisconsin and Minnesota. 5. Formations of lake Superior. 6. Incidental observations on the Missouri river, and on the Mauvaises Terres (Bad Lands). Dr. Norwood's report on some portions of the country adjacent to lake Superior consists of — 1. Boundaries and topographical notices. 2. Descriptive catalogue of the rocks referred to in his report. 3. Narrative of the explorations made in 1847, between La Pointe and St. Louis river, and between Fond du Lac and the falls of St. Anthony, and on the St Croix river. 4. Physical structure and geology of the northwestern and western portions of the valley of lake Superior. Col. ('has. Whittlesey's report pertains to that portion of Wisconsin bordering on the south shore of lake Superior, with the following chapters : 1. General description and geology of the Bad river country, and of that between the Bad river and the Brule ; with descriptions and detailed sections of rocks like those "which in Michigan are copper-bearing; and accounts of the magnetic-iron beds of the Penokie Iron range, and of" Iron Ridge", in Dodge county, Wisconsin. 2. Description of the country between the Wisconsin and Menomonie rivers ; with a discussion of the general geology, and its relations to other parts of the Northwest. 3. Red clay and drift of Green bay and Wisconsin. 4. Barometrical and thermometrioal observations. 5. Lumbering on the waters of Green bay. Dr. B. F Shumard's report pertains to local and detailed observations in the valleys ot the Minnesota. Mississipp and Wisconsin rivers, as follows ; 1. Detailed observations of the St. Peter's and its tributaries 2. Local sections on the upper Mississippi. 3. Local sections on the Wisconsin and Baraboo rivers. 4. Observations on Snake. Kettle, and Rush rivers. Dr. J. Leidy furnished for the volume a memoir on the remains of extinct Mammalia and Clieloitia, from Nebraska territory. The Appendix embraces — 1. Descriptions of new and imperfectly known genera and species 01 organic remains collected during the geo- logical surveys of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. By D. D. Owen. 2. Descriptions of one new genus and twenty-two new spacies of Orinoiilta from the Subcwboniferous limestone 01 Iowa. By D. D. Owen and B. F. Shumard. 3. Summary of the distribution of orders, genera and species in the Northwest. By D. D. Owen and B. F. Shumard. 4. Additional chemical examinations. By D. D. Owen. 5. Systematic catalogue of plants of Wisconsin and Minnesota. By C. C. Parry. K. Table of stratigraphieal and geological distribution of genera and species in the Northwest. The volume is illustrated with twenty-six plates of fossils, twenty maps and large plates of geological sections, and a general geological map of the whole country reported on ; the whole constituting at that time one of the largest and most expensive scientific publications of the United Hlatec government, and a monument at once to the learning the zeal and wise management of Dr. Owen. HISTOKICAL SKETCH. 83 1850, Owen.] The survey of Owen, so far as it threw light on the state ot Minnesota, sei'ved for a reconnoissance, and indicated within certain broad limits the general topography and geology. It first established the Lower Silurian age ot the rocks outcropping along the upper Mississippi valley, and especially of that forming the brink of the falls of St. Anthony which had generally been regarded as Carboniferous. Under the general term " pro- tozoic rocks," he describes the "lower sandstone of the upper Mississippi," which he says may be seen in the lower portions ol the bluffs of the river, and in the sandstones of the Minnesota valley above Shakopee. In the upper portions of this great formation he brought to light an interest- ing and very important series of organic remains, and in its lower portions he found beds charged with Lingulce and Orbicuke. He enumerates six horizons that hold trilobites, the uppermost separated from the lowest by an interval of about 500 feet, though it is highly probable that some of these trilobite beds are contemporary, and that the actual thickness of this forma- tion is somewhat less than 500 feet, as developed on the upper Mississippi. Nowhere in his report does Dr. Owen parallelize these beds with the Pots- dam sandstone of New York, but seems to believe that the " palaeozoic base" of the Mississippi as seen on the St. Croix river, is from seventy - five to one hundred feet lower than the parallel of the " Lingula beds" of the New York Potsdam, which, up to that time, had been regarded as the lowest fossil- iferous base in the United States (page 50). But in the appendix (p. 634) are tables of the equivalency of the geological formations, and of the strati- graphical distribution of genera ot fossils, in which, presumably constructed by Dr. Owen, this formation is parallelized with the Potsdam ot New York state.* Under the term " protozoic rocks " he not only includes the lowest sandstones but also the rest of the Lower and Upper Silurian. He separates the limestones ot the Northwest into Lower and Upper Magnesian, the former being that which" still retains that name, though by him and his corps always confounded with the Shakopee limestone of Minnesota, in the same manner as he confounds the outcrops of the Jordan sandstone with the "lowest sandstone". In the latter he has included the Galena of the Lower Silurian and the Niagara of the Upper Silurian, having failed to •See also Proc. Accul. Nat. 3d. Phil. 1852. p. 190. 84 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Owen, 1850. observe any thing that represented the Maquoketa shales, which separate them in Iowa. The Galena he makes the equivalent of the Utica slate and Hudson River group, which latter also seems to include the Maquoketa shales. He recognized the Devonian formation near the southern boundary of the state along the Cedar river, but he made no note of the Cretaceous within the state. Its exposures are referred by his assistant, Dr. B. F. Shu- mard, either to the Lower Silurian or to the epoch of the drift. Fragments of lignite found in the valley of the "Mankato" river were supposed by him not to have come from the rock in situ within Minnesota, but to have been transported with the drift from the north, perhaps from the beds reported by Dr. Richardson to contain coal on the shore of Great Bear lake, "or from the Cretaceous or super-Cretaceous lignite formations which were observed by Nicollet and others, oif toward the Missouri and Rocky mountains." That part of the report which is most valuable to Minnesota was written by Dr. J. G. Norwood. It is also the most voluminous.* The rock speci- mens collected by him, numbered up to 680, are described with care and discrimination, and were probably deposited in the Smithsonian Insti- tution at Washington. They were obtained in the northern and eastern portions of the state, and illustrate specially the northwest shore of lake Superior. The report on the north shore of lake Superior is remarkable for the minuteness of the description of the topography of numerous valleys, and for the correctness of the general views of its geology. Its numerous illustrations are graphic, and, although sometimes aided by idealization, are essentially correct. They show vividly the interstratification of the igneous and sedimentary rocks, and depict numerous remarkably picturesque spots at which both the artist and the geologist willingly linger. His views of the metamorphism of the sedimentary beds by the action of the igneous, were in accord with the current interpretation of crystalline rocks of his day, and were in confirmation of the views of Mr. Mather of the New York state survey, in opposition to those of Mr. Emmons, on the Taconic controversy, although the bearing of his report on that controversy was not mentioned by Dr. Norwood. The frequency and importance of the action of the igne- *This valuable report is not mentioned by Dr, T. S. Hunt in his resume of the literature of the crystalline rocks ol America for the second Pennsylvania Survey (Rep. E.) tin the ninth annual report of the Smithsonian Institution, where the collections of Dr. Ow«n are catalogued, together with those of Jackson, Locke, Foster and Whitney, no mention is made of those of Norwood. HISTORICAL SKETCH. §5 1850, Owen.] ous rocks on the sedimentary is prominently brought out in the report. This complicates the geology and renders the identification of the rocks both difficult and sometimes erroneous. In conclusion he remarks "that there is perhaps no extinct volcanic region in the world where trap and other igneous intrusions can be studied to better advantage than in the country bordering on the northwest shore of lake Superior. Not only are the vertical dykes numerous and conspicuous, but there are abundant examples of overflows, as well as inter] aminated insinuations producing all degrees of metamorphosis on the adjacent strata, graduating from mere indiu-ation of the beds to complete obliteration of stratification and sedimentary origin, so that the beds of deposition become confounded with the igneous masses that have invaded them and produced such extraoi'dinary changes." Dr. B. F. Shumard made the only examination of the valley of the Minnesota; which he ascended as far as the mouth of the Redwood river. At that point he was attacked with pleurisy, and was compelled to return hastily to Traverse des Sioux and Fort Snelling. His report exhibits the first attempt ever made to parallelize the rocks of the valley with those of the rest of the state, or to determine their age by reference to a known standard of nomenclature. He recognized Dr. Owen's Nos. 2C and 3A, at the mouth of the river in the Fort Snelling bluff, i. e. the Trenton and Black River limestones, and the St. Peter sandstone. At Shakopee, and thence to Little rapids (near Carver) he notes the Lower Magnesian. The sandstone at the last place he regards as belonging to a formation several hundred feet below the white sandstone of the Fort Snelling bluff,* and probably to the sandstones of Formation 1. The limestone and sandstone exposed at intervals from Shakopee to Man- kato, forming the immediate bluffs of the river, and constituting several islands, he refers to the Lower Magnesian and the sandstones of Formation 1. Ascending the Blue Earth river six or eight miles, and observing the same geological horizon as far as he went, he notes subsequently two or three exposures of Formation 1, before reaching the mouth of the Waraju (Cot- tonwood) river, one being two miles below the mouth of that stream. The red quartzyte opposite the mouth of the Waraju he regards as the lower beds *It is the Jordan Sandstone, and lies about seventy-flve feet below the sandstone of the Fort Snelling bhiff, the Sha- kopee limestone separating; them. 86 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Woods, 1849. of Formation 1, more or less altered by metamorphism "where they abut upon the igneous rocks." He also notes conglomerate and granite outcrops about a mile in a straight line above the mouth of the Waraju. He mentions granite at La Petite Roche, and at frequent other points before reaching the Redwood river. He describes an interesting exposure two or three miles below the mouth of this river, probably the same as that described by Keating and by Beltrami. Mr. Shumard also gives the details of local sections on the upper Mis- sissippi in Minnesota and Wisconsin, beginning with the falls of St. Anthony, and on the Wisconsin and Baraboo rivers, as well as observations on the sandstones, conglomerates and trap-rocks of Snake and Kettle rivers. On the Snake and Kettle rivers he made collections of a peculiar green mineral from the amygdaloids, which at first was soft as tallow but on exposure became brittle. It was analyzed by Dr. Owen and regarded as new,* but resembling phillipsite from Iceland, being really a " magnesian harmotome." MAJOE WOODS' EXPEDITION TO PEMBINA. In the summer of 1849, Major S. Woods was despatched by the Secre- tary ot War to the Pembina settlement for the purpose of selecting a site for a military post. His reportf is not accompanied by any map, although Capt. John Pope states he prepared a map of the route. He proceeded from Fort Snelling to Sauk Rapids, along the east side of the Mississippi, a route well known and traveled at that time every summer by large "trains" of carts from the Red River settlements. Passing up the Sauk valley, on the north side of the river, the expedition crossed it at the great bend, and reached lake David, which is described as having a length north and south and draining into a branch of Crow river, twelve miles west of the great bend of the Sauk river. Seven or eight miles from lake David is lake Henrie, of about the same size. Lightning lake, is about seven miles from the point at which the trail crossed the branch of Crow river, so named from the incident of a terrific thunder-storm in which Lieut. Nelson's life was nearly lost by lightning striking his tent-pole. Fourteen miles further •Jour. PMl. Acad. Science, (1), II. 183. tHouae Ex. Doc. No. 51, 1st Sew. 31st Cong. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 87 1850, Pope.] was White Bear lake, with an average width ot two miles, and a length ot perhaps eight or ten miles east and west, seventy-five miles from Sauk Rapids. "The heavily timbered highlands that range parallel with the Mississippi and back some distance from it, edge upon this lake. * * * On the north of the lake the prairie is broken and irregular, but the east, west and south borders lie handsomely for cultivation." The lakes are all described as having abundance of excellent fish. Fourteen miles from White Bear lake he reached Pike lake, and twelve miles further crossed the main branch of the Chippewa river. After passing Elk and Elbow lakes he came to Rabbit river, then Otter-tail Lake river flowing south of west. At the ford of the latter stream he states the bottom of the river is "rocky", the banks are good, water two to three feet deep and some fifty yards wide. Twenty-two miles further he crossed the Red river again, ten or fifteen miles below the mouth of the Bois des Sioux river. The rest of his journey was in Dakota, and he returned by the same route. Respecting the country west of the Red river he says it is "a level, marshy region back about thirty miles to Pembina mountain, which rises into a high peak near the forty- ninth parallel and ranges off nearly south, forming the western border of the valley of the Red river, and connects with the highlands extending out from lake Traverse near the headwaters of the St. Peter's river." CAPT. POPE'S REPORT OF THE PEMBINA EXPEDITION. Capt. Pope's report of the same expedition was addressed to Col. J. J. Abert, of the corps of topographical engineers, and was dated February 5, 1850, transmitted from St. Louis, Missouri, and printed by order of the Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 42, 31st Congress, first session. Instead of returning to Fort Snelling by the route by which the expedition went out, Capt. Pope organ- ized a party which ascended the Red river of the North from Pembina to Otter-tail lake in canoes, and thence reached the Mississippi by Leaf and Crow Wing rivers, for the purpose of further exploration of the country. He places the head of navigation at a point in the vicinity of the mouth ot the Sioux Wood river, distant forty miles from the St. Peter's. The Pomme de Terre river he mentions under the name Tipsenah, or Potato river. " The valley of the Red river is entirely alluvial in its formation, no 88 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Pope, itso. rocks in place being found in its entire length within the territories of the United States. It abounds with boulders or erratic blocks of granite, which in all cases are very much rounded by the action of water. They are most abundant upon the highest ridges of the prairies, and cause all the rapids in the small streams tributary to the Red river, the St. Peter's and Mississ- ippi. About seventy miles north of our frontier (at Pembina) a secondary limestone appears at the falls of the Red river, which is unquestionably the basis of the whole valley, but at what depth below the surface at different points it is impossible to say. There are no rocks in place found west of the Mississippi along the route pursued by the expedition to the Red river of the North, and the geological features of the banks of the Mississippi have been given in the report of Mr. Nicollet, published in the year 1842." Capt. Pope states that there were three routes by which to reach the valley of the Red river of the North, used by the traders and trappers in their annual pilgrimages to the Mississippi with their peltries. The most southern follows the valley of the St. Peter's, and descends into the plains of the Red river near lake Traverse. The middle route leaves the Missis- sippi at Sauk Rapids, seventy'six miles above the mouth of the St. Peter's, and intersects the Red river near its most southern point. This is the route pursued by the expedition. The northern route follows for some distance the valley of Crow Wing river, and turning the northern extremity of Otter Tail lake, descends into the valley of the Red river near the mouth of Buffalo river. These routes were mere trails, and followed as far as possible the open prairie. The further geographical facts which his report contains can be sum- marized as follows: Between Pembina and the mouth of the Red Lake river he passed successively the Two rivers, Park river, " Riviere au Marais No. 1," from the east; Big Salt river and " Riviere au Marais No. 2," from the west; Turtle river, and "Riviere au Marais No. 3" from the east, and a small stream called " Coulee* de 1'Anglais." The largest of these were the " Riviere au Marais No. 1," and the Park, Big Salt and Turtle rivers, which were about eighteen yards wide and six feet deep, the Red Lake river itself being about fifty yards wide near its mouth and fourteen feet deep, and with a •Coulee is often anglicized to couley or ctuKe. It signifies a deep ravine, and was in common use nmonu the ek voyageure. HISTOKICAL SKETCH. 89 1850, Pope.] more rapid current than the Red river of the North. Above the mouth of the Sioux Wood river the Red river takes the name of Otter-tail Lake river, and, with a constant depth of water of four feet, becomes much more tortuous in its course. GBN. POPE'S DESCRIPTION OF THE PAKK REGION. As we approached the western and northwestern slope of the Leaf mountain at the point where the river debouches from it into the level plains to the north, the current becomes sensibly more rapid, and the water clearer, until at about fifteen miles east of the crossing of the land route we found it necessary to use the cordelle. The banks become also much higher, with a tract of level, swampy land three-fourths of a mile in width between them, the river running from side to side through the swamp in the most serpentine manner. Small islands begin to be numerous, and the steep banks are perforated, in a thousand places, with clear cold springs. The woods along the banks also become much larger and more dense, oak being the more common tree. At about thirty miles above the mouth of the Sioux Wood river the rapids commence, and are almost continuous to Otter-tail lake. There are two and a half and three feet of water over them', and in the intervening pools of still water about three and a half feet. The bed of the river is filled with loose boulders of all sizes, and the deep water assumes an exceedingly crooked channel among them. Every hour of our advance toward the east increased the amount of heavy timber on the banks, and we began also to perceive, at various distances on each side, large groves of heavy timber upon the borders of numerous lakes, which I have described as forming so peculiar a fea- ture of the country between the Mississippi and St. Peter's. We had thus again entered the second general division of country I have made in a pre- vious part of this report, and as we progressed toward the east the lakes became much more numerous, and the timber much heavier and more abundant. From Otter-tail lake to its entrance into Leaf mountain, the river passes through a number of beautiful lakes surrounded by rolling country, heavily timbered, with a depth of water from nine to twenty feet, and filled with the most luxuriant growth of wild rice. The largest and most beautiful of these is lake Gardiner, which is within eight miles of Otter- tail lake. On the 14th of September we reached the mouth of Little Pelican river, which, at its confluence with Otter-tail river, is about twenty yards wide, and about three feet deep. On the morning of the 17th we arrived at Otter-tail lake, and encamped near its northeast- ern extremity, at the remains of several small trading houses. Upon entering this lake from the southwest, the woods to the northeast, although very large, are not visible, and it is by far the largest sheet of water we had yet seen . It is about ten miles in length from southwest to north- east, and four or five miles in width, filled with fish, with clear pure water, with a depth of twenty feet, and no islands. The fish are white, and said to be the same known as the white-fish of the lakes, so celebrated for their flavor. To the west, northwest and northeast, the whole country is heavily timbered with oak, elm, ash, maple, birch, bass, &c., &c. Of these the sugar maple is probably the most valuable, and in the vicinity of Otter-tail lake large quantities of maple sugar are manufactured by the Indians. The wild rice, which exists in these lakes in the most lavish profusion, constitutes a most necessary article of food with the Indians, and is gathered in large quantities in the months of September and October. To the east the banks of the lake are fringed with heavy oak and elm timber to the width of one mile. The whole region of country for fifty miles in all directions around this lake, is among the most beautiful and fertile in the world. The fine scenery of lakes and open groves of oak timber, of winding streams connecting them, and beautifully rolling country on all sides, renders this portion of Minnesota the garden spot of the Northwest. It is impossible in a report of this character to describe the feelings of admiration and astonishment with which we first beheld the charming country in the vicinity of this lake, and were I to give expression to my own feelings and opinions in reference to it, I fear they would be considered the ravings of a visionary or an enthusiast. * 90 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Reno, 1853 On the 19th of September we made a portage of one mile toward the east, to a small round lake about one and a half mile in diameter. This lake is completely isolated, having no apparent outlet or inlet. From the dip of the land, and the evident marks of an artificial obstruction (said to be a beaver dam) I am quite satisfied that this lake at one time discharged its waters into Otter- tail lake. The evidences of this kind of obstruction are numerous throughout this region of country, and, whatever may be the theory as to the original extent of the waters, it is quite certain that the larg- est of the lakes lias been divided into several smaller ones by the occurrence of these artificial dams. The small lake on which we again embarked ia our canoe is about ten feet deep, the water very clear, and no doubt containing abundance of fish. A second portage of about twenty yards, over a dam of the same character, brought us to another lake of about the same size; a third portage of about half a mile through dwarf oak, brought us at the western extremity of Leaf lake, the source of Leaf river, which is a tributary of the Crow Wing. We had thus, in two hours, passed with our boat and baggage from the waters of the Red river of the North, which flow into the Hudson's bay, to the waters pouring into the gulf of Mexico. The tributaries of the Red river of the North, and those of the Mississippi overlap each other to such an extent that I suppose there are a thousand places where a portage even shorter would have enabled us to pass from the waters of one into those of the other. CAPT. EENO S ROAD FROM THE BIG SIOUX RIVER TO MENDOTA. In 1853 Capt. J. L. Reno executed a survey for a military road trom the mouth of the Big Sioux river to Mendota. The carefully prepared and very full map transmitted with his report, seems not to have been published. After crossing the Des Moines river and traveling ten miles further, he entered Minnesota. This was in the vicinity ot lakes which he names Spirit, Okamanpidan, and Omanhu, being, as he supposed, in the Undine region of Nicollet. He crossed the Chaniushkah and Perch rivers, the former a branch of the Blue Earth and the latter of the Watonwan. The route chosen lay along the west side of the Blue Earth to its union with the Minnesota, thence to Mankato, and thence on the Shakopee stony terrace to Babcock's mill near Kasota. Here the road left the river and ascended to the table-land, nearly 300 feet above the Minnesota, and entered the " Big Woods," owing to the discontinuance of the "second bottom." Opposite Traverse des Sioux Capt. Reno encountered Capt. Dodd of Minnesota, who had antici- pated the government and had recently constructed a road from St. Paul to Rockbend (a short distance above Traverse des Sioux), thus much aiding Capt. Reno in getting through the unexplored labyrinth of lakes and marshes which there characterize the Big Woods. Passing by way of Eagle lake, Lakeville and the western border ot the Vermilion prairie to the Mendota and Cannon river road, he followed it for six miles into Mendota. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 91 1858, Daniels.] GOVERNMENT ROADS IN MINNESOTA. According to the report of Capt. J. H. Simpson,* dated September 20th, 1855, the following territorial roads were in course of construction at that time by the general government, viz., from Point Douglas to the mouth of the St. Louis river ; from Point Douglas to Fort Ripley ; from Wabasha to Mendota ; from Mendota to the mouth of the Big Sioux river ; from the mouth of Swan river to Long Prairie ; from Fort Ripley to Pembina, and from St. Anthony falls to Fort Ridgely.f PACIFIC RAILROAD SURVEY. The reports of explorations and surveys to ascertain the most practi- cable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean, made in 1853, 1854 and 1855, contain a few articles relating to the natural features of Minnesota. Such are found in Vol. I., pp. 39-55, on the Route near the 47th and 49th parallels of north latitude; Vol. II., p. 45, on a Railroad from Puget sound via Smith pass to the Mississippi river, by Fred. W. Lander; Vol. XII., Parts I. and II., wholly devoted to the Northern Pacific route, containing a Final Report and Narrative, by Gov. J. J. Stevens; and reports on Botany and Zoology, by Drs. Cooper, Gray, Suckley, and others. The Botanical Report embraces pp. 7-76, and six plates; the Zoological Report has 1-399 pages, and seventy -six plates. These Natural History papers, how- ever, refer almost exclusively to the western portion of the route.f PERIOD OF STATE EXPLORATION AND SURVEY, 1858-1881. The first legislature that met after the admission of the State into the Union, gave due consideration to the subject of a geological survey. Although burdened with the legislation incident to the organization of the various institutions of a new state, the evident importance of some scheme for ascertaining the natural resources of the state, as the first step toward *Ei. Docs. 1855-6. First He»s. 34th Congress. Vol.1. Part II., p. 468. tTlie report and map of Capt. Sully, of a recounoissance from Fort Kidgely to Fort Pierre in 1856, have not bean published. Capt. Sully determined the source of the Big Sioux river to be in lake Kampeska (Warren.) 92 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Wheelock, ilfc. their full development, was felt; and although no general survey was insti- tuted, a law was passed ordering at once a reprint of portions of the geo- logical report of Wisconsin,* by Prof. Daniels, for the years 1854 and 1858. This was printed in 1860, and contained Dr. D. F. Weinland's " sketch of the lead region," with notes on the evidences of iron ore, which closed with a statement of the "objects of a geological and natural history survey," embracing thirty-four pages, dated Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 27, 1857. It also embraced a paper read before the American Geographical and Statistical Society, in 1856, by Mr. A. S. Hewitt, on the " statistics and history of the production of iron." JOSEPH A. WHEELOCK. [First Annual Report of the Commissioner of Statistics, or the year ending January 1st, I860.] The second legislature enacted, in February, 1860, a law establishing a bureau of statistics, and creating a Commissioner of statistics. Mr. Wheelock was appointed ; and such was his indefatigable industry and his knowledge of the state, that on July 1st of the same year he rendered a voluminous report " for the year ending January 1st, 1860." This was the first official presentation of her natural capabilities on the part of the new state of Minnesota; and it is not saying too much to assert that it has been one of the most powerful instruments in recommending the state to eastern capitalists and farmers, and in hastening, as well as directing, the almost unprecedented growth that she has maintained from that time. This docu- ment deals not with the discovery of new facts, or the description of new regions, or the establishment ot new principles, but it is a forcible presenta- tion, in easy grouping, of those known natural features and resources of the state, in a harmonious and terse yet comprehensive review, which give the state a commanding pre-eminence in the Union in point of agriculture, and promise for it a corresponding position in respect of population, manufac- tures, wealth and general intelligence. The statistics proper, presented by the Commissioner, are preceded by an able essay on the geographical posi- tion, physical geography, agricultural capabilities and climatology of the state. Chapters are also added on the condition and progress of agriculture, commerce, railroads, manufactures and public lands. "Minnesota was formely embraced in the territory of Wisconsin. HISTOEICAL SKETCH. 93 1861, Anderson and Clark.] Mr. Wheelock's second report as Commissioner of .statistics, rendered December 1st, 1861, is very similar in scope and character to that of 1860, with the added value of the U. S. census returns for 1860. ANDERSON AND CLARK. The second legislature also passed, March 10th, 1860, a concurrent resolu- tion providing for " Commissioners" to report on the geology of the state, and to submit a plan for a thorough geological survey of the state. The commissioners appointed were Charles L. Anderson and Thomas Clark. These gentlemen submitted separate reports under the date of January 25th, 1861, making an octavo pamphlet of twenty-six pages. It embraces a chapter on the general geological features of Minnesota, and one on a plan for a geological survey, by Mr. Anderson ; also one by Mr. Clark on some general climatic, topographical and geological features of the north- eastern portion of the state. Governor Ramsey discouraged the inaugura- tion of a geological survey at that time, knowing that the cost is not only always great, but always greater than was expected, and believing that the actual material advantages to a state from such surveys are commonly overrated.* He considered that the new state had a sufficient burden in the establishment and support of its charitable and educational institutions, but hoped that when the state had reached that point when she " could expend fifty or a hundred thousand dollars in this one department ot science," such a survey would be undertaken. He also recommended the commencement of a collection of state minerals at the seat of govern- ment, as an index to the extent of its mineral wealth and resources, which would thus become a matter for investigation. Mr. Anderson's report summarizes briefly some ol the chapters of Dr. Owen's report on Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, and closes with some very pertinent remarks regarding the plan, object and cost ot a geological survey. The objects of a geological survey may be stated very briefly, as follows : It consists in placing before the people of the state, in the most available and intelligible form, all the information that can be obtained in regard to the rocks, minerals and soils. Also to this might be added informa- tion, especially of a practicallcharacter, in regard to the vegetables and animals peculiar to the state. •Message communicating to Hie House of Representatives the reports of Anderson and Clark. 94 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Hanchett and Clark, 1864. Whatever part of the survey is undertaken and reported on, should be of the most substantial kind. All that is possible for human knowledge to accomplish should be accomplished. There should be no slighting of the work — no necessity for tearing down and building up again. There is a vast accuin ulation of experience before us. We have the history of surveys in other states. If we are wise we can profit by what has been in many instances their loss. We can see where they have made gross mistakes in the management of their affairs. It would be useless to enumerate their errors. One, however, that I would not be doing my duty to pass in silence, is that of allowing party prejudices to interfere in any manner with a survey of this kind. I might mention some of our neighboring states, that have had sad experience in this respect. But that would be personal and might give offence. I may be permitted to say, however, that rewarding a political leader with the office of state geologist, and a liberal yearly salary, when he is totally incompetent for the task, is a thing that has been, but I trust will not be again. As to the cost of such a survey, the strictest economy, consistent with the attainment of the object sought, should be rigidly pursued. If such were the course adopted, after the first year the survey, instead of being an expense, would be remunerative, at least indirectly so. Attention would be called to our mineral resources, and the erection of manufactories, — it may be of iron, copper or lead, — would soon engage the attention of capitalists, and an inflow of population would be the result, more than enough to repay the state the small appropriation made each year for the survey. But let us look at the subject in a more general way. When we reflect on the amount of money that goes out of our state each year for articles that, with a little encouragement, might just as well be manufactured at home, it is no wonder that we hear so continuously the cry of " hard times." With as good iron ore as the world can produce, the United States still imports three million dollars worth of that article ; Minnesota receiving her share. Copper is sent from lake Superior to England, there to be manufactured, and returned to us at a cost of more than two hundred per cent. With a deposit of coal in North America twenty times the area of all the known deposits of the eastern continent, and almost thirty-five times as large an area in the United States as Great Britain's coal area, yet the Atlantic cities import annually 285,869 tons ; and all these things because our home resources are not opened up, and because there is not sufficient encouragement to our own enterprise. What might be said of the United States, or any one of the states, in this respect, might also be said of Minnesota. So much in regard to "counting the cost." Instead of the survey, if properly conducted, running the state in debt, it will be a means most potent in relieving her of financial embarrassment, and causing a feeling of independence, in being able to exist by her own internal richness. HANCHETT AND CLARK. Nothing seems to have been done, after the publication ot the report ot Anderson and Clark, respecting a geological survey of the state, till the meeting ot the sixth legislature (1864), when the subject was revived, and resulted in the passage of a resolution authorizing the Governor to appoint and direct a state geologist. Dr. Aug. H. Hanchett was appointed, and Thomas Clark was his assistant. The report of Dr. Hanchett, dated New York, November 13th, 1864, covers eight pages, and embraces little of value to the state. He seems to have visited the shore ot lake Superior, and coasted as far as Pigeon river, but to little purpose. Mr. Clark, who accompanied him, was much more industrious in gath- ering facts and making observations. His report is valuable ; it contains seventy pages, with chapters on— HISTORICAL SKETCH. 95 1865, Eames.] The Physical Geography ot the district embraced in that portion of the state bordering on lake Superior. A large share of the geological report of Dr. Owen is devoted to this district ; the maps accompanying that report were constructed previous to the linear surveys ; Mr. Clark locates many of the points of interest, giving their section, township and range, especially the entrance of rivers, and prominent points or bays of the coast. Meteorology of the district, embracing the carefully reduced results ot one full year's observations, and of several concurrent and parallel months. A list of plants and trees of the district, observed mainly between St. Paul and lake Superior, on the meridian 16° west from Washington ; the northern and southern limits of species being noted. H. H. EAMES. The following year, under direction of Governor Miller, Mr. H. H. Eames continued the prosecution of the geological survey of the state, and his first report, without date, was printed in 1866. Mr. Eames' labor was essentially "prospecting." All other objects but a vigorous hunt for "mineral," were ignored. His first report is a pamphlet of twenty -three pages, and throughout it bears evidence that the writer was convinced, a priori, that the state of Minnesota was one of the richest mineral countries in the world. He discovered gold and silver, but could not yet state the "angle" at which veins containing them occur, but had the "impression that it would be found to be about 85°." These "discoveries" led to a gold- mining fever, centering on Vermilion lake, in the northern part of the state, in which many hundreds of thousands of dollars were squandered in the next two years. Several companies began mining, hauling their machinery and supplies from Duluth at great expense. Unscrupulous "assayers," "prospectors" and "geologists" fostered the excitement. A town of mushroom growth sprang up near the south side of the lake. A would-be geologist and "spiritualist," who subsequently aspired to the position of "peat-commissioner" to the state of Minnesota, located the precious lodes at Vermilion lake by the necromancy of spiritualistic medi- ums. The fever spread. The state geologist himself was chief owner and operator of one of the mines. The whole thing very soon collapsed, and 96 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Eames, i8A6. in a few years thereafter but one white man, a government officer, could be found in the whole region. Respecting the lignites of southwestern Minne- sota, Mr. Eames says that he has no hesitation in recording his conviction that large deposits of good coal will be found there, " the stratum having a course southeast of the Big Cottonwood river, thence northwest to the Redwood river, crossing the Minnesota river at or near that point, also west of the Cottonwood, and having a bearing west of north. The out- crop of the formation can only be seen at a few points, as it has many local upheavals, and corresponding depressions." Mr. Eames mentioned the iron ore at Vermilion lake, in the vicinity ot the stream known as Two rivers. He describes it as lying in two ridges, nearly parallel, one being of haematite with jasperoid, quartzo.se and serpentine rocks, and the other of magetite of very good quality, the latter being north of the former. The iron is said to be exposed at two or three points, between fifty and sixty feet in thickness, presenting quite a mural face. Passing down the lake Superior shore as far as Temperance river, he has a few words concerning the metalliferous character of the rocks at numerous places. . Mr. Eames' second report purports to give "reconnoissance in detail, of the northern, middle and other counties in Minnesota," comprising fifty-eight octavo pages. After presenting a brief outline of the different formations or systems of rocks that form the crust of the earth, he adds remarks on the igneous, the coal-bearing and the sandstone and limestone rocks of the state ; also on peat; on mineral and fissure veins; on agricultural chemistry: on a geological reconnoissance "in detail", of the counties of St. Louis, Lake, Itasca, Cass, Todd, Otter Tail, Douglas, Stearns, Morrison, Benton, Sher- burne, Redwood, Cottonwood, Ramsey and Washington, together with results of assays and thermometrical and barometrical observations in the months ot June, July and August. He describes Pokegama falls as formed by an exposure of Potsdam sandstone (quartzy te), or the lowest of the Lower Silurian rocks. It presents a mural exposure of twenty feet above the level of the stream, and one-eighth of a mile in length, having a course 15° south of west. A similar fall is described on Prairie river, six or seven HISTORICAL SKETCH. 97 1865, Hall.] miles above its point of union with the Mississippi, where he notes an uplift of igneous and metamorphosed rocks, consisting of granite, coarse and fine, "quartzyte or Potsdam sandstone," and iron ore, the water falling from twelve to fifteen feet. This iron ore occurs also on the west side of the river. At several places above these falls the same rocks are noted in place, particularly at the second falls and in a ridge near the head of the lake about a sixth of a mile from the south shore. The iron ores here seen, he found to afford from fifty to sixty per cent, metallic iron. He reports the same kind of drift limestone fragments on the upper Mississippi, about Pokegama falls, and on the St. Louis river, as in Otter Tail county and the Red river valley. Mr. Richard M. Eames, his assistant, makes further statements concern- ing the quartz veins at Vermilion lake and their ramifications through the talcose slates, concluding with the statement that he belives that the "hid- den sources of wealth, lying buried in the strata, would justify the invest- ment of capital." Mr. Eames' survey soon fell into disrepute, and further appropriations were not made by the legislature. JAMES HALL IN MINNESOTA. In 1865 the state legislature appropriated two thousand dollars to Mr. N. C. D. Taylor for the exploration of the mineral lands in the valley of the St. Croix river, lying in the state of Minnesota. A report of this work was rendered to the governor January 27th, 1866. It consists of about one page octavo, and states that he had found indications of copper on what is known as the " Kettle river trap range," having expended a con- siderable sum in examinations sufficient to show it to be " very promising for a rich paying vein." He also mentions a copper vein crossing the St. Croix river below the mouth of Kettle river, and one on Snake river ; also one at Taylor's Falls, on which he had sunk a shaft, about forty feet in depth, and a second one three or four hundred feet from the first about twenty-two feet in depth. The most of the rock of the St. Croix valley above Taylor's Falls, he found to consist of different kinds of trap rocks, with belts of conglomerate running through them from northeast to south- 98 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOT A. [Hall, 1865. west, the conglomerate being particularly abundant on the Kettle river range. As corroborative of his own opinions, Mr. Taylor incorporates the views of Prof. James Hall who was, presumably, employed to make a reconnoissance of the region in 1865. Prof. Hall is reported as saying that the Taylor's Falls vein is a very distinct vein, quite equal, in what it shows, to many of the best paying veins of lake Superior; and of the Kettle river vein, that so far as can be seen of it, it is even more promising than the one at Taylor's Falls, or the most promising that has been found in the country. He regarded the whole St. Croix region as worthy of further exploration for this metal.* In the same year Prof. Hall visited the southwestern part of the state, his object being to ascertain the age of the coal that was then being explored on the Waraju river. The next year an interesting paper was published by him " On the geology of some portions of Minnesota from St. Paul to the western part of the state." It is to be found in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. The following points are made in this paper: 1. The Lower Magnesian and the Potsdam are seen in the bluffs of the river to Mankato. 2. A small portion of the St. Peter sandstone was seen at St. Peter, still preserved above the Lower Magnesian. 3. The rock at Pipestone he regards as Huronian. 4. At Redwood falls, and at other places, he mentions the "steatitic or glauconitic" beds resulting from the decomposition of the granite under the Cretaceous. 5. The limestone and green marls at New Ulm he regards Cretaceous. 6. The red marls and sandstone underlying, he thinks " are not older than the Triassic." 7. He suggests the former probable continuity of the western and east- ern Cretaceous areas with the southern prolongation of the same rocks up the Mississippi valley. 8. Suggests the parallelism of the red marls and ferruginous sandstones *A hasty statement has been made by Prof. R. D Irving in the Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, Vol ViH, that this copper retrion had not been recognized by the Minnesota geologists, but was first brought to light by himself. Dr. Shumard describes the same rocks, and Chas. Whittlesey says they are the "dying out in that direction of the great Kewenaw range." HISTORICAL SKETCH. 99 1864, Whittleiey.] at Winkelmann's, near New Ulm, with the gypsiferous deposits in the valley of the Des Moines. 9. Regards the Coteau des Prairies as made by a broad synclinal in the quartzyte outcropping at Redstone, and illustrates it by a diagram.* CHARLES WHITTLESEY IN NORTHERN MINNESOTA. Mr. Whittlesey, who had been employed on the survey of Dr. Owen, made further examinations in the state for private parties in 1859 and 1864, and his geological notes, with illustrations, were printed at Cleveland. Ohio, in 1866, by order of the legislature of Minnesota. This little pamphlet contains much information concerning the northern part of the state, not to be found in any earlier publication. His ascent of the Big Fork river was made in com- pany with Dr. Norwood, when engaged on the survey of Dr. Owen, in Sep- tember, 1848, and his description of that stream has but little that is not found in the report of Norwood. Mr. Whittlesey was the first to make observations on the drift-deposits under the guide of any adequate conception or theory of their origin. Dr. Owen's survey ignored this subject entirely, or incidentally grouped the phenomena under the head of "agricultural capabilities'',! while Mr. Eames was too much engaged in a mineral hunt to give them any consideration, except as impediments to "prospecting." Whittlesey's grouping of "glacial etchings" proves the direction of the glacial movement in the northern part of the state to have been from the northeast, and he unhesitatingly ascribes all the phenomena in North America to the agency of glaciers, placing the southern limit of the movement in New Jersey, northern Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and lowa.J The correctness of this early prognostication has been strikingly J verified by late explorations in several of the states named. He could see no reason to suppose that any changes of level of the country have taken place since the era of the drift. *Jt is singular that this theoretical explanation of the Coteau should have been incorporated on the late geological map of the United States, by Profs. Hitchcock and Blake, accompanying the ninth trailed States census report, rather than the positive statements of all other observers who have crossed it, to the effect that no rocky outcrops are to be found If the Huronian rocks underlie the Coteau, they would certainly appear at the surface at a great many places. Prof. Hind visited this ridge near the 49th parallel ; so did Dr. Owen ; Mr. Featherstonhaugh had described it; Keating had given us information concerning it ; Nicollet'g opinions were on record. These all testify that it is made up of drift. Probably the basis rock is Cretaceous, as that formation appears on both sides in the adjoining streams. The examina- tions of the survey have established the "erratic" nature of the whole range. Compare KvUeiins of the Minnesota Acad my. Vol. I. p. 100. tCompare Owen's description of the "southern confines of the Coteau." Introduction, pp. ixxv. and zixvi. {Compare Fresh-water glacial drift of the Northwatem slates. Smithsonian Corttribttliom, May, 1864. 100 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Warren, 186*. The lake Superior trap rocks, carrying native copper, he assigned to the age of the Potsdam.* Those carrying the sulphurets of copper, he placed in a different, and older system, the Huronian, after the generaliza- tion of Bigsby and Logan. The quartzyte at Pokegama falls, he styled Potsdam. With the exception of occasional misapprehensions of minerals, Mr. Whittlesey's brief notes, with the accompanying rough illustrations, consti- tute a valuable and correct geological epitome of the northern part of Min- nesota, from Encampment river on the east to the Grande Fourche, or Big Fork river, on the west. It embraces also short chapters on the general geology, the phenomena of the drift period, general elevations in Minne- sota, fluctuations in the level of the lakes, the climate, and the cost of mining copper. GENERAL G. K. WABREN ON THE MINNESOTA VALLEY. The United States government detailed General Warren in 1866, for the survey of the upper Mississippi, Minnesota and Wisconsin rivers with a view to the improvement of navigation and the construction of bridges which should afford the least possible obstruction to navigation. The work on the Minnesota was continued in 1867 and 1868. In the annual report of the Chief of Engineers for 1868, is found General Warren's first published general expression of his views concerning the physical features of the Minnesota valley, although they were in part presented in Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 58, 39th Congress, 2nd Session, dated January 21, 1867. His final report, in extenso, was not rendered till 1874, owing to the inter- vention of other duties, and is to be found in the appendix to the report of the Chief of Engineers for that year.f Part II of this report is an essay concerning important physical features exhibited in the valley of the Minnesota river, and upon their signification. This is illustrated by several maps, plates and diagrams, and accompanied by a detailed description of the valley by his assistant, Mr. C. E. Davis. The main points brought out in this essay, are ; 1st, that the Minnesota valley was formerly the course of a great river; 2nd, that this river *On page 7 Mr. Whittlesey makes the following remark concerning the rocks of the Mesabi : " In many cases the •yenite and granite appear to be more recent than the metamorphic slates, having all the appearance c,f intrusive rocks." t^ee also the American Aatmalist, November 1868, for a summary of a paper read by Gin. Warren before the American Association for the Advancement of Science. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 101 i86S, Warren.] drained the valley of lake Winnipeg ; 3rd, that lake Winnipeg for- merly had a great extension southward, according to the opinion of Prof. Henry Youle Hind ;* and 4th, that the most plausible hypothesis to account .for the former drainage of the Winnipeg basin along the valley of the Mississippi, and for the change to the present outlet by Nelson river, is a subsidence of the northern part ot the valley and an elevation of the southern part, extending through a vast period of time, and probably still going on. He refers to the hypothesis that as the glacial epoch tempered off gradually into the present epoch, there might have been a long time when the glaciers had sufficient extension southward to close the outlet to Hudson's .bay, which on the further recession of the ice, would be opened and the lake drained off toward the north. This hypothesis he regards as " unsupported, and barren of any fruit." He thinks it does not explain any phenomena presented by other lake-basins and water-courses in North America, nor enable us to predict what probable results we should find in other regions, and thus intelligently direct further investigation. He then mentions topographic features reported at numerous points in the United States and in the British possessions in America which seem to confirm the former hypothesis ; and closes with a map showing a restoration of the ancient basin of the Mississippi. In this the source is shown to be a stream joining lake Winnipeg from the northwest. Lake Winnipeg is enlarged to exceed the area of lake Superior, extending to Big Stone lake, having its outlet by way of the Minnesota into the Mississippi ; while at the same time an arm of the gulf of Mexico brings salt water up the great valley as far as the parallel on which Chicago lies, and farther still up the Missouri valley, the Ohio itself being an eastward extension from this arm nearly to Pittsburg. In the proper place this subject will be fully discussed. It is only necessary to say here that the investigations of the survey, while sustain- ing all Gen. Warren's observations respecting the extension of a lake for- merly occupying the Winnipeg and Red river valley, and the large size of the ancient Minnesota, warrant the hypothesis which he rejects, rather than the one which he adopts. •Narrative of the Canadian Red river exploring expedition of 1857, and of the Assinibolne and Saskatchewan oxploring expedition of 1858. By Henry Youle Hind. Two volume*. 102 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. .' ^ J^'l I. {Hurlbut, 1871. . .> V; ,°. • . . HURLBUT ON THE GEOLOGY OF SOUTHERN MINNESOTA. In 1871 Mr. W. D. Hurlbut, of Rochester, Minnesota, contributed a series of papers to the Minnesota Teacher on the geology of southern Minnesota, which were subsequently issued together as a pamphlet. These papers supply a lack, which was a conspicuous and remarkable one, in the geologi- cal literature of the state — considering the general accuracy and fullness of Owen's report — since no geologist had before penetrated this part of Min- nesota, and nobody had called attention to its marked topography or to its geology. Owen's parties passed around it. They ascended the Mississippi, the Minnesota and the Des Moines, but the valleys of the Root and the Zumbro were not examined. It is in these valleys, and particularly on the upper tributaries, that the upper parts of the Silurian and the Devonian are found exposed. Taking the Mississippi river, and the measurements aud descriptions ot Dr. Owen, as initial points, Mr. Hurlbut follows up the streams coming from the west, across the strike of the formations, noting the changes as they occur in the strata, and stating their main characteristics and thicknesses. He thus makes out the Potsdam, the Lower Magnesian, St. Peter sandstone, Trenton limestone flags, Hudson River shales, argillaceous shales which he regards of the age of the Clinton, and the Devonian. He also outlines their geographical extent, and states some of their topographic features. His identifications, being the first recorded attempt to parallelize those strata with any recognized base of nomenclature in the state of Minnesota, and dependent for the greater part on lithological features, were subject to such changes as a study of the fossils might require. His Hudson River shales were restricted to the very base of the rocks of that formation, and desig- nated " Hudson River oil shales," having a maximum thickness of fifteen feet. They are the " Green shales" of the early reports of progress of the survey, and probably belong to the Hudson River group. His shaly limestone (Clin- ton) is the upper part of the Hudson River, becoming in some places a very calcareous member almost without shales. His Devonian, in which the arenaceous parts were supposed to be Schoharie sandstone, is the buff mag- nesian limestone of the Galena. The elevated land, further southwest from the strike of the last, in Mower and Fillmore counties, he suggests may con- HISTORICAL SKETCH. 103 1871, Kloos.] tain higher formations, such as the Iowa Subcarboniferous formation, but in the absence of exposures of the rock nothing could be ascertained with- out artificial excavations. The discussion of the " Tertiary phenomena " by Mr. Hurlbut embraces Prof. J. D. Whitney's view of the origin of the driftless area in Iowa, and the opinions of Gen. G. K. Warren concerning the former direction of drain- age of the Minnesota and upper Mississippi "westward into the Cretaceous ocean," in which he groups in a new and interesting manner many topo- graphic and hypsometric facts, going to show that the interior of the state is a basin whose greatest depression is along the valley of the Minnesota, from its source to the head of lake Pepin. " The supposed surface and shore line of this lake basin is very well indicated, in many places, at about one thousand feet elevation above the sea, by clay terraces and bluffs, containing trunks and branches of trees, lignite clay and other lacustrine formations." KLOOS' GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS IN MINNESOTA. In the same journal, in 1871. Mr. J. H. Kloos of St. Paul, records sundry geological observations made in the northern part of the state. He sketches the country briefly along the line of the new railroad from lake Superior to the Mississippi river at St. Paul, noting most closely the region of the slates on the St. Louis river, which he assigns to the Huronian formation ; the conglomerates and red sandstones he assigns to the Potsdam, the latter being unconformable on the former, with a dip six or seven degrees toward the south ; and suggests that beds of iron ore underlie the slates of the St. Louis river, as they do the slates of the Marquette iron range in Michigan ; the huematitic and magnetic iron ore at Vermilion lake being perhaps in that horizon, and thus the lowest member of the Huronian formation. In respect to the rocks at Duluth he describes, in general terms, the " Duluth granite," as a coarse crystalline rock consisting principally of a grayish-white feldspar showing three distinct cleavage planes, two of them being nearly at right angles ; one plane has a glassy lustre, and the other a brilliant pearly lustre, with striae which he regards as an indication of labradorite. Another constituent he named diallage, or hypersthene ; and another magnetic iron. The rock he pronounces hyperyte, provisionally. He mentions the first rocks forming the immediate shore at Duluth, styling 104 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [A. Winchell, 1871. them feldspar-porphyry, with magnetite and epidote, and also calcite and laumontite, some of the rock being amygdaloidal. Between the hyperyte and the porphyryte he notes another unstratified homogeneous black rock, of igneous origin; but he essays not to trace the relations which these igneous rocks bear to each other, though he states that they seem to be inter- stratified with the Potsdam sandstone at points farther down the coast. The "trap rock" at Taylor's Falls he styles porphyryte, places it in the Huronian, and dissents from Dr. Owen, who regards the sandstone overlying as older than the trap. Mr. Kloos, on the other hand, demonstrates, by various diagrams and by his observations, that the sandstone was deposited, and still remains undisturbed, in horizontal stratification, unconformably, over the crystalline rock, and must be of later date.* In respect to the copper discoveries at Taylor's Falls, he says that there are a great many small feldspathic veins, and that in one of these, where Mr. Taylor had sunk a shaft to the depth of twenty feet, copper was dis- seminated through the substance of the vein-rock (principally feldspathic and decomposed) in exceedingly thin foliae, mixed sometimes with a sul- phuret of copper, or copper-glance. The Kettle river discoveries he regards more favorably. They are forty miles above Taylor's Falls, and warrant the expectation that in other places on the Kettle river copper-bearing veins will be found at some future time.f Mr. Kloos was the first to announce the Cretaceous rocks at any point so far north in the state as the Sauk valley. In the American Journal of Science and Arts, 1872, he gives the particulars of such a discovery, authen- ticated by paleontological determinations of Mr. F. B. Meek. A. WINCHELL EXAMINES THE SALT WELL AT BELLE PLAINS. The legislature ot 1870 passed a law entitled " An act to aid in the development of the salt springs at Belle Plaine," which donated six sections of the state salt lands to a company organized for that purpose, on certain conditions. These conditions, which required the sinking of a drilled well at *In the third volume of the report of the geological survey of Wisconsin. Mr. Sweet seems to have come to the same opinion independently, ata later date than Mr Kloos. fSubsequently Mr. Kloos and Prof. Strong made a careful examination of the crystalline rocks collected in Minne- sota. Mr. Kloos' geological observations were published in Zeiischrifl d. d. geol. Gesellschaft, 1871, S. 428; and the min- eralogical papers of Strong and Kloos are to be found in the Neues Jahrbuch fur Min. Geol. u. Pal. 1877. Vide, also, the translations of these in the tenth and eleventh annual reports of the Geological and Natural HUtory survey of Minnesota. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 105 1871, A. Winchell.] Belle Plaine, where indications of brine were said to exist, to the depth of several hundred feet, were complied with by the company, and the six sec- tions of land were conveyed to the company. The following year, on the passage of another law to further aid in the development of the same salt springs, the conveyance was conditioned on a favorable report, after a geo- logical survey of the vicinity of Belle Plaine by a competent geologist. Prof. A. Winchell of Ann Arbor, Michigan, having been designated by gov- ernor Austin, made the necessary examination, and reported in June, 1871. His report was transmitted to the senate in January, 1872, and was ordered printed. It is an octavo pamphlet of sixteen pages.* After stating the general facts and principles which guided the geologist in coming to a conclusion, the report" gives some local geological observations in which the section of the exposed sand-rock along Sand creek, at Jordan, is for the first time care- fully made out. It is regarded as of the Potsdam age, and placed beneath the Lower Magnesian limestone of Owen. No distinction is made between the stratigraphical horizon of the limestone at Kasota and that at St. Law- rence, and the sand-rock at Jordan is supposed to lie beneath both ; the strata at Kasota being supposed to dip down the river so as to bring them at St. Lawrence about sixty feet nearer the water than at Kasota. From all the facts considered, the conclusion was reached that the prospect of obtaining brine at Belle Plaine was not encouraging ; that the horizon of the rocks penetrated is below all known saliferous formations, and that even if the shales of the Trenton group should prove to be saliferous, the product is likely to accumulate under a region far to the south. Notwithstanding the unfavorable report of the geologist, which ren- dered the appropriation of 1871 inoperative, the legislature of 1872 appro- priated six sections more of the salt spring lands to the same company for the same purpose. Not only has no brine in workable quantities ever been obtained from this well, but the analyses of the present survey have failed to establish the alleged briny character of the water of the spring at Belle Plaine on which the expenditure was at first undertaken. The same legislature (1872) enacted the law which initiated the present survey. •Report of a geological survey of the vicinity of Belle Plaine, Scott county, Minnesota. By A. Winchell. 106 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Present survey, 1873-82. HISTORY OF THE PRESENT SURVEY. The law under which this survey has been carried on was drafted by president W. W. Folwell, and was introduced in the legislature by senator J. S. Pillsbury, then a regent of the University. It passed both houses, and was approved by governor Horace Austin, March 1, 1872. It reads as follows; Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Mmiesota: SECTION 1. It shall be the duty of the board of regents of the University of Minnesota to cause to be begun as soon as may be practicable, and to carry on a thorough geological and natural history survey of the state. SEC. 2. The geological survey shall be carried on with a view to a complete account of the mineral kingdom, as represented in the state, including the number, order, dip, and magnitude of the several geological strata, their richness in ores, coals, clays, peats, salines, and mineral waters, marls, cements, building stones and other useful materials, the value of said substances for eco- nomical purposes, and their accessibility; also an accurate chemical analysis of the various rocks, soils, ores, clays, peats, marls and other mineral substances ; of which complete and exact record shall be made. SEC. 3. The natural history survey shall include, first, an examination of the vegetable productions of the state, embracing all trees, shrubs, herbs, and grasses, native or naturalized in the state ; second, a complete and scientific account of the animal kingdom, as properly repre- sented in the state, including all mammalia, fishes, reptiles, birds and insects. SEC. 4. The said surveys and examinations shall be made in the manner and order follow- ing : First, the geological survey proper together with the necessary and implied mineralogical investigations ; all of which shall be undertaken as soon as may be practicable, and be carried for- ward with such expedition as may be consistent with economy and thoroughness ; second, the botanical examinations ; third, the zoological investigations. Provided, however, that whenever the said board of regents may find it most economical to prosecute different portions of the surveys in conjunction, or that the public interest demands it, they may, in their discretion, depart from the above prescribed order. And in the employment of assistants in the said surveys, the board of regents shall at all times give the preference to the students and graduates of the University of Minnesota, provided the same be well qualified for the duties. SEC. 5. The said board of regents shall also cause to be collected and tabulated such meteo- rological statistics as may be needed to account for the varieties of climate in the various parts of the state ; also to cause to be ascertained [by] barometrical observations or other appropriate means, the relative elevations and depressions of the different parts of the state ; and also, on or before the completion of the said surveys, to cause to be compiled from such actual surveys and measurements as may be necessary, an accurate map of the state ; which map, when approved by the governor, shall be the official map of the state. SEC. 6. It shall be the duty of said board of regents to cause proper specimens, skillfully prepared, secured and labeled, of all rocks, soils, ores, coals, fossils, cements, building stones, plants, woods, skins and skeletons of animals, birds, insects and fishes, and other mineral, vege- table and animal substances and organisms discovered or examined in the course of said surveys, to be preserved for public inspection free of cost, in the University of Minnesota, in rooms conve- nient of access and properly warmed, lighted, ventilated and furnished, and in charge of a proper scientific curator ; and they shall also, whenever the same may be practicable, cause duplicates in reasonable numbers and quantities of the above named specimens, to be collected and preserved for the purpose of exchanges with other state universities and scientific institutions, of which latter the Smithsonian Institution at Washington shall have the preference. SEC. 7. The said board of regents shall cause a geological map of the state to be made as soon as may be practicable, upon which, by colors and other appropriate means and devices, the various geological formations shall be represented. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 107 1873-82, Present survey.] SEC. 8. It shall be the duty of the said board of regents, through their president, to make, on or before the second Tuesday in December of each and every year, a report showing the progress of the said surveys, accompanied by such maps, drawings and specifications as may be necessary and proper to exemplify the same to the governor, who shall lay the same before the legislature ; and the said board of regents, upon the completion of any separate portion of the said surveys, shall cause to be prepared a memoir or final report, which shall embody in a convenient manner all useful and important information accumulated in the course of the investigation of the par- ticular department or portion ; which report or memoir shall likewise be communicated through the governor to the legislature. SEC. 9. To carry out the provisions of this act the sum of one thousand dollars per annum is hereby appropriated, to be drawn and expended by the [said] board of regents of the University of Minnesota. SEC. 10. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its approval. The present writer was appointed to conduct this survey in July, 1872, but, having work to complete in the state of Ohio, did not begin service till September. The field-work the first year occupied about a month and was closed by the first heavy fall of snow, November 12th. The means placed at the disposal of the state geologist not warranting the employment of assistants he was only able to make a general reconnoissance of the southern and central portions of the state accessible by railroad, and on this as a basis he was enabled to give a nearly complete section of the strata from the trap and granitic rocks to the Galena limestone in the Lower Silurian, including also about forty teet of the latter. Various out-crops of the Cretaceous were described also in the first annual report. On the basis of the field-work done in the fall of 1872, and of reports already published, the first annual report of the survey gives a general sketch of the geology of Minnesota, as then known, accompanied by a small colored geological map of the state, and also a chart of geological nomen- clature intended to express the relation of Minnesota to the great geologi- cal series of the earth, and the probable equivalency ot some of the names the formations have received in the various states and in Europe. In the account of the "Potsdam sandstone" of the northwest, as defined by the Iowa and Wisconsin geologists, and of the red quartzytes of the same region, the first step was taken toward the investigation of that stratigraphical problem which seeks to determine the western equivalent of the Potsdam sandstone of New York ; and inasmuch as the same name had by good authorities been applied to two different and quite distinct western formations, the name St. Croix was suggested for the light-colored sandstone of the upper Mississippi and St. Croix valleys, it being more probable that the Potsdam of New York was represented in Minnesota by the red quartzytes and shales underlying. THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Present survey, 1871-82. The state geologist, under the head of "plans and recommendations," makes the following statement in the first report. The law under which the present survey is being prosecuted appropriates the sum of one thousand dollars per annum. This is too small for various reasons, the chief of which are, (1) It will not pay for the services of a single employe on the survey capable of working under the law. Hence it well-nigh renders the law inoperative. (2) It does not command the respect and con- fidence of the citizens of the state and others, and serves as an excuse for refusing aid and co-operation. The survey should be independent of favors for which it now has to beg, some- times to be scornfully refused. (3) In the survey of those portions of the state inaccessible by public roads, or by railroads, it will be necessary to employ laborers, and incur other expense, for which the sum of one thousand dollars is not sufficient. (4) In order to conduct the survey on one thousand dollars per annum, the state geologist must find some other employment a portion of the year.* (5) The magnitude of the interests involved demands that ample means be allowed for doing the work of the survey thoroughly and without embarrassment. These considerations ought to induce the legislature to increase the amount now appropriated to a sum sufficient at least to keep one man constantly employed, and to pay all expense of field-work and chemical examinations, in connection with the subject of increasing the means provided for a geological survey, it is suggested that the state lands known as salt spring lands may be so sold or appro- priated under the management of the board of regents of the university, as to be available for that purpose. It would be in perfect consonance with the original design, in the reservation of these lands from sale, if they were placed in the custody of the board of regents, conditioned on their use in the prosecutation of the geological and natural history survey of the state, with a view to the early and economical development of the brines of the state. This recommendation respecting the use of salt spring lands for the prosecution of the survey, was based on representations made to the writer by Mr. W. D. Hurlbut of Rochester, and Hon. H. B. Wilson, superintendent of public instruction, and on conversations with Hon. 0. P. Whitcomb, state auditor, and subsequently with senator J. S. Pillsbury and president Folwell ; but it was only through the indefatigable and persistent efforts oi senator Pillsbury, that the following law was passed by the legislature of 1873.f It is verbatim as drafted by the present writer, and by its action the survey has been supplied with funds needed for its prosecution. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota : SECTION 1. The state lands known as state salt lands, donated by the general government to aid in the development of the brines in the state of Minnesota, shall be transferred to the custody and control of the board of regents of the university of Minnesota. By said board of regents these lands smay be sold in such manner, or in such amounts, consistent with the laws of the state of Minnesota, as they may see fit; the proceeds thereof being held in trust by them, and only dis- bursed in accordance with the law ordering a geological and natural history survey of the state. SEC. 2. It shall be the duty of the said board of regents, as soon as practicable, to cause a full and scientific investigation and report on the salt springs of the state, with a view to the early development of such brine deposits as may exist within the state. SEC. 3. The board of regents of the university shall cause the immediate survey and inves- tigation of the peat deposits of the state of Minnesota, accompanied by such tests and chemical examinations as may be necessary to show their economical value, and their usefulness for the purpose of common fuel ; a full report thereon to be presented to the legislature as soon as practicable. •He was employed as instructor in the University of Minnesota daring six months of each year from 1872 to 1(78. tit was introduced by senator Edmund Bice. • HISTORICAL SKETCH. 109 1872-88, Present survey.] SEC. 4. The sum of two thousand dollars is hereby appropriated annually (in lieu of one thousand dollars) for the purpose of the geological and natural history survey until such time as the proceeds of the sales of the salt lands shall equal that amount, when such annual appropriation shall cease. SEC. 5. The sum of five hundred dollars is hereby appropriated for the purchase of apparatus and chemicals for the use of the geological and natural history survey, the same to be expended by the order of the board of regents of the university of Minnesota. SEC. 6. It shall be the duty of the board of regents of the university of Minnesota to cause duplicate geological specimens to be collected, and lo furnish to each of the three Normal schools suites of such specimens after the university collection has become complete. SEC. 7. When the geological and natural history survey of the state shall have been com- pleted, the final report on the same by the said board of regents shall give a full statement of the sales of the salt lands hereby given into the custody and control of the board of regents of the university of Minnesota, together with the amount of moneys received therefrom, and of the balance, if any, left in the hands of said board of regents. SEC. 8. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage. Approved March 10, 1873. In compliance with the above law the state geologist made an exami- nation of the peats in the southern portion of the state and rendered a report on them in 1873. On examining the condition of the United States grant of land for salt springs, which the same law devotes to the prosecu- tion of the survey, it was found that a large part of these lands had never been certified to the state, not through any fault of the governor* or other state officers, but through the tardiness of the oflicers of the general gov- ernment. The original grant covered 46,080 acres. Of this sum only 18,771 acres were then available for the prosecution of the survey. The uncerti- fied lands aggregated 19,872 acres. A memorial of the state legislature was presented to congress, asking the privilege to make re-selections, and through the efforts of governor J. S. Pillsbury and senator S. J. R. McMillan, such permission was granted, and the certified amount of the salt spring lands, designed for the prosecution of the survey, was more than doubled. The survey has continued without interruption since its beginning in 1872. The principal events, and its results from year to year have been recorded in the annual reports, and it is not necessary to enter upon the internal and personal history involved in its management and prosecution. MINNEAPOLIS, JANUARY, 1881. [NOTE. — Since this historical sketch was written Mr. Neill has published some new facts concerning Mr. David Thompson, who is mentioned on page 25 as a geographer employed by the Northwest Fur Company, t derived from the records of the company in the Parliament library at Ottawa. From this it appears that Mr. Thompson crossed the state of Minnesota in 1798, from *Gov H. H. Sibley had all theie lands located according to the terms of the grant. See Report concerning the salt spring lands due the state of Minnesota. By N. H. Winchell, 1874. fNeill'i History of Minnesota, 4th «dition, 1882. 1 10 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Present survey, 1872-82, the Bed river of the North to lake Superior. He ascended the Red Lake river to the Clearwater river, which lie followed to the mouth of a tributary from the north, known as Wild Rice river. From the last he made a portage of four miles and again reached Red Lake river. From Red lake he proceeded southward by the usual route to Turtle lake, the same as the Julian Source the Mississippi described by Mr. Beltrami in 1823, thence down the Mississippi to Sandy lake and by way of the Savannah rivers to the mouth of the St. Louis at Fond du Lac. Mr. Neill has also called attention to the existence of other maps of the region south and west of lake Superior older than that of Franquelin of 1688, represented on plate-page No. 2. One of these is by the engineer Raudin, another is by Joliet and Franquelin, and a third is by Joliet. These maps give the name Buade to the Mississippi river, and apply the term Frontenacie to the whole country north and west of the mouth of the Wisconsin river. Only the third, that of Joliet, of 1764, has been published. On the historical plate (No. 1), Du Luth's fort (Kamanistigouia) is placed at the mouth of the St. Louis river on the authority of Perrot, who says (Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society for 1867, p. 26), son poste estoit au fond du lac Superiew, though many other authorities concur in placing it at Three Rivers, at the head of Thunder bay.] CHAPTER II. THE GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES OF MINNESOTA. BY N. H. WINCHELL. It is intended in this chapter to give only such general statements as will se*ve to make intelligible the more special descriptions of following chapters. The physical features of the state may be considered from differ- ent points of view, viz: 1. Position, boundaries and area of the state. 2. The distribution and character of the drift. 3. The surface configuration of different parts of the state. 4. The relative elevations of different parts of the state. 5. The kinds and distribution of the soils and subsoils. 6. The lakes and rivers, and the qualities of water of different portions. 7. The nature and distribution of the native forests and their relation to the prairies. 8. The commanding geographical and commercial position of the state. I. POSITION, BOUNDARIES AND AREA. Boundaries. The northern boundary of the state of Minnesota, as far as the lake of the Woods, was defined by the terms of the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, concluded at Paris, September 3d, 1783. The boundary line of the United States was declared to run along the mid- dle of the Ontario, Erie, Huron, Superior, and Long lakes,* and their water *Carver's map, published in 1770, in London . shows Long lake as an enlargement of the lower part of Pijfeon river. THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Boundaries. connections "to the most northwestern point of the lake of the Woods, and thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi ;" thence down the middle of that river to the thirty-first parallel of .latitude. It was defined more carefully by the Webster- Ashburton treaty of Washington, August 9th, 1842, in the following words : " To the mouth of Pigeon river, and up the said stream to and through the North and South Fowl lakes to the lakes of the hight of land between lake Superior and the lake of the Woods ; thence along the water commu- nication to lake Saisaginaga and through that lake ; thence to and through Cypress lake, Lac du Bois Blanc, Lac la Croix, Little Vermilion lake and lake Mamecan, and through the several smaller lakes, straits or streams connecting the lakes here mentioned, to that point in Lac la Pluie, or Rainy lake, at the Chaudiere falls, from which the commissioners traced the line to the most northwestern point of the lake of the Woods ; thence along the said line to the said most northwestern point, being in latitude forty-nine degrees twenty -three minutes fifty -three seconds north, and in longitude ninety-five degrees fourteen minutes thirty-eight seconds west from the observatory at Greenwich ; thence, according to existing treaties, due south to its intersection with the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, and along that parallel to the Rocky mountains; it being understood that all the water communications and all the usual portages along the line from lake Superior to the lake of the Woods, and also Grand Portage from the shore of lake Superior to Pigeon river, as now actually used, shall be free and open to the use of citizens and subjects of both countries." The "most northwestern point of the lake of the Woods" was found by the joint "survey of the northern boundary of the United States," by com- missioners on the part of the United States and Great Britain, in 1872, to be in latitude 49° 23' 50".28, and in longitude west from Greenwich 95° OS'56".7, or about twenty-eight miles north of the forty-ninth parallel. This is the most northern portion of the United States,* and the land area belonging to the state of Minnesota, lying north of the forty-ninth parallel is stated by Major Twining to be about 150 square miles. This irregularity in the northern boundary was occasioned by a lack of geographical knowledge on the part of those forming the treaty of October 20th, 1818, which specifies •Excepting Alaska. GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. Boundaries.] that the continuation of the boundary from the "northwest angle" should be by a line either north or south, as the case might be, to the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, and thence westerly on said parallel. Subsequently it was found that the "northwest angle" was north of the forty-ninth par- allel, and it was so agreed upon and defined by the Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842. The southern boundary of the state is the parallel of north latitude 43° 30', and was established by the act of Congress which defined the pres- ent boundaries of the state of Iowa.* It was continued by congress as the southern boundary of the territory of Minnesota, from the main channel of the Mississippi river as far west as the northwest corner of the state of Iowa, by the act of March 3d, 1849, and was finally declared the southern boundary of the state of Minnesota as far west as to the intersection of the north and south line constituting its western boundary south of Big Stone lake. The eastern boundary of the state was defined by congress in the "enabling act" of Wisconsin, approved August 6th, 1846, in substance as follows: from the waters of lake Superior "to the mouth of the St. Louis river; thence up the main channel of said river to the first rapids in the same above the Indian village, according to Nicollet's map; thence due south to the main branch of the river St. Croix; thence down the main channel of said river to the Mississippi; thence down the centre of the main channel of that river to the northwest corner of the state of Illinois." The boundary separating Minnesota from Dakota territory is defined as follows by the "enabling act" of Minnesota of 1857: " beginning at the point in the centre of the main channel of the Red river of the North where the boundary line between the United States and the British possessions crosses the same; thence up the main channel of said river to that of the Bois des Sioux river; thence up the main channel of said river to lake Traverse; thence up the center of said lake to the southern extremity thereof; thence in a direct line to the head of Big Stone lake; thence through its center to its outlet; thence by a due south line to the north line of the state of Iowa." *Iowa when first admitted embraced that part of Minnesota lying south of the parallel of latitude passing through the confluence of the Blue Earth and Minnesota rivers and east of the meridian 17° 30' Subsequently this portion of the present state of Minnesota was added to the territory of Minnesota, and the state of Iowa was extended westward to the Big Sioux and Missouri rivers. 8 114 THE GEOLOGY OP MINNESOTA. [Area of the state. The Area of the State, by counties, has been given by Henry Gannett, geographer of the tenth United States census, in round numbers, and its aggregate area at 83,365 square miles, of which 4.160 square miles are con- sidered water surface and 79,205 land surface. This, however, does not include any portion of the lake of the Woods, nor Rainy lake, and the areas of the northern unorganized counties are estimated in "thousands" of square miles, viz : Beltrami, 5,000 ; Cass, 4,000 ; Itasca, 5,000 ; Lake, 3,000 ; Polk, 4,000; St. Louis, 6,000, and Cook, 460. Lac qui Parle, Yellow Medi- cine and Lincoln counties are reduced for the proposed formation 01 Canby county, which, however, not having been approved by the vote of the inhabitants, was not constituted and is not listed. Swift county is given at 580 instead of 757 square miles, and Renville at 900 instead of 981. For the purpose of getting a more exact statement of the area of the state, the whole has been re-computed from the records of the state auditor's office in St. Paul, with the results shown in the following table.* AREAS OF THE COUNTIES OF MINNESOTA IN SQUARE MILES AND ACRES. COUNTIES. LAND. WATER. TOTAL. SQ. MILES. ACRES. SQ. MILES. ACRES. SQ. MILES. ACRES. Aitkin 1,821.39 424.88 1,307.79 4,969.44 402.81 494.53 74309 605.91 857.72 354.15 2,667.78 578.54 421.02 1,043.95 1,406.84 636.87 824.04 605.87 437.43 626.58 709 43 864.22 701.94 1,165,691.90 271,925.66 836,987.09 3,180,445.27 257,798.90 316,497.42 475,582.34 387,783.30 548,942.09 226,652.28 1,707,382.00 370.269.93 269,451.12 668,124.66 900,378.49 407,594.35 527,387.51 387,753.96 279,956.47 401,014.74 454,033.32 553,101.90 449,242.53 173.58 20.10 137.62 1,037.68 3.55 41.78 33.79 10.84 9.47 22.S5 629.76 15.67 30.64 23.41 273.56 13.52 127.46 5.45 1.22 96.08 14.29 2.9S» 20.74 111,090.48 12,860.82 88,073.66 664,109.46 2,275.41 26,737.33 21,619.39 6,937.52 6,057.91 14,307.30 403,041.25 10,027.23 19,611.38 14.984.16 175,076.51 8,655.65 81.570.41) 3,488.61 782.43 61,485.88 9,151.21 1,912.54 13,271.87 1,994.97 444.98 1,445.41 6,007.12 406.36 536.31 776.88 616.75 867.19 376.50 3,297.54 594.21 451.66 1,067.36 1,680.40 650.39 951.50 611.32 438.65 722.66 723.72 867.21 722.68 1,276,782.38 284,786.48 925,060.75 3,844,554.73 260,074.31 343,234.75 497,201.73 394,720.82 555,000.00 240.959.58 2,110,423.25 380,297.10 289,062.56 683,108.82 1,075,455.00 416,250.00 608,958.00 391,242.57 280,738.90 462 500.62 463,184.53 555.014.44 462;514.40 Anoka.. . ... Becker Beltrami Benton Big Stone Blue Earth Brown Carlton Carver Cass . ... Chippewa Chisago Clay . Cook Cottonwool Crow Wing . . Dakota Dodge Douglas Faribault Fillmore . . . Freeborn Mii ini- 11 and half of all boundary waters excepting lake Superior, no part of which is included. GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. Areas of counties. J 115 AREAS OF THE COUNTIES OF MINNESOTA. — Continued. COUNTIES. LAND. WATER. TOTAL. SQ. MILES. ACKES. SQ. MILES. ACRES. SQ. JULES. ACRES. Goodhue 764.58 544.15 551.44 568.75 522.83 416.61 5,662.57 696.98 527.40 776.72 2,148.80 770.02 2,076.42 444.52 522.43 709.50 485.14 1,673.64 704.73 596.00 571 .09 1,083.52 709.07 695.14 435.75 710.75 1,435.11 658.42 1,985.90 1,419.74 462.32 3,117.27 667.61 173.70 870.50 971.33 486.73 480.83 5,837.26 342.73 448.72 566.89 1,272.22 426.19 555.21 743.05 965.98 567.91 555.54 707.43 419,00 408.87 432.89 744.35 634.88 663.05 752.60 489,329.56 348,256.21 352,91£.68 363.998.07 334^611.87 266,629.79 3,624,04 ». 12 446,066.45 337,535.89 497,101.35 1,375,233.27 492,809.83 1,328,905.43 284,496.41 334,355.00 454,072.72 310,488.63 1,071,129.11 451,021.05 381,443.02 365,497.66 693,454.07 453 803.10 444,891.27 278,882.41 454,877.12 918,472.60 421,391.08 1,270,977.77 908,632.83 295,881.75 1,995,054.58 427,269.27 111,168.71 557,122.74 621,650.89 311,505.87 307,736.11 3,735.846.26 219,344.22 287,180.40 362,808.14 814,220.09 272,761.47 355,336.19 475,553.36 618,225.14 363.463.46 355,544.17 452,751.16 268,161.75 261,675.02 277,051.92 476,387.76 406.325.09 424.353.82 481,664.26 20.21 34.13 70.03 11.10 62.57 41.24 216.31 25.68 14.59 90.42 15.95 1.91 322.52 27.96 19.56 11.16 22.31 1.40 19.16 37.62 117.10 5.57 2.11 26.42 28.86 16.91 23.21 3.94 254.30 24.76 0.95 41.91 55.08 13.45 23.33 9.98 1727 1.84 774.49 15.87 20.16 30.84 57.85 4.40 16.27 14.68 42.36 13.92 39.09 15.35 18.01 21.14 2.56 6.69 4.04 50.92 10.52 12,936.06 21,843.03 44,821.20 7,104.17 40,045.25 26,395.86 138,438.89 16/.34.75 9,336.41 57,867.69 10,206.73 1,227.57 206,420.00 17,891.77 12,517.30 7,150.08 14,283.23 895.01 12,267.35 24,075.56 74,945.53 3,564.78 1,352.65 16,909.93 18,469.37 10,827.04 14,853.55 2,520.20 162,748.67 15,844.68 611.76 26,818.67 35,251.93 8,605.34 14,930.13 6,385.69 11,054.83 1,174.04 495,674.68 10,157.58 12.905.72 19,737.61 37,021.27 2,817.69 10,411.81 9,392.08 27,111.58 8,906.00 25,018.07 9,828.84 11,524.16 13,530.33 1,638.00 4,277.12 2.584.81 32,585.50 6,734.01 784.79 578.28 621.47 579.85 585.40 457.85 5,878.88 722.66 541.99 867.14 2,164.75 771.93 2,398.94 472.48 541.99 720.66 507.45 1,675.04 723.89 633.62 688.19 1,089.09 711.18 721.56 464.61 727.66 1,458.32 662.36 2,240.20 1,444.50 463.27 3,159.18 722.69 187.15 893.83 981.31 504.00 482.67 6,611.75 358.60 468.88 597.73 1,330.07 430.59 571.48 757.73 1,008.34 581.83 594.63 722.78 437.01 430.01 435.45 751.04 638.92 713.97 763.12 502,265.62 370.099.24 397,739.88 371,102.24 374,657.12 293,025.65 3,762,483.01 462,501.20 346,872.30 554,969.04 1,385,440.00 494,037.40 1,535,325.43 302,388.18 346,872.30 461 ,222.80 324,771.86 1,072.024.12 463,288.40 405,518.58 440,443.18 697,018.85 455,155.75 461,801.20 297,351.78 465,704.16 933,326.15 423911.28 1,433,726.44 924,477.51 296,493.51 2,021,873.25 462.521.20 119,774.05 572 052.87 628.036.58 322.560.70 308,910.15 4,231,520.94 229,501.80 300,086.12 382,545.75 851,241.36 276,579.16 365,748.00 484,945.44 645,336.72 372,369.46 380,562.24 462,580.00 279,685.91 275,205.35 278,689.92 480,664.88 408,909.90 456,939.32 488,398.27 Grant Hennepin Houston ilubbard Isanti . . . Itasca Jackson Ivanabec Kandiyohi . ... Kittson Lac qui Parle . . Lake Le Sueur Lincoln . ... Lyon McLeod Marshall Martin Meeker Mille Lacs Morrison. . . . Mower . Murray Nicollet Nobles. . . Norman OliQsted Otter Tail Pine Pipestone Polk. Pope . . Ramsey Redwood Renville Rice Rock St. Louis. Scott . . . Sherbuine Sibley Stearns Steele Stevens. Swift Todd Traverse Wabasha Wadena . . Waseca ... Washington Watonwan Wilkin. VVinona . ... Wright Yellow Medicine Total. . 78,649.00 50,335,367.19 5.637.53 3,608,012.05 84,286.53 53,943.379.24 116 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Drift. II. THE DISTRIBUTION AND CHARACTERS OF THE DRIFT. Nearly the whole state may be said to be drift-covered ; the only excep- tions being the extreme southeastern and the extreme northeastern portions. At any point on the northwestern boundary, as far east as the lake of the Woods, one may start out southward and travel to the Iowa boundary line without seeing any rock in situ except what he might happen to encounter in crossing the valley of the Minnesota river, and except the rare exposures of red quartzyte in Rock, Pipestone and Cottonwood counties. East of this meridian he would encounter occasional exposures of rock along Rainy river, but southward from the northern boundary he would still have almost an equal scarcity of rock exposure, were he to set out again to the Iowa boundary line. In the flat country south of Rainy river, extending as far as the divide between Red lake and lake Pemidji, there are a few outcrops of crystalline rock in the valleys of the Big Fork river and perhaps of the upper tributaries of Red lake. But that district is in general deeply buried under a sheet of drift similar in composition to that of the Red river valley, but less perfectly drained. The drift then is so thick in the region of lakes Pemidji and Winnibigoshish, and generally throughout the central portion of the state, that it does not afford another rock-exposure until reaching the vicinity of Motley. Rock is seen in scattered patches in Todd, Morrison Mille Lacs, Kanabec, Stearns, Benton and Sherburne counties, as well as at Pokegama falls on the upper Mississippi. But toward the south farther, except in the valleys of the Minnesota and Blue Earth rivers, the drift everywhere conceals the rock with an unbroken mantle from 100 to 200 and sometimes 300 feet thick. East of the meridian passing through the west end of Rainy lake, the rock is more and more frequently seen projecting above the drift, both along the Iowa boundary and in the central and northern portions of the state, especially in the valleys of streams that flow eastward. There is a tract of the state heavily covered by drift east of Pokegama falls, including the St. Louis valley and its upper tributaries, in which many of the streams that enter lake Superior in the state of Minnesota take their rise; but for the most part in the eastern half of the state the streams expose the rock more and more frequently, indicating an attenuation of the drift sheet GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. H7 Till.] toward the east, so that at last they become continuously rock-bound. The drift fades out, on the north, toward the rock-bound shore of lake Superior, as remarkably evinced along the international boundary, and on the south toward the ancient equally rocky valley formed by the St. Croix and the Mississippi. The diversified nature of the drift cannot be so briefly described. It may be divided under three general distinctions, viz., till, stratified sand and gravel, and stratified clay. Till. In general the entire drift-sheet might be said to consist of till, that confused mixture of sand, gravel and clay which is believed to be the product of glaciers, or land ice, since the other parts are insignificant in amount and area compared to it, and since they have been derived from it by the assorting and distributing action of water. When two or more of these parts exist at the same place the till always lies at the bottom. Where the drift prevails the most of the surface is till, but it fades out in the southeastern corner of Minnesota, and in its place is found a water- deposited fine clay or loam. This covers Houston, Winona and Wabasha counties, and the eastern portions of Goodhue, Olmsted and Fillmore. Its western area is underlain by till which increases in amount toward the west and finally rises to and forms the surface. This belt, occupied by the van- ishing western edge of the loam, crosses Fillmore, Olmsted, western Good- hue, western Dakota and Washington counties. In a similar manner, but from a different cause, the till is found wanting in the northeastern corner of the state, but hqre no loam takes its place. This driftless region is found to the north and east of Vermilion lake and Net lake. The rocks in this part of the state are bare, and as they consist of the crystalline terranes, the depressions hold numerous lakes which are connected with each other by streams that plunge from one rock shelf to another in their descent to Rainy lake or to lake Superior. Another variation and exception to the almost uniform till surface in Minnesota is found in the northwestern cor- ner of the state. This differs from the northeastern and the southeastern in having an unusually thick and uniform mantle consisting of both till and loam, the latter overlying and separated from the till by a sudden and dis- tinct line of demarcation. This area of loam-covered till not only occupies the valley of the Red river of the North, from lake Traverse to St. Vincent, 118 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Gravel and sand. but spreads eastward, covering much of the country to Red lake, the Big Fork river and Rainy river. Toward the south it tapers to very narrow limits and ceases at Brown's Valley. In the southwestern corner of the state is found still another modification of the till. While in the northwest it passes vertically from till to loam, though by a marked line of separation, in Rock and Pipestone counties it changes horizontally into loam, by a gradual and imperceptible transition from the characters of one deposit to those of the other. This change begins in central Pipestone county, and is completed before reaching the southern boundary of Rock county. At first the loam is confined to the surface, but it increases in depth toward the south, and the till gradually becomes converted to a pebbly clay and finally to a loam that shows the action of water in its deposition. Thus the four corners of the state, drained each in its own direction from the central por- tion of the state, exhibit four remarkable variations from the typical sheet of till that covers the rest of Minnesota in common with much of adjoining states, and each presents an interesting problem of glacial geology. The greater part of the till is blue or gray, but throughout the northeastern and much of the east-central portions of the state it is red, or has the color of non-hydrated iron-peroxide. Gravel and Sand. Along the valley of the Mississippi river, and also of most of the larger valleys of the state which drain southerly, are found deposits of stratified gravel and sand. These are not everywhere present along these valleys, but instead of them the surface consists of clay or of till; and in many large tracts they are not found at all. Below St. Paul this gravel-and-sand is confined to the river gorge, and constitutes a high- terrace flat. Such a terrace also skirts the St. Croix valley as far north as Taylor's Falls, the Root river and Zumbro valleys, and that of the lower Min- nesota. Above St. Paul such stratified gravel-and-sand deposits are found more generally, and sometimes are spread over extensive plains, though still occupying restricted areas. Such plains are found along the St. Louis river and its upper tributaries; along the Mississippi and its tributaries in Cass, Wadena, Benton, Sherburne and Stearns counties; also along the Pomme de Terre and Chippewa, and the Otter Tail and Crow rivers. These are not always immediately tributary to any present drainage valley, but frequently exist as isolated plains, particularly in Cass, Wadena, Meeker, \ GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. H9 Stratified clay.] Kandiyohi and Stearns counties. They are, however, in that case so grouped as to suggest a former direction of drainage of the local water-courses dif- ferent from that of the present. In most cases this gravel-and-sand deposit lies on the till, and in numerous instances it is covered by a finer sand into which it sometimes graduates by imperceptible changes, which sand in the same manner also graduates into fine clay. Besides these plains of superficial gravel and sand there are extensive beds of the same material embraced lenticularly within the till. These are specially frequent, and constitute a large portion of the drift in the rolling or broken tracts which cross the state, including the Leaf hills, the Mesabi Ji it/Ms and the Gateau des Prairies. They are the open mouths of water- reservoirs which penetrate within the drift-sheet and below it, and give rise to the artesian wells that occur on the lower till-covered portions, and from which issue the springs that feed the highest sources of the great rivers of the state. Stratified clay. If the loam which covers the southeastern portions of the state, including the counties of Houston, Winona, Wabasha, with por- tions of Goodhue, Olmsted and Fillmore, be included under such designa- tion, the most important and extensive tracts of stratified clay are found to occur in the most widely separated corners of the state, viz: the north- western and the southeastern. These clays, however, which have been deposited by the Red river of the North and by the Mississippi, respectively, at some former higher stage, exhibit very different chemical and physical characters. That of the Red river valley is gray, or blue, when unweathered, is compact and impervious without noteworthy exceptions, and lies on a great thickness of blue till, from which, however, it is some- times separated by an ancient soil-surface or by a bed of vegetable remains. While its largest constituents are alumina and silica, its differential charac- ters are due to the presence of a considerable percentage of the alkaline earths and alkalies, which give a peculiar nature not only to the soils, but also to the waters that are associated with it. That of the Mississippi valley below St. Paul, and especially below Red Wing, is of a yellowish, or yellowish-red color, or like powdered impure limonite, is not conspicuously laminated, though it is so quite distinctly in some places, and frequently becomes so sandy as hardly to justify the name of day. It lies generally 120 TI1E GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Surface configuration. upon the rocky surface, only a few angular fragments of the rock of the country, and of weathered chert being embraced in its lowest parts; but toward the west it overlaps the till, and its distinctive features gradually fade out as those of the till increase. The waters that drain it are chalyb- eate and calcareous, never alkaline, and the soils it forms vary from a fine, stoneless clay to a sandy loam. It makes red brick and pottery, while those made from the clay of the Red river valley are cream-colored. Be- sides these large areas covered by stratified clay, which may be taken as types, there are numerous smaller areas scattered through the interior of the state, evidently dependent upon the former or present operation of a large stream or lake, which belong to one or the other kind, but also sometimes exhibit a union of the chemical and physical characters of both. Such occur in Carver, Hennepin, Anoka, Meeker, Wright, Blue Earth and Crow Wing counties, and in several others. There is also about the west end of lake Superior a bright red stratified clay, seen at Duluth, and rising to the hight of about 450 feet above the lake. This seems to have been spread by the waters of lake Superior when they stood about 500 feet higher, though probably carried into the lake by the St. Louis and other streams from the red till which characterizes the drift of that district. III. THE SURFACE CONFIGURATION OF DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE STATE. The only part of Minnesota that may be styled mountainous is in the northeastern triangle included between the international boundary line, lake Superior and Vermilion lake; and much of this is heavily drift-covered, with a moderately rolling or undulating surface. But there are mountain peaks along the shore of lake Superior, and in the northern part of Cook and Lake counties that rise from 1600 to 1800 feet above the level of the ocean. There are also hill ranges or mountains, particularly those known as the Sawteeth, the Mesabi and the G iant's ranges, which maintain a broken outline, consisting of crystalline rock, and rising from 1200 to 1500 feet above lake Superior, or about 2000 feet above the sea. Westward from this mountainous tract the state shows moderate undulations of level, which primarily are due probably to the general contour of the rocky surface; but as the immediate surface is composed of drift, the configuration is dependent on the manner of deposition and accumulation of the surface materials. GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. Surface configuration.] Throughout northern Minnesota west of Vermilion lake, extending as far south as the sources of the Big Fork and of Red Lake river, and along the western boundary to Yellow Medicine county, the country is generally flat, like that which is known as the Red river valley; this is termi- nated by the Coteau des Prairies, which introduces a change of level amounting to 400-500 feet within a few miles, though the surface contour becomes nearly as uniform again after passing the hights of the Coteau. East of the Coteau, after a rather abrupt descent of 300-400 feet, the flats of the Minnesota valley are reached. These flats are about one hundred miles wide, and include the counties of Lac qui Parle, Yellow Medicine, Redwood, Brown, Watonwan, Martin, Blue Earth and Faribault on the south side; and Nicollet, Sibley, Carver, McLeod, Renville, Kandiyohi, Chippewa, Swift, Big Stone, Traverse, Stevens and Grant, on the north side of the Min- nesota river. Several other counties adjoining these are nearly equally flat, but they are on the drainage slopes to the Mississippi or the Red river of the North. The counties of Mower, Dodge, Steele and Waseca, with much of Freeborn and Le Sueur, are also flat. The region of the upper Mississippi, above the mouth of the Minnesota river, has in general a much more diversified surface than the valley of the Minnesota. It is marked by numerous low, hill-ranges, and isolated or clus- tered knobs, consisting of drift, usually till, which give rise to numerous lakes and springs. A conspicuous range, known as the Leaf mountains, rises in Otter Tail and Douglas counties, and extending southeasterly, sinks away in northern Kandiyohi and Meeker counties; but is re-enforced by a branch coming from the north through Todd, Stearns, and Wright counties. It extends through Hennepin, western Dakota, western Rice, Steele and Freeborn counties into the state of Iowa, where it is believed to swing round to the west, returning thence northward upon the Coteau des Prairies, which crosses Nobles, Murray, Pipestone and Lincoln counties. Toward the north from Otter Tail county it produces a belt of rolling land through Becker and southern Beltrami and Itasca counties, where it embraces the ultimate sources of the great rivers of the state and of the continent; and in the central portion of St. Louis county blends with the Mesabi range, which, partly as a drift moraine and partly as a range of rock-formed hills, extends to the eastern extremity of the state near Pigeon point. 122 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevations. In the midst of this broken tract of the upper Mississippi are flat and sandy areas in the central part of the state, characterized by an abundance of Pinun Batiksiana, which include much of the region from Leech lake to the Crow Wing and Leaf rivers and Otter Tail lake, and on the east of the Mississippi embrace much of Crow Wing and eastern Morrison counties. Similar flat and sandy tracts are found in Carlton and Pine counties, though not so uniformly characterized by the same species of pine. In the southeastern portion of the state the surface is broken and hilly, the contour depending immediately on the form of the rocky surface overspread with a sheet of fine loam. This configuration is due to the erosion of deep valleys in the horizontal strata in former ages, without the 'supplementary planing and filling process of the glacial epoch. Hence the changes of level are abrupt, as bench after bench of the rocky substructure is brought to form the surface. The benches are often separated from each other by wide plains of fertile soil, but along the river-courses they are brought into juxtaposition, and furnish instructive opportunities for making out the stratigraphic geology of the Cambrian and Lower Silurian rocks. This topography is most perfectly illustrated in those counties that border on the Mississippi river below St. Paul. It gradually becomes less conspicuous toward the west, on account of the feebler erosive action of drainage at points removed from the main valley, and also because the drift materials begin to be insinuated within and beneath the loam of that region, preventing the rocky substructure from expressing itself in the topography. IV. THE RELATIVE ELEVATION OF DIFFERENT TARTS OF THE STATE. Lake Superior is 602 feet above the sea; and a narrow tract bordering the shore of that lake, including the valley of the St. Louis river as far as Fond du Lac, is the lowest land in the state. The Mississippi river where it leaves Minnesota is 620 feet above the sea. The valleys of the streams in Houston, Winona, Wabasha and Goodhue counties are but little elevated above that river, and probably should be classed, as a group, next higher. But these valleys are narrow, and the adjoining surface rises rapidly to the hight of about 1000 feet above the sea, sometimes reaching 1200 feet. The Red river of the North leaves the state with an elevation of 767 feet above GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 123 Elevations.] the sea, and the adjoining land is flat, with but a slightly greater elevation. The thousand foot contour-line in the southeastern and northeastern corners of the state runs very near the Mississippi river and lake Superior respectively, but in the northwestern corner it is separated from the valley of the Red river of the North by an intervening tract of flat land thirty or forty miles wide, and above it the same plain extends a great distance further east. In the southwestern corner of the state the Rock river, and the tributaries of the Big Sioux river, pass the state line with an elevation of about 1300 feet above the sea. The surrounding country is about 200 feet higher, and a few miles further northeast, on the Coteau des Prairies, the general level is from 1800 to 1900 feet above the sea. The lowest portion of the state is in close proximity to the highest, which latter is in the Mesabi range north of lake Superior and attains an altitude of a little more than 2200 feet above the sea. The general surface of the state slopes from the north-central portion in all four directions towards its distant and opposite corners, although there are greater elevations in the northeastern and in the southwestern corners. The region west of Itasca lake rises somewhat more than 1600 feet above the sea, and the Leaf hills in Otter Tail county about 1700 feet. The great trough which crosses the state from northwest to southeast formed by the Red river of the North, the Minnesota and the Mississippi rivers, has its greatest elevation at Brown's Valley, which is 975 feet above tide. The thousand foot contour-line which bounds the valley on the north- east enters Minnesota from Manitoba about forty-five miles east of the Red river of the North. Its general course is nearly south to lake Traverse. It passes along the immediate bluffs of that lake and Big Stone lake, and thence follows the bluff's of the Minnesota nearly to New Ulm, where it begins to turn northward through northern Nicollet county. Thence it crosses the counties of Sibley, McLeod, Wright, and the eastern part of Stearns. It crosses the Mississippi about six miles above Sauk Rapids. It thence passes tortuously through Sherburne, Isanti, Kanabec and Pine counties, leaving the state where the St. Croix river begins to form its eastern boundary. On the south side the same contour line begins at the foot of Big Stone lake and, following the bluff's of the Minnesota nearly to New Ulm, it thence winds its way over the prairies of Brown and Waton- 124 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevations. wan counties, under the influence of the Cottonwood and Watonwan rivers ; enters Blue Earth county where it is in the same way modified by the Blue Earth river and its tributaries, and barely enters the north side of Faribault county. It passes through Le Sueur and Scott counties east of their centers, and nearly reaches St. Paul, but in the elevated parts of Dakota county it is suddenly deflected southward, and maintains a very crooked course among the bluffs of Goodhue and the southeastern counties, leaving the state near the summits of the bluffs of the Mississippi in Houston county. In the northeastern part of the state this contour-line includes a small part of the St. Louis valley and a narrow strip along the shore of lake Superior as far as the hills of Grand Portage. ELEVATION OF LAKES ABOVE TIDE-WATER. Feet. Lake of the Woods, 1025 Lake Saganaga, 1518 Vermilion lake, - - 1511 Rainy lake, 1150 Red lake, - 1140 Itasca lake, 1500 Cass lake, - 1300 Winnibigoshish lake, 1290 Leech lake, - 1292 Mille Lacs, 1246 Otter Tail lake, 1325 Lake Whipple, - 1134 Lake Traverse, 970 Big Stone lake, 962 Lake Minnetonka, 922 Swan lake, (Nicollet Co.) 970 Heron lake, (Jackson Co.) - - 1403 Lake Benton, (Lincoln Co.) 1754 Lake Shetek, 1475 Lake Pepin, - - 664 GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 125 Soils and subsoils.] Lake St. Croix, 672 White Bear lake, 910 ELEVATION OF HILLS, VALLEYS AND PLATEAUS. Red river flats at Moorhead, 913 Red river flats at St. Vincent, - 800 Coteau des Prairies, 1800-1900 Prairies of the Minnesota valley, - 1000-1200 Prairies of Waseca and Steele counties, - 1100-1200 Prairies of Freeborn and Mower counties, - 1200-1400 The valley lands of the Mississippi and its tributaries in the counties of Houston, Fillmore, Winona, Wabasha and Goodhue, - 650- 900 The upland prairies of the same counties, - - 1000-1200 The wooded region of the upper Mississippi, - 1200-1500. The wooded flats between Cass lake and lake of the Woods, - 1100-1400 The summits of the Giant's range, 2100-2200 The summits of the Mesabi range, - 2100-2200 The summits of the Sawteeth range, - 1800-2000 Rolling plateau surrounding Itasca lake, - - 1500-1700 Leaf hills, in Otter Tail county, 1500-1750 V. THE KINDS AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE SOILS AND SUB-SOILS. There is an element in the arable soils of Minnesota which gives them a general uniform similarity whatever be their origin or chemical qualities. They are seldom stony. The materials are almost everywhere finely com- minuted, constituting a clay, or a loam, or a sandy loam, or a pebbly clay. Even where the till rises to the surface and constitutes the soil, the chief ingredient is clay, and the stones that naturally belong to the till are so few that none are found to interfere with agriculture. The areas of stony soils are restricted to the broken tracts associated with the great moraines that cross the state, and to the slopes or tops of hills where drainage has so denuded the till-surfaces that the stones it contained have been concentrated. 126 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Soils and subsoils. The character and composition of the soils of the state are dependent on two general causes; (1) the nature of the subsoil, (2) the local modify- ing circumstances, the chief of which is in the nature of the local drainage. (1) The nature of the subsoil. As an element in the production and modification of soil, the subsoil is most potential. Into it vegetation sends its principal roots, and from it rise, by osmose the salts that renew the sur- face soil when impoverished by cropping or by unfavorable drainage, or by drouth. The soil may be said to be the comminuted and modified upper surface of the subsoil. The subsoils may be grouped under four divisions: Subsoils of blue till. Subsoils of red till. Subsoils of gravel or of sand. Subsoils of clay or of clay-loam. Whether the subsoil consist of blue till or of red, its physical characters are nearly the same, except that the blue till is generally closer and more impervious than the red, and is less stony; but its chemical characteristics will differ considerably according as it is blue or red. There is nothing of importance in the difference of color. The color simply indicates the origin of the till, and its accompanying qualities. The blue till, in gen- eral, is derived from the disintegration of the (.'rt'fiin'oiiH, and the red from Cambrian, though there are exceptions, and a blue till is also produced by the other formations. It so happens, however, that in Minnesota a large proportion of the clayey parts of the blue till can be referred to the Creta- ceous, with as much certainty as the red to the Cambrian. The Creta- ceous being a marine deposit, of an age when the ocean's waters in the interior of North America were charged with the salts of the alkalies and of the alkaline earths, the till resulting from its disintegration and distri- bution necessarily exhibits the same qualities; and as the soil is dependent largely on the subsoil for its characteristic chemical qualities, it follows that soils based primarily on the blue till in Minnesota will exhibit the same alkaline characters. Such is the case. Soils based directly on the Cretaceous rocks, without the intervention of any sheet of drift, as in west- ern Dakota and in Montana, exhibit these chemical qualities still more GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 127 Soils and subsoils.] strongly. Such soils are naturally supplied with abundance of soda, lime, magnesia and potash, and they constitute by far the largest part of the immediate surface of the state. With the exception of the soils based on the lacustrine clays of the Red river of the North, and those in the southeastern part of the state based on the loess-loam, the entire prairie part of the state is characterized by such soils. In addition to this, the same blue till underlies much of the timbered area of the state, in most places extending to the east of the Mississippi river, and including Scott and Le Sueur counties east of the lower Minnesota. Still the characteristic qualities of the blue till of the prairie regions become less and less marked toward the east, and in the timbered areas generally the soils would not correctly be denominated • alkaline. Subsoils of red till differ from those of blue till in containing a high percentage of iron -oxide, and little or none of the salts of the alkalies. They are generally calcareous, but less calcareous than those of the blue till. They are found distributed from Pigeon river, on the international boundary, southwestward, coincident with the strike of the Cupriferous or Potsdam formation. They form the surface as far as St. Paul, and eastern Hennepin county; and further southwest they are covered by the blue till. Toward the south and southeast from St. Paul they gradually blend with the eastern outrunning limit of the blue-till subsoils on the west and with the clay -loam subsoils of the "driftless area" on the east. Thus it will be seen that the blue and red tills give the dominant characters to the soils of the largest pail of the state, and that of these the blue till is the most important. Subsoils of gravel, or of sand, result from the superficial modification of the till of the region. They are always underlain, at a less or greater depth, by a till sheet, and if wells penetrate them they obtain the charac- teristic water. These subsoils give little effect to the chemical nature of the soils based on them, but on their successful cultivation they have a powerful influence, since they are quickly susceptible to the changes of climate, and the variations of local drainage. In certain seasons they are moi'e productive than the soils based on a clay subsoil, and in others they are nearly sterile. Such subsoils prevail in the higher areas of modi- fied drift along the principal water-courses, accompanied, in the proper 128 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Soils and subsoils. latitude, by the black pine (Pinus Banksiana), and in the plains of modified drift isolated from the rivers, as well as in the rolling gravelly (and stony) parts of the Leaf hills moraine. The same subsoils, but more fine, may be said to exist where the loess-loam of the southeastern part of the state becomes so sandy as to show very little clay, as in the upper part of the high terrace below St. Paul, and the terrace flat on which Minneapolis is situated. This is also seen in much of eastern Dakota county, in northern Ramsey and in Anoka counties. Subsoils of clay or clay-loam are found, especially, in the lacustrine areas of the Red river of the North, and of the Mississippi below Red Wing, also in some of the flats of the lower St. Louis and upper Mississippi. In south- ern and western Rock county, also, the subsoil passes from a blue till to pebbly and finely stratified clays, and these constitute a subsoil of this class. The soils based on these subsoils, possess the characteristics of the till upon which the clays lie, and from which they may be derived, but in a modified and much lessened degree. The alkaline till of the Red river region is due to the immediate disintegration of the marine Cretaceous, but the clays forming these subsoils are a fresh-water deposit; and in the act of deposi- tion a considerable part of the soluble alkaline ingredients of the country till were carried by drainage to the ocean. The pebbly clay subsoil, how- ever, of Rock county, is not so markedly different from the till subsoils of the region, in these chemical qualities. In the northwestern part of the state these subsoils spread eastwardly to the lake of the Woods, and along Rainy river to Rainy lake, including very much of the Red lake and Pembina Indian reservations; but toward the south the distinctive characters of the clay subsoil are confined to a narrow belt on the east side of the Red river of of the North, and disappear entirely at Traverse lake. The clay subsoils can easily be distinguished from the blue till subsoils of the same valley, ^ince where they prevail no stones or boulders appear on the surface. These are seen scatteringly in passing eastwardly upon the subsoils of till. Subsoils of this class in the northeastern part of the state are found in the St. Louis valley, below Fond du Lac, and above Knife falls. The flats of the East Savannah river, and of Leech Lake river are based on a clay subsoil. In the south- eastern part of the state the soils of the loess-loam are based on a clay subsoil, though sometimes this is too sandy to be styled clay. Such are GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 129 Soils' and Bubsoils.] found throughout -Ho iston, Winona, Wabasha and most of Goodhue coun- ties, and the eastern portions of Washington, Dakota, Rice, Olmsted and Fillmore. Such soils are remarkable for their mellowness and their diver- sified capabilities. (2) The local modifying circumstances. The local circumstances, due mainly to differonce of drainage, sometimes so modify the primary drift soils dependent on the nature of the original drift, as to completely mask their essential arid characteristic qualities. If the natural drainage has been imperfect for a long period of time the original soil will become blackened by accumulated carbonaceous matter, or whitened by the evaporation of calcareous waters, or reddened by iron from chalybeate waters. If these processes be carried on to excess, the resultant material is a peat, a marl, or a bog-ore. There are all shades of gradations between these substances and the original soils which they modify, and though they occupy but a comparatively small portion of the area of the state, they are distributed from north to south throughout its whole extent. The peaty, or mucky, soils are more extensive than the others, and are found both in the rolling timbered parts, and in the prairies. The accumulated vegetation some- times blackens the loams and the subsoils to the depth of six, or even ten, feet. This is due not alone to the growth and decay of vegetation on the spot, but also to the inflow of carbon by surface washing from the surround- ing areas. Calcareous or marly soils, are frequently found in the region ot the upper Mississippi, and in regions where the drift contains much lime- stone gravel and stones. Strongly alkaline soils are found in low grounds in the region of the unmodified blue till, and reddened or ferruginous soils occur in the eastern part of the state where waters draining from non- calcareous gravels and sands, evaporate in lower grounds. In addition to the influence of natural drainage on the original soils, another important cause has operated to blacken and enrich the soils of the entire prairie region of the state. The fires which have destroyed the grass of the prairies for many successive years, have annually deposited on the surface a residuum of charred unconsumed matter, which has entered within the soils and blackened them to varying depths, so that nearly everywhere the surface soil of Minnesota is a rich black loam, the same fires having 9 130 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Lakes and rivers- • operated to calcine and disintegrate the few stones of the till which hap- pened to be within their reach. VI. THE LAKES AND RIVERS, AND THE QUALITIES OF THE WATEKS OF THE DIFFERENT PORTIONS. Lakes. The number of lakes in Minnesota is about ten thousand. These can be divided into three classes based on their origin and topo- graphical surroundings; but the classes fade into each other along the boundaries of the areas containing them, in proportion as the elements that go to make up their characteristics become less powerful and are replaced by others. Sometimes a large lake partakes of the characters of two or of all these classes, like Mille Lacs, and like lake of the Woods. 1. Lakes of the morainic till areas. 2. Lakes of the modified drift areas. 3. Lakes of the areas of bare rock. Lakes of the morainic till areas. This is by far the most numerous and important class, embracing more than three-fourths of all the lakes in the state. The most remarkable and characteristic of these areas is that known as the Leaf hills or park region in Becker and Otter Tail counties, where the lakes are so numerous that to the observer one-half of the surface seems to be covered by water. This area, however, extends northward and south- ward, and in some other parts of its development it shows almost an equal profusion of small, deep lakes. This is true in some parts of Douglas, Carver, Hennepin and Le Sueur counties. This belt of lakes crosses the state to the Iowa line, including much of Scott, Le Sueur, and Freeborn counties, and the western portions of Dakota and Rice counties. It does not show so many lakes in Waseca and eastern Blue Earth. Toward the north and east this series of lakes, though less remarkable, includes the region of Itasca lake, Turtle lake and the " Julian sources " of Beltrami, the lakes that feed the Big Fork river, flowing northward, as well as those that are drained southward by the Mississippi, the Prairie and Swan rivers. Toward the east further it accompanies the Mesabi range, and supplies the numerous streams that enter lake Superior, terminating in the Indian reservation near Pigeon point, where some of its lakes exhibit also some of the char- acters of Class No. 3. This belt of lakes varies in width from ten to fifty GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 13] Lakes and rivers.] miles, and embraces Leech and Winnibigoshish lakes, two of the largest lakes of the state, though they do not perfectly illustrate the lakes of the first class. Lake Minnetonka, in Hennepin county, is most perfectly typical of the lakes of this class. The lakes of the Coteau des Prairies which crosses the southwestern corner of the state Irom Lincoln county to Jackson county, belong to the first cliiss, but they are not so thickly spread over the country as those of the central part of the state. Another important area of till-based lakes stretches southeastward from Leech lake to Mille Lacs, and another from Ramsey county northward to southern Pine county. The lakes of the last area, however, are not characteristically based on rolling till, but frequently involve the features of the second class. Lakes of the modified drift areas. These are found in the level or undu- lating portions of the state where the till, which is usually the material which confines their waters, is superficially covered with stratified clay or sand and gravel. They are comparatively rare, and usually shallow, but they constitute the largest lakes of the state. Red lake belongs to this class, being the largest in Minnesota, containing about 340 square miles. The northern shores of Leech lake, and the southwestern of the lake of the Woods exhibit the characters of this class. Such lakes are scattered sparsely over the central portions of the state in Cass and ^adena and in southern St. Louis counties. Some of those in northern Ramsey are lakes of this character. Lakes of the areas of bare rock. These have rocky basins, and are due to the immediate contour of the rocky surface. The lakes of the northern boundary of the state, from the west end of Rainy lake to lake Superior, and the numerous clear lakes that lie on either side of the boundary, illus- trate this class. The surface has been subjected to severe glaciation, but for some reason the drift is almost wholly wanting. The lakes take the shapes of the depressions of the rocky contour. They are very numerous, with tortuous and bold shores. They are connected by lively streams that have frequent rapids and cascades. There are here no deep rock-gorges cut by drainage courses, but the surface is that left by the glacier, and the water simply gets from one basin to another by filling them up and over- * running their rims. Lake Superior itself is a stupendous example of the 132 THE GEOLOGY OP MINNESOTA. [Lakes and rivers. same class, though its rock-rim was formerly covered by drift throughout much of its extent. This has largely been washed off in Minnesota to the hight of about 500 feet above its present level, by the former action of its own waves which have left terraces and other water-marks up to that hight. The lakes of this class extend southward to Vermilion lake, and there they begin to blend with those of the first class. Southwest of Rainy lake they blend with those of the second class. The northern por- tions of Rainy lake, and of lake of the Woods, exemplify the characters of this class, but the southern portions belong to the second class. Lakes Traverse and Big Stone, on the western boundary of the state, and St. Croix and Pepin on the eastern, do not belong to either of these classes. They are simply expansions in old river-valleys, not yet filled with sediment ; the former excavated in the drift sheet,* and the latter in the Cambrian rocks. Rivers. The waters of the state all find their way to the Atlantic ocean, but they reach that level through three of the cardinal points of the compass — north, east and south. The French and English geographers of the last century also located in Minnesota the source of another great river which reached the Pacific ocean toward the west. This river, which was designated as the "river of the west" was sometimes thought to be the Oregon, sometimes tb£Rio Colorado, and sometimes was confounded with the Saskatchewan river that enters the north end of lake Winnipeg from the west. Without this great western river, however, Minnesota occupies in a pre-eminent degree the summit divide of the waters of North America, at least so far as they exist within the United States. The hight of the main divide in the state, in the region west and southwest of Itasca lake, rises between 1600 and 1700 feet above the sea, and the average elevation of the entire state is probably not far from 1275 feet above the sea, the border of lake Superior, the lowest land within the state, being 602 feet. Hence, the streams which drain the surface area amounting to about 84,286.53 square miles, are not characterized by water-falls and rapids, but by their crooked courses and gentle, generally navigable, currents. The water area of the state is greater than that of any state or terri- *And partly In the Cretaceous. GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 133 Lakes and rivers.] > tory iu the Union, being 5,637.53 square miles, without including any part of lake Superior.* This averages one square mile of water to every fifteen of land for the entire state. This unprecedented water supply leaves the state by the valleys of seven different rivers, viz: the Mississippi, the St. Louis and lake Superior, the Red river of the North, the Rainy river, the Ues Moines river, the Rock river, and the Cedar river. The Mississippi river system. By far the largest and most important of these drainage systems is that of the Mississippi. It is the only one that crosses the entire state. It includes the most of the area of the great water-shed formed by the morainic deposits in the central portions of the state, its whole area being approximately 45,566 square miles. The upper Mississippi drains the timbered regions, and the Minnesota the southern prairie portions of Minnesota. It runs almost exclusively on the surface of the drift to the falls ot St. Anthony, and from there till it leaves the state, and even till it enters the gulf of Mexico, it runs in an old, rocky valley excavated in pre-glacial times. All its tributaries, also, below the falls of St. Anthony enter it through similar, deep-cut gorges. The other tributaries of this river, however, are post-glacial, and have excavated their valleys but little within the drift sheet. They rarely reveal the bed-rock. As the area drained by the upper Mississippi, as well indeed as that of the whole state, may be taken all together, as a great, but slightly roughened, or undulating plain, the valleys exhibit great monotony in their topography and other features. The system of the Red river of the North. The Red river of the North rises in the same rolling region as the Mississippi, at a point about twelve miles west of Itasca lake, at an elevation of 1600 feet above the ocean, and leaves the state, after a circuitous route by the south, with an elevation of 767 feet. The entire area is heavily covered with northern drift, and after leaving the rolling morainic regions of Becker and Otter Tail counties, the river passes through the fertile "Red river valley," which in its flatness and monotony, no less than its area, resembles the northern steppes of Russia and Siberia, to which also it seems to have had an analogous origin. The aggregate area of the state drained by this river is 15,107 square miles, and 134 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Lakes and rivers. the river is navigated by steamboats as far south as Moorhead. When the river is high its waters are connected with those of the Mississippi through the valley of lakes Traverse and Big Stone, and boats can pass from the Mississippi to lake Winnipeg in Canada, without unlading.* Indeed there is every evidence of the former existence of a river passing through this valley and draining the waters of the Red river of the North, and lake Winnipeg, by way of the Minnesota to the Mississippi. The flat portion of this drainage area is generally one of prairie, but it extends in its north- ern part far to the east, embracing Red lake and its tributaries, and includes a large area that is timbered, the prairie-belt at St. Vincent being not more than fifteen miles wide, east of the river. The Rainy river drainage system has an approximate area, in Minne- sota, of 10,330 square miles. It extends along the international boundary from the water-divide between North and South lakes to the "north-west point" of the lake of the Woods. Its waters are derived from the lakes of the "region of bare rock," as far as to the west end of Rainy lake. To the west of that there are several tributaries from the south which rise in the northern sweep of the belt of morainic hills, and in the flat marshy tract south of Rainy river, which flow entirely upon the surface of the \ drift-sheet, and very rarely come in contact with the underlying rock. Its area in the state is smaller than that of the Red river of the North, but the annual discharge of water is apparently about double that from the Red river valley. It receives waters from land more than two thousand feet above the ocean, and where it leaves the state it has an altitude, in the lake of the Woods, of 1025 feet.f This area also wa? formerly drained wholly or in part, by the Mississippi. There is a continuous river valley between the southern end of Bow String lake and lake Winnibigoshish, in which in time of freshet there is a continuous water-course from the Mississippi to Hudson's bay. In the same manner, but among the rocks of the north- eastern part of the state, the North and South lakes, which are tributary, respectively, to the Rainy river system and the St. Lawrence system, on *This was attempted in 1869 by Capt. John B. Davis, with a small, flat^bottomed, square-bowed boat, named the Freighter, owned and run by himself; but he was compelled to abandon his boat about ten miles below Bi^ Stone lake, on account of the subsidence of the water and the desertion of his crew. The boat was pillaged and nearly destroyed by the Indians, but the timbers of its bottom were still visible in 1879. Capt. Davis stated that if he had started twenty or thirty days sooner, he would have got through with little trouble. fThe elevation of the lake of the Woods here given is that determined by the the U. S. northern boundary com- mission, Maj. W. J. Twining, chief astronomer, based on Fort Pembina at 760 ft., all determined by a series of barometric observation:*. Daily means for one year were reduced with this result. The geological report of C;ui;ula for 1874 gives the elevation of the lake of the Woods, by the Canada Pacific R. It. survey, at 1042, which is the same ligure as that of the astronomical station of the northern boundary commission at the "northwest angle." GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 135 Lakes and rivers.] opposite sides of the water divide, have the same level, and probably con- stitute one connected body of water, although they have no visible over- land connection. A short, low portage trail unites them, and constitutes the international boundary line. The St. Louis and lake Superior dminaye system includes 8,552 square miles, not counting any portion of lake Superior itself. Taken altogether this is the most elevated and most hilly portion of the state. Its waters descend, with frequent cascades, from over 2200 feet above the sea to 602 feet, the level of lake Superior, the most rapid fall being within five or ten miles of that lake, and sometimes within two. The upland is a high rock- plateau marked by three mountain ranges, a large part of the northern- most, or Giant's range, however, being tributary to the Rainy river system. The waters of this system have at present no visible over-land communi- cation with those of the Mississippi ; but in glacial times, when the volumes of all the streams and lakes were many times greater than now, and lake Superior stood five hundred feet above its present level, or 1100 feet above the ocean, it had a continuous water-channel through the Moose and Kettle rivers to the St. Croix and thus to the Mississippi.* It appears, therefore, that anciently the whole drainage of the interior of North America may have been carried to the ocean through its main water-way, the Mississippi. The Des Moines river runs along the northeast side of the Coteau des Prairies from which it receives numerous small tributaries, and carries off the surface waters from an area of prairie, in Minnesota, equal to about 1940 square miles. As this water finally reaches the Mississippi, it might perhaps with propriety be embraced in the drainage system of that river. The Rock river system, which is tributary to the Missouri river through the Big Sioux, includes about 1702 square miles, and embraces Nobles, Rock and Pipestone counties in the southwestern corner of the state. This sys- tem is confined to the southwesterly slopes of the Coteau des Prairies, and the surface is smooth and treeless. The Cedar river system, which is also connected with the Mississippi through the state of Iowa, is the smallest of the seven drainage areas of the *See the American Journal of Science and Arts (S), If. 15, for an account of another ancient outlet of lake Superior into lake Michigan. Lake Michigan was tributary to the Mississippi through the Illinois, and lake Erie to the Missis- sippi through the W abash river in Indiana. 136 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Timber distribution. state, embracing but 1089 square miles of prairie situated mostly in Free- born and Mower counties. Qualities of the natural surface waters in Minnesota. The natural waters of the lakes and streams of the state may be classed in two main divisions, viz., the alkaline and hard waters, and the chalybeate and soft waters. These qualities mix in many streams and lakes, indeed in most of them. The natural waters of the Red river valley may be taken as a type of the former class, and those of the Pigeon river, or of any of the streams that enter lake Superior below Duluth, as types of the second class. What has been said respecting the nature and distribution of the drift and the sub- soils of the state, should be borne in mind in considering the nature of the impurities of surface waters in different parts of the state, since the cause of one is the cause of the other. They both depend on the nature of the underlying till, or, in the absence of till, of the bedded rocks. The chemical peculiarities of the blue, or gray northwestern till are impressed on, and even are made manifest by, the surface waters. Hence we find the alkaline and hard waters occupying the most of the state, but having their chaiac- ters less and less marked in the eastern portion; we find the irony and soft waters draining the surfaces of red till, or, in its absence, of bare rock in the northern part of the state. VII. THE NATURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE NATIVE FOREST AND ITS RELATION TO THE PRAIRIES. The state has about 31,800 square miles of prairie, and about 52,200 square miles of forest, including in each the water-areas adjacent or embraced within them. In this area of prairie, however, is included a belt of thinly forested country which is interspersed both with prairie and timbered patches, the forest being reckoned to extend only to the limit of large trees and having a continuous margin. Some parts of the prairie portion also embrace isolated patches of heavy timber, as in Fillmore, Houston and Blue Earth counties, as well Olmsted, Winona, Dodge and Wabasha, and along most of the river valleys. At the same time, even within the heavily timbered portions of the state, there are isolated small areas of prairie, or meadow land, but these are in low ground, and their exemption from trees cannot be attributed generally to the same cause or causes as those that have produced the great GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 137 Timber distribution.] prairies of the west. Such areas are found along the lower portion of the Minnesota valley, and along the Mississippi in Benton, Sherburne and Anoka counties, and about the shallow lakes of the modified drift areas wherever they occur. There are also large areas within the timbered portions that have been desolated by fire, and although a young growth of trees is rapidly restocking them with forest, they are not now properly regarded as timbered. Of these no account is made in the foregoing statement of the amount ol prairie in Minnesota. Such burnt tracts are most numerous north and east of a line passing northwestwardly through Mille Lacs, and still more frequent north and east of a parallel line passing through Duluth. These burnt areas are generally flat or moderately undulating, and have a light soil. In general the line separating the prairie from the forest may be defined as follows : It enters the state from Manitoba, about sixteen miles east of of the Red river of the North, gradually diverging from the river. It crosses Red Lake river eighteen miles east of Crookston, though a large spur of timber follows the Red Lake river westward to within ten miles of Crooks- ton. It crosses the Sand Hill river about the center of town 147.44, where it rapidly swings east to town 144.38, except that another important spur accompanies the north side of Wild Rice river as far west as town 144.44. At Rice lake in town 144.38 it turns south and then west to the center of town 143.41. Thence it again turns south to White Earth lake, and leaving the sources of Pelican river on the east, it reaches Fergus Falls, which is situated on the very margin of the timbered area. From there it swings eastward, and then southeastward, with a very crooked course to Alexandria, which is also on the margin of the native forest. Sauk Center is similarly situated. The Sauk river forms the limit of timber through Stearns county to its great bend in town 123.3/0. Then the line passes southwestwardly, by the shortest distance, to the north branch of Crow river, which in a similar manner defines it to near the east line of Meeker county, where it forms another right angle and reaches the south branch of Crow river. Crossing it, however, north of Glencoe, it dodges again southwestward from Glencoe, about ten miles, when it is turned southeast along the south side of a trib- utary of the Minnesota, and reaches the vicinity of Henderson. It continues thence southward, to the west of St. Peter, but with considerable interrup- tion by prairie, and crosses the Minnesota a little west of Mankato. South- 138 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Timber distribution. ward from Mankato it sends fingers of timbered land along the streams through the Undine region to the Iowa state line, and turns eastward along the Le Sueur river in Waseca county, and, with a tortuous course, reaches Faribault. It ascends the Cannon valley to Owatonna, with a width of timber on the east side of about three miles, returning abruptly from Owa- tonna nearly due north through Rice and Dakota counties. At fifteen miles south of St. Paul it turns east and southeast, crossing the Mississippi about five miles above Hastings. This includes the whole of Washington and Ramsey counties within the timber belt, but they are timbered in about the same manner as several of the southeastern border counties, with gen- erally small trees and numerous openings of prairie. As to the nature of the •forests of Minnesota, the northern portion of the timbered tract is largely coniferous. The most southern area of mer- chantable pine was in Chisago county south of Taylor's Falls, in the valley of Lawrence creek.* Yet pine trees are scatteringly found along the bluffs of the Mississippi as far as the Iowa state line, and on some of its tributaries in Fillmore and Olmsted counties. This species is known as the white pine (Pinus Strobus). It is the most broadly extended, and the most valuable of all the coniferous trees of the state. The Norway pine (P. resinosa) does not reach so far south, but constitutes a large and impor- tant part of the pine-supply in the central and northeastern portions of the state. The southern limit of the characteristically pine forest, or of merchantable pine, passes north and northwestward from Lawrence creek, in Chisago county, to the southwestern corner of Pine county, where it turns southwestwardly, running a few miles north of Cambridge, and along the north side of Rum river above Cambridge to Princeton, and thence nearly in a right line till it strikes the Mississippi about ten miles below the mouth of the Crow Wing river. On the immediate west bank of the Missis- sippi pine is found further south. The same line starts from the Mississippi about two miles south of the mouth of Swan river, and with a bend north- ward where it crosses the western boundary of Morrison county, it enters Todd county northeast of Long Prairie village, but passes north of Long Prairie about six miles ; and thence continues northwestward to Rush lake This creek was named from Mr. Sam. Lawrence, who had a winter's lumber-camp in its valley and cut most of the pine then standing. GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 139 Timber distribution.] in Otter Tail county, and northward along the west side of Otter Tail river and the associated lakes, to the Rice lakes in the White Earth Indian res- ervation, leaving the state about twenty-five miles east of the Red river of the North. That portion of the state north and east of this line is not wholly a pine-producing area, but various species of deciduous trees con- stitute a large part of the forest throughout the most of it, and in some large tracts other members of the cone-bearing family make up nearly the whole. In the northern part of the state, between Red lake and the lake of the Woads, and also very generally eastward to Vermilion lake, the country is flat and poorly drained, the trees consisting largely of tamarack and spruce, with only scattering slight elevations where the white pine flourishes. The Banksian pine is found abundantly on the plains of modi- fied drift on the upper St. Croix, and its affluents from the west, also in a similar situation on. the upper waters of the St. Louis, as well as through- out the region of bare rock in the northeastern part of the state. The other coniferous species are tamarack (Larix Americana), spruce (Picea nit/fa and alba), white cedar (Thuja occidentalis), each of which covers large tracts ; balsam fir (Abies balsamea), which is abundantly mingled with the deciduous forests of the northern part of the state, and occurs locally as far south as the forests of northwestern Fillmore county, near the Iowa state boundary; red cedar (Juniperus Virginiand), which grows about the bluffs of lakes in the central part of the state, and also extends southward along the Mississippi river and other streams, to the southern boundary of the state ; the American yew (Taxus baccata, var. Canadensis), which is a shrub forming dense undergrowth in the rolling forest-covered tracts in the north- eastern part of the state, particularly northwest of lake Superior ; juniper (Juniperus communis), which is mostly found in the central part, and another prostrate juniper which probably is J. Sabina, var. procumbens, found mainly in the northern part of the state. Besides these, Tsuga Canadensis, or hemlock, has been reported, as well as Pinus mitis, yellow pine, but these identifications are considered doubtful. The deciduous forest consists principally of various species of oak, elm, bass, poplar, maple, and ash, of which the detailed distribution will be given in another chapter. Beech does not occur native, nor chestnut, but the black walnut (Jitglans nigrd) and the Kentucky coffee-tree (Gymno- 140 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Geographical and commercial position. cladus Canadensis) are found native as far north as the valley.j of the Minnesota and Cannon rivers.* VIII. THE COMMANDING GEOGRAPHICAL AND COMMERCIAL POSITION OF THE STATE. The geographical position and natural resources of the state of Minne- sota are destined to make her one of the leading states of the Union. In agriculture, and in the manufacture of flour, she already has an advanced rank. Her facilities for diversified manufactures and for commerce, and her resources of timber and iron, not to mention copper and silver, though as yet mainly undeveloped, will in time make her the center of important and far-reaching industries, and these will lead to a corresponding position in political influence and civil institutions. No state in the Union presents greater contrasts ot natural surface than Minnesota, nor a wider range of natural resources. From the flat or undulating prairies of the southern and western counties, where for scores of miles a furrow can be turned from the primeval turf without deviating or stopping for a stone or a snag, one may pass in a few hours' travel to as rough and impassable hill ranges as can be found in America, or to as dense and majestic a "forest primeval." The first decades of a new state are given up to the easiest means of subsistence and income. It is only when the exigencies of growth and civilization begin to reach out for new fields that the more comprehensive industries of commerce and manufactures, or of mining, are brought into activity. Minnesota is at present known as a great wheat-raising state. That is natural. Her prairie soil, requiring only the plow and the seed, was the easiest of her natural resources to bring into quick development; but it should be remembered that she has within her limits equal advantages for other kinds of wealth and influence. The com- manding commercial position of Minnesota, and the effect it must have on her future history, have been thus summarized by Wm. H. Seward in a public speech at St. Paul, in 1860. WILLIAM H. SEWAED'S OPINION OF MINNESOTA. I find myself now. for the first time upon the highlands in the center of the continent of North America, equidistant from the waters of Hudson's bay and the gulf of Mexico — from the Atlantic ocean and the ocean in which the sun sets. Here, upon the spot where spring up almost side by side so that they kiss each other, the two great rivers, the one of which, pursuing *A few trees of black walnut once grew in the Mississippi bottoms near Nininger in Dakota county, GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 141 Seward's opinion.] its strange, capricious, majestic, vivacious career through lake, cascade and river -rapid, and lake after lake, and river after river, cataract and bay, and lake and rapids, finally, after a course of two thousand miles, brings your commerce half way to Europe ; the other, after passing through highlands and prairie a distance of two thousand miles, taking tributary after tributary, from the east to the west, bringing together waters from the western declivities of the Alleghanies, and from those which trickle down the eastern sides of the Rocky mountains, finds its way into the gulf of Mexico. Here is the place, the central place, where the agriculture of the richest region of North America must pour out its tributes to the whole world. On the east, all along the shore of lake Superior, and west stretching in one broad plain, in a belt quite across the^continent, is a country where state after state is yet to arise, and where the productions for the support of human society in other, old, crowded states, must be brought forth. This is a commanding field ; but it is commanding in regard to the destinies of this country and of this continent, as it is in regard to their commercial future ; for power is not permanently to reside on the eastern slope of the Alleghany mountains, nor in the seaports. Seaports have always been overrun and controlled by the people of the interior ; and the power that shall com- municate and express- the will of men on this continent is to be located in the Mississippi valley, and at the sources of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence. In our day, studying perhaps what might have seemed to others trifling or visionary, I had cast about for the future and ultimate central seat of the power of the North American people. I bad looked at Quebec, New Orleans, at Washington and San Francisco, and Cincinnati and St. Louis, and it had been the result of my conjecture that the seat of power for North America would yet be found in the valley of Mexico, and the glories of the Aztec capital would be surren- dered, in its becoming ultimately, and at last, the capital of the United States of America. But I have corrected that view. I now believe that the ultimate, last seat of government on this great con- tinent will be found somewhere within a circle or radius not very far from the spot on which I stand, at the head of navigation on the Mississippi river. 144 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. | Crystalline rocks. ance of the plug-and-feather in reducing the large blocks to sizable and desired dimensions. The composition of the red syenite from East St. Cloud (No 6) is not very different from the foregoing, but the feldspar is mainly flesh-red, and all the grains are coarser. It also has a higher percentage of silica, a fact that has been discovered practically by the owners who have given up the general use of it because of its being more costly to work. In some of the outcrops west of St. Cloud, in Stearns county, it becomes coarser-grained, somewhat resembling the red Scotch granites imported to the United States. In the winter of 1874-5 a block weighing ten tons was taken out of the red granite quarry about three miles west of St. Cloud for a monument base. It was polished at St. Cloud and was delivered to its purchaser at Chicago. This was very fine and greatly resembled the Scotch granite in color, grain and polish. At the point where this was taken out the granite rises about twenty feet above the general surface, and spreads over more than an acre. A similar red granite, found at Watab (No. 10), has furnished several hand- some monuments, some of which were put on exhibition at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, at Philadelphia, by Mr. Gurney, the owner. The other gray granite (No. 7) which is found at the East St. Cloud quarries has been noticed at several other places, and it is probably largely distributed wherever the red granites are found. In some places it passes by a gradual change into the red, in such a way as to suggest that the whole was originally gray, and that the red color has been superinduced since its formation by some difference of exposure to the elements. It is No. 835 of the geological survey series.* The true composition of this rock is not readily ascertained by simple ocular inspection, since the quartz and the feldspar are very similar in color and luster. When freshly quarried they both appear glassy ; the cleavage of the feldspar is not evi- dent, though that mineral exhibits an irregular parting or stepstone frac- ture, and when in compact mass it seems to be translucent. Hence the general aspect is very much like that of the gabbro of Duluth when freshly quarried. It has a clear, bluish-gray, uniform color, and is feebly trans- lucent. The whole content of silica in this rock is 74.72 per cent., being a •Tenth annual report, p. HI. BUILDING STONES. 145 Crystalline rocks.] little more than that in the red syenite, and for the same reason it has ceased to be wrought at East St. Cloud. Microscopic characters of No. 1. The intimate structure of the fine-grained gray syenite from East St. Cloud can be seen more minutely by examining the colored illustration, plate A, fig. 1, which shows a magnified thin-section of the rock in ordinary light increased forty diameters. The dark brown grain is biotite, the light brown and the brownish-green grains are hornblende, and the green grains are chlorite. The most of the figure contains minerals that are not individ- ualized in common light. They simply show a general cloudiness due to such included impurities as ochreous limonite. The same field is shown in the same position, as it appears in polarized light between crossed Nicols, in plate A, lig, 2, where that portion which was uuindividualized in com- mon light is seen to consist of numerous different grains, the larger part of them being quartz. Microscopic characters' of No. 4. In plate A, figures 3 and 4, are seen the characters of this rock magnified forty diameters, the former in ordinary light and the latter in polarized light between crossed Nicols, the same field being represented in each. The green mineral is derived from a change in the hornblende, and is as near chlorite as any established mineral ; but it shows all stages of change from pure hornblende to a green, granular, confusedly polarizing substance. When this green substance accumulates abundantly, it acquires a minutely foliated structure which indicates chlorite. The large striated grain in the center (fig. 4) is plagioclase, and probably albite. Microscopic characters of JVos. 6 a«d!10. This rock has very evident grains of quartz, ortho- clase and hornblende, but they are all more or less affected by included impurities. The quart/, shows clouds and linear groups of bubbles and cavities, polarizing brilliantly. The orthoclase is filled with impurities so as to be sometimes nearly opaque, and at other times has alternating but nearly parallel, undulating ;md interrupted lines of light and light gray ; while the hornblende is in about the same condition as described in the last. The figure (No. 5, plate A) represents a microscopic field containing these three minerals magnified forty diameters, some of the horn- blende evidently being darkened by emery derived from the polishing lap. With an objective magnifying two or three hundred diameters these minerals, particularly the quartz and feldspar, are seen to contain minute crystallites, some of them being acicular like apatite, or tremolite. Microscopic characters of No. 7. This rock is composed mainly of quartz and gray orthoclase, which are about equally abundant. The quartz is pierced by numerous irregular fissures, and has lines of pores, and in the pores are undetermined rnicrolites. The feldspar shows no twinning striation, but has the generally clouded appearance of orthoclase when somewhat changed. At lake Suganaga are other granitic rocks. They extend over very large areas, and are favorably exposed for quarrying. Some of them are quite light-colored, or very similar to the "white granite" of Watab. They change to a bedded light-colored syenitic gneiss. There is also a red syenite, which is seen back of Duluth in the hill- ranges, and probably extends from there northwestwardly, in an interrupted manner nearly to the international bo undary line. It is associated with gab- bro (No. 2) intimately, and they interchange in areas so quickly that they seem to have been once both molten at nearly the same time. This rock has not attracted much attention, and has not been quarried except at Beaver Bay, where Messrs. Wieland Brothers have used it in the filling of the cribs of their dock. The analysis of this red syenite from Beaver Bay is given in the general table (No. 5) showing a content of silica amounting 10 140 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Crystalline rocks. to 71.81 per cent. Another analysis of a sample from Duluth gave the fol- lowing results.* Silica, 75.78 Alumina, 11-09 Sesquioxide of iron, 2.09 Calcium oxide, .86 Magnesium oxide, .65 Potassium oxide, - 1.06 Sodium oxide, - 6.43 Water, 1.82 99.78 At the two points mentioned this red syenite is fine-grained; but from the occurrence of occasional boulders of very coarse grain, evidently from the same formation in its northeastern extension, along the shore of lake Supe- rior, it is believed that this rock affords a very beautiful and coarsely crys- talline building stone.f Besides quartz this rock contains red orthoclase, hornblende (often changed to chlorite), magnetite, apatite and ferrite. In the Minnesota valley, extending from near New Ulm to Big Stone lake, are numerous exposures of crystalline rocks. Sometimes these rocks present favorable opportunities for the prosecution of this industry, but they differ considerably from those of Stearns, Benton and Sherburne coun- ties. They are generally gneissic, instead of massive. They are more fre- quently true granite. They are always red. While their laminated structure renders them more easily wrought, and thus gives them an advantage over the firm gray syenites, of the Mississippi valley, it also renders them softer and more destructible under the action of the weather. They seem to have less quartz, and more of the cleavable minerals orthoclase and mica. Still there are exceptions to the gneissoid structure of the Minnesota valley granites, as may be seen in some of the exposures at Big Stone lake, and in the railroad-cuts near Montevideo. At East St. Cloud and Watab there is still another variety of syenite (No. 9), which, however, is probably only a coarser crystalline condition of the fine-grained gray syenite (Nos. 1 and 4),J since on analysis it has about the same content of silica, alumina and iron. It contains more lime and magnesia, but less potash and soda. It consists essentially of the minerals quartz, orthoclase, plagioclase, hornblende and biotite. At East St. Cloud 'Tenth annual report, p. 204. tC'ompare Nos. 667, 668 and 673 ; also 685 and 68«, tenth report. {Nos. 801 and 805, p. 106, Tenth annual report. PLATE A. EXPLANATION. Figure 1. Fine-grained gray syenite from East St. Cloud p. 145 Magnified forty diameters. No. 1 of the systematic table. Figure 2. The same between crossed Nicols. Figure 3. Fine-grained gray syenite from Sauk Rapids p. 145 Magnified forty diameters. No. 4 of the systematic table. Figure 4. The same between crossed Nicols. Figure 5. Red quartzose syenite from East St. Cloud p. 145 Magnified forty diameters. No. 6 of the systematic table. Figure 6. Gabbro from Rice Point, Duluth p. 147 Magnified forty diameters. No. 2 of the systematic table. 1'l.ATK A .1 (MO) Fig.3. IV ( VI (-40) BUILDING STONES. 147 Crystalline rocks. 1 this rock was opened by Messrs. Saulpaugh Brothers in 1881, for use in the Northern Pacific railroad bridge at Bismarck over the Missouri river. Microscopic characters of No. 9. The feldspar of this rock shows the twinning striation of plagioclase in some of its grains, but it is wanting in a large portion of them. Magnetite accom- panies the biotite, and slender cylindrical colorless microlites cut through the feldspar. Pyrite in small quantity is associated with hornblende. The so-called "granite" of Duluth (No. 2), quarried at Rice's Point, belongs to a very different class of rocks, and is now generally designated gabbro by lithologists. This term, derived from Italy, is applied to an igne- ous rock consisting of the triclinic feldspar labradorite, augite and magnet- ite. These minerals are all softer than quartz, which is wholly absent from the Duluth rock, but which makes up so large a part of the foregoing syen- ites. The rock, however, is more difficult to quarry on account of its tough- ness and homogeneity. It has no gneissoid structure, and the cleavable labradorite has but little effect in producing an easier fracture in one direc- tion than in another. While, therefore, taken in mass, this rock is softer than the St. Cloud syenites, it is more difficult and expensive to quarry and to reduce to convenient blocks. This gabbro makes the chief rock of an important range of hills in Min- nesota. The " Mesabi " in much of its extent consists of the same rock. It is found to vary somewhat in its color and composition, yet always within narrow limits, constituting on the one hand the "felspar rock" of Norwood,* where the ieldspathic ingredient predominates largely over the other min- erals, and is of a clear, almost glassy transparency, and of a gray color, weathering nearly white, and on the other hand the "trap-rock" so-called, as it is displayed at many interesting points along the shore of lake Supe- rior, where it has frequently been described as "greenstone." The green color in the latter case results from the change of the augite to delessite, or to* some chlorite-like mineral under the influence of the weather, and from the absorption of iron. The former variation from the typical gabbro is No. 8 of the general table, and the latter is No. 11 or No. 3 ; the last being from Taylor's Falls. Microscopic characters of Nos. 2 and 8. The labradorite which composes the largest part of this rock exhibits beautiful polarization colors, and generally an evident twinning striation in some of its grains. Sometimes it shows a banding of different colors between crossed Nicols. It is cut by innumerable irregular cracks, by which finally impurities enter and change its average compo- sition. The augite is apt to be somewhat fibrous from incipient decay, but when fresh its play of *Owen's geological report of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, p. 360. 148 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Crystalline rocks. colors in polarized light is nearly as brilliant as that of the labradorite. Plate A, fig. 6 is so drawn as to show a fibrous grain of augite, surrounded by labradorite containing scattered impurities. In some parts of this rock the magnetite, which is titaniferons, is very rare, and then it becomes the rock No. 8, and in some places it is so abundant as to compose the greater part of the mass, making an iron ore.* Figures 1 and 2, plate B, represent a section of the labradorite of Beaver Bay (No. 8) magnified forty diameters, the former in common light and the latter between crossed Nicols. The "granites" of Minnesota are adaptable to a wide range of architect- ure. That which is most used from St. Cloud (No. 1), is of a neutral gray color, of rather fine, inconspicuously granular texture, and has a resisting strength of over twenty-five thousand pounds per square inch. It resists fire and the sudden cooling produced by cold water thrown upon it, better than the more quartzose, and more coarsely granular rocks quar- ried at East St. Cloud and Watab. The other varieties, however, are more showy in construction, on account of their lighter color as well as their more close crystalline texture. Some of them will take and preserve a bet- ter polish, particularly Nos. 6 and 7, and are to be preferred for that reason for fine work, such as monuments or tablets, and for all inside trimmings. The syenite from Beaver Bay has a uniformly brownish red color and fine grain, and when polished is very beautiful. These crystalline rocks have been used in some of the principal build- ings in St. Paul and Minneapolis for trimmings, and have been sent for the same purpose to several other cities, particularly to Milwaukee, Chicago and DesMoines. At Sauk Rapids the fine-grained gray syenite (No. 1) is made into monuments. Stone from the Sauk Rapids quarries was used in the trimmings of the state capitol at Des Moines, and constitutes the entire front wall of the block of Nicols and Dean, at St. Paul. It is that used for paving at Minneapolis and St. Paul. The trimmings of the U. S. custom house and post office at St. Paul were taken from the East St. Cloud quarries, and embrace all the principal varieties there found, i. e. Nos. T, 6 and 7. Much of the stone put into the bridge over the Missouri river at Bismarck for the Northern Pacific railroad, came from East St. Cloud, but at a point further southeast than the quarries of Breen & Young, and con- sists of another variety (No. 9) of syenite. This rock seems to have stood the physical tests that have been made by the survey, on Minnesota building stones, less successfully than the other crystalline rocks. This, •Tenth annunl report, p. 80— Rock sample No. 695. BUILDING STONES. 149 Quartzytes.J howevei', may be due in some measure to the fact that in reducing a block for a test to the required dimensions with a hammer and chisel, it is more likely to be checked and weakened if coarsely crystalline, as this rock is, than if it be fine-grained; and some of the tests may have been influenced by such imperfection in the samples. Still, the greatest care possible was taken to avoid any unfavorable results from such a cause. The gabbro of Rice's Point, Duluth, has been employed in a few build- ings at Duluth, both as cut trimmings and for rough walls. It has also been used for monuments and for bases, to which it is specially adapted, being cut under the chisel and polished more easily than any of the crystalline rocks that contain quai'tz. The same kind of rock at Taylor's Falls has been but little employed for any purpose, though the rock there is favorably sit- uated both for working and for transportation. The labradorite rock (No. 8) has a lavender-blue or bluish-gray color, and is vitreous and subtranslucent in thin sheets. It does not have the opalescence which distinguishes the labradorite from the typical locality and from Lewis county, New York, but it has a compact, perfectly crys- talline texture, with crystals as large as J or f inch across. In some of the "greenstone" at Beaver Bay are perfect crystals over two inches in diameter, distributed porphyritically in the mass, but this structure is very rare. This beautiful rock, when suitably handled, will constitute a valuable material for ornamental slabs and columns, and probably also for china ware. Titanic acid, which sometimes is found in this rock, even in large quantities, is found in nearly all porcelain clays,* at least in those of New Jersey, and suggests not only the possible origin of the kaolinic clays used for earthen-ware, but also the adaptability of the undecayed rock to the same uses. 2. QUAETZYTES. The red quartzyte at Redstone, in Nicollet county, which also is seen in Cottonwood, Watonwan, Rock and Pipestone counties, is sparingly used for building stone at points contiguous; and one or two car-loads are known to have been shipped to Minneapolis. It is the hardest stone in the state, or in the United States, probably, that can be stated to have been used for purposes of building. It consists almost wholly of quartz (84.52 per cent.), the red •Report on the clay deposits of New Jersey. Cook, 1878, p. Z74. 150 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Red Quanzyte. color being due to iron oxide which is disseminated among the grains and throughout their cement. As a layer embraced in this rock, the mate- rial known as "red pipestone", or catlinite, is found in Pipestone county and other places in southwestern Minnesota. This rock is very difficult and costly to dress into dimension blocks, but it is indestructible when once placed in a wall. The quarry at Redstone, near New Ulm, was opened in 1859 by Nicholas Thinnes, but since then several other parties have done most of the quar- rying, none of it, however, in a systematic manner. The quarries are con- tiguous and exhibit the same kind of rock. Much of that which is used now is thin-bedded, from one-half inch to two inches thick, but the stone could be got of any size and thickness desired. The layers dip about 15 degrees toward the N. N. W. As compared with the rock at Sioux Falls, the oppor- tunities here for quarrying are greater, and the stone is much more easily wrought. Its bedding is thinner and softer, though it is likely that by exra- vating deeply these beds would be found to be firm and purplish within. Some of the stone is wholly disintegrated, or loosened so as to be a sand- rock, losing its color to the depth of 2 — 8 feet, and some beds are loose- grained. Some of the lower beds are syenitic.* ' Samples of the Redstone rock in construction can be seen in Sommers' block and Frank Erd's residence, both at New Ulm, and also in the basement of the Catholic church at the same place. In Cottonwood county an extensive ridge of this rock, mainly covered by the glacial drift, runs east and west through Storden, Amboy, Delton and Selma townships, and enters Adrian in Watonwan county. Along the branches of Mound creek in Amboy and in Germantown, are fre- quent and favorable exposures. On the Little Cottonwood river are excel- lent opportunities for quarrying flagging; some pieces loosened by the action of the water being five or six feet long by three to five feet wide, and three or four inches thick. Many pieces much thinner are also found. Outcrops of the quartzyte occur frequently along the summit and on both slopes of this ridge, even where there is no water-course. The rock here has mostly a reddish gray color. Its stratification is in some places nearly horizontal, but more commonly it dips several degrees, often toward •See the first annual report, p. 75. BUILDING STONES. 151 Red Quartzyte.] the south. This range of quaitzyte, being the only rock found accessible throughout a wide extent in that part of the state, will be more largely quarried as the country becomes settled more thickly, and as buildings of more substantial character come to be required in the larger towns. In Rock county are numerous exposures of the same red qnartzyte,* the principal one, known as The Mound, being west of the Rock river, near Luverne. This mound is caused by the breaking off, nearly perpendicularly, of the strata of an extensive high plateau running northwest from there, consisting of this rock. The elevation is 175 feet above the river. The perpendicular bluff of rock rises from forty to sixty feet in its highest part, but owing to a dip of about twenty degrees from the horizon toward the west, or partly northwest, and to the breaking off of the upper layers, caus- ing a gradual ascent from the brow of the hill backward through several rods, the actual thickness of beds visible may be 150 feet. The rock here appears to be almost entirely a reddish, or pink, heavy-bedded quartzyte. If wrought there might be some softer and thinner layers discovered, and such probably exist in the lower parts of the bluff, now hid by the copious talus of refractory and large blocks fallen from the hard layers above. The main bluff curves westwardly at both ends, and by reason of the dip and ravines that enter the valley from the west, its exposed layers gradually disappear under the soil in that direction, but evidently are the cause of the range of elevated land running northwestwardly, since they are seen in numerous other places. The principal locality in Pipestoue county is at the famous quarry of the Indians near Pipestone City, which, however, was worked by them for the layer of metamorphosed red clay which is embraced between the quartzyte strata. There has been but little quarrying done at this place, the greater part of it having been executed by the Indians. There is a ledge of rock which runs north and south nearly three miles, consisting of layers of red quartzyte with a gentle dip toward the east, forming a per- pendicular escarpment toward the west, and rising at its highest point not more than twenty-five feet above the level of the prairie on the west. The rock here in general is exceedingly hard, in heavy layers one to three feet thick, separated by jointage planes into huge blocks of angular shapes, that *Compare the .sixth annual report. 152 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Red Quartiyte. lie often somewhat displaced. The color is sometimes pinkish, but in the massive portions it is also purplish. When it is brick-red the strata are apt to be thin and also more aluminous. At Sioux Falls, in Dakota, this rock has one of its characteristic out- crops, not only being the cause of the water-fall but presenting perpendicu lar walls between which the river flows for some distance before it roadies the falls. The rock here dips six or eight degrees toward the south. The beds are purple within, especially the thick ones, but toward the outside and along the joints they are changed in color to a rose-red, or to a pinkish red. None of the brick-red, heavily iron-stained color can be seen. The effect produced by weathering not only changes the color but also the hardness, so that the rock goes into a loose sandrock again and crumbles in the hand. This occurs to so large an extent that in suitable places it is gathered and used for mortar. There are also some beds that are now wholly (so far as can be seen) in this friable condition. The sand that results is a pure silica, nearly white, and translucent, though it is apt to show at h'rst a slight pinkish tint, arising from the remains of the cement among the grains. There is visible here, of the bedding, a thickness of about fifty feet, and the river goes over the beds from south to north, producing a fine water-power. At the quarries the regular strata are from six to eighteen inches thick. Some of the beds are purple, but that color seems to fade out gradually, passing through the "fawn color" of the Kasota stone of this state, to a light pink sandrock. The county jail at Sioux Falls is built of this rock, also the Queen Bee flouring njill, and it is being employed exclusively in the territorial penitentiary at the same place. It is used at Omaha, Nebraska, for street paving, under the name of " Sioux Falls granite." For ornamental purposes this rock has not been much employed. It will take a perfect polish, owing to its large content of free quartz, and will retain it longer than any granite. Small ornaments have been made of some of the richly colored strata, and sold under the name of "jasper", and some monumental bases have been constructed of it. The strata are very regular and firm, but at the same time are broken with a heavy sledge at the quarry. They break at random, and those blocks which happen to pre- sent a face suitable are used for range-work in the wall, the remainder being needed for filling and for the back-side. BUILDING STONES. 153 Quartzytes.] This stone is destined to be extensively used in the southwestern part of the state, and in the states still further southwest, notwithstanding its refractory nature, because of its accessibility, and the absence ot all other kinds of building-stone, and at the same time it seems to be one of the most promising formations for flagstone in the state, though it has not been employed for that purpose. Similar quartzytes are found in the northern part of the state. There is another silicious rock, perhaps deserving the name of quartzy te, of a very different color and belonging in a very much later geological period, which is seen at several points in the banks of the Minnesota river between New Ulm and Mankato. It has supplied some very good building material, and will also furnish flagstone. The layers are about four inches in thickness as they appear after long weathering and are tough and firm. They are associated with alternating layers of friable sandstone which aid in their extraction. These beds are sometimes so coarse as to warrant their being designated a conglomerate. The whole rock is light colored, or sometimes rusty, and horizontally stratified. As a building material it is very desirable, but the toughness and hardness of the texture, and the thinness of the beds, make it more suitable for flagging than for building. These beds are exposed on the N.E. J Sec. 16, Courtland, Nicollet county, rising 35 or 40 feet above the river, favorably situated for working. Some of the layers reach a thickness of six feet when they are wrought, this effect arising from the union and cementation of several of the thin layers at some depth within the quarry, a phenomenon which is common to all formations. Microscopic characters of No. 12. The quartz is in rounded grains from one-tenth"""- to onemm. jn diameter. They all have the optical characters of crystallization. They are generally not 'in immediate contact, but are separated by the cementing substance. They contain many impurities which seldom have an evident crystalline form. There are also other large grains which are now nearly or quite opaque from decay. These seem to have been originally some other mineral, perhaps feldspar. Some of these are red in reflected light, and they give the color to the rock, but when reduced in size they seem to be scatteringly disseminated even through the quartz grains, where they do not appear red, but somewhat yellowish, and semi-transparent. The cement- ing substance is composed partly of this red amorphous altered mineral. Figures 3 and 4 on plate U , show this rock magnified forty diameters, the latter in polarized light. 3. DOLOMITES. Under the term dolomite are embraced here only those magnesian limestones that show, on analysis, at least as much as forty per cent, ot carbonate of magnesia.* It will be seen by the table that, so far as they *Dolomite is a compound of carbonate of magnesia and carbonate of lime, the lime being 54.4 per cent, and the magnesia 45.6. 154 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Dolomite*. are employed as material for construction, the dolomites are confined to the St. Lawrence formation, and at the same time that none of them reach the percentage of magnesia required for pure dolomite. Besides the analyses that have been made by the survey, Dr. Norwood's may be referred to, exhib- iting the same fact, viz: Carb. lime. Garb. mag. From the shore of lake Pepin, 52. 42.2 From lake St. Croix below Stillwater, 48.3 36.8 From Gray Cloud island, a short distance above Hastings, 51.4 40.7 From thirty miles below lake Pepin, 29.7 9.7 It seems not only that the formation varies slightly from place to place, in respect to the per cent, of magnesia, but also from layer to layer within itself, since from the same quarry (as at Stillwater) the compact, even- grained beds which are most highly prized for building, containing over forty per cent, of carbonate of magnesia, alternate successively with vesicular and irregular strata which contain somewhat over thirty-seven per cent. The texture, however, does not always vary with the per cent, of carbonate of magnesia in the same direction ; at Lanesboro the even-bedded and compact rock contains between twenty-eight and twenty-nine per cent, carbonate of magnesia, while the vesicular beds show forty -two per cent. The vesicular texture of the Lanesboro rock, however, is not like that of the rock from Stillwater with which it is here compared, but more like the finely vesicular texture of the rock from Frontenac. The vesicular rock at Stillwater is irregularly porous, or cavernous, and has a darker color. The St. Lawrence formation is the limestone which is conspicuously exposed in the bluffs of the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers from Stillwater to the Iowa state boundary. It generally forms the tops of the bluffs, and causes the precipitous portions, the lower portions being made up of fallen debris, hiding the underlying sandstones. It is not only seen abundantly along these streams, but also along the bluffs of all the streams that flow into the Mississippi from the west between Hastings and Brownsville. Of the limestones of the state it affords more exposure, and is more generally employed for construction, than any other. Throughout its whole extent in Minnesota it furnishes a very excellent material for building— indeed one of the best, considered in all respects, to be found in the United States. Not only does it furnish the dolomites (Nos. 13, 14, 15 and 16), but also many of PLATE B. EXPLANATION. Figure 1. Labradorite feldspar, from Beaver Bay p. 147 Magnified forty diameters. No. 8 of the systematic table. Figure 2. The same between crossed Nicols. Figure 3. Bed quartzyte from Pipestone county p. 153 Magnified forty diameters. No. 12 of the systematic table. Figure 4. The same between crossed Nicols. Figure 5. Dolomite from Frontenac p. 155 Magnified forty diameters. No. 13 of the systematic table. Figure 6. Dolomite from Stillwater p. 155 Magnified forty diameters. No. 14 of the systematic table. 1'i.ATi-: tt. Fig 3. Fie. 5. VIII f» 40) X1IH«40) BUILDING STONES. 155 Dolomites.] those here classed as dolomitic limestones, which rank (some of them) higher on the comparative scale than some of the dolomites. It shows also some- times a percentage of insoluble matter as high as ten or eleven, which seems to replace carbonate of magnesia rather than carbonate of lime. When, however, the insoluble matter is largely aluminous it seems to replace also carbonate of lime, and the comparative rank of the stone as a building material is injured. An analysis of a sample from Sugar Loaf, Winona, largely used in the State Normal School at that place, gave the following result. Insoluble (mainly quartz),' 24.21 Ferric and aluminic oxides, 3.32 Calcium sulphate, 4.32 Calcium carbonate, 47.11 Magnesium carbonate, - 20.67 Total, 99.72 In this case the high rate of the per cent, of silica was due partly to the existence of silicious aggregations isolated from the mass of the rock, and partly to the geodic cavities lined with fine quartz crystals. The bulk of the rock probably would not show any higher rate than ten or eleven per cent. Microscopic character of the dolomites, Nos. 13, 14, and 16. No. 13 is seen in plate B, fig. 5, No. 14 in plate B, fig. t>, and No. 16 in plate C, fig. 1. They are all magnified forty diameters. The first (No. 13) is interspersed with natural cavities which the rock shows to the naked eye. These seldom exceed a millimeter in diameter. In some places there are similar spots in the thin section, which are now filled with a very fine-grained substance which has the same general color as the rock itself, but which appars isotropic between crossed Nicols, and if highly magnified does not exhibit any crystalline forms of microliths. Sometimes these isotropic spots have a dim con- centric banding of light and dark, as if they were due to successive accretions from the surround- ing rock. Sometimes between crossed Nicols they show a black cross which becomes dissipated on rotation and returns again. The whole rock is somewhat stained with ochre, and shows very rarely a small grain of quartz. The individual grains of dolomite are small, and do not often show the two cleavage systems. No. 14 is a much more dense rock. Its individual grains are from one-fiftieth"""- to four- fiftieths"""- in diameter. They are angular, but show no cleavage lines. They are flecked with numerous impurities. When seen with a low magnifying power they polarize between crossed Nicols in colors of blue and yellow. This rock also contains an occasional grain of quartz. No. 16 is very similar in all respects to No. 14, but is somewhat coarser, some of the larger grains sometimes having a trace of the natural cleavage remaining, as well as the rhombic form of the crystals. The dolomites here spoken of, and the dolomitic limestones from the same formation (Nos. 17, 18 and 21), are of a buff color, varying to a light drab, the latter appearing in the coarsely vesicular beds, as No. 18, from Stillwater, and they have therefore a lively and cheerful expression in any building. The rock is but slightly changed after many years of exposure 156 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [ Dolomites. to atmospheric influences ; indeed it has not been in use long enough yet in the state to show any change whatever by lapse of time, although it is in some of the oldest buildings of the state. The homogeneity of its texture and composition, and the regularity and thickness of its bedding, are quali- ties that enable it to supply slabs and blocks of any desired dimensions. At Frontenac it is cut into ornamental forms with comparative ease, and the same kind of beds as those at Frontenac are found throughout the south- eastern part of Goodhue county, and the northern portion of Wabasha. Its resistance to pressure, amounting sometimes to 25,000 pounds per square inch, is more than that of most granites,* and is sufficient to warrant its use in all structures, while for door moldings and caps, for sills and water-tables, and for all trimmings to brick structures it is unsurpassed. As a material for building, dolomites and dolomitic limestones rank very high. Numerous remains of Roman architecture in England, and par- ticularly at York, the seat of the commercial and military power of the Roman empire in Britain, have been found executed in dolomitic limestone, and many of them are in a better state of preservation than the generality of structures of later date.f Conisburgh castle, as old as the time of the Normans, situated between Doncaster and Rotherdam, is built ot a coarse- grained, semi-crystalline and partially oolitic magnesian limestone, and some of the blocks still show the marks of the chisel. The old Southwell church is constructed of magnesian limestone from Bolsover Moor. The new houses of parliament at Westminster are constructed of dolomite or dolomitic limestone, quarried at Norfal near North Anston, England. This stone was chosen after an exhaustive search throughout the British islands by a government commission, as the most suitable, all things considered, for the important structures that were contemplated, notwithstanding the gra- tuitous offer of granites from Scotland. This stone from North Anston is nearly a pure dolomite, containing from forty-four to forty-five per cent, of carbonate of magnesia, and about two per cent, of silica, iron and alumina. The report of the commission, consisting of Sir Henry T. De la Beche and Dr. William Smith, geologists, Charles Barry, architect, and Charles H. *Of ninety-nine tests of granites, reported by general Gillmore in the report of the chief of engineers, 1875, part II. p. 846, not one reached 26,000 pounds per square inch. tlathology, or observations on stone used for building. C. H. Smith. BUILDING STONES. 157 Dolomites.] Smith, " a practical man well acquainted with the working of stone", con- cludes with the following recommendation : "Having weighed, to the best of our judgment, the evidence in favor of the various building stones which have been brought under our con- sideration, and freely admitting that many sandstones as well as limestones possess very great advantages as building materials, we feel bound to state that for durability, as instanced in Southwell church, &c., and the results of experiments as detailed in the tables ; for crystalline character, com- bined with a close approach to the equivalent proportions of carbonate ot lime and carbonate of magnesia; for uniformity in structure, facility and economy in conversion, and for advantage of color ; the magnesian lime- stone, or dolomite, of Bolsover Moor and its neighborhood, is, in our opinion, the most fit and proper material to be employed in the proposed new Houses of Parliament." This preference for magnesian limestones is confirmed by the physical and chemical tests that have been conducted by the survey on the building stones of Minnesota, and by observations made in numerous places on the practical capacity of such stones to resist the action of the weather, as may be witnessed by any one in the bold and precipitous escarpments of the St. Lawrence limestone, as they appear in the bluffs of the Mississippi river between Hastings and the Iowa boundary line. If the inquiry be pushed further, and some cause for the remarkable durability of dolomites and dolomitic limestones be sought, it will doubtless be found in the chemical nature of magnesia as compared with lime, or ot carbonate of magnesia with carbonate of lime, or at least of dolomite as compared with calcite. Maynesid as compared with lime. Magnesia, which is represented by the chemical symbol MgO, is a compound of the metal magnesium and oxygen; and lime, represented by CaO, is formed by uniting calcium and oxygen. Either one may be obtained by the calcination of their carbonates, which is performed in any ordinary lime-kiln. In the case of the production ot quicklime from a magnesian limestone the magnesia and lime are intimately connected. In the burning of pure limestone a pure quicklime is obtained. In the former case the magnesia may be separated from the lime by dissolv- ing them first in hydrochloric acid, and then adding a solution of soda or 158 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Dolomites. potassa, when the magnesia is precipitated in the form of a hydrate. Mag- nesia and lime differ in solubility in water. The former is almost insoluble in water, while the latter unites with it with great avidity, the heat evolved, as in slaking lime, being sufficient, sometimes for the ignition of wood. The hydrate thus produced is soluble in 530 times its weight of cold water. Lime has a much stronger attraction for carbonic acid than magnesia, and in calcination of their carbonates the magnesia parts with it sooner than the lime. Non-air-slaked magnesian quicklime (i. e. a lime produced by the calcination of a magnesiau limestone) remains in a caustic state much longer than pure quicklime, when freely exposed to the air, and hence is injurious to vegetation when mixed with soils, for several months. This is owing to the slowness with which the magnesia extracts carbonic acid from the air. But pure quicklime very soon becomes neutralized or "sets'" by the absorption of carbonic acid from the air. It is for the slowness of set- ting, and the gentler evolution of heat in slaking, that the magnesian quick- lime is preferred by masons ; at the same time the cement is more perma- nent. These distinctions all show the greater immobility and permanence of magnesia as compared with lime. Carbonate of magnesia as compared with carbonate of lime. Magnesium carbonate, or magnesite, which occurs in nature as a mineral, is infusible in the blowpipe flame, and is nearly insoluble in cold dilute hydrochloric acid. It is insoluble in water. On the other hand the carbonate of lime, which constitutes the bulk of all limestones and marbles, is not only soluble in cold acid with rapid effervescence, but also in water, making what is known as " hard water." Dolomite compared with calcite. If a grain of pure dolomite be placed in hydrochloric acid it will effervesce very feebly, if at all. On applying heat the solution is more evident. Calcite effervesces rapidly in hydrochloric or nitric acid. Dolomite has a hardness of 3| to 4, and calcite has a hardness of 3. Water containing a small amount of carbonic acid derived from the soil, passing into the earth dissolves carbonate of lime from the rocks and becomes hard. When it evaporates again, as in caverns, it leaves a small sediment which by long accretion forms stalactites. In regions of magnesian limestones the incrustations and stalactites that are formed in caverns con- sist almost wholly of carbonate of lime, containing only a mere trace of B.UILDING STOXES. 159 Dolomites.] magnesia. When it is remembered that atmospheric air contains carbonic acid, and that rain-water contains nitric acid, the greater destructibility ot limestone as compared with magnesian limestone, not only in the weather but also when subjected to artificial physical tests, is fully explained by the foregoing comparisons. The oldest quarry in this formation, in the state of Minnesota, is that of Dr. C. Carli, at Stillwater, now operated by Mr. Conkling, opened in 1847. It is near the northern limits of the city, at the top of the bluff of St. Croix lake. Since then several other quarries more favorably situated, have been opened, and have furnished considerably more stone than that of Dr. Carli, viz. those of Hersey, Staples and Hall, and of Fayette Marsh. These were begun in 1854. The stone from all these quarries is of about the same quality, and the stratification is very similar. There is, at least at the quarries of Mr. Marsh and of Hersey, Staples and Hall, an alternation of horizontal strata, from three to six feet each, of differently textured rock, the whole thickness amounting to about seventy feet. One kind is coarse and vesicular, of a dark color, and is used only for heavy masonry. The blocks taken out are from eighteen to thirty inches thick. This is No. 18 of the general table. Another kind (No. 14) is useful for all work, owing to its homogeneous and granular but compact texture. It yields a good sur- face under the hammer, so much so that it is also employed for bases for marble tombstones. It is also used for ashlers, pilasters and copings, and for all common trimmings. It is in every way a valuable stone, and should compete in Minneapolis and St. Paul successfully with the argillaceous stone imported at considerably greater cost from Iowa (No. 40). The ridi- culous infatuation for an iii/j>or/<'> B • C" 1 p Formation and kind of rock. SPECIFIC GRAVITY STRENGTH IN POUNDS. Weight in pounds per cubic foot. 1 •o o Q Gillmore. ft u . s o> "?J2 t* 3 £ g i 113 E. St. Cloud, Sherburne county. Breen & Young's. Fine-grained gray syenite. 2.70 2.692 On bed 112.000. On edge 105.000 On bed 28,000. One edge 26,250 168.2 1 114 Dulutli, St. Louis Co. Rice Point. Gabbro. Cupriferous. 2 79 2 802 On bed 109,000. On edge 105,000. On bed 27,250. On edge 26,250. 175.1 820 190 and 524 108 Taylor's Falls, Clilsa- go county. liailroad cut. Traprock. G'upri/eroiw. 3.00 ,,JOn bed 105,000. luo|Ou edge 105,000. On bed 26,260. On edge 26,250. 187.5 109 SaukBaptds, Beaton Co. Collins, Mitch- ell & Searle's. Fine-grained gray sjenite. 2.71 2.683 On bed 86.000. On edge 100,000. On bed 21,500. On edge 25,000. 107.7 526 116 Beaver Bay. Lake Co. Wieland Bros. Ked line-grain- ed syenite. Cupriferous. 2. 65 2.603 On bed I(i6,000. On edge 103,000. On bed 26,500. On edge 25,750. 162.7 803 111 E. St. Cloud, Sherburne county. Breen & Young's. Ked syenite, quartzose. 2.63 2.609 On bed 112,000. On edge 1U5.000. On bed 28,000. On edge W,V50. 103.1 835 112 E. St. Cloud, Sherburne county. Ureen & Young's. Gray quartz- ose syenite. 2.63 2.609 On bed 105.000. On edge 103,000. On bed 26,250. On edge 25,750. 163.1 120 and 637 119 Beaver Bay, Lake Co. Wieland Bros. Labrador! te feldspar. Cupriferous. 2.69 2.701 On bed 83.000. On edge 83,000. On bed 20,750. On edge 20,750. 169.0 805 110 Watab. Benton Co. Saulpaugh Bros. Light colored coarse syenite. 2.73 2.659 On bed 100,000. On edge 95,000. On bed 25,000. On edge 23,750. 168.4 806 Watab, Benton Ce. Saulpaugb's. Bed syenite, quartzose. 2.63 2.606 On bed 103,000. On bed 26,750. 162.8 57 115 NearDuluth, St. Louis Co. Tischer's creek. Traprock. Cupriferous. 2.95 3.005 On bed 105,000. On edge 105,000. On bed 26,250. On edge 26.250. 187.8 2. QUABTZYTE. 4216 95 Pipestoue, Pipestone county. The Pipestone Quarry. QuarUyte. Potsdam. 2.74 2.729 On bed 111,000. On edge 108,000. On bed 27,750. On edge 27,000. 170 6 3. DOLOMITES. 3365 113 Krouteuae, Goodhue county. Tostevin's. Vesicular dolomite. St. .Lawn nee. 2. 03 2 421 On bed 45,000. On edge 50,000. On bed 11,250. On edge 12.500. 151.3 98 Stillwater, Washington county. Hersey, Staples & Hall. Compact dolomite. St. Lawrence. 2 77 2.67 2.762 On bed 100,000. On edsse 100,000. On bed 25.0UO, On edge 25,000. 172 6 100 Winiillil. Winoua Co. Charles H. Porter's. Compact dolomite. St. Lawrence. 2.450 On bed 65.000. On edge 65.000. On bed 16,250. On edge 16,250. 153 1 4029 121 Lanesboro, Fillmore county. Mill Com- pany's. Dolomitlc lime- stoue.(vesicularj St. Lawrence. 2.67 4. DOLOMITIC LIMESTONES. 99 Bed Wing, Good line county. Sweeney's. Compact dolo- mitic limestone. St. Lawrence. 2.76 2 595 On bed 92,000. On edge 93,000. On bed 23.000. On edge 23,260. 162 2 97 Slllwater, Washington Hersey, Staples & Vesicular dolo- inittc limestone. 2 69 2.567 On bed 43,000. On edge 51,000. On bed 10,750. On edge 12,750. 160 4 county. Hall. Sf.. Lawrence. % Kasota, Le Sueur Brackenridge. Stewart and Arenaceous dol- omitic lime- 2 64 2.519 On bed 74,000. On edge 67,000. On bed 18,500. On edge 16,750. 157.4 county. Buttars'. stone. ShaKopee. 101 Mantorville, Dodge Co. Hook's. Vesicular dolo- mitic limestone. Galena. 2 65 2.310 On bed 38,000. On edge 40,000. On bed 9,500. On edge 10,000. 144.3 120 Lanesboro, Fillmore Mill Coin- Dolomitic linre- stone, (compact.) 2 73 county. St. Lawrence. BUILDING STONES. 197 OP THE BUILDING STONES OF MINNESOTA. 1. CRYSTALLINE. Ratio of absorp- tion. Ulllmore. Absorption of mois- ture in 7 weeks. Uodge. Absorption of wa- ter in 4 days. Dodge. Visible effect of frost in 8 weeks. Per cent, of loss by frost in 8 weeks. Visible effect of dry heat up to redness. Visible effect of water on the heated stones. Effect of carbonic acid. 6 weeks. Visible effect of strong corroding vapors. 7 weeks. tra- ces. Increase of weight. 0.17 p.C. Increase of weight. 2 59 p. e. Very slight 0 02 No change. Moderately cracked. l.MSS ,,f weight. 0 02 p.C Slightly stained. l 335" 0 06 0 07 Very slight 0 02 No effect, even in red heat. No change, even in color. iVo cracks. 0 06 Somewhat stained. * 0.03 0 03 Very slight 0 01 No change, even in red heat. Very little effect ; color somewhat browned. 0.03 Somewhat stained. 1 183 0 11 0.19 Very slight 0 03 Cracked moderately. More cracked and disintegrated. 0.03 Somewhat stained. 1 141 0.40 0 47 Very slight 0.01 No change in moder- ate heat ; in red heat slightly cracked. More cracks. 0.11 Somewhat stained. "212" 0.19 2 39 Very slight 0 01 No change, no cracks. Considerably cracked. 0 01 Somewhat stained. 1 208 0.05 0 08 Very slight 0 18 Slightly cracked in red heat. More cracked. 0.19 Somewhat stained. 1 310 0.12 0.14 Slight 0.04 No effect. Slightly cracked and scaled. 0 06 Little changed. 1 T62 0 19 2 35 Very slight 0.02 In moderate heat no effect : in red heat badly crac'd&crumb'd Completely broken up. 0 05 Somewhat 'stained. 1 ~iH3~ 0.11 0.23 Very slight 0 08 Considerably cracked. Badly crumbled. 0.10 Slightlv corroded. Slightly stained. 1 336 0.15 0.28 Very slight 0.07 Badlv cracked and divided into thin pieces. Not further changed. 0.12 Somewhat stained. 2. QUARTZYTE. 1 386 0.14 0.15 Very slight 0.01 Turned dark and cracked moderately. Not much further chauge. 0 01 Considerably stained. 3. DOLOMITES. 1 •21 0 23 3.49 Slight 0.11 No effect. Moderately cracked. 0 38 Not much changed. 1 25T 1.26 2.19 Slight 0.05 No change in moder- ate heat ; in red heat cracked somewhat. Further cracked and superficially disintegrated. 1 32 Considerably crum- bled. Somrwhat stained. 1 "21" 0 27 2.88 Very slight 0 05 No change in moder- ate heat ; in red heat cracked somewhat. Superficially scaled off. 0 23 Moderately corroded, otherwise not much changed. 1.38 2 65 Slight 0 15 No effect. Somewhat cracked. 0 35 Somewhat crumbled, otherwise not much changed. 4. DOLOMITIC LIMESTONES. 1 40~ 1.14 2 95 Slight 0 06 No change in moder- ate heat ; in red heat cracked slightly. Little more crack- ed, but scaled superficially. 0.22 Somewhat crumbled. Slightly stained. 1 40 0.53 2 19 Slight 0.08 No chang" at first ; very slight effect. Superficially disintegrated. 0 42 Moderately corroded. Somewhat stained. 1 28 2 13 2 51 Very slight 0 30 No change at first ; later slightly cracked. Color became whiter. Cracked and dis- integrated badly 0 67 Slightly stained. 1 IF 1 39 5 37 Slight 0.12 No change, even in red heat, except burn- ed lighter colored. Superficially crumbled. 0.67 Little changed. 1.16 3 f>2 Slight 0.17 Slightly cracked. More cracked. 1.01 Moderately corroded, otherwise but little changed. *Scarcely>ppreciable. 198 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. SYSTEMATIC TABLE OF THE QUALITIES 1. CRYSTALLINE. Loss of weight by corroding vapors. 7 weeks. Insoluble in hy- drochloric acid. Soluble in hydro- chloric acid. Water. J • 33 Alumina. Iron oxide. Calcium carbonate. Magnesium car- bonate. Calcium oxide. Magnesium oxide. Potassium oxide. i X 1 Total of chemical Ingredients. 0 53 p o OS 12 16 96 4 69 4 77 1 90 2 18 3 07 98 78 1 93 BO 43 23 83 #* 17 63 4 79 2 46 0 34 2 OG 101 54 0 44 35 83 tt 48 1 i 9 35 3 12 0 22 1 66 98 63 64 13 21 01 6 00 1 26 1 22 3 31 71 81 12 82 6 02 2 26 0 56 1 ')2 9 51 74 43 12 68 3 82 1 28 0 25 2 33 1 55 96 31 0 39 74 72 12 30 3 19 1 61 0 25 2 25 1 91 96 03 48 3J 35 95 12 05 0 25 0 19 2 98 98 74 0 56* 62 66 19.29 4 67 5.93 3.06 1.62 2.45 99 68 * 0 43 78 12 It 14 2 68 0 62 4 48 8 33 100 97 2 64 48 51 13 79 19 34 8 34 4 81 0 19 J 67 97 15 2. QUAKTZYTE. 12 0.09 2.31 84 52 12 33 2 12 0 31 Trace. 0.11 0 31 3. DOLOMITES. 98 19 0 31 36 54 73 42 53 0 03 0 18 101 12 7 89 4 52 95 10 tt 1 11 53.50 40.21 Trace. 0.23 99-62 6 3'* 93 86 g 0 96 51 23 41 33 0.12 0.22 100 18 3 45 92 74 0 33 0 37 49 i.e. 42 06 0 02 0 30 96 19 4. DO LOM ITIC MM ESTO N ES . 10 94 86 01 0 34 0 55 £0 68 33 61 0 15 0 68 96 95 89 31 § 0 64 0 78 60 22 37 39 0.28 97 85 t 88 30 tt 1 09 49 16 37 53 0 02 0.50 101.36 5 54 6 33 91 09 ,11 50 20 38 9C 10 li 91.42 8 28 7 35 91 95 § 1.05 62.14 28 49 0 02 0 24 99.30 *Analyzed by \V. A. Noyes. traces of titanium— (Noyes). trace of lithia. tAnalyzed by S. P. Peekham. JWith a small amount of iron. SWith some silica. **Witli ttWitu a small amount of alumina. JtWith traces of silica and nlumina. j?With a minute J5UILDIXG STONES. 199 OF THE BUILDING STONES OF MINNESOTA. 1. CRYSTALLINE. CREDITS ON A SCALE OF TEN FOR THE VARIOUS QUALITIES. REMARKS. CRUSHING STRENGTH £1 ac °f il Absorption of moisture ill 7 weeks. Absorption of water in 4 days. Frost 8 weeks. Visible effect. "si £—' *| F Visible effect of dry heatup to redness. Visible effect of water ou dry stone. Effect of car- bonic acid. 6 weeks. Visible effect of corroding vapors. Loss of weight by strong cor- roding vapors = ii >*& = 1 vl £„ BO w o % *" = g§ Kank on a scale of 100. On bed. On edge. 10 10 10 10 8 10 10 10 5 10 9 10 5 117 90 The kind now most used. 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 7 9 1 117 90 Known as " Duluth granite." 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 9 10 7 10 ' 117 90 Analyzed as a silicate. 9 10 10 10 10 10 10 7 t 10 7 10 5 112 87 The sample crushed on bed was apparently imperfect as it split in 3 pieces at 86.000 pounds. 10 10 10 • 10 10 10 7 5 10 7 10 3 111 85 Forms the promontory on the west side of Beaver bay. 10 10 10 10 8 10 10 10 3 10 7 10 2 no 86 Has much quartz. 10 10 10 10 10 10 9 7 6 9 7 10 2 109 81 Has th i look o( the Rice Point aabbro, but differs from it in having much quartz. 8 8 10 10 10 7 10 10 0 10 10 9 1 109 81 10 9 10 10 g 10 10 1 I 10 7 10 3 99 76 10 10 10 g Used in the Bismarck bridge of the Northern Pacific R. R. 10 10 10 10 10 10 ? From a dyke. 2. QUABTZVTE. This rock from Sioux Falls is 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 5 10 10 4 10 4 113 87 used at Omaha under the name " Sioux Falls granite." 3. DOLOMITES. 5 5 7 10 8 7 10 10 5 9 10 7 7 100 77 In Wabasha county becomes oolitic. 10 10 10 7 8 7 10 9 4 6 2 7 7 97 75 The preferred stone at Still- water. 6 6 7 9 g 10 10 9 4 9 5 G 7 % 78 est. 4 est. 5 est. 8 7 g 7 9 10 4 9 5 5 7 88 68 The usual stone at Lanesboro and below there, in the Root river valley. 4. DOLOMITIC LIMESTONES. 9 9 8 7 8 7 10 9 4 9 4 6 7 97 75 4 5 8 9 g 7 10 10 4 9 5 6 7 92 71 Used for heavy work in bridge piers. 7 7 8 5 g 10 9 7 1 g g 7 6 91 70 Light-colored. 4 4 6 7 6 7 10 9 5 8 10 g 7 91 70 est. 6 est. 6 est. 7 7 7 7 9 7 5 7 G 7 7 S3 68 This is less common than number 16. 200 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. SYSTEMATIC TABLE OF THE QUALITIES 4. DOLOMITIC LIMESTONES. SPECIFIC 8TBENGTH IN POUNDS. • • ^ 2 • •a = 0 "1 22 >. S-S o = 2 gg =1 •3-2 X § fl s- o •_ '£ o cj .= O 3 ,4 al +J 3 o = aj £ o S2 go c.s 03 ce S a H S £ H •*£ cu< 5 O a * 3.* S S 3 O 8 £ ^a 762 48 and 88 Minneapolis (W.5 Weeks & Holscher's. Dolomitic lime- st'e. Upper beds of the Trenton. 2.77 2 496 On bed On edge 87,000. On bed 156.0 On edge 21.750. 2548 91 Kasota, Le Sueur county. Brackenridge, Stewart and Buttars'. Arenaceous dol- omitic lime- stone. Shalcopee. 2.76 2.536 On bed 52.000. On edge 32.000. On bed 13.000 On edge 8,000. 158 5 Minneapolis (E) Foley & Herbert's. Dolomitic lime- stone. Bottom of Trenton. 2.76 2.604 On bed 72,000. On edge 46,0uo. On bed 18,000. On edge 11,500. 162.7 3371 93 Centr'l Point Goodhue Co. Baker Harrison's. Dolomitic and aluminous lime- stone. St. Croix. 2.70 2.384 On bed 31,000. On edge 39,000. On bed 7.750. On edge 9,750. 14D 0 5. LIMESTONES. 2379 47 and 90 Fountain, Fillmore Co. Taylor's. Limestone. Trenton. 2.68 2.622 On bed 105,000. On edge 100,000. On bed 26.250. On edge 25,000. 163.8 3632 and 3583 46 and 87 Minneapolis (Nicollet I.) Eastman's. Aluminous limestone. Trenton. 2.71 2.655 On bed 70,000. On edge 68,000. OB bed 17,500. On edge 17,000. 165.9 102 St. Paul. A Kan's Argillaceous ' 71 2 634 On bed 78,000. On bed 19,500. (W.) Trenton. On edge 70,000. On edge 17,500. Clinton Falls Impure dolo- 4397 Steele Co. 6. SANDSTONES. M 3811 107 Hincklev, Pine Co'. St. Paul and Duluth K'y. Pinkish-yellow sandrock. Potstiam. 2.47 2.229 On bed 76,000. On edge 70,000. On bed 19,000. On edge 17,500. 139.3 81 4400 103 Near Fort Snelling, Dakota Co. Chicago, Mil. and St. P. Eailway. Yellow sand- rock. Potfdam 1 2.51 2 221 On bed 57,000. On edge 80,000. On bed 14,250. On edge 20,000. 138.8 n 4398 and 4112 106 Dresbacli, Winona Co. TosteTin & Co. Gray sandrock. St. Croix. 2.88 1.880 On bed 26,000. On edge 15,000. On bed e.rioo. On edge 3,750. 117 5 •'•i 105 Jordan, Philip Kipp's Gray sandrock On bed 15,000 On bed 3,750 Scott Co. Jordan. OD edge 12,000. On edge 3,000. 31 443 3754 94 Fond du Lac St. Louis Co. Boyle's. Brown sand- rock. Potsdam. 2.52 2.245 On bed 35.000. On edge 23,000. On bed 8,750. On edge 5,750. 141 3 •'-, 104 Jordan, Philip Kipp's Kusty-striped On bed 10,000. On bed 4,7.'0 Scott Co. Jordan. On edge 16,000. On edge 4,000. :>r, 4399 92 Dakota, Winona Co. Hartley's. Sandstone. St. Croix. 2.38 1.872 On bed 19,000. On edge 12,000. 'On bed 4,750. On edge 3,000. 117.0 17 Taylor's Falls ? White sandrock On bed 22,000. On bed 5,500 St. Vroix. 7. STONES FKOM OTHER STATES. 123 Lemont, 7 Dolomitic lime- On bed 108,000. On bed 27,000. Illinois. Niagara. On edge 105,000 On edge 26,250. 165.3 122 Siskiwit bay. (Wis ) Mclntlre & Light brown On bed 14,500. On bed 3,625. W.end L.Sup. Wells'. Potsdam. On edge 23,000. On edge 5,750. 126 1 4679, 125 Stone City, Iowa. A. J. Green's. Dolomitic limestone. Niagara. 2. 56 2.175 On bed 45,000. On edge 39,000. On bed 11,250. On edge 9,750. 135.9 124 7 Gray sandrock. On bed 40,000. On bed 10,000. Berea. On edge 27,000. On edge 6,750. 131 3 BUILDING STONES. 201 OF THE BUILDING STONES OF MINNESOTA. 4. DOLOMITIC LIMESTONES. 1 i A u ^ o « o - O og s.3 s ""» « x '8 3 — i §3 « o • •=s sl« It* «00 aj o» | =| » tj £- 0 •- 3 ai 5 » •£| I i id fill « S a •a O.C O o . I. -3 »a a S £ M 4 ** p a.1" F F H > « 24 Increase of weight. 1 28 p. C. Increase of weight. 2 36 p. C. Con- sider- able. 2 21 Turned dark at first ; then yellowish. Not cracked. Slightly cracked and scaled off. Loss of weiKht. 0.13 p.C Moderately corroded. Moderately stained. IF 1 44 2 96 Slight 0.05 Little changed till red hot ; then crack- ed considerably. Cracked further and scaled. 0.39 .Moderately corroded. i 44 2 as 3.11 Mod- erate 0 19 Blackened ; then cracked and burned while. Cracked further. 0 43 Considerably corrod- ed. Consider- ably stained. 1 23 3 74 5 14 Con- sider- able. 1 29 Blackened moderate- ly ; then brown ; cracked slightly. Little further change. 0.92 Badly crumbled. Badly stained. 5. LIMESTONES. 1 68 0.41 0 46 Mod- erate 0.07 Blackened, cracked and burned white. Superficially dis- integrated. 3 58 Somewhat corroded. 1 N 1.04 1 28 Mod- erate 0 50 Turned dark at first ; then white. Not cracked. Splintered some- what. 3 08 Considerably corrod- ed. Considerably stained. 1 59 0.73 0 93 Slight 0.37 Slightly cracked. Slightly cracked further. 1.17 Badly corroded and stained. 1.91 3.20 Con- sider- able. 1.07 Slightly cracked. More cracked. 3.27 Considerably corrod- ed and stained. 6. SANDSTONES. 1 ~w 0.05 4.88 Very slight 0.03 In moderate heat slight blackening ; in red heat no cracks. Cracked and somewhat crum- bled. 0 02 Little changed. I w 0 04 3 09 Very slight 0 01 Dark'd in moderate heat; burned lighter ; no change; no cracks Greatly disinte- grated ; col»r changed to red. O.G4 Somewhat stained. 1 ~8~ 0.74 11 48 Very slight 0.05 No change for a time ; later cracked some- what. Not much further change. 0 32 Very little changed. 1 » 0 61 12 G9 Slight 0.06 No change eyen in red heat. Cracked and somewhat disin- tegrated . 0 25 Somewhat crumbled. Considerably stained. 1 16 3 94 6 17 Mod- erate 0 36 No effect in moderate heat; later cracked badly. Little further change. 0 07 Mucli stained. 1 ~8~ 1.78 9 18 Mod- erate 0.57 Very little affected. Superficially dis- integrated; color little different. 2 30 Badly corroded. Somewhat crumbled. 9 1.52 11.08 Slight 0*09 Little changed till red hot ; then cracked badly. Considerably crumbled and disintegrated 0.62 Considerably crum- bled. Much stained. 1 8 7. STONES FROM OTHEK STATES. 1 48 1.87 1 95 Slight 0.08 Slightly scaled in red heat. Considerably cracked. 0.13 Slightly crumbled. Somewhat stained. 1 10 0.95 8 76 Very slight 0.07 Turned dark ; no cracks. Considerably dis- integrated. 0 05 Somewhat stained. 1 13 0.81 8 66 Slight 0.12 Slightly cracked in red heat. Considerably cracked ; color not changed. 0.46 Moderately corrod- ed. Very little stained. 1 13 1.97 S.76 Mod- erate 0.18 In moderate beat black'd, A gaveoff gas which blitzed; in red heat cracked somewhat. More cracked 0 01 Not much corroded. Badly stained. 202 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. SYSTEMATIC TABLE OF THE QUALITIES 4. DOLOMITIC LIMESTONES. Number. 1 1 Lnss of weight by corroding vapors. 7 weeks. Insoluble in hy- uiochlorlc acid. Soluble in liydro- culoric acid. Water. 1 55 Alumina. oj •a 'x 0 a 1 Calcium carbonate. Magnesium car- bonate. Calcium oxide. Magnesium oxide. Potassium oxide. Sodium oxide. Total of chemical Ingredients. 22 8. 86 p. c. * 16 22 S3. 78 0.375 3.16 t 0.90 51 533 36.002 Alkalies, a trace. 94.97 •23 5 83 * 13.85 vt 1.49 47.901 35.227 Undetermined. Water & alkalies. 1.529. 100.00 Ul 13.91 29.93 71.80 ** 4 03 41 880 24.550 0.22 1.12 101.73 X 23 89 39 33 58.91 31.00 4.92 0.33 33 000 18.540 0.92 2.28 98.24 5. LIMESTONES. 7.31 * 9.89 90.11 0.210 tt 1 30 86.107 0.470 Alkalies. 0.44 99.447 10.38 s 14.45 85.55 1.600 tt 1.70 75.482 6.810 Alkalies, a trace. 100.013 12.70 t 13.39 86 61 8.16 2.67 1 63 79.18 6.420 Orgtalfl matter. 0 80 Alkalies. a trace. 98.86 9.61 25.51 74 92 *# 1.91 . 57.03 15.90 100.43 1 6. SANDSTONES. 1 18 98 69 iJ 0 42 Mg. ox. Trace. 0.17 100 35 0.01 1 31 0 55 0 41 0 21 0 02 0 15 100 3° 7 60 81 47 8 90 1.90 0.50 4.20 0.39 97.36 1.39 96.66 3 33 81.19 10.44 0 56 0.40 3.60 0.66 96.85 O.fi2 87.94 12 06 78-24 10.88 3.83 0 95 1.60 1.67 0.06 97.23 38 41 5 77 1 79 35 87 18 54 0.12 0.29 100 79 16-72 95 47 4 53 81.55 10.00 1 41 1..15 0 30 1.76 l.OS 97.20 7. STONES FROM OTHER STATES. 8.69 21 36 79.78 1.43 0.64 42.97 31.30 0.21 0 23 101.14 0.17 97.48 ' 2.52 90.86 476 1.68 0.15 0 59 1.06 0.45 99.45 5.97 0.98 9041 0.01 1.28 57.86 37.29 97.42 1.15 92.93 7.07 81.40 7.49 3.87 0.74 2.11 0.24 0.56 99.41 Liialyzed by S. F. Peckham. fAnalyzed by \V. A. Noyes. J Alumina and iron determined by W. A. Noyes. §With a mil amount of iron. **With traces of silica and alumina, ft With traces of alumina and ferric phosphate. BUILDING STONES. 203 OF THE BUILDING STONES OF MINNESOTA. 4. DOLOMITIC LIMESTONES. CREDITS ON A SCALE OF TEN FOR THI VARIOUS QUALITIES. CRUSHING rt"« w u ^ » t: 5. •= o « •ss« ~ '" — 03 "rtC y5 O a -3 7: -= 51"" «!c ^5 fe> P'2 ?»' p ^0 jjl 3' 8« a« 10 9 8 7 8 2 1 7 6 7 5 7 8 85 65 Generally rejected by build- ers at Minneapolis. The pinkish or "fawn-col- 5 3 8 7 8 7 10 3 4 9 5 8 fi H3 64 ored" rock of Featherston- iiaugb. Very bottom of Trentou lime- 7 5 8 5 8 4 9 3 5 8 3 4 H 77 59 stone, 10 inches thick ; always ised by builders, with No. 27. 3 4 7 1 6 2 H « 10 7 1 1 10 60 46 The stone used at Lake City. 5. LIMESTONES. 10 10 S 9 10 4 10 8 6 1 * 7 8 91 70 One mile east of Fountain, by the railroad. 7 7 9 8 9 4 8 7 5 2 3 6 8 83 64 The usual building stone of Minneapolis, 9 9 I The usual building stone of est. 4 est. 4 est. 6 6 8 2 6 7 5 4 3 6 8 69 53 The usual stone at Owatonua. 6. SANDSTONES. 8 7 6 10 7 10 10 8 4 10 10 10 10 110 85 Grindstone river. 6 S 6 10 8 10 10 9 1 10 7 10 10 105 81 Analyzed as a silicate. 2 1 1 8 2 10 10 7 10 9 10 9 10 89 68 1 1 1 9 1 7 10 10 4 9 2 9 10 74 57 3 2 5 1 6 4 8 1 10 10 3 10 10 73 56 Samples obtained at West- minster church, Minneapolis. Analyzed as a silicate. 2 1 1 6 3 4 8 10 5 4 1 1 10 56 43 2 1 1 7 2 7 10 1 2 8 3 3 10 55 4C Analyzed as a silicate. 2 est. 10 Rather soft white sandstone. 7. STONES FROM OTHER STATES. 10 10 est. 9 6 9 7 10 7 3 10 6 6 8 101 77 Samples obtained from stone yards in Minneapolis. 1 2 3 8 4 10 10 8 3 10 7 10 10 86 G6 Samples obtained from the owners of the quarry. 5 4 4 8 4 7 10 7 4 8 6 8 8 83 61 Samples obtained from own- ers of the quarry. 4 3 4 6 6 4 9 5 5 10 5 10 10 81 62 Samples obtained from stone yards in Mmntapolis. The reader is referred to the various county reports for particulars respecting the individual quarries of those counties. COUNTY GEOLOGY, The counties are described in order, beginning at the southeastern corner of the state and crossing the state westwardly in tiers of two. CHAPTER IV. THE GEOLOGY OF HOUSTON COUNTY. BY N. II. WINCHELL. Situation and area. This county (see plate 8) is the most southeasterly in the state, and contains sixteen government towns, forming very nearly an exact square. Its area is about 568.75 square miles or 363,998.07 acres.* It contains no lakes, but there are low lands along Root river, and along the Mississippi, between the high bluffs, which are flooded most of the year. These lands, when meandered by the original survey, and the water area of those rivers within the county, should be added to the aggregate acreage as above stated. The county seat is Caledonia. Houston, Hokah, and Brownsville are the other principal towns, the last being the oldest in the county, having been settled in June, 1848. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. The general drainage is toward the Mississippi river which lies along the east side of the county. Through the northern tier of towns Root river passes to the Mississippi. Thompson's creek joins it from the southwest at Hokah. It receives Money creek, Silver creek and Storer creek from the north, while Pine creek passes though the township of La Crescent and joins the Mississippi from the northwest a few miles below the village of La Crescent. Winnebago and Crooked creeks drain the southeastern portion of the county. There being no foreign drift in this county, these streams run in their ancient channels and several hundred feet below the general upland level. The loam which covers the county is *The areas of counties as given in this report are those computed for tliis purpose by Hon. H. H. Young, secretary of the State Board of Immigration. 208 TIIE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Topography. generally almost impervious to water, so that these deep drainage courses do not operate to abstract the moisture from the surface soils so disastrous- ly as they would in more sandy soils. It is only along the immediate river bluffs that any injury to the soils from this cause is noticeable. These streams furnish water power at frequent points, even more than have been • improved. At some of these points the following flouring mills have been erected : Mills in Houston county. At Riceford, on Crystal creek, one custom mill, by Oatman & Co., having a power of 18 feet head. This creek issues from the rock bluffs within a few miles of Hiceford, nearly all in one volume. At Riceford Mr. V. T. Beebe also has a custom mill with 12 feet head of water. There is a custom mill on Bear creek, near the state line, (sec. 34, Spring Grove) owned by Mr. Swartzhoff. At Freeburg, on Crooked creek, is a custom mill owned by Hill and Graff, with 16 feet head of water, and a saw mill owned by Wm. Oxford. Here are also two other mill privileges. On Winnebago creek, (sec. 22, Winnebago) is a stone mill owned by B. F. Barbour, and on section 15 a custom mill owned by McMillin. Johnson & Clark. At Sheldon, on Beaver creek, is a mill of 12 feet power, owned by John Blain, and another of the same power, by Snyder Brothers. J. & C. B. Howe have a saw mill on section 24, Yucatan. Nathan Vance has a flouring mill on section 12, Money Creek, with 12 feet fall. Fox and Perkins have another on sec. 30, with 10 feet power, from which shipments are made by railroad. There is a mill at Houston with 7 feet fall, in the Root river, belonging to Mr. Grorsland. There is a shipping and custom mill, southeast J section 23, Houston, with 20 feet power, owned by Wm. McSpadden. At Brownsville are two mills, one by Shaller Bros., of two run of stone and 12 feet power, for shipping flour, and the other by J. Hankey. of five feet power and one run for custom. At Hokah all the mills ship flour. One is owned by C. Fischer, situated on Thompson creek, and has 24 feet of water fall ; another by White & Brothers, and a third by E. Thompson. The last two have a fall of 9 feet in Root river. At Hokah the railroad machine shops, and the plow factory also run by water power. There is also a mill on Pine creek, near the county line (sec. 3, La Crescent), with four run of stone (one for feed), and 13 feet fall and 16 horse-power, owned by Groff & Co., for custom and shipping ; has one Leffel and one Michigan turbine wheel ; and another on the same creek southwest quarter section 9, by J. D. Cameron, having 9 feet fall and four run of stone, for shipping. The Toledo woolen mill, by Fletcher and Webster, southwest quarter of section 5, La Cres- cent, on Pine creek, has 7 feet power. This is built of stone quarried near. The topography of Houston county is very similar to that of the eastern, and particularly that of the northeastern part of Fillmore county, and of much of Winona county. Taken altogether it is produced by the same causes. The strata cover the same geological horizons, at least the same in the non-drift-covered portions. It varies from undulating to rough and hilly. The surface of the rock was channeled by numerous canons, each with its tributary gorges, prior to the spreading of the loam. These gorges are PLATK 8 GEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY OF MINNESOTA . IIOrSTOX COUNTY BY N. H. Wl NCHELL- W HDU/TON: M o' m s T 102 N j M A, % IBBi J|T -0 . B A G O-T J E F F E R S T Explanation. T E OF ] O W A CoittoiirLmes (irr ttrav,-n a/y>rr'.rrsiift/rfy //>/ -?•//<-// ,50 ft ahovf tftf iirV7 _. r.itvy iti/tif n7tnr they (vint-fff? in'//t rrrtiral nr t-ff-r rtrry, Mn/fx. ir/nrh utf mta ' Jnlnw Btm & Co.hlh* HOUSTON COUNTY. 209 Topography.] not so narrow as in much of the western and central parts of Fillmore county, but are of the same character as those in the Shakopee and St. Croix areas — broader and smoother, allowing the loam, when deposited, to enter their deepest recesses and to spread itself evenly over the whole. While the loam itself becomes thicker and more clayey toward the Mississippi river, it has so effectually and so deeply covered the whole country that generally a rolling or undulating surface has resulted which is almost free from the familiar sink-holes so common in the Trenton area, but is characterized by deep, wide valleys and long ridges. The bluffs that enclose the valleys are sometimes tillable, or at least turfed over from top to bottom. They are of all bights from the mere shallow depression suf- ficient for ready drainage, to valley lines over five hundred feet deep. The whole of Root river valley, which is in the St. Croix sandstone, is over five hundred feet in depth, with limestone capping the bluffs. Some of its tributary valleys are equally deep and wide, but the smaller tributary val- leys become shallower and more rocky as the gorges ascend in the St. Law- rence limestone — the whole system making a series of deep valleys along the river and of alternating vales and ridges at greater distance from the main valley. The county is nowhere destitute of excellent natural drain- age. There are very few of the characteristic sink-holes of the Trenton, that formation having but a small superficies in the county, and that not within the reach of important drainage courses which were capable of producing the pre-glacial gorges. Within the Shakopee area have been seen three or four similar sink-holes, but they differ from the Trenton sink- holes in being more plainly a part of continuous ravines and in being broader in comparison to their depth. If the valleys excavated by drainage were filled up the county would be very nearly flat, the highest part being in the southwestern corner, in the area of the Trenton limestone. The great diversity of surface that appears, arises entirely from the effect of erosion by streams and atmos- pheric forces, on the rocks, which consist of alternating sandstones and limestones. This effect would be still greater, or rather would be still more apparent, were it not that the loess-loam, which is very thick in this part of the state, tones down with its overspreading canopy, the roughness which the rocky surface really possesses, leaving it actually one of an undu- 14 21Q THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Topography. lating or rolling character except along the immediate river bluffs, where the rocks frequently appear in craggy bluffs and cause precipitous or steep hillsides. The valleys excavated by the streams are remarkable and instruct- ive. Not only have the large streams cut gorges of enormous depth in the rocky floors on which they run, but every little creek and tribu- tary runs in a gorge which shows the same rock-sculpture. Even the ireshet creeks, and the rivulets born of every summer shower, dry entirely the greater part of the year, find their way to the main valleys through rock-bound, canon-like valleys. This makes the county present the usual characters of southern latitudes where the northern drift sheet has not been spread. There is nothing more evident than that these valleys antedate the great ice age. In other portions of the Northwest where the drift does pre- vail, larger streams than those found in Houston county have generally worn their channels only through the drift sheet. The Mississippi river itself, above the falls of St. Anthony, has no rocky bluffs. It very rarely strikes the rock. It is occupied still in dissolving and removing the mate- rials of the drift which covers that portion of the state. It would require a great many inter-glacial periods, or pre-glacial periods, to excavate it as deeply as the same valley is wrought in the southeastern portion of the state. In the limestone areas the valleys are narrow and more generally rock-bound ; they widen out so as to inclose good farm lands on the bottoms in the sandstone areas. This distinction, however, is less evident than in Fillmore and Winona counties, where the St. Peter sandstone plays a more important part in bringing about the present topography. It is, however, well illustrated in the upper portion of many of the tributaries of Root river. In descending one of these valleys from the upland the first descent is rocky and very impracticable. This is caused at first by the cut through the Shakopee limestone. The Jordan sandstone that underlies the Shakopee sometimes relieves this ruggedness a little, but its thickness is so small compared to that of the whole series of strata involved that it is barely observable in this way. Through the underlying St. Lawrence limestone the descent is also rough and the valley narrow, with little or no arable land in the valley. On reaching the horizon of the top of the St. Croix sandstone the change introduced into the aspect of the valley is very notice- HOUSTON COUNTY. 211 Elevations.] able. It widens, the rock is seen exposed in a nearly continuous escarpment along the tops of the now more distant bluffs, the descent is easy, the stream flows with a winding course, and is perhaps fringed with a small shrubby growth, the lower slopes of the bluffs on either side are turf-covered, and finally a rich alluvial soil, spreading out over the bottoms, shows here and there as a spot that has been cleared and cultivated. This character then extends to, and follows, the whole course of Root river to its mouth, the valley constantly increasing in width, and showing a terraced condition, where ancient floods or periods of high water have stood, and whence, after vast accumulations of alluvium, have retired, reducing the river at last to its present insignificant dimensions. This is the general character of the valleys tributary to Root river, but this succession of changes can be seen within Houston county only in those tributary valleys on the south side of Root river. Those on the north side enter on the St. Croix sandstone before leaving Winona county. The best agricultural portion of the county is in the center and southwest quarter. The valleys throughout the county are generally wooded, and in the eastern part of the county a great deal of the upland is also wooded. Taken altogether the county may be denominated rolling, broken and hilly, though there are also some fine prairies that are simply undulating. All the farms are well drained naturally. Elevations* on the Southern Minnesota division of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paid railway. From George B. vVoodworth, assistant engineer, La Crosse. Distances In miles Hights in feet from La Crosse. above the sea. Low water in the Mississippi river at La Crosse 618.5 Junction with River division west of bridge 0 645. La Crescent 0.7 639. C., D. & M. Junction 3.0 633. Eootriver bridge , 4.2 640. Hokah 6.2 641. Root river bridge 11.0 655. Mound Prairie 12.2 652. Root river bridge 14.0 661. Houston 18.7 671. Root river bridge 22.3 695. Money Creek 23.2 691. Elevations on the Caledonia and Mississippi railroad. This road runs from the Mississippi river westward fourteen and one-fourth miles up the valley of Crooked creek. These levels were furnished by Mr. Till, engineer of the road. The datum is the level of the track of the C. D. & M. railroad just north of Crooked creek, section 35, town 1O& north, range 1 west. *A11 elevations above the ocean in this report are referred to mean tide sea-level, and are corrected in accordance with the recent determination of the elevations of the great lakes and Chicago by the U. 9. lake survey, under Lieut. -Col. C. B. Comstock. 212 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevations. Datum, 0. Freeburg, - 21.92 Water at Oxford's dam, Freeburg, 42.95 Crossing of Crooked creek at sec. 36, 1O3 N., R. 1 W. (Powlesland's), bottom - - 56.32 Crossing of Crooked creek at sec. 36,1O2 N.. R. 1 W. (Powlesland's), grade - 65.32 Crossing of Crooked creek, S. E. } sec. 26, 1O3 N., "A W. belgw the junction of the south fork, bottom - 76.74 Crossing of Crooked creek, S.E. J sec. 26, 1O3 N., 2 W. below the junction of the south fork, grade, 86.74 Surface of water at crossing of Crooked creek, N. E. i sec. 22, Mayville, - 152.13 Crooked creek, N. E. J sec. 22, Mayville, bottom of creek 151.85 Bottom of creek at second crossing below John Mplitor's, sec. 16, Mayville, - - 236.70 Crooked creek at second crossing below John Molitor's, sec. 16, Mayville, grade 244.87 Bottom of creek at first crossing below John Molitor's, sec. 16, Mayville, 250.77 Crooked creek at first crossing below John Molitor's, sec. 16, Mayville, grade, - 256.72 Dorsh's quarry, sec. 17, Mayville, grade • 333.10 Natural surface, at the Methodist church, Caledonia, - - 551.18 Summit, natural surface, N. E. J sec. 13, Caledonia 571.57 Elevations on the Houston, Uesper and Southwestern railroad. (Proposed.) This line runs from Houston, on the Root river, where it intersects with the Southern Min- nesota railroad, sou th west wardly, ascending the valley of Beaver creek, through Sheldon, Caledonia and Spring Grove townships. The following data were furnished by Dr. F. Worth, president of the company. The datum point was at Houston, on the grade of the S. M. R. R. where it crosses the line between sections 33 and 34, six hundred and seventy feet above the ocean. Sections. Above Houston. Above the ocean. Crossing township line between 4 and 9 Feet. 6 Feet. 676 8 and 9 7 677 Crossing section line between 7 and 8 7 677 Crossing section line between 7 and 18 9 779 18 and 19 23 693 Crossing section line between 19 and 30 29 699 Crossing section line between 30 and 31 49 719 Sheldon village plat, on section 31 79 749 Crossing section line between . - . . 31 and 32 76 746 32 and 5 82 752 Crossing section line between 5 and 6 87 757 Crossins^ section line between 6 and 7 109 779 Crossing section line between 7 and 12 118 788 Crossing section line between 12 and 13 119 789 Crossing section line between 13 and 24 167 837 Crossing section line between .... 24 and 25 248 918 Crossing section line between 25 and 26 269 939 Crossing section line between 26 and 35 331 1,001 Crossing section line between 35 and 34 384 1,054 Crossing section line between 34 and 3 395 1,065 3 and 4 422 1,092 Crossing section line between 4 and 9 428 1,098 Crossing section line between 9 and 8 457 1,127 Crossing section line between . . 8 and 17 494 1,164 Crossing section line between 17 and 20 500 1,170 On section 17 highest point 524 1,194 Crossing lines between sections 20 and 19 456 1,126 Crossing lines between sections 19 and 30 462 1,132 Crossing lines between sections . 30 and 25 476 1,146 Line between Houston and Fillmore county 462 1,132 Crossing section line between 25 and 26 437 1,107 Crossing section line between 26 and 35 442 1,112 State line west of center of sec. 35, Newburg township 465 1,135 HOUSTON COUNTY. 213 Soil and timber.] The folloiving measurements by aneroid barometer will show the depth of some of the valleys below the immediate upland at the points named. Section 17, Caledonia, three miles south of Sheldon. Beaver creek, at the great spring, is 230 feet below the tops of the bluffs ; which embrace the Shakopee limestone, Jordan sandstone and a part of St. Lawrence limestone. At Sheldon the bluffs are 420 feet high. At Houston the bluffs north of the city are 520 feet above the level of water in Root river in summer. At Hokah Mt. Tom rises 530 feet above the flood-plain of Boot river. On section 11, Union, the ridge between Thompson creek and the railroad, at the sculptured rock, rises 355 feet above the highway directly south of the ridge. At Brownsville the hight of the bluff above the flood-plain of the Mississippi is 495 feet Mr. Fred. Gluck, of Brownsville, measured the same by triangulation in the winter season, and obtained 486 feet as the hight above the ice. Railroad surveyors are said to have obt dned 483 feet as the hight of the same bluff. The most of this hight is made up of sandstone, there being but 105 feet of limestone in the upper part of the bluff, belonging to the St. Lawrence formation. Mean elevation of the count;/. From the contour-lines shown on the county map the average elevation of each township above the sea may be estimated, with the following result: La Crescent, 900 feet above the sea; Hokah, 875; Brownsville, 1000; Crooked Creek, 900; Jefferson, 850; Mound Prairie, 950; Union, 1025; May- ville, 1075; Winnebago, 1050; Houston, 925; Sheldon, 975; Caledonia, 1125; Wilmington, 1175; Money Creek, 950; Yucatan, 1000; Black Hammer, 1025, and Spring Grove, 1175. The mean elevation of the county, derived from these figures, is approximately 990 feet above the sea. The soil and timber of Houston county. The soil of the county is formed by the loess-loam. It is very fertile, and apparently very enduring. It is mainly a clayey deposit, without stones or gravel, but yet in some places becomes arenaceous, the sand grains being very fine. The loess is hardly pervious to water. In the scarcity and costliness of common wells, many farmers resort to the expedient of retaining the surface water, after rains, in open reservoirs produced by throwing a low dam across some of the shallow drainage valleys that intersect their farms, thus forming with the common loam a small pool or lake for the use of their stock. Except on the brows of the bluffs which enclose the valleys, this loam is thick enough to make a reliable subsoil as well as surface soil. In some of the valleys it is very thick, but here it is apt to be influenced by the causes that produced the river-terraces and to mingle with the ordinary alluvium. On the up- lands generally where it may not have been reduced by wash, its average thickness might reach thirty feet, but in some of the valleys material of 214 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Trees and shrubs. the same aspect is sometimes encountered to the depth of over one hun- dred feet. In the valley of the Root river, and also along the Mississippi, the soil of the alluvial terraces, greatly resembling that of the loam in the uplands, is apt to be more sandy, and sometimes becomes very light and very poor. These materials are generally seen to lie in obliquely stratified layers, and to embrace, in the Mississippi valley, small gravel stones of northern origin. The immediate flood-plain of these rivers presents still another variety of soil. While it is generally sandy, and often very light, it is also a very rich soil, and is apt to be enduring by reason of the Nile-like overflows to which it is subjected, and the decomposition of large quantities of vegetation. This variety of soil sustains some of the heaviest forests to be found in the county. Trees and shrubs. The county is supplied with plenty of timber for fuel, and with some that is useful for lumber. The following list com- prises a nearly, if not quite, complete catalogue of the trees and shrubby plants of the county. Quercus coccinea, Wang., var. tinctoria, Bart. (Black oak). Quercns macrocarpa, Michx. ( Bur oak.) [These two oaks are common in the uplands. As brush and small trees they often form thickets. There seem to be two varieties of the former in some places, but in others the char- acters are blended in one. There is a plain popular distinction between the red and the black oak, and solitary trees of the latter are often seen of large size standing in the midst of brush, belong- ing apparently to a former forest growth now destroyed, and at the same, time this species is very abundant as small trees or underbrush, often presenting some of the popular characteristics of the red oak. The red oak is a graceful, open tree with smoother bark and larger leaves and acorns than the black oak. Quercus alba, L. (White oak). Quercus rubra, L. (Red oak). Populus tremuloides, Michx. (Aspen). Populus grandidentata, Michx. (Great- toothed poplar.) Populus monilifera, Ait. (Cottonwood.) [Of these poplars the first two are by far the most common, but in proportion to their numbers make fewer large trees than the last. They rarely exceed six or eight inches in diameter, while the cottonwood sometimes becomes two or three feet in diameter, as seen in the Root river valley at Houston. The cottonwood has a rough bark. The bark of the aspen may be distinguished from that of the great-toothed poplar at a distance by the fact that the former becomes white, or mottled with white, as the tree gets the size of three or four inches in diameter, while that of the latter maintains its greenish or dingy-yellow color.] Populus balsamifera, L. (Balm of Gilead). [Common in cultivation. There are some fine large trees of this kind at Mr. Powlesland's, sec. 36, Crooked Creek.] Populus dilatata, Ait. (Lombardy poplar). [Only seen in cultivation.] Acer rubrum, L. (Red maple). Acer saccharinum, Wang. (Sugar maple). Acer saccharinum, Wang., var. nigrum, Gray. (Black sugar maple). [Sometimes known as rock maple.] HOUSTON COUNTY. 215 Trees and shrubs.] Ulmus Americana, L. (PL Clayt.) Willd. (American elm). Ulmus fulva, Mich. (Slippery elm). Ulmus racemosa, Thomas. (Corky elm.) [The first named elm is very common, and acquires a very large size in the bottom lands of the Hoot river, but the slippery elm is comparatively rare. The corky elm seems to be that which is commonly known as rock elm. It is likely to be confounded with the American elm. It grows more slowly, and has a thick corky bark, particularly on its young twigs. Its bud-scales are downy-ciliate, while those of the American elm are glabrous.] Tilia Americana, L. (Basswood). Carya amara, ffutt. (Bittemut hickory). Carya alba, Nutt. (Shag-bark hickory). [Of these hickories the former furnishes the great bulk of the hoop-poles for flour-barrels, cut in the southern and central portions of the state, the latter being a much more rare tree. It is only in eastern Houston and Winona counties that the shag-bark hickory is known to occur generally. It is exceedingly rare in Fillmore county, and does not occur in the Big Woods.] Juglans nigra, L. (Black walnut). Juglans cinerea, L. ( White walnut, or butternut). [The former is comparatively rare, but the latter is one of the most common trees along valleys.] Fraxinus Americana, L. (White ash). Fraxinus sambucifolia, Lam. (Black ash). [The former is often seen as a large tree, but the latter is rare, having been noted only in the timbered bottoms of the Root river at Houston.] Pruuus Americana, Marsh. (Wild plum). Primus Pennsylvania, L. (Wild red cherry). Prunus Virginiana, L. (Choke cherry). Prunus serotina, Ehr. (Black cherry.) Pirus coronaria, L. (American crab-apple). Negundo aceroides, Mcench. (Box-elder). Cratsegus coccinea, L. (Thorn apple). Cratsegus tomentosa, L. (Black thorn). Celtis occidentalis, L. (Hackberry). Betula lutea, Michx. (Gray birch). Betula nigra, L. (Red birch or River birch. [River bottoms, La Crescent.] Betula papyracea, Ait. (Paper or canoe birch). [Of these birches the last is quite common but the first is rare. The outer bark of the paper birch is snowy white, and the tree rarely becomes larger than three or four inches in diameter, and indeed is usually less than two. It frequents rocky banks and sterile soils, being rarely seen except along a hillside, where its white, small trunks make it very noticeable. The former has been seen only in rich, moist lowlands, with large timber surrounding, and is apt to grow, unless in- jured, to a large tree of a foot or two in diameter. Its twigs and bark are so aromatic as to cause it to be mistaken for the black, or cherry birch, of the middle and eastern states, which has not yet been reported as occurring within the state of Minnesota. The red birch has been cut con- siderably for fuel at La Crescent. It forms a large and shady tree suitable for ornamental pur- poses, when growing alone, but in the bottom-land it is not a handsome tree.] Prunus Strobus, L. (White pine). [On Crooked creek, at La Crescent; on Beaver creek ; on Winnebago and Money creeks]. Ostrya Virginica, Willd. (Irouwood). Salix— sp? [Various species ; one species becomes a large tree, as seen in the bottoms at Houston.] Gymnocladus Canadensis, Lam. (Kentucky coffee-tree). [The coffee-tree occasionally is seen, even eighteen inches in diameter, and is used for lum- ber. It was particularly noted about Houston.] Larix Americana, Michx. (Tamarack). [Only known on Pine creek.] Cornus circinata, L'Her. (Round-leaved cornel). Cornus sericea, L. (Silky cornel). 216 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Trees and shrubs. Cornus paniculate, L'Her. (Panicled cornel). [Along the ravines.] Cornus alternifolia, L. (Alternate-leaved cornel). Gaultheria procumbens, L. (Wintergreenj. [Seen only at Mound Prairie.] Alnus incana, Willd. (Speckled alder). Diervilla triflda, Mcench. (Bush honeysuckle). [Along the bluffs of the Mississippi.] Ehus typhina, L. (Stag-horn sumac). [Rare; seen at Brownsville.] Rhus copallina, L. (Dwarf sumac). Sambucus Canadensis, L. (Common elder). Castanea vesca, L. (Chestnut). [Cultivated; seen on sec. 29, Union.] Eobinia Pseudacacia, L. (Locust). [Only cultivated.] Staphylea trifolia, L. (Bladder-nut.) Gleditschia monosperma, Walt. (Water-locust.) [Only in cultivation; seen at Hokah.J Rosa blanda, Ait. (Early wild rose). Rosa Carolina, L. (Swamp rose). [This is a bushy rose, eight feet high and less.] Rhus glabra, L. (Smooth sumac). Rhus Toxicodendron, L. (Poison ivy). Rhus venenata, DC. (Poison sumac). Abies balsamea, Marshall. (Balsam fir). [Only in cultivation].] Rubus strigosus, Michx. (Red raspberry). Rubus villosus, Ait. (High blackberry.) Rubus occidentalis, L. (Black-cap raspberry.) Rubus — — ? (Low blackberry.) [M.ore or less trailing.] Juniperus Sabina, L. var. procumbens, Pursh. (Trailing cedar.) [Hokah and Sheldon.] Juniperus Virginiana, L. (Red cedar.) Apocynum androsffimifolium, L. (Dogbane.) Carpinus Americana, Michx. (Water beech). Spiraea opulifolia, L. (Nine-baik). Xanthoxylum Americanum, Mill. (Prickly ash.) Amorpha canescens, Nutt. (Lead plant.) Lonicera parviflora, Lam. (Small honeysuckle). Amelanchier Canadensis, Torr. and Gray. ( Juneberry.) Vitis cordifolia, Michx. (Grape.) Ampelopsis quinquefolia, Michx. (Virginia creeper.) Celastrus scandens, L. (Climbing bittersweet.) Clematis Virginiana, L. (Common virgiu's-bower.) [Common in the valley of Root river, below Hokah.] Viburnum Lentago, L. (Sheepberry). Viburnum Opulus, L. (Highbush cranberry). Ceanothus Americanus, L. (Jersey tea.) Menispermum Canadense, L. (Moonseed.) Ribes Cynosbati, L. (Gooseberry). Ribes floridum, L. (Wild black currant). Ribes rotundifolium, Michx. (Gooseberry). Corylus Americana, Walt. (Hazel-nut.) Symphoricarpus occidentalis, B. Br. (Wolfberry). Dirca palustris, L. (Leathervrood.) [This was found along the bottoms of Beaver creek in Caledonia township . in the neighborhood of the great spring. The wood, instead of being "very brittle", as described by Gray, was pliable and spongy, resembling a green cornstalk. This was in the month of July.] Smilax rotundifolia, L. (Common greenbrier.) [This was seen growing very luxuriantly in the sandy alluvium of the Root river bottoms, below Hokah, associated with the virgin's-bower and the climbing bittersweet. In the same vicinity were also the wild grape, the Virginia creeper, and a number of herbaceous vines. The leaves on the different parts of the greenbrier differ very noticeably. Those on the large annual shoots which run ten or fifteen feet, are ovate and heart-shaped, large, three inches long; those of the fruiting stems or branchlets, are rarely heart-shaped, but are ovate, and less than half the size HOUSTON COUNTY. 217 Geological structure.] of the former. Both sorts are rough on the edges and on the prominent ribs beneath, and are barely pointed. The carrion-flower, Smilax herbacea, L. was identified in the ravines on the north side of the valley at Houston.] It is noticeable that many of the valleys, particularly those running east and west, as Crooked creek valley, have the bluffs along the north side of the creek destitute, or nearly so, of timber, but are heavily timbered along the opposite bluffs, on the south side. This may be due to warm days in winter or early spring when the sap may have started in the trees on the north bluffs, fol- lowed by severely cold weather, before the actual setting in of steady warm weather. Of course the sun's heat would be quickest felt on the bluffs facing south. This process repeated for a good many years, would injure and at last destroy the timber on the north bluffs, if it were ever possible for trees to have come to maturity there, while timber on the south bluffs would escape these sud- den changes, owing to the shaded condition of the bluffs during the warmest portion of the day, and would only experience a steady increase of warmth due fo the progress of the season.* At La Crescent Mr. J. S. Harris has an apple-tree that has been grow- ing twenty-six years. It was planted in 1857, and is probably the oldest of its kind in the state. Its diameter is seventeen inches at eighteen inches from the ground. It spreads thirty-six feet and has a hight of eighteen feet. Its fruit is known as the St. Lawrence apple. * THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF HOUSTON COUNTY. « The rocks of Houston county are embraced wholly within the Lower Silurian and Cambrian ages. They are as follows : The Hudson River shales and Trenton limestone, confined to the south- western quarter, being of the Lower Silurian. The Cambrian, made up of a succession of alternating friable sandstones and magnesian limestones, as follows, in descending order : (1) St. Peter sandstone, in an irregular area surrounding the area of the Trenton above. (2) The Shakopee limestone, in the upper river valleys. (3) The Jordan sandstone, in the upper portion of the river valleys. (4) The St. Lawrence limestone, in the bluifs of the rivers. (5) The St. Croix sandstone, in the river bluffs. The accompanying map of the county, plate 8, shows the superficial areas to which the most important of these formations pertain. The Jor- dan, Shakopee and St. Lawrence are represented by a single color, as they are closely associated in the production of important topographical characters. Owing to the frequent deep valleys the geographical boundaries of the formations make very crooked and tortuous lines. Although these valleys *Carrer noted this peculiarity in the distribution of timber (second edit-on of Carver's Travels^ p. 34). He says: " In many places pyramids of rocks appeared, resembling old ruinous towers; at others amazing precipices, and what is more remarkable, whilst this scene presented itself on one side, the opposite side oi the same mountain was crowded with the finest herbage, which gradually ascended to its summit." 218 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA.. [Trenton limestone. are filled more or less with the loess-loam the topography still is so marked, pertaining to and even caused by the rocky outlines, that the limits of each formation are very evident to the observer. There is more or less doubt about the position of the boundary between the St. Peter sandstone and the Shakopee limestone. The incoherency of the St. Peter causes it to crumble easily, and to leave no evidence of its final dissolution where the exact contact between the formations cannot be examined; and the loam gen- erally securely hides this horizon. The Trenton limestone. This formation, as known in Houston county, consists of limestone layers that amount to a thickness of not more than fifteen feet. These layers are overlain by beds of shale and fossiliferous shaly limestone which reach an unascertained thickness, but probably not exceeding twenty-five feet. These shaly beds have been denominated " Green shales", in the reports of progress of the survey, but they seem to belong to the Hudson River age, of New York. They are overlain in Fill- more county, and in northeastern Iowa, by firm calcareous strata which attain a thickness of fifty or sixty feet, which seem to fade into the Galena formation of Iowa, as may be seen by consulting the chapters relating to the geology of Fillmore and Goodhue counties. This formation is found in Spring Grove and Wilmington townships. It runs also in a narrow, but interrupted, belt nearly to Caledonia, where it may be seen distinctly in its peculiar features, and its flat-topped mounds, or tables, a mile west of that village. There is reason to suppose that it formerly extended much further east than it does now, covering the most if not the whole of the county, and being continuous with the horizon of the same formation east of the Mississippi river in Wisconsin. The usual characters of the Trenton, both lithological and palaeonto- logical, were the only ones noticed in Houston county. It has been opened for quarries only in the vicinity of Spring Grove. It generally presents a stained and long-weathered aspect, as if split and dissolved by the action of water. The layers are at first about an inch in thickness, but become thicker, by union with each other, on being wrought to some depth, and possess a blue color. The St. Peter sandstone. This lies next below the Trenton. Its area embraces not only the slope from the high table-land of the Trenton area, HOUSTON COUNTY. 219 St. Peter sandstone.] but also a belt extending in width from the foot of that slope over the more level country surrounding, so that its irregular area is often a mile or two in width. As already remarked, while its upper limit has a very easily recognized location, by reason of the terrace-like topography of the Tren- ton, its lower horizon is often very uncertain on account of the very easy and gradual destruction of its layers, and the prevalence of the loess-loam. The characters of the St. Peter sandstone are pretty well known to geologists. It spreads into Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. Toward the east, in northern Wisconsin, Prof. T. C. Chamberlin has traced it to the Michigan state boundary, though there it is reduced to a thickness of no more than twenty feet.* It contains but the merest traces of fossil remains. It consists of nearly pure silica, in rounded grains, with so little cement that the rock can generally be crumbled in the hand. It is nearly white; and the soils which are situated near its line of outcrop are apt to be loose and arenaceous from its disintegration. It was noticed, however, that for some reason it is more frequently hardened by iron, or lime and iron, in Houston county, into a firm rock, which causes it to sustain a weathered exposure without crumbling rapidly away, than in counties further north or west where the northern drift pre- vails. This, however, is purely an accidental and surface quality, the in- terior of the formation being about the same as at other places. The cement which it possesses in Houston county, in its exposed portions, in ex- cess of the same at other points, is no doubt due to the water by which it has been submerged and stained during the deposition of the loess-loom. The thickness of the St. Peter sandstone was very satisfactorily ascer- tained on S. W. ^ sec. 17, Wilmington. The well of Mr. 0. A. Bye is situ- ated near the Trenton bluff, and by uniting the known depth drilled in the sandstone with aneroid measurement of the bluff, the St. Peter was found to be between seventy-five and eighty feet thick, the Shakopee below having a thickness of sixty-four feet. The Shakopee limestone. The continuity of this formation from the Minnesota valley to the Mississippi, and its idenity with the limestone at Shakopee, where it was first recognized as a distinct member of the Cam- brian in Minnesota, was fully established in the survey of Houston county. •Geology of Wisconsin, Vol. II, p. 289. 220 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Shakopee limestone. It is everywhere distinct as an important limestone formation, and is every- where separated from the other great calcareous member of the same formation by a sandstone as distinct and continuous, and as clearly recog- nizable, as the St. Peter sandstone. There seems much reason to believe also that it exists across the Mississippi, in the state of Wisconsin, but at this time there is no distinct published notice of its occurrence there. The Lower Magnesian in Wisconsin has been divided by Prof. R. D. Irving, of the geological survey of Wisconsin, into three parts, as exemplified near Madison (American Journal of Science and Arts, June, 1875,) but there is reason to believe that his proposed subdivisions do not include the Shakopee limestone at all, and that the distinctions which he mentions are wholly confined to the St. Lawrence limestone of Minnesota. This subject was discussed by the writer in the Bulletin of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, for 1875, when this hypothesis was first published. It is rendered still more plausible from the fact that even in Houston county the St. Lawrence exhibits variations of composition and lithology which are comparable to those Prof. Irving describes. The characters of the Shakopee in Houston county are not noticeably different from those in counties further west. The aggregate thickness, however, is less than seventy-five feet. This formation does not appear in the bluffs of the Mississippi river, in Houston county, nor in those of Root river generally; but its line of strike is some miles back in the country away from the immediate bluffs. This is due to the more crumbling nature of the Jordan sandstone, which underlies it, and which operates, in that respect, to tear down the Shakopee in the same manner, and for the same causes, as the St. Peter on the Trenton. To this fact, and to its general resemblance to the St. Lawrence limestone, may be attributed the non-discovery of this limestone by the United States geolo- gists who have reported on the geology of the state, or by others, whose ex- aminations were largely confined to the main water-courses, before the general settlement of the state and the construction of good roads. Its area is embraced on the colored map of the county, in the same color with that of the St. Lawrence limestone and Jordan sandstone. This limestone may be seen frequently in the central portion of the county, in the upper reaches of the ravines which radiate in all directions HOUSTON COUNTY. 221 Jordan sandstone.] from the vicinity of Caledonia. It is seldom quarried, or used for any pur- pose, for the St. Lawrence limestone is generally accessible in the immediate neighborhood, and that is much more desirable for building-stone, or for lime-making. In descending the ravine toward the quarries east of Cale- donia the Shakopee is the first limestone seen exposed. The quarries are much lower, and in the St. Lawrence. It may be seen also in the upper tributary valleys that feed Badger, Beaver, Crystal and Thompson creeks. It causes the first rugged or rocky portion of these valleys. It is exposed in the tops of the bluffs at the great spring, sec. 17, Caledonia, three miles south of Sheldon. Its thickness at Mr. 0. A. Bye's, sec. 17, Wilmington, when drilled through, was found to be sixty-four feet, which is probably about its average thickness throughout the county. The Jordan sandstone. The lithological features of this sandstone, are nearly the same as those of the St. Peter, but it has only about one-half the thickness of the St. Peter. Its area of outcrop is quite small, and its ex- posures are few. As it lies between two hard limestones, which are apt to form perpendicular, walled bluffs, its line of outcrop is known by a belt of non-exposure of rock separating the Shakopee from the St. Lawrence, which is less steep in the ascent, and perhaps turfed over. It often becomes rusty and firm from a cement of iron, when it endures long exposure, and is seen as detached blocks in the valleys. Some blocks of this kind are visible by the roadside in the ravine that descends to the quarries of Aiken and Moli- tor, a mile east of Caledonia. The outcropping area of the Jordan is also frequently evinced by the occurrence of blocks of firm sandstone in considerable abundance near the tops of the bluffs. In ascending one of the numerous ravines of the county after passing the precipitous outcrop of the St. Lawrence limestone, upon ascending a gentler slope still higher, perhaps along a roadway, will occa- sionally be seen such blocks of sandrock, varying from a few inches to a foot or two feet in diameter, while the beds from which they are derived can rarely be seen in situ; occasionally, however, they can. In some instances the overlying Shakopee limestone, resembling greatly a weathered exposure of the St. Lawrence, will also be found adjacent by pursuing the search in further ascent of the same ravine. Mr. Moses Strong has reported similar scattered blocks of sandstone at a level higher than the St. Lawrence lime- 222 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [St. Lawrence limestone. stone, in Wisconsin,* notably on N. W.^ sec. 22, T. 7, E, 4 W., but he has referred them to the St. Peter sandstone. The St. Lawrence, limestone. This is the most important formation in the county. It not only occupies a greater superficial area of outcrop than any other, but it takes the most prominent part in causing the varied topo- graphy of the county. It surmounts the St. Croix sandstone, an easily eroded rock, into which the valleys are deeply and rapidly cut, and main- tains a bold and sharp outline along their tops. It is the immediate cause of a great many hills and ridges. It confronts the observer in every nook and on every promontory, along the whole course of the Root river, and down the Mississippi bluffs as far as the state line, and it is especially con- spicuous in the little valleys that ascend from those streams and that often are more rocky than the larger valleys. The thickness of the St. Lawrence, in Houston county, is about 200 feet, though Prof. J. D. Whitney has reported it as 250 feet thick on the Upper Iowa river.f It is a dolomitic, or magnesian limestone. Its layers, while generally regular and useful as a building-stone, are also sometimes very much brecciated, rendering it at once more firm but also more refractory. Thi j feature pertains to its uppermost thirty or forty feet. It furnishes more stone for building than all the other formations of the county combined. It is of a light, lively color and endures the weather perfectly, showing not the least change in the oldest buildings in which it has been used. The bedding in the upper portion of this formation is apt to be dis- turbed by cherty, or concretionary, masses, which on the weathering away of the bluffs become detached and fall into the bottom of the valley, where they lie long after the non-siliceous portions of the rock have dissolved and disappeared. Such cherty lumps are often a foot, or even two or three feet, in diameter. They are roughened by cavities opening on the surface, by solution and removal of the calcareous parts, and by the natural open- ings and pores they acquired in the act of formation.' They are the only portions of the formation in which fossils have been found in Houston county. These masses sometimes show surfaces of drusy quartz crystals, 'Geology of Wisconsin, Vol. II. 1873-77, p. C7J. tGeology of Iowa, Vol. I, p 333, 1858. HOUSTON COUNTY. 223 St. Croix sandstone.] also amethyst crystals, and great quantities of pyrite oxydized and hy- drated so as to produce limonite, the form of the crystal alone remaining to indicate the original mineral. A careful study of these fossils has not yet been made. From Houston county have been obtained from such cherty lumps, an Orthoceras resembling 0. primigenlum, H., but having an oval section and oblique septa; an Orthoceras with septa nearly directly trans- . verse to the direction of the shell, much more resembling 0. prim iff enium, H., and several species of spiral univalves including some of OpMleta and some of Pleurotomaria. The St. Croix sandstone. This name was applied in the first annual report provisionally to the light-colored and often friable sandstones which occur along the Mississippi river in Minnesota, and which have by some been regarded as the stratigraphical equivalent of the Potsdam sandstone of New York. This was done because, in the existence of another formation, of different lithology, affirmed also to be the equivalent of the New York Potsdam, it was necessary to have some designation for each of them. It seemed, from considerations there given, that the lower of these two sand- stones was the probable equivalent of that formation in New York. Since that report was published considerable more time and observation have been given to the same question. Numerous facts from the northern part of the state, where the lower of these two sandstones appears abun- dantly, have been gathered, and some of them, with theoretical and min- eralogical considerations, have been published in succeeding reports of the progress of the survey.* They all go to affirm the essential correctness of the distinction brought forward in the first annual report. Hence the designation St. Croix sandstone is retained. The reasons in full for this can not be given here. Meantime if, before the final discussion of this subject, the reader desires further facts bearing on it, he is referred to the annual reports, particularly to the ninth and tenth. Although these sandstone beds occupy the river bluffs along the Missis- sippi and the Root rivers throughout the county, they afford but very few opportunities for satisfactory examination. They are in the lowest part of the bluffs and are generally hid by a sloping talus that is usually turfed •Ninth and tenth annual reports. 224 TI1E GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [St. Croix sandstone. over. The only point at which a useful section of their composition could be had was at Hokah. The general section at this place, as nearly as it could be made out, is as follows, in descending order. General section at Hokah. Feet. St. Lawrence limestone, about 200 Slope— unseen (probably transition, argillaceous beds) 30 Sandstone, line of constant exposure - . 30 Slope, rock unseen, (probably crumbling sand) 30 Whitman's quarry made up as follows : 1. Broken, shaly, and sandy, crumbling and fragmentary 10 2. Shale bed, greenish with remains of trilobitps - 1 3. Tough, persistent layers, like an ur.clurated, arenaceous shale, with green sand, in thin layers 12 4. Crumbling sand, in oblique stratification. 3 Rock very similar to Nos. 3 and 4 extends downward, covering the horizon of an old quarry east of llokah, now abandoned as worthless, embracing a thickness that is generally a turfed slope of about 150 Busty, coarsely arenaceous sandrock with Lingula 10 Crumbling, white sandrock, massive 25 Variegated, arenaceous quartzyte, purple, and white, hard and persistent, level with the top of the dam, Massive white sandrock 20 Total rock, about 523 The hight of Mt. Tom, at Hokah, by aneroid, above the flood-plain, was found to be 530 feet. At an old quarry east of Hokah, and across Thompson's creek, now abandoned because the rock is worthless for all purposes, the general aspect of the layers is much like that at Whitman's quarry, but the sand is less firmly cemented, making a stone not so good. It is a shaly and arenaceous sandstone, of coarse and fine grain, marked with fucoids and abundant greensand, and is below the stratigraphical level of Whitman's. In the same bluff, about twenty-five feet higher, is a blind shoulder or terrace which is more likely to contain the layers of Whitman's quarry. This stone, as taken from Whitman's quarry, although very shaly, becomes firm and enduring on exposure. At Houston, the bluffs north of the village are 520 feet in hight, and of this the lower 420 feet at least belongs to the St. Croix sandstone. They probably contain the St. Croix twenty feet further up, shown by the toppling over of huge blocks of St. Lawrence limestone, from the crumbling out of friable sandrock along the salient angles of the bluffs. The interval of these HOUSTON COUNTY. 225 St. Croix sandstone.] sandstone layers is mainly turfed over so as to render an inspection of their contents impossible except at points near the top and near the bottom. There is a line of nearly constant exposure about forty feet below the top of the St. Croix, occupying an interval of thirty or forty feet, which is particu- ticularly noticeable along the north side of the river, and is again mentioned in the report on Fillmore county. There is another exposure of these beds near the level of the river at the dam at Houston. The former consists of a hard, firm sandrock, and the latter is soft and crumbling, with cross strat- ification. Above the line of constant exposure, about twenty-five feet, is a blind terrace which occasionally reveals the rock which causes it. It is a sandstone, and is included in the foregoing thickness of 420 feet. At one mile north of Sheldon there is an apparent dip in the outcrop- ping upper edge of the St. Croix, as it strikes across the bluffs. Its direc- tion is perhaps a little west of south, and amounts to two or three degrees. It is entirely local, and the corresponding upward dip in the opposite di- rection is invisible. The bluffs south and north have their usual hight.* No such dip was noticed in any other part of Houston county, but it is very likely this is on the strike of the noticeable disturbance in these for- mations which has been mentioned by the geologists of Iowa as occurring in the bluffs of the Mississippi river at McGregor and Lansing, in the state of Iowa. In section 2, Caledonia township, the following section was taken : Section covering the junction between tlie St. Croix and the St. Laiwenee. Feet. Slope, covered with large blocks of limestone, ----- 200—300 Even layers of limestone, quarried, 12 Hid, mainly limestone, like the next, • - 40 Limestone, with broken and curling bedding, cherty, arenaceous or massive, with some green- sand, - - 25 Lime and sand, lumpy with irregular concretions, mainly massive, - 15-20 Soft sand, witli cemented or quartzitic lenticular lumps, 10 Soft, massive sand, (causes the blind terrace at Houston), 25 The line of constant exposure mentioned as occurring at Houston, near the top of the St. Croix sandstone, lies below this section. This line is more evident in the north than on the south bluffs, — due, probably, to the erosive action of the prevailing winds — which are from the southwest, and to the greater scarcity of timber on the north bluffs as already noted under the head of Soil and Timber. 'Compare Geoloey of Iowa. Hall & Whitney, 1858, Part I., p. 51; and the Wmona county report, where a similar dip is described in the Shakopee and St. Peter. 15 226 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [St. Croix Sandstone. The fossils that have been gathered from this formation consist very largely of trilobite remains. They were obtained from the quarry of Mr. Whitman at Hokah. On section 11, Union township, the sandstone which has been mentioned as having a nearly constant line of exposure, is sculptured, along the north bluffs, into isolated columns and tables, with some rounded buttresses which present a very conspicuous and highly interesting in- stance of atmospheric erosion. There can be no doubt that the bluffs themselves are the result of the erosion of the valley by water by a process that began thousands of years before the glacial epoch, but the present condition jof most of the curious forms, like that of the "sculp- tured bluffs," is certainly due to the effect of wind in conjunction with moisture and frost. There are also cavities and sheltered nooks, and deep, crooked passages and sharp niches, in which the wind could barely enter, and from which there could not have been any wind exit sufficient to have maintained a current capable of producing the most of this sculpture, which, moreover, are lichen-covered, and bear an aspect of age and roughness that forbids their reference to any present atmospheric forces. They can be explained only by the solvent action of water in agitation, and are compar- able to the purgatories that are often seen about the rocky shores of lakes or of the ocean. But where the rock shows a recent, fresh erosion, and is soft and crumbling, the present forms are due to more recent causes, and can only be assigned to wind and frost. Table Rock, represented in figure 5 HOUSTON COUNTY. 227 Drift.] from a pencil sketch, is one of the results of wind erosion, seen in the valley of Thompson's creek, near Hokah, situated near the top of the St. Croix sandstone. THE DRIFT. The true northern drift is not spread over this county. It contains no drift clay, nor boulders of foreign origin. There is a thin deposit of foreign gravel at Riceford, in the extreme southwestern part of the county, and there is a terrace along the Mississippi river that is made up of gravel and sand of northern origin, but the county wholly escaped the operation of those forces which spread the well-known drift clay and boulders over the most of the state. Whether any former glacial era caused it to be covered with the ice of a northern glacier cannot be determined, since the mate- rials left by that era, if any there were, may have been decomposed, and may have entered into the stratified clays and the soils of the Mississippi valley further south, under the combined influence of time and the destruc- tive forces of later eras. There is to be seen occasionally a local drift, or debris derived from the rock of the country round about, and this sometimes has a deceitful resemblance to true northern drift, yet it can always be distinguished from it on examination. On the northwest quarter of section 25, Caledonia, along the road, near the brow of the Shakopee limestone, there is a bank of such loose materials. There is a cut of about three feet, which consists mainly of rusty loam, rather sandy, embracing large masses of black quartzyte, which also vary to a lighter color but show very little, if any, lime. Other lumps consist of pyrite crystals, now converted to limonite, and of rusty, hardened sandstone, perhaps from the Jordan. These last indeed comprise perhaps a majority of the stony masses. There are also large quantities of ordinary chert and an occasional piece of water-worn limestone. The' bank shows no stratification, but consists of these materials simply mingled with the loam. The whole appears red and rusty, but discloses not a single piece that cannot be referred to the Cambrian rocks.* Alluvial terraces. There is a marked alluvial terrace that accompanies the Mississippi and Root rivers, and ascends their lower tributaries, but it *As to the cause of the "driftlessarea", compare the fifth annual report, p. 35. 228 THE GEOLOGY OF MINKESOTA. [Alluvial terraces. does not seem to be true that the streams are terraced above the level of this terrace. The highest point at which the terraced condition of Root river has been observed is Preston, in Fillmore county, but it must certainly extend several miles farther up that valley. By aneroid measurements, united with levels of the Southern Minnesota railroad, the hight of this terrace at Preston is found to be about 300 feet above the Grand Crossing of the S. M. R. R. near the mouth of Root river, while the same terrace at Hokah, likewise near the mouth of Root river, is only about one hundred feet above the flood plain. It is also probable that the loam terrace, as seen at La Crescent, is the same continued to and coalescent with the Missis- sippi terrace; and there it is ninety feet above the Mississippi flood plain. This would necessitate a fall, of about two hundred feet in the Root river at its highest stage, in a distance of fifty miles in a right line. Root river valley, between the rock bluffs, has an average width, through Houston county, of about two miles. There is, besides this high loam-terrace, a second terrace level, visible specially at La Crescent, on the Mississippi, which there rises fifty feet above the flood plain of the river and spreads out in a pleasant plateau on which the village has been located. This terrace is made of gravel and pebbles of northern origin, and was identified only along the Mississippi. The lar- gest stones it contains are about three inches in longest diameter. Tt is passed through in wells, and seems to be entirely pervious to water, as all the wells on it get water at about the level of the flood plain of the river. This material is used for grading and road-bed, on the C. D. & M. R. R. and elsewhere. It consists entirely of rounded water-worn materials, the main part being the usual parti-colored quartzyte pebbles, granitic, hornblendic, amygdaloidal and lamellar, as well as uniform and massive. A great many of them have a red color, or some shade varying from red. The coarsest pieces are rare, found only in the upper portions of the debris of alluvial fans. The following more special observations were made on these terraces in Houston county. At Sheldon, six miles from Root river, in the valley of Beaver creek, the terrace on which the Newberry House stands is thirty feet above the water of the creek below the dam. The ma- terials of the terrace at this place are sandy loam horizontally stratified, with more clay near the top, and less evident stratification. At Houston the only observable terrace, measured about a mile west of the city, is sixty-five HOUSTON COUNTY. 229 Alluvial terraces. | feet above the flood plain. The track of the railroad is about one foot above the flood plain of the river, which is eighteen feet higher than the water below the mill-dam. At Money Creek the terrace rises thirty feet above the flood plain, which is twenty feet above low water below the mill-dam. The contents of the terrace are stratified. On sec. 30 in this town the contents of the Root river terrace and their arrangement, are shown by the following sketch, which was taken on the spot. FIG. 6. SECTION OF THE ALLUVIAL TERRACE, SEC. 30, MONEY CREEK. Explanation. a. Mixed and broken stratification, roots, soil, &c., 2—4 ft. A. Strata of fine sand or clay. 6. Loam and sandy loam. 3— *•> feet. t. Sloping clay layers, damp, rusty. c. Oblia ue strata of light sand. j. Dry, blowing sand. d. Loam and light sand k. Wet clay with rusty lumps. e. One layer of sand— blown out. Sin. I. Contorted, curling, or massive strata. /. Oblique layers of sand. x. Hid from veiw by debris. g. Horizontal strata of fine sand. The full hight of the bank is about twenty feet where the section is taken. At a point far- ther to the right than is shown in the sketch a couple of bones were found, but in the confused and broken uppermost layer. They were where that layer comes down to the river, and about three feet below the surface, or five feet above the water of the dam, the surface of the bank sloping about forty-five degrees. At Hokah the village is on a terrace sixty-five feet above the flood plain of Root river, and there is a distribution of loam about the bluffs at a higher level (as well as at many other points along Root river valley), reaching to a hundred feet, or a little more, above the flood plain. This loam appears in indistinct benches or terrace levels, or patches of terrace, rising often with a slope, far up the rock-bluffs. It very rarely appears level, as a well-marked terrace. It suggests rather a worn-out old terrace level, the upper surface of which has suffered erosion, by being gullied out and smoothed off toward the river. It is generally cultivated for farms, and has good wheat-fields ; consisting of the same materials as the lower terrace. Its actual hight is difficult to ascertain. S. W. \ sec. 22, La Crescent. By the road-side appears a terrace rising about fifty feet, which at the top consists of the fine loam of which the foregoing terrace is composed, showing at least eight feet of such material, while its lower twenty feet are of drift-gravel which is coarse and obliquely stratified, the coarsest pebbles being but one or two inches in diameter. This occurs on the rounded point of the rock-bluff which faces both valleys. The village of La Crescent stands on a beautiful terrace of drift gravel, generously laid out, with wide streets and alleys, fifty feet above the flood-plain of the Mississippi. This terrace slopes gradually back toward the high rock-bluffs. It is surmounted, along the bluffs, by another terrace rising forty feet higher, which consists of loam. This drift gravel must be attributed to the agency of the river. It has every feature of a water-worn alluvial deposit. It is not found in Houston county in any of the valleys of other streams, back from the Mississippi. It antedates the loess loam, as that is terraced above it, and probably bears the same relation to an earlier glacial epoch, as the terraced loam does to the last. At Brownsville the loam terrace is eighty feet above the flood-plain of the Mississippi. 230 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Wells. At Yucatan the terrace flat is forty feet above the present flood-plain of the south fork of Root river. The flood-plain is six feet above low water. At Freeburg the terrace is twenty feet above the flood-plain of Crooked creek, which is five feet above the water of the creek. Wells in Houston county. A few wells situated in the valley of Root river have disclosed vegetable remains at about the level of the flood-plain, and probably the terraces generally cover a layer of vegetable remains that was caused by the decay and burial of preglacial plants. This has only been detected, so far as known, at Hokah and at La Crescent. At the former place the well of Isaac West was filled again because the '' muck bed " rendered the water unfit for use. The same is true of William Wykoff 's and \V. F. Weber's, and a number of others. Probably the characters of Mr. Pidges, as given below, are those common to most of them. B. F. Pidye's well, at Hokah. It is situated on the lower terrace. Loam and sand 50 or 55 feel. Vegetation, leaves, sticks, muck, &c „. 4 feet. Sand, with some coarse pebbles "literally filled withsnail shells" 4 feet. White sand, yielding water 5 feet. The water of this well tastes rather peculiar, and at first it was not fit for use. Sometimes still it comes up black, but by use it becomes clearer and is used for all domestic purposes, without injurious effects. Sugar of lead causes it to become milky white. Acetate of potassa produces no change ; sulphate of zinc no change. When it rises in the bucket it is not clear, but somewhat cloudy, as if with clay. Wells in Houston county. OWNER'S NAME AND LOCATION. 1- « 0> O c, -?~ *e ?** - o — 1 f-c P "S^ •a -2 •SI ** REMARKS. Timon Gilbertson, Spring Grove... Mons Fladager, Spring Grove 7 8 10 40 122 30 47 130 40 Good 1. 11 Drilled. On lower ground. Nels Hendrickson, Spring Grove... O. Thompson, sec. 7, Wilmington.. I Dailey N E i sec 34 Caledonia 8 8 *>8 77 65 If, 85 73 100 H (c No water flfi ?AF> 270 Good W N West Caledonia flO 50 70 flO 28 43 4 W 23 43 t O.A.Bye,S.W.isec.l7, Wilmingt'n 18 18 77 33 95 51 1 Two feet sandrock ; sixty-four feet lime- [rock * eleven feet sandrock. 36 36 t£ ) The rock has never been struck at Shel- J B Williams, Sheldon SB 36 II \ don. Cottrell Hotel Houston 16 16 H Eight feet to water all alluvium W. R. Anderson, La Crescent D Gurley, La Crescent 57 49 57 49 u At fifty-four feet struck leaves, &c. Gravel and sand. Sawyer House La Crescent 4fi 46 El Gravel and sand. James Day, La Crescent 50 50 it Gravel and sand. James Brown, La Crescent J. Knapp, La Crescent William Miller, La Crescent Charles Oldenbaugh. La Crescent.. Thomas Minshall, La Crescent Joseph Garner, La Crescent Nicholas Prive,sec. 31, Caledonia.. B. Smitz, sec. 32, Caledonia 45 68 30 20 37 30 12 1? Ti t 10 45 63 30 20 48 30 14 22 Bad Good u M K bl u Sticks and leaves ; refilled. Gravel and sand. On lower ground. On low ground, near the rock bluff. On low bench. On low bench. Four feet of water. Ten feet in sandrock. 1^ 12 1 G. Anderson, sec. 4, Wilmington.. 4C I Drilled. John Prive. sec. 33, Caledonia M Blasen sec. 33 Caledonia 12 1? 9C 3f lOi 4t ' i Ole Hanson, sec. 4, Wilmington... Peter Carrier, sec. 32, Yucatan — IS 6£ 55 7C 5£ II Drilled. In the valley ; no rock struck. HOUSTON COUNTY. 231 Material resources.] Throughout the county are numerous springs, some of which are very large, and gush out along the valleys. The\ seem to be the outlets of subterranean streams. Those above Riceford furnish the water for the flouring mills at that place. There is also a large one on section 17, Caledonia, three miles south of Sheldon. They seem to frequent an horizon about eighty feet below the top of the St. Lawrence limestone, and indicate a shaly, or otherwise impervious, layer there in that formation. MATERIAL RESOURCES. The rocks of the county do not contain any valuable minei'als. They are everywhere abundantly exposed, and are quarried at many places for ordinary building-stone and for quicklime. Building stone. At Spring Grove the Lutheran society is building a large church, of brick, the basement being from the Trenton, in layers of four to six inches, taken from quarries near the village. The heavy trimmings are from the St. Lawrence limestone. The quarries are owned by George Timansen and Ole Tosteiison. The Toledo woolen mill, of Fletcher & Williams, section 5, La Crescent, is built of the St. Lawrence, quarried near. At Caledonia the St. Lawrence is extensively used for building, quar- ried about a mile east of the village. The German Catholic church is the principal structure made of it, being also the largest in the place. The county jail is a fine building of the same, the courses being about ten inches thick, rubble dressed, with trimmings of the same. The business blocks of Nicholas Koob, J. J. Belden, John Krantz, Joseph Vossen, Jacob Bouquet and Nix Erstine are also constructed of the same stone. The quarries are owned by John Molitor, J.ohn Dorsh, Anton Molitor, Widow Cunningham and John Aiken. On section 24, Spring Grove, Mr. K. Gilbertson has a two-story stone residence on his farm, quarried from the Trenton. At Money Creek, Harvey Chapel has a quarry that furnishes good stone for building, though much of that which is used is taken from the surface near the tops of the bluffs, having been loosened and broken up by the weather. On the N. E. J section 11, Caledonia, is Mrs. M. Brown's stone house, built of magnesian limestone. Mr. J. Kline has a fine farm-house of stone taken from the St. Lawrence, on section 19, Union. Near Mr. Kline's quarry is another owned by Henry 232 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Quarriej. Snure. There is another on section 29, Union, owned by Michael Wilhelm. L. Svenson's is on section 2, Houston. The principal quarries at Hokah, now worked, are those of Nath. Whitman, in the St. Croix sandstone, and Widow Prindle. The stone of Mr. Whitman's quarry is a harsh, argillaceous sandrock, in layers a few inches thick, which becomes firmer on exposure. The best building stone lies higher up in the bluffs, and was opened in Mt. Tom by the Southern Minnesota railroad company for the construction of their shops. It is from the St. Lawrence. At La Crescent the public school house was built of stone from Potter & Taylor's quarry, likewise in the St. Lawrence, north of La Crescent, in the edge of Winona county. Lang's brewery, section 28, Hokah, is a large stone building near the river, built of limestone from near the top of the bluff. There is also a fine stone farm-house owned by Wm. Splitter, on section 21, La Crescent, in Root river valley. The Nunnery, section 28, La Crescent, was constructed of stone got from the bluffs near, including also that used for quicklime. These are all from the St. Lawrence. On Winnebago creek (sec. 22 Winnebago), Mr. B. T. Barbour has a stone flouring mill. 0. T. West has a limestone quarry at Brownsville, which supplied heavy stone for the railroad, and for other uses. Mr. Job Brown's, at the same place, furnished the limestone foundation for the public school-house. The foregoing are a few of the stone buildings in the county, but there are several others which, though noticed in the progress of the survey, were not carefully located, and cannot be referred to. The St. Lawrence supplies by far the greater portion of the building-stone used in the county. There is not a single known workable quarry in the Shakopee, though exposed as favorably as the St. Lawrence. It is uniformly ignored. It is harder to work, has cherty lumps and siliceous concretions which not only disturb the bedding but render it difficult to cut into desired shapes, and is gener- ally in thinner layers. The color is much the same as that of the St. Law- rence, being buff, or slightly salmon-colored, but the St. Lawrence is, where most used for building, also somewhat open or vesicular in texture. Thus mortar sets firmly upon it, and forms a sutured attachment. When the HOUSTON COUNTY. 233 Sand and calci te.] St. Lawrence stone is first taken out it cuts more easily than after exposure for a few weeks, a fact which seems to be true of nearly all good building stone. Sand. The St. Peter formation is excavated for mortar sand by Jesse Scofield, sec. 14, Caledonia, and by John Burns on sec. 26. This white sand is delivered at Caledonia village for $1.25 per load, or occasionally for $1.50. The St. Croix furnishes a similar sand near Mr. Kline's, sec. 16, Union. These formations will supply a similar sand in any part of the county where they are accessible. The layers in the St. Croix, however, are about two hun- dred feet below the top of the formation. At Mr. Scofield's sand quarry, about a mile west of Caledonia, is a large mass of lamellar calcite, lying on the slope of the St. Peter, and nearly covered by the loam. In that respect it is like a similar mass seen near St. Charles, in Winona county, in 1872, and mentioned in the report for that year, but it seems more firm than that (see Winona county report). This appears like a firm, very compact rock, consisting of almost pure carbonate of lime, but somewhat colored. It is mainly massive, and striated or lami- nated, but shows some crystalline grains. It weathers into undulating or wavy smooth surfaces. There is another much larger mass, weighing many tons, on 'the land of Mr. Willard, a short distance west. These masses can be burnt into a purely white quicklime of great strength. The age and origin of this calcite are an interesting problem. When that piece was found in Winona county, in 1872, it was referred hypotheti- cally to the Trenton green shales, or to the worn-out Cretaceous that may have covered that country, making it of rock origin, either Lower Silurian or Mesozoic, but there is much reason to believe these calcite masses are not referable to the rock in situ, but are of atmospheric origin, being in short the remains of immense travertine deposits from limy water running down the St. Peter slope from springs that once existed but are now dry. They lie on the slope of the outcropping edge of the St. Peter, just below the green shales which shed all the water that works down- ward through any overlying limestone ; but they are also, so far as discov ered, in regions where no overlying rock now exists, the only remaining portion of the Trenton being that which lies below the green shales. This is strikingly the case near Caledonia, where the Trenton is reduced to 234 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Brick and lime. mounds and tables, capping the St. Peter sandstone, very far isolated from the main area of the Trenton. To suppose this oalcite is due to springs caused by the green shales, a common phenomenon now in Fillmore county, is to require the former existence of a considerable thickness of strata, all over the region of Caledonia, and extending far enough north and east to furnish drainage surface sufficient to maintain such springs. This is not inconsistent with the history of geological changes, nor with the lapse of time since the Trenton rocks were elevated to the condition of dry land. The present existence of isolated patches of the Trenton, both in Minnesota and Wisconsin, can only be explained on the theory that the whole formation was once more largely spread in horizontal strata over those states, than at present. Then an extension of the Trenton so as to embrace in one sheet of layers these isolated patches, is no more than enough to bring also the Hudson River and the Galena into the region of these calcite masses. The present outlines, shape and position of the areas of the Tren- ton, demonstrate that they are only the relics of once greater areas which have been eroded and removed slowly, and left as they are because they have been better protected against destructive agents. While Root river has been excavating the gorge in which it runs, 500 feet deep and two miles wide, the Trenton limestone, which at first may have extended as far north as to Hokah, has been slowly receding under the operation ot denudation and surface drainage. These calcite masses then are relics ot pre-glacial time, and perhaps of early pre-glacial time, since the last glacial epoch did not operate in Houston county so as to disturb the older surface.* Brick. The loam everywhere is suitable for making brick, which are uniformly red. The following establishments were seen : Stephen Robinson, Money Creek ; two miles south of the village. Fisher & Keller, Caledonia ; began in 1875 ; burnt three kilns, and sold at $8.00 per thousand. Brick were formerly made at La Crescent. The Lutheran society, at Spring Grove, manufactured on the spot a fine red brick from the loam taken out to make room for the foundations and basement of their church edifice. Lime. The Trenton and the St. Lawrence furnish all the quicklime *See the first annual report, p. 47. HOUSTON COUNTY. 235 Earthworks-] made in Houston county. There are no extensive manufacturers, but the common pot-kiln is found at a number of points, as enumerated below, by which enough is made to satisfy the local demands. Ole Timro, sec. 24, Money Creek, - St. Lawrence. Gilbert Nelson, Spring Grove, Trenton. Michael Blasen, U miles west of Caledonia, Trenton. Peter Kreer, N. E.} sec. 29, Mayville, - St. Lawrence. John Gross, one mile northwest from Brownsville, - St. Lawrence. John Molitor, one mile east of Caledonia, St. Lawrence. George Timansen, Spring Grove, Trenton. Ole Tostenson, Spring Grove, Trenton. Wm. E. Potter, La Crescent, - St. Lawrence. Samuel Pound, sec. 12, Hokah, - St. Lawrence. EARTHWORKS. At La Crescent are a great many so-called Indian mounds. Some have been graded away, but many still exist. They are on the brow of the drift terrace, or lower bench, and none are known on the upper, loam, terrace. They are, as usual, in rude rows, and about three feet high, some of them being four feet. When opened they have been found to contain human remains of men of large stature, and it is said that in grading for the railroad a copper skillet and other trinkets were found at the depth of eighteen feet below the surface. CHAPTER V. THE GEOLOGY OF WINONA COUNTY. BY N. H. WINCHELL. Situation and area. This county (plate 9) borders on the Mississippi river, and lies north of Houston and Fillmore counties. It is about triangular in shape, the Mississippi river being a hypothenuse, running from northwest to southeast. Its land and water area is 638.92 square miles, or, in acres. 408,909.90. The county contains no lakes, except Winona lake, which is simply a portion of the wide alluvial area of the Mississippi, and subject to flooding at a high stage of that river, though probably sustained principally by springs along the base of the bluffs. Winona is the county seat. St. Charles, Stockton and Minnesota City are the other principal towns. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. The surface waters all pass into the Mississippi, but some of them leave the county toward the north and south before reaching it. The Whitewater is the only stream that actually crosses the county. It runs from St. Charles northwardly, entering the Mississippi at, or near Minneiska in Wabasha county. At Elba it is joined by the Middle and North branches of the Whitewater, and at Beaver by the Beaver creek. The Rollingstone with its various spreading tributaries, is an important stream. Its valleys are wide and contain numerous large and valuable farms within the rock-bluffs that outline the valley proper. This stream joins the Mississippi valley at Minnesota City, and finally reaches its waters through sloughs that cross the wide bottom-lands. Other streams that join the great river in Winona county are small but remarkably permanent in the amount of water they discharge. Pine, Money, Rush and other creeks leave the county in a southerly direction, most of them entering Root a|H 0 LUSTED X« = C4*Tl_ ifT^'i r i t til!!8 I *• c 3 ? ^ ( • WINONA COUNTY. 237 Drainage and water-power. \ river in Fillmore and Houston counties. There is a slight broad upward swell in the surface of the county, apparently due to the anticlinal condi- tion of the rocks, which enters the state near Richmond, and passing in a west south-westerly course, leaves Winona county about where Rush creek leaves it. It is perhaps the principal cause of the greater elevation of Arendahl township, in Fillmore county. The streams of Winona county, without exception, lie in deep rocks cut valleys, and are fed, and maintained at a uniform stage, by copious springs that issue along the foot of bluffs. Their water is clear and cool, and adapted to the brook-trout which formerly frequented them, and is still found in limited numbers. Near the western border of the county, in the vicinity of St. Charles, a light spreading of drift begins to appear under the loam, and the valleys are less deep and precipitous, yet still show the rocky substructure in frequent outcrops along the bluffs. Water-powers and flouring mills. The streams furnish numerous water- powers. They are employed for making flour at many places. Most of these mills are small, but they have generally the most approved methods of manufacture. Some of them are sufficiently large to maintain an im- portant export of flour in sacks or in barrels. Occasionally a large spring is the principal source of water-supply for the smaller of these mills. Of course such springs are really due to the issue of small subterranean streams. Water-power mills in Winona county. On Beaver creek, S. W.} sec. 15, Whitewater, mill of F. E. Becker; twelve feet head ; three run of stones (one for feed); thirty horse-power ; capacity fifty barrels per day. On the Whitewater river at Elba, the filba mills ; owned by Meilicke and Hoffman ; two wheels, sixty horse-power ; nine and a half feet head (can be made eleven); three run of stone (one for feed); one hundred barrels per day ; have more water than can be used. On the north branch of the Whitewater river, S. W.} sec. 5, Elba, the Fairwater mills; owned by Edward Ellis ; ten feet (?) head ; two run of stone (one for feed); forty barrels per day. On the south branch of the Whitewater river, S. E. J sec. 2, St. Charles; owned by Lamberton ; fourteen and a half feet head, with little water; two run of stone (one for feed); in full water, forty barrels per day. On the south branch of the Eollingstone creek, at Stockton, owned by A. G. Mowbry ; has both steam and water ; ten feet head ; one hundred and seventy-five barrels per day ; known as the Stockton mills. Mosquito mills, N. W.J sec. 8, Warren ; owned by Porter and W. M. Duncanson ; two run of stone (one for feed); turbine wheel with thirty-five feet fall (can run but one buhr at once); twenty-four bushels ground per day. On the south branch of Rollingstone creek, the Hillsdale mills; one mile northeast of Stock- ton ; owned by Pietsch and Furbish ; fourteen and a half feet head ; thirty-six-inch Leffel wheel ; four run of stone (one for feed); capacity sixty to seventy-five barrels per day. 238 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Water-power. On the Rollingstone creek at Minnesota City, the Ellsworth mills ; owned by A. D. Ellsworth ; nine feethead; fifty-six-inch Leffel wheel ; five sets of Stephen's rollers; formerly six buhrs (run one set of buhrs now); hundred and fifty barrels per day. On the Rollingstone creek, at Minnesota City, the Winona county mills ; owned by Otto Troost ; sixteen feet head (also have steam); Houston wheel (turbine) of one hundred horse- power ; twenty-eight sets of Allis rollers (some of Noyes) of which twenty-three sets are double ; capacity three hundred and fifty barrels per day. On the west branch of the Rollingstone creek, sec. 7, Rolliugstone, the Kollingstone valley mills; owned by Julius Seemann ; nine feet head (can be made more); thirty-five-inch Case turbine wheel; twenty-five horse-power; custom; three run of stone (one for feed). On the west branch of the Rollingstone creek, sec. 23, Norton ; custom mill, owned by Wil- helm Rubrecht ; eighteen feet head ; fifteen horse-power ; three single rollers and one buhr. On Pleasant Valley creek, sec. 1, Wilson; custom mill, owned by M. J. Laird; seventeen feet head; Flenekin's twenty-inch turbine wheel; five hundred and sixty cubic feet of water per minute ; fourteen horse-power ; three run of stone, all for wheat. On Big Trout creek, at Pickwick, the Pickwick mills, owned by W. Davis and Co.; twenty- inch Flenekin turbine wheel ; twenty-eight feet head ; thirty-seven horse-power ; four run of stone ; two sets single rollers : seventy barrels per day, shipped at Lamoille. On Big Trout creek, N. W.} sec. 18, Richmond, feed mill, owned by John Hatch; fourteen feet fall. This is a good power, but not all improved. On Pine creek at New Hartford, custom mill, owned by Jos. Blumentritt and Bro.; seven- teen feet head ; twelve horse-power ; three run of stone (one for feed); turbine and overshot wheels; also steam for winter. On Money creek, sec. 20, Wiscoy ; mill owned by Overbeck and Pirseh ; fifteen feet head; two large buhrs (one for feed); thirty- six-inch American turbine wheel ; forty-five barrels per day, shipped at Rushford.* On Money creek, sec. 16, Wiscoy ; small custom mill owned by L. J. Clark ; nine feet head two buhrs (one for feed); thirty-inch turbine wheel (La Crosse and Craig). On Trout run, one mile north of Troy, in Saratoga, custom mill, owned by C. Forket ; seven and a half feet water head ; seventeen feet dam ; one breast- wheel, one buhr, about fifteen horse- power ; capacity in barrels unknown. On Rush creek, sec. 7, Hart. This mill has been abandoned for six years. It is owned now by a gentleman in Winona named Garlick ; the dam was carried away by high water, and gradu- ally the mill itself has been torn down ; nothing could be learned of the water-power, nor of the capacity of the mill. On Rush creek, section 29, Hart ; custom mill owned by F. Lehnertz ; eleven feet head ; twenty-four horse-power; two run of stone (one for feed); Mulligan wheel, of Lansing, Iowa; twenty-five barrels per day ; market in Winona. On Pine creek, section 26, Fremont ; custom mill, owned by C. M. Miles ; eight and a half feet fall ; twelve horse-power ; "counter-pressure" turbine wheel, patented by Mr. Miles, and made in Lake City; two smooth buhrs (one for feed); ten barrels per day. On Trout run at Troy ; the Troy mills ; owned by II. Ahrens ; custom and merchant mill ; eighteen feet fall ; one Whitmore wheel and one Houston ; twenty horse-power on one wheel and twelve oa the other; three buhrs (one for feed); one wheel runs the feed and the other the wheat buhrs ; sometimes both wheels are run constantly, depending partly on the water, and partly on the supply of feed ; but much of the time only the wheat wheel runs ; capacity fifty barrels per day. On Trout creek, sec. 32, Saratoga, Hampton mills, owned by J. O. Rafter and O. S. Morrill ; fourteen feet head; eighty horse-power; two turbine wheels (Leffel's and John's); four buhrs (one for feed); fifty barrels per day. Topography. The surface of this county is undulating, rolling or hilly. It is more uneven in the eastern and northern portions than in the west- *At the time this mill wag visited the dam had been destroyed ,by freshet, and the mill had been stopped for about a year. WINONA COUNTY. 239 Topography.] ern and southern, but this difference is owing simply to the fact that the larger drainage valleys are in the eastern and northern portions. The inequalities of surface are wholly due to the excavation by streams into the rocky strata, forming deep valleys and even rocky gorges. The rugged- ness which these valleys must have presented originally, has been relieved by the heavy mantle of loam which now covers the whole county, amount- ing to a thickness of fifty or sixty feet. This mantle serves not only to smooth off the roughness by filling the valleys, but it constitutes an imper- vious sheet through which waters percolate with slowness, and which con- stitutes the subsoil of the county. Although the strata are thus canoned, the surface materials are so abundant that the bluffs do not everywhere show the rock, but they are rounded over and generally turfed from top to bottom. It is only along the deepest gorges, and there chiefly near the tops of those bluffs that face the prevailing winds, that the rocky structure is prominently and con- stantly exposed. The east bluffs of the Whitewater river, and the north bluffs of the Rollingstone, and especially the bluffs of the Mississippi on the Wisconsin side, illustrate the effect of the strong and prevailing winds in keeping the rock uncovered, and in producing precipitous and picturesque headlands and pinnacles. Such bold and picturesque bluffs are uniformly composed of the St. Lawrence limestone, at least in their upper portions, but along the deeper valleys occasional precipitous portions of the under- lying sandstone strata are also included. Figure 7, showing such pinna- cled cliffs near Homer, overlooking the Mississippi river, are composed of the upper, brecciated, strata of the St. Lawrence limestone. Numerous similar towers of the same rock are to be seen in the county, particularly in the valley of the South Rollingstone creek above Stockton. Within the broad valleys are good farming lands. They slope toward the creeks which drain them, but are frequently diversified with terraces of alluvium which maintain a plateau-like outline, gradually descending, for, sometimes, several successive miles. Toward the upper portions of the valleys these terraces are more broken away, and there constitute simply a thickened mantle of surface loam around the bases of the bluffs. The up- lands are undulating. They constitute the greater portion of the area of the county. Their general level is pretty constant, when dependent on 240 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Topography . any one of the formations, being disturbed only by an occasional thicken- ing in the loam under circumstances favorable for its preservation, and by a very gentle dip in all the strata toward the southwest. The uplands in the eastern and northern portions of the county are from three hundred to four hundred feet above the adjoining valleys, and near to the Mississippi they are about five hundred feet above the grade of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway. In the central portions of the county the uplands are from fifty to seventy-five feet lower than in the eastern, and they would be still lower if the drainage forces had been enabled to act there as effect- ually as along the Mississippi, to carry away the surface loam. This is due FIG. 7. ROCKS NEAR HOMER. to the dip of the rocks from the Mississippi westward. Toward the west, however, other higher formations make their appearance, and the actual level of the uplands along the southwestern border of the county is about one hundred feet higher than along the Mississippi. Plate 9 represents Winona county. The tortuous contour-lines sufficiently indicate the uneven- ness of the general surface, and also the gradual ascent of the upland prai- WINONA COUNTY. Topography.] 241 ries toward the southwest. The area of the Trenton rocks in Saratoga and St. Charles, is marked by a conspicuous abrupt elevation of about a hun- dred feet above the surrounding country. This abrupt ascent is followed by a still further gradual ascent of fifty or seventy-five feet within the same area, so that the highest land within the county, reaching about 1325 feet above the ocean, is in the townships of St. Charles and Saratoga. The Missis- sippi river at the north line of the county is about 642 feet above the* sea, and at the south line about 619 feet, these figures representing low water.* FIG. 8. LOOKING OVER THE VALLEY TOWARD WINONA. Many landscape scenes within the county have great beauty and grandeur. The broad valley of the Mississippi, which is about six hundred feet deep from the tops of the bluffs to the water level, and from three to six miles wide, separating Minnesota from the state of Wisconsin, is itself as great a phenomenon in nature as the Appalachian mountain range, and has a longer and more wonderful history, and one as fruitful in scientific prob- lems. Between the headlands, which outline the valley in its course, are *There is a discrepancy of eight feet between these figures and those of the plat of "Winona county, due to a cor- rection by the final report of the U. S. lake survey by Lt.-Col. C. B. Comstock, published in the latter part of the year 1882. 16 242 TI*E GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevations. tributary valleys which are themselves nearly as deep, and penetrate often many miles westward into the rocky structure of the land ; where they are found to terminate in precipitous rocky gorges, perhaps with small rivulets plunging over the cliffs, or in the mouths of copious subterranean streams. These tributaries have sub-tributaries, branching from them in all directions, each one reproducing, but with thousand-fold diversities, the features of its main, embracing the whole country in a network of vales and bluffs. Thus the beholder is constantly enlivened by a shifting panorama, as he travels from "the great river" westward. When he rises finally upon the elevated prairie plateau in the central part of the county, if with an inquiring glance he retroverts toward the east, the relation of cause and effect, which under natural laws has wrought out the valleys, the headlands, the terraces, the narrow gorges, is so evident to his mind that his appreciative sense of the beautiful in the landscape is intensified and also deepened. The valley of the Whitewater river, which is remarkable for its great depth combined with its narrowness, affords many fine landscape scenes in the town of Elba. Elevations. Numerous observations were made by aneroid barometer for the elevation of bluffs and terraces throughout the county, and on these observations, reduced to the ocean level by connection with railroad sta- tions, the contour-lines of the county map were established. In passing over the country, between railroad stations, and in all lines remote from railroads, the topography was outlined by the eye, estimates being made on the variations from known contours. The bluffs at Beaver were ascertained in this manner to rise 480 feet above the alluvial flat on which the village is situated. The flat is so near the Whitewater level that it is sometimes flooded, being about eight feet above the river at low water. This hight is reached about a quarter of a mile back from the brow of the St. Lawrence limestone, but does not include the Shakopee limestone. The 950 feet contour-line just about coincides with the top of the St. Croix sandstone at Beaver. Where the road crosses the south branch of the Whitewater, between sections 2 and 3, St. Charles, the creek is about 1030 feet above the ocean, and the cut in the St. Lawrence is about fifty feet. Lewiston, at 1211 feet, is about the average hight of the prairie about there. It includes the Jordan and Shakopee formations. WINONA COUNTY. 243 Elevations.] The terrace rises fifty-eight feet above the flood-plain of the Rolling- stone, on section 10, near Minnesota City. The bluffs at Stockton rise 345 feet above the depot at the same place. The high plateaux between Stockton and Winona rise 456 feet above the upper terrace of the Mississippi in the valley of the Rollingstone at Minnesota City, 525 feet above the lower flat at Minnesota City, and 538 feet above the Milwaukee depot at Winona. This depot is really on the same gravelly plain as the lower flat, above, at Minnesota City, but descend- ing a little toward Winona, and depressed for Winona lake. This makes the highest portions of the bluffs back of Winona about 1200 feet above the sea. This hight is reached some distance back from the immediate brink of the bluff, and in some cases from a half to three-fourths of a mile. Back of Homer the average elevation of the uplands is about 1232 feet above tide. This is reached at a distance of a couple of miles from the bluff brink. In general, along the Mississippi, the 1200 feet contour-line runs some miles back from the brink in the uplands, the brink itself being about 1100 feet. The high prairie about Pickwick is 515 feet above the station at Lamoille, or 1167 feet above the ocean. Gwinn's bluff, sec. 26, Richmond, rises 1176 feet above the ocean, the limerock on the top composing 110 feet, and the St. Croix sandrock400 feet down to the level of the railroad at Richmond. This is a narrow and pre- cipitous bluff standing near the river, with a valley behind it that sets it off from the rest of the high land in the same bold manner as the Great Palisades on the north shore of lake Superior. This gives it the appear- ance, as it has the reputation, of being the highest on the river. As it is on the great anticlinal of the formations, this is very likely to be true, but it is of about the hight of the surrounding country, except on the east side of the Mississippi, where there is a broad expanse destitute of the limerock, and therefore much lower, the sandrock itself also being reduced so as to bring the general level but 100 or 200 feet above the river. On this expanse, in high wind, the sand and dust rise in clouds three or four hundred feet in the air. This area of broken down limerock, where the St. Croix sandrock only forms the surface formation, is crossed by the valley of Black river, and extends farthest in a north-northeast direction, the limerock appearing oc- 244 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevations. casionally in the form of isolated table-topped mounds or precipitous peaks, rising very high. At Dreshach the bluffs reach the hight of 1232 feet, the sandstone rising 430 feet above the railroad, and the limestone being 135 feet thick, including the debris and slope above the brink which seems to contain both the Jor- dan and Shakopee, though nothing can be seen in place, of either of them. Here the valley of the Mississippi is very wide, and about here, or a little further north, must be the axis of the broad anticlinal which comes into the state from Wisconsin. It seems to be a broad bowl-like upward swell in the rocks, which not only causes the limerock to break away extensively, leav- ing the St. Croix to constitute the surface, but where the limerock is pre- served, to make it rise higher in Wisconsin than in Minnesota. This all is proven also by the irregularity of the contour of all the hills. They are more shaped like the drift-hills and knolls of Dakota county, without benches of ascent, though not having any true drift. This upward swell in Winona county is only felt as an effect on the topography, producing wider and more numerous valleys than further north, the grand dip being toward the S. W. or W. S. W. If there be any axis to this upward swell it may be said to occupy most of the interval between Richmond and Dresbach. The hills south of St. Charles rise nearly 200 feet above the depot, or 1325 feet above the sea. The depot is about on the top of the Shakopee. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway skirts along the eastern border of the county, near the base of the river bluffs, and its engineers have reported the following elevations oj points on the grade. Elevations on the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway. Distances in miles Hights in feet from Saint Paul. above the sea. Mt. Vernon __ 89 667 Minnesota City 97 669 St. Peter Junction, crossing C. and N. W. railway 102 668 Winona 103 654 Homer 108 657 Lamoille 112 652 Eichmond 115 666 Dakota 121 649 Dresbach 122.5 668 The list of hights on the Chicago and Northwestern railway in this county, given upon the next page, are from Mr. John E. Blunt, engineer, Winona. WINONA COUNTY. 245 Elevations.] Elevations on the Winona and St. Peter division, Ghicaqo and Noi thwestern railway. Distances in miles Mights in feet from Winona. above the sea. Low water in the Mississippi river at Winona 0 632 Top of rail on draw-bridge 0 662 . 5 Winona, passenger depot 0 660 Winona, railroad yard and freight depot 0 641 Minnesota City 5.9 668 Stockton 11.31 745 Lewiston 18.30 1203 Utica 22.74 1162 St. Charles 29.35 1131 Mean elertttion of the county. From the contour-lines shown on the county map the average elevation of each township has been estimated, as follows: Dresbach, 1000 feet above the sea; Richmond, 1050; New Hartford, 1050; Homer, 1050; Pleasant Hill, 1125; Winona, 825: Wilson, 1050; Wis- coy, 1050; Rollingstone, 925; Hillsdale, 1075; Warren, 1125; Hart, 1100; Mount Vernon, 1075; Norton, 1100; Utica, 1150; Fremont, 1125; White- water, 1050; Elba, 1075; Saint Charles, 1175; and Saratoga, 1150. The mean elevation of Winona county, derived from these figures, is, approxi- mately, 1070 feet above the sea. Soil and timber. The soil and subsoil of the county are everywhere formed of the loess-loam, the former being a superficial modification of the latter. On the uplands, where the general surface is undulating or rolling, the sur- face soil has become blackened and also thickened in the depressions, and perhaps somewhat pebbly with limestone and chert or quartzy te fragments on the hillsides, and the latter especially along the brows of the hills which face the south sun and the prevailing winds. In the main valleys the loess- loam is thicker than on the uplands, and it has been worked over and depos- ited a second time by the drainage incident to the several valleys. The terraces that are seen in the lower parts of the valleys gradually lose their distinctness in ascending the valleys, and finally become merely a thickened talus along the foot of the rocky bluffs, occasionally showing still their hight and original continuity in island-like areas in the sheltered portions of the valleys. They descend from the upper levels gradually, about at the rate of descent of the valleys themselves. The soil of these terraces is generally very fertile, but sometimes an exposure of their stratification shows their lower'portions to consist of sand. 246 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Soil. The Rollingstone valley in a fine one, especially in the month of July. It is wide and smoothly contoured from the bluffs downward, the main flat being the same terrace-plain as that already mentioned at and below Stock- ton, gradually rising toward the west as the stream is ascended, and also passing more abruptly into the slopes, right and left, which descend from the enclosing bluffs. These slopes are cultivated well up the hillsides, as in nearly all parts of the county, and raise oats, barley and even wheat and corn, the more precipitous portions above being pasture fields. There is an insensible change from the main flat to these slopes. The flat itself consists of yellow loam, stratified where exposed in wash-outs along the road, but in the upper slopes becoming gradually replaced by the coarser debris from the hills, and toward Minnesota City becoming the great terrace which is known to accompany the Mississippi all the way from St. Paul. Yet even at Minnesota City it is still covered with a yellow loam of later date. At Pickwick the loam-clay that constitutes the terrace and forms the subsoil, is seen to be interstratified along the bluff-side, near the mill, with several layers of rotted debris from the bluff, with lenticular patches of reg- ular stratification. The section here exposed is seen in fig. 9. FIG. 9. SECTION AT PICKWICK. In general throughout the county the loess-loam is clayey, and holds the surface waters in all confined depressions. No stones of foreign origin are found in it to obstruct the plow, or impede the reaper. Indeed it is only in the neighborhood of St. Charles, in the western part of the county, that the true northern drift is found in Winona county. Where it exists it WINONA COUMTY. 247 Trees and shrubs,] is so completely covered by the loam that only rarely are any signs of it seen at the surface in the form of boulders. Generally throughout the county there is a liberal supply of native timber for fuel, and in numerous places some of the best trees of oak have been cut for other uses. Trees and shrubs of Winona county. In the survey of the county the following native trees and shrubs were identified. The trees are arranged in the estimated order of frequency. Quercus macrocarpa, Michx. Bur oak. Populus tremuloides, Michx. Aspen. Quercus coccinea, Wang., var. tinctoria, Bart. Black oak. These three species make up about nine-tenths of the forest trees of the county, exclusive of the timbered lowlands of the Mississippi. There are large trees of black oak, apparently belong- ing to a former forest growth, the most of which has been cut or destroyed by fire, and many of the growing shrubs and bushes of oak seem to belong to this species. Quercus alba, L. White oak. The white oak is quite abundant in the southern part of the county. It frequents the limestone slopes and the uplands, and the black oak the sandstone slopes. Ulmus Americana, (PI. Olayt.) Willd. White or American elm. Common in the valleys ; makes a very large tree. Acer rubrum, L. Red or swamp maple. " Soft maple" is the name commonly applied in Minnesota to this and the next. This is very abundant in the bottoms of the Mississippi, and generally throughout the county in similar soils. Acer dasycarpum, Ehr. White or silver maple ; soft maple. Common in low lands. (This is the species most common as an ornamental tree.) Tilia Americana, L. Basswood. Linden. Betula papyracea, Ait. White or Paper birch. This very rarely makes a tree larger than six inches in diameter in Winona county, though it sometimes exceeds that in favorable situations in rich soils. The most common position for this tree is along the exposed rock-bluffs, where it maintains a hardy and persistent slow growth in spite of the fires that frequently run over the sur- face, and the unimpeded winds and frosts of the year. It was seen at Winona two and a half feet in diameter. Various species of willow. Negundo aceroides, Mcench. Box-elder. Common in the low lands. Seldom more than twelve inches in diameter. Prunus Americana, Marshall. Wild plum. Populus monilifera, Ait. Cottonwood. This makes a large tree several feet in diameter in the Mississippi bottoms. Fraxinus Americana, L. White ash. Ostrya Virginica, Willd. Ironwood. Juglans cinerea, L. Butternut. Carya ainara, Nutt. Bitternut hickory. Fraxinus sambucifolia, Lam. Black ash. Juglans nigra, L. Black walnut. Acer saccharinum, Wany. Sugar maple. Carpinus Americana. Michx. Water beech. Prunus serotina, Ehr. Black cherry. Carya alba, Nutt. Shag-bark hickory. This is common along the bluffs from Dresbach at least to Winona and Stockton. It has been cut for fuel for steamboats for many years. Large trees are now very rare. Ulmus fulva, Michx. Red or slippery elm. Ulmus racemosa, Thomas. Corky or rock elm. Pirns coronaria, L. Wild crab-apple. Populus grandidentata, Michx. Rare ; but a few trees can be seen in the north part of Pleasant Hill. 248 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Trees and shrubs. Finns Strobus, L. May be seen at Whitewater and Elba, on the bluffs ; a large tree grows at the mouth of Fine creek ; several are growing at the mouth of the Fine creek that joins the Mis- sissippi at La Crescent ; it occurs on sec. 28, Saratoga, at the head of the creek, and on sec. 29, St. Charles ; on Gwinn's bluff, near Eichmond, and in numerous other places in the county. Celtis occidentalis, L. Hackberry. Amelanchier Canadensis, Torr. and Gray. Juneberry. Betula lutea, Michx. f. Gray birch. This makes a tree sometimes a foot in diameter grow- ing along the bottom-lands of the Mississippi. Its twigs are aromatic, and it may be mistaken for the black or cherry-birch. It grows at Dresbach. Betula nigra, L. River or red birch. This birch is found abundantly along the Mississippi bottoms as far north at least as Minneiska. It has been cut extensively for fuel. It makes a large tree, and when young it is very shapely and adapted to ornamental purposes, especially if it is so situated as not to be crowded by other trees. In the timbered bottom-land, however, the tree is often one-sided and deformed, or nearly limbless. It is abundant in the form of small trees from two to four inches thick, sometimes clustered as if from old stumps. Occasionally an old tree stands. The bark is then not papery but rough. The outer papery bark easily peels off, even when young. It has a faint orange tint, in distinction from the snowy whiteness of the paper- birch, which is also sometimes seen in close proximity. Juniperus Virginiana, L. Red cedar. Thuja occidentalis, L. Arbor vite, or white cedar. These cedars both grow on Gwinn's bluff, sec. 26, Richmond, but the former only is distributed generally over the county. It is found in stony places, and sometimes makes a tree twenty or thirty feet high. Gymnocladus Canadensis, Lam. Kentucky coffee-tree. Seen native only near Dakota in the shaded lower slopes of the river bluffs, but it is in cultivation at Beaver and Winona as an orna- mental tree. The balm of Gilead is common in cultivation, and occasionally is seen a specimen of honey-locust, the black locust being rather common. The Lombardy poplar is winter-killed, or partly so. The soft n:aple is the most common shade tree. The next is perhaps the cotton- wood; then, in order of frequency, box-elder, Lombardy poplar, willow, sugar maple, white elm, white pine, black walnut, balsam flr, butternut, bass, red elm, white poplar. Shrubs of Winona county. Rhus glabra, L. and typhina, L. The smooth sumac is common throughout the county, but the stag-horn is rarely found outside of the immediate valley of the Mississippi. It occurs in Hart, in the valley of Rush creek. At Winona samples were seen of the atter eight inches in diameter. Corylus Americana, Walt.; abundant. Corylus rostrata, Ait., rare, seen near Dakota, and in the valley of the Rollingstone. Cornus paniculata, L'fler, com- mon. Sambucus Canadensis, L. and pubens, Michx., the latter being rare. Cornus sericea, L., stolonifera, Michx. and alternifolia, L; all these are common. Rubus villosus, Ait., strigosus, Michx. and occidentalis. L., the last with white fruit, on the bluffs at Winona. Rubus Canaden, sis, L., Ribes rotundifolium, Michx., Cynosbati, L. andfloridum, L., Primus Virginiana, L., com- mon ; Primus Pennsylvanica, £., Clyde. Primus pumila, L., near the center of section 33, Hart- along the sandy road that runs to the east of an isolated bluff. Although this does not agree with Gray's description exactly, viz. in having the leaves toothed nearly all round, and the flowers (fruit at least) single, it is probably this species. In general appearance it resembles greatly the sand cherry of the northern shores of lake Michigan. Amorpha fruticosa, L. Vitis cordifolia, Michx. Spiraea opulifolia, L. Rosa blanda, Ait. Ampelopsis quinquefolia, Michx. Crataegus coccinea, L., and Crus-galli, L. Viburnum pubescens, Pursh , sec. 24, Fremont. Viburnum Lentago, L. Celastrus scandens, L. Alnus incana, Willd. Ceanothus Americanus, L. Juni- perus Sabina, L., var. procumbens, Pursh. Hamamelis Virginica, L., moist soils between Rich- mond and Dakota, rare. Acer spicatum, Lam., sec. 22, Richmond, rare. Xanthoxylum Americanum, Mill. Pyrus sambucifolia, Cham, and Schlecht.,on the bluff-side at Winona. Loni- cera parviflora, Lam. and grata, Ait. Euonymus atropurpureus, Jacq., sec. 22, Fremont. Arcto- staphylos Uva-ursi, Spreng., sandy knolls in sec. 12, Saratoga. The southward facing slopes, as in Houston county, are apt to be destitute of trees and shrubs, while on the opposite side of the same valley the surface frequently is densely timbered. WINONA COUNTY. 249 Geologic »1 structure.] THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF WINONA COUNTY. The bedded rocks of this county are the same as those of Houston county, given in the last chapter; the thickness of the St. Croix sandstone is a little greater, however, than there, owing to the occurrence of an anti- clinal axis which lifts the strata a little higher above the Mississippi in this county than in that. This broad swell extends between Dresbach and Homer, or, more strictly, between Dresbach and Richmond. On the east side of the Mississippi, where the limestones of the Cambrian are wholly broken down and removed, the country is much lower on this anticlinal, and the lower portion of the valley of Black river is located on it. Plate 9 represents Winona county. The colors and the characters are the same as for Houston county. Although the indurated rocks only are represented by colors, it should be remarked that some glacial drift is found in St. Charles and the north part of Saratoga townships, and that the actual surface everywhere consists of the loess-loam. These are not expressed because the underlying rocks throughout the county are so well known that they should take precedence in the coloring of the geological map. This minuteness of knowledge of the rocks of the state gradually gives place to doubt, and finally to a mere general knowledge, in going west from Winona county, on account of the increase of the drift ; and hence in Fillmore, Olmsted and Wabasha counties the drift characters are repre- sented on the county maps, and in some counties still further west the drift only is susceptible of such delineation, In the coloration of the Cambrian strata on the county map, the St. Peter and St. Croix sandstones, the former the top and the latter the low- est of the Cambrian within the county, are represented by special colors, while the Shakopee, Jordan and St. Lawrence are all colored together as one. This is because the St. Peter and St. Croix are distinctly set off from the rest by certain natural causes, bringing them into bold stratigraphical recognizance, while the three that are associated under one color are also associated in topographic features so closely, that much uncertainty pre- vails not only as to their individual boundaries, but even as to their indi- vidual existence, in many parts of the county. The Trenton rocks. Within the Trenton period are placed the known 250 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Trenton rocks. Trenton limestone and the shales and shaly limestone which overlie it in western St. Charles and Saratoga, reaching an aggregate thickness of per- haps seventy-five feet. This thickness, however, is estimated. It may be partly made up of glacial clay and loess-loam, which begin to combine in that part of the county in rendering the geology more uncertain. Within the thirteen-hundred foot contour-line there is something, in St. Charles and Saratoga townships, above the Trenton, amounting to sixty or seventy- five feet. It is probably partly made up of Hudson River shales, but it is superficially composed of loam, with an occasional appearance of a little drift. The best exposures of the shales and shaly limestones referred to are found in the high bluffs in the southern part of St. Charles. The greatest observed thickness is not more than twenty-five feet. They may be seen, S. W. J sec. 29, by the side of the road, where they consist of alternate thin beds of limestone and green shales with numerous fossils. The same, or similar, beds are found at W. H. Shelton's, N. W.J sec. 6, Fremont, whose well and cistern are partly excavated in them, revealing numerous fossils. The most interesting observation made in Winona county on the rocks of the Trenton period, was in section 29, St. Charles, where there is an apparent unconformity between the Trenton and the underlying St. Peter sandstone. The St. Peter, as exposed, dips about six degrees south-south- west. It is separated from the Trenton by four to ten feet of green shale, which seems to vary, and to lie in a depression in the upper surface of the sandrock. The overlying Trenton is about horizontal. Yet at a point about two miles further north, where the St. Peter rises at least fifty feet higher, the Trenton is still present on the top of it in a thin scalp. The area occupied by the Trenton rocks in Winona county is small, but nearly all the peculiar features of topography produced by them, as mentioned in the reports on Houston and Fillmore counties, are well exem- plified. It invariably produces a rather abrupt ascent in the contour and general level of the country, amounting to about a hundred feet, and it is hence distinguishable by the observer for many miles. This plateau-like elevation is not dry, as might be expected, but the shaly character of the rocks, together with some inequalities of surface prior to the deposit of the loam, serve to retain the surface waters as in tight basins, only allowing them to escape slowly in springs about the border of the plateau, by perco- VVINONA COUNTY. 251 St. Peter sandstone.] lating outward between the loam and the shales. It is frequently the case that wells on this plateau reach water fifteen to thirty feet below the sur- face, while on the lower prairies adjacent, it is necessary to drill more than 100 feet, or even 200 feet, in order to get water for domestic uses. The St. Peter sandstone. This formation in Winona county has an aver- age thickness of somewhat less than one hundred feet, though no exact measurement of it has been made. It affords frequent surface exposures in the slopes of the bluffs that outline the area of the Trenton, and also occa- sionally is seen by the roadside at points some miles from that line of bluffs. In situations similar to the latter, but of course at lower levels, the Jordan sandstone is also frequently seen, and might very easily be mistaken for the St. Peter, since the Shakopee limestone, which separates them, is reduced to about twenty-five feet in the western part of the county, and probably to less than twenty-five feet in the eastern part. The formation lies nearly level throughout the county, and conformably on the Shakopee limestone, so far as observed. To this statement only one exception must be made, as already mentioned under the head of Trenton rocks. About a mile south of St. Charles the St. Peter has a noticeable dip of about six degrees toward the south-southwest, and is apparently unconformable with the Trenton. It cannot be asserted positively that this dip involves all of the Cambrian, but there are some reasons for believing that it does, and that the great anti- clinal that enters the county between Dresbach and Richmond in a general west-southwest direction is deflected toward the west-northwest within the county, Root river and its tributaries draining the southward dipping strata and the Zumbro the northward. The river bluffs at Elba are remarkably high, a fact which may be owing to the dip seen in the St. Peter south of St. Charles, affecting the whole Cambrian and throwing the St. Lawrence and Shakopee higher above the sea in the region immediately to the north from St. Charles. The sandy knolls in sec. 12, Saratoga, have no limestone on their tops, but their contour and elevation, as they now exist, are preserved by a cem- ented rusty layer which is about eighteen inches thick and lies on the west- ern slopes in large fallen-down blocks, being kept uncovered on that side by the prevailing western winds. It is probable that they exist in a similar manner on all sides of these mounds, but are hid by the loam. These knolls 252 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Shakopee limestone. were once capped by the Trenton limestone, as in the adjoining high-lands, and their demolition under natural causes has not proceeded far enough to bring them down to the level of the lower prairies, but seems to have quite destroyed the overlying limestone. The Shakopee limestone. The best exposure of the Shakopee limestone, within the county occurs at Troy, in Saratoga township. It there presents a thickness of twenty-five feet, along the creek on each side of the dam, and has been quarried for use in the construction of the Troy flouring mill. It has the color and most of the usual lithological characters of the St. Law- rence'as seen in Winona county. The Jordan sandstone is visible at the same place immediately below it, and the St. Peter at higher levels in the neighboring bluffs. Further down the creek, in Fillmore county, the St Lawrence limestone forms a continuous exposure with a thickness much greater. The Shakopee limestone appears at St. Charles, along the creek, and also in the streets of the city, with a dip toward the S. S. W., coinciding with that already mentioned in the St. Peter near the same place.* It is visible at the Quincy mills, where it overlies the Jordan sandstone. f In the central and eastern parts of the county this limestone is seldom seen, and when observed it is under unfavorable circumstances. It can only be said of it that it exists as far east as Stockton, and probably as far as Homer and Dresbach on the Mississippi. The presence of the Shakopee limestone in the highest lands in the north part of Homer is indicated by the occasional occurrence of "sink-holes" which it causes in the loam-covered surface in connection with the Jordan sandstone. Above Brown's quarry at Dresbach, which is in the St. Lawrence, near the top of the bluff, is a debris in the upper slopes that seems to contain both the Jordan and the Shakopee, but nothing can be seen in place of either of them. It is visible in the road between sections 4 and 5, Utica. It is seen to overlie the Jordan sandstone on the road between sections 13, Utica, and 18, Warren, south of the railroad. It is occasionally seen in section 30, Fremont, and between sections 32 and 33, Utica. In general, however, as the county is occupied very largely by the area of the broad Cam- brian anticlinal, the Shakopee has suffered by erosive agents, and this only may be the cause of its non-appearance in the Mississippi bluffs. In the same manner the St. Lawrence is reduced in thickness on this anticlinal when it is at the surface. The Jordan sandstone. This sandstone, which overlies the St. Lawrence limestone quarried at Stockton and Winona, is finely exposed near the Stockton quarries along the railroad, a mile and a half east of Lewiston, S. W.J sec. 18, Warren. It is also visible by the highway along the east and *A similar'dip is mentioned ]in the report on Houston county, in the St. Croix sandstone, at Sheldon. tSee the report on Olmsted county. WIXONA COUNTY. 253 Jordan sandstone.] west road east of the center of section 23, Utica. In these cases it is a firm, evenly stratified rock, which affords angular blocks for abutments and walls, and at the railroad exhibits a thickness of twenty-five feet. On section 18, Warren, the bottom of the Shakopee overlying is also exposed at points m the highway a little further south in the high land. The strata of the Jordan are from three to four inches, as exposed, but it shows by its rustiness that it is shattered by long weathering. It is broken into square blocks in situ, which fall out by the action of the frost. A resident farmer has enclosed some of his land by a handsome stone wall, evenly laid up with blocks of this stone, some of the pieces being one foot in thickness. In a similar way this rock appears along the road between sections 2 and 3, St. Charles, near the top of the hill at the crossing of the South Whitewater river. The Jordan is also seen in the bluffs at Troy, where it has an exposed thickness of eight feet. It is probably present where the large sink-hole occurs in the road about two miles west of Lewiston, and at one mile south of Utica. The Jordan is white and siliceous, similar in that respect to the St. Peter, when not long weathered. It is for that reason liable to be mistaken for the St. Peter. But in many places it has been observed to differ from that formation in being firmly and conspicuously stratified, affording dura- ble angular blocks that long resist the weather, and are carried by freshet waters down the ravines with masses of the more durable parts of the lime- stones. The St. Peter is much less cemented, and in Minnesota has never been known to furnish such blocks. The St. Lawrence limestone. This formation which, including with some indistinctness the overlying Jordan and Shakopee, Dr. Owen designated Lower Magnesian limestone, is still frequently known by that name. It occupies the summits of the bluffs of the Mississippi and its tributaries throughout nearly the whole county, having a thickness ot about 160 feet. An unfavorable measurement was made of this limestone in Houston county, which seemed to give it a thickness of about 200 feet, but from numerous measurements made in Winona county it is certainly somewhat less than that in this county. This may be in part due to the anticlinal position in which it is found, making it more susceptible to denuding agencies. There are two distinct members that prevail in the St. Lawrence lime- 254 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [St. Lawrence limestone. stone in Winona county, that are distinguished by different lithology, though these distinctions are not known to extend very widely, viz.* 1. Brecciated and concretionary. 2. Eegular dolomitic strata. Below these are beds of transition to the St. Croix sandstone, made up of alternating calcareous and sandy layers, aggregating a thickness of nearly fifty feet, which have generally been referred to the St. Croix formation. They are included in the first turfed slope below the precipitous bluffs of limestone. The upper, brecciated portion of the St. Lawrence varies somewhat in thickness, sometimes reaching seventy or eighty feet, and is not separated from the regular strata by a marked and sudden transition. Indeed, it ap- parently occurs interruptedly in the same horizon, and then is comparable to the sudden concretionary areas that swell out and obliterate the strata in the other formations, particularly the Waterlime and Niagara in Ohio and Michigan,! and to the tors that are found in the limestones of the Car- boniferous at North Anston, England.:}: There seems to have been some irregularity in the ocean's bed at the time of deposition, and perhaps some widespread sudden undulations of level which so disturbed the sedimentary deposits at the time of their formation that when consolidated they not only show remarkable differences of composition but also of stratification and texture. This brecciated condition forms the bold buttresses which in many places are seen near the tops of the bluffs, forming their prominent features. It is illustrated by fig. 7, which is a view near Homer. The rock itself is siliceous as well as calcareous, the silica sometimes appearing in the form of arenaceous patches, or drusy geodes, and sometimes in the form of chert of different colors. In the fissures much calcite is occasionally found. The dolomitic portions are sometimes exceedingly fine-grained, and some- times open and spongy; in the latter case, when exposed to the weather, giving origin to caverns and small openings on the surface. Although the outward aspect of such rock is that of a breccia, yet the re-cementing was not due merely to subsequent sedimentation, but certain chemical and con- "These distinctions, however, have been mentioned in Iowa by Prof. J. D. Whitney, Geology of Iow», 1858. Vol. I. p. 333. fGeology of Ohio, Vol. II., pp. 230, 374; V»l. I., pp. 62&-631. ^British commissioners' report on the selection of stone for the new houses of parliament, De la Beche and Smith. WINONA COUNTY. 255 St. Lawrence limestone.] cretionary forces sprang up which produced segregations and crystalliza- tions that are not found in the rest of the formation. The more regular beds of the St. Lawrence embrace a thickness gen- erally of about one hundred feet. At Stockton the best quarry layers have an aggregate thickness from thirty to fifty feet. The strata vary from six to thirty-six inches in thickness. They ai-e extensively wrought at the quarry of the Chicago and Northwestern railway between Stockton and Lewiston, at Winona, and somewhat at Dresbach. The stone is light-buff, generally somewhat vesicular, sometimes coarsely porous, and sometimes compact and fine grained. For the quality of the building-stone the reader is referred to a previous chapter where the dolomites and dolomitic lime- stones of this formation are discussed. Below these massive layers, which constitute a part of the precipitous bluffs of the county, there is a varying thickness of more fragile inde- scribable rock, which can best be defined by Dr. Owen's term siliceo-argilla- ceous dolomite, with occasional layers of an inch or two of crumbling white sand. There is also a slow transition from the crumbling sandstone of the St. Croix to the dolomitic firm rock of the St. Lawrence. In the first place siliceous nodules elongated in the direction of the stratification, from a few inches to several feet long, and from one inch to twenty inches thick, begin to appear in the crumbling sand. In these nodules sometimes the individ- ual grains of sand are discernible still, tightly embraced in the siliceous rock which is nearly white on fracture and very hard. A few feet higher in the strata these nodules, while increased so as to coalesce to the right and left, forming nearly complete strata themselves, are seen to be softer, and to embrace other matter besides silica. They are fine-grained and show no rounded quartz grains; or such grains appear only in patches of irregular distribution and form. At ten or fifteen feet higher the rock has assumed that character which is almost indescribable, being greenish and shaly and yet not a shale, calcareous and not a limestone, magnesian but not a dolomite, finely siliceous but not a sandstone. This character con- tinues through a thickness of forty to fifty feet of strata, and is like the rock of the quarries at Hokah and Lake City. By degrees the siliceous and aluminous components disappear from these strata, and they present the finely compact structure of some of the building-stone layers, as seen in the 256 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [St. Lawrence limestone. bottom of the quarries at Winona, constituting a highly prized building- stone. These fine-grained layers are quarried at Dresbach by S. V. Brown. They are from ten to twelve inches thick each, even and true, and make a beautiful cut-stone. Above these the strata graduate into the more coarsely textured, and often vesicular heavy stone, that more perfectly represents the average characters of the St. Lawrence. In some places, before the good quarry stone is reached, in ascending the bluff's, there is a series of poor dolomitic irregular beds, somewhat lumpy. The exact contact of the St. Lawrence with the Jordan was observed along the railroad east of Lewiston. The transition is abrupt from the brecciated and concretionary, firm, upper strata of the St. Lawrence, to the rusty and arenaceous layers of the Jordan. FIG. 10. VIEW IN GILMORE VALLEY. On some of the bedding surfaces of the layers quarried near Stockton may be seen not only numerous fucoids, both coarse and fine, but other in- distinct traces of fossils, the most conspicuous and distinct of which is a loosely coiled shell about an inch or an inch and a half across from side to WIKONA COUNTY. 257 St. Croix sandstone.] side. These could not be detached, but resemble very much the Ophileta already mentioned in the report on Houston county. In the same situation was found also the pygidium of a small trilobite. The St. Croix sandstone. The examinations made in Winona county add somewhat to the knowledge of the stratigraphic composition of this sandstone that was obtained in Houston county. Its main divisions only can be made out, owing to the concealment of its beds by the uniformly heavy, turfed talus that skirts along the foot of all the bluffs. As nearly as can be stated the following downward section exhibits the stratification of the St. Croix in this county. Some of these parts, and probably most of them, extend, without much variation, throughout the southeastern^ part of the state where this sandstone appears. FIG. 11. THE ST. CROIX SANDSTONE. General section of the St. Croix sandstone. 1. Argillaceous, siliceous dolomitic beds, forming the transition layers between the St. Croix and the St. Lawrence. Generally fine-grained, but embracing some thin strata that consist of coarse, loose quartz sand. These embrace a thickness of about forty to fifty feet. 2. Concretionary sandstone. This has many nodules, and even continuous layers of concre- tionary rock. These lumps are sometimes very fine, no larger than peas, and sometimes they swell out so as to be a foot or more in thickness, constituting nearly continuous layers, and making a very firm rock, since they consist entirely of cemented grains of silica, the cement itself being 17 258 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [St. Croix sandstone. apparently siliceous. These beds are in the upper portion of the line of constant rock-exposure in the upper part of the high bluffs of the Whitewater river in Whitewater and Elba townships, and in other places, and sometimes their greater endurance is evinced by a shoulder-like jog in the out- line of the turfed slopes, running near the top of the St. Croix. Twenty-five to thirty feet. 3. Loose, massive sand, more or less stained with iron, generally turfed over, or covered with timber. In favorable situations this loose sandy rock forms a line of constant exposure, since its face becomes nearly perpendicular; the overlying quartzitic beds protecting it from denudation. The thickness of this member amounts to forty or fifty feet. 4. Argillaceous and siliceous beds much like No. 1, embracing the quarries at Lake City and at Hokah, generally greenish and often sandy, with remains of trilobites and graptolites. The shaly portion of these beds embraces a large percentage of lime. Thirty to forty feet. 5. Crumbling sand, about fifty feet. 6. Shales and shaly sandrock, generally hid, about eighty-five feet. 7. Sandrock. quarried by Tostevin at Dresbach ; including at least one shale bed of six feet in its lower portion, which is generally spring-bearing along the foot of the bluffs ; 120 to 150 feet. 8. Shales and shaly sandrock, very fossiliferous ; extending to the water level at Dresbach, and including a conglomerate bed of four inches ; ten to fifteen feet. 9. Gray sandrock, penetrated by the Winona Mining company at Dresbach below the level of the Mississippi, at least twenty feet. 10. At Dresbach the Davis brothers drilled for coal(!) a few years ago to the depth of 116 feet below the depot level, and found all the way nothing but shale and shaly. sandrock alternating. Hence, add for Davis' drill, shales aud shaly sandrock below all the above, sixty-eight feet. Total thickness of the St. Croix in Winona county, 488 to 558 feet. No. 8, above, contains what may be pteropodous forms, also some that may be orthoceratitic, and fragments of trilobites, and numerous specimens of Lingula. One bed of about sixteen inches at Dresbach, is largely made up of linguloid shells. It is fragile. The shales, which are bluish, contain numerous beautiful specimens of mud-cracks, and of stems of fucoids. The conglomerate, which is in No. 8, is composed of fossiliferous pebbles of a gray sandstone, which is apparently only hardened pieces of rock like No. 9, or like No. 7, and is almost quartzyte, showing some mica-scales. At Beaver, the St. Croix sandstone rises about 300 feet above the river and at Stockton it rises 190 feet above the depot, which is 113 feet above above low water at Winona, giving 303 feet for the thickness of the St. Croix, as exposed at Winona and Stockton, exclusive of any dip in the formation, which cannot amount to more than twenty-five feet. At Winona, about half a mile above the foot of Observatory bluff, at the base of the bluffs, may be seen a much rusted and hardened sandstone, heavy and massive, the bottom of the exposure being about fifteen feet above the surface of Winona lake. This contains numerous specimens of a species of Lingula. The location of the shaft of the Winona County Mining Company is in the north part of the village of Dresbach, at the level of the Mississippi, WINONA COUNTY. 259 St. Croix sandstone.] between high and low water mark. It is at the same place as the work done here many years ago. Two or three shafts were sunk then on the slope of the bluff, into the shaly and sandy beds of the St. Croix, some hun- dred or more feet above the river. There is a fault in the formation at this place. This has formed a crevice, and has attracted attention. How much the slip is, cannot be stated, nor in which direction, but there is some rea- son for supposing the north wall has passedljelow its former position. The opening of the crevice at the surface is three or four feet wide, some of it being due to erosion by water and frost. The width at fifteen feet below the surface, where this company sunk a shaft, was reduced to about two inches. Drifting alongside of it, twenty-five feet into the bluft, and then penetrating it again, it was found to be made up of a lot of fragments somewhat rece- mented. The downward sections on the different sides of the fault are as follows: Section on the south side. 1. Slope, turfed and wooded, about ' - 20 feet. 2. Sandrock, - 15 feet. 3. Shale, green or blue, - - 6 inches. 4. Fossiliferous Lingula bed, - 6 inches. 5. Shale, coarse and sandy, - 6 feet. 6. Slope to the river level, - 15 feet. Section on the north side. 1. Slope, turfed and wooded, 24 feet. 2. Shale, seen, 6 feet. 3. Sandrock, - 10 feet. 4. Fine green shale (or blue) seen, - 6 feet. 5. Beach to the river level, - 15 feet. 0 Above all these rises a high bluff capped with the St. Lawrence, the top being about five hundred feet above the river. The galena ore for which this mining was done, occurs on the walls of the fault, accompanied sometimes with pyrite; some of it is found among the debris in the bottom, as it was excavated. It is disseminated in the rock, more or less, on each side of the crevice; particularly is it found in the fossiliferous Lm^Mfa-bearing layer near the bottom of the section on the south side of the crevice. Some of the galena is changed to a carbonate. Galena is also found sparingly in the limerock near the top of the bluff. It is there in seams, and on the faces of the joints, accompanied by calcite coatings. 260 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Drift. FIG. 12. STRATIFICATION OF SUGAR LOAF, WINONA. THE DRIFT. "What has been said respecting this deposit in the report on Houston county is almost equally true of it in Winona county. In the western part, however, of this county, the true glacier- drift begins to appear. The map of the county does not represent it, since the rock formations are well known and should be represented rather than the drift. It would be impossible moreover, to define the eastern boundary of the true glacier-drift in Winona county, since it thins out imperceptibly under the loess-loam. A few locali- ties where it can be seen by any observer will here be mentioned, but it is very probable that it will be found in many places farther east than any here designated. There is an exposure of till with small boulders, N. E. J sec. 33, Elba, by the grading of the road, also in the S. E. J sec. 34. There is a little gravel with stones, and one red quartzyte boulder, about 2J miles southeast of Lewiston, by the railroad. There is a plenty of drift one mile south of Utica, in the southern part of section 19. WINONA COUNTY. 261 Alluvial Terrace.] There is drift-gravel, and some stones at least eight inches in diameter, a mile and a half south of Oak Ridge, by the road, section 5, Norton. On section 17, Norton, in the valley of the creek, is a boulder of white granite two and a half feet through, the smaller diameter being about a foot and a half, associated with several smaller drift stones, but in general at this place can be seen only the yellow loam. In the foot of the slope, near the head of Winona lake, are at least two large granite boulders, one of them being rather dark and hornblendic and three feet across. These are so situated that they may have come with the deposition of the material of the terrace, but they are too large to have been brought by water ulone. There are also other, finer, drift-stones and gravel, along the bluff road, which may be regarded the remains of the great river-terrace which is found in the protected angles of the bluffs at various places in Winona county. In the southern part of the county, as far west at least as Money creek, no drift can be seen, except the pebbles along the Mississippi river. Along the valley of Money creek no drift is visible, but on emerging from it to the uplands on section 29, Wilson, a few small foreign pebbles may be seen in the gullies by the roadside. On section 10, Fremont, (N. W. J) are traces of drift in the form of stones and boulder, The soil is also a sandy loam, sometimes a little gravelly. There are no foreign stones along the valley of Rush creek, nor in the washouts. In ascending Pine creek valley, in the southern part of Fremont, and thence west to Clyde post office, no drift can be seen, but it probably lies intact on some of the upper swells of the sur- face, under the loam. Indeed Mr. J. D. Clyde, section 18, Fremont, has a well which struck blue stony clay under the loam, at a depth of ten feet. It i§ about fifteen feet thick, and has white sand below it. He took out a "lap-stone" eight inches in diameter, from this well. Several other wells in the same neighborhood have encountered the same blue clay. There is drift, even boulders of granite, at the corners of the towns of Saratoga, Utica, St. Charles, and Fremont, seen in a ravine of the Trenton. At St. Charles, and a mile or two east of there, the drift under the loam appears thickened obscuring the geological boundaries somewhat. It lies _bjth on the elevated land (above the Trenton) and in the valleys, but is visible, particularly in the former position, or on the upper part of the slope from the table-land. North and northeast of St. Charles there is much evidence of a thicker deposit of drift under the loam than in the rest of the county, High alluvial terrace. In some places along the Mississippi river may be seen a high alluvial terrace, preserved in the retreating angles of the rock bluff. This plateau also ascends some of the valleys tributary to the Mississippi, particularly the larger ones, and constitutes the principal fea- ture of their topography. It also gives character to their agricultural capabilities, spreading its arable soils high up the bluffs, which would other- wise be precipitous and rocky or too sandy for tillage. The upper portion of the contents of this terrace is frequently a loam undistinguishable from that which everywhere covers the county, but the lower portion consists of coarser sand, and often of gravel. At Beaver, in the valley of the Whitewater, there is a loam and gravel terrace that rises from forty to fifty feet above the bottom-land, or flood-plain, though it is probably very rare that this bottom-land is flooded by the river. The gravel terrace rises fifty-eight feet above the flood-plain of the Rollingstone, on section 10, near Minnesota City, and about sixteen feet above the level of the Minnesota City depot, or fifty-two feet above the Mississippi river at low water stage. At Pickwick the loam-clay that constitutes the top of the terrace is stratified, as may be seen also in numerous other places in the county ; but it is difficult to affirm this of the loam, in its 262 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Loess loam. original condition, which is spread over the uplands, so far as seen in Winona county. In cases where it is exposed along the roads by grading it does not now show that condition. But the expo- sures are nearly always1 along old slopes, where the present condition is due to former sliding down from above, this having destroyed the strata if they once existed. At Pickwick was taken the section illustrated by figure No. 9, on page 246, which is as fol- lows, in ascending order: 1. St. Croix sandstone. 2. Stratified fine lo im, yellowish, with an uneven, eroded, upper surface, - - - - IS feet. 3. Waterworn, rotted debris from the bluff with lenticular patches of stratified sand, similar to those seen in the Potsdam conglomerates at lake Superior, '------ 18 feet. 4. Thin strata of clay, more or less mingled with liner materials like those of No. 3, - - 4 feet. 5. Same as No 3. ______...__. 3 feet. 6. Stratified fine loam, ........... 6 feet. No. 6 rises, where this section is made, in the slope of the valley somewhat above the level of the valley fiat, but seems to consist of the same deposit as the surface of the valley flat Across the creek, but a short distance from the foregoing, is a section exposed in the materials of the valley* flat, covering about eighteen feet of the same interval, and occupying about the level of No. 3. This consists wholly of fine stratified loam ; showing either that the present valley was excavated after the deposit of the materials of the foregoing section and subse- quently covered over with a stratified fine loam, or that the fine loam was continuously deposited, but was interrupted along the then talus slopes by the accumulation of gerolkf from the bluffs, The basin-shaped contour of a section across the valleys, taken in connection with the existence of these beds of coarse material within the loam near the base of the bluffs, seems to indicate the latter as the true hypothesis. FIG. 13. FROM THE BLUFFS AT PICKWICK. The loess-loam. The last consideration mentioned above has a bearing on the question of the origin of the loess-loam. If it be true that this •The flat here designated valley flat, is the lowest flat of t he valley. It is that which contains the most tillable land. It has no reference to the high terrace; but sometimes instead of being flat it slopes gradually upward on both sides of the valley to the bluffs, or to the foot of the high terrace. Where is no English word thai expresses the significance of this from the German. This deposit is a loose, semi- rounded, quickly accumulated debris that is precipitated by freshets down the gorges into the valleys. WINONA COUNTY. 263 Loess loam.J gerolle was being accumulated along the bluffs under the influence of fresh- ets, thus interjecting coarse materials within the strata of the loam, and also that the loam was then continuously being deposited, it would seem at first glance that the country could not have been under a lake of fresh water, since that would have protected the bluffs from the wash of freshet floods. The conclusion would then be plausible, that the loam must have originated from atmospheric agents, such as wind and rain, according to the theory of Richthofen. But granting that such may have been the origin of these intercalated beds of debris, it is also necessary to admit that they may have been accumulated sub aqua, by the same forces, viz., water and wind, just as the rock shingle from an island or beach is carried along by waves and currents, especially by storms, and is distributed on the bottom of the ocean. This of coarse makes a shallow lake, and not a deep one, necessary for the deposit of the loam. One hypothesis for the explanation of these beds of coarse materials within the loam in the valleys is perhaps as good as the other, but when taken in connection with the horizontal lamination of the loam, which is nothing like the oblique and cut-off stratification seen in wind-blown sedi- ments, it seems as if the preponderance is in favor of the old theory of the lake-origin of the loess. There is still another point which should not be lost sight of in attrib- uting any cause to these coarse beds, viz., there is some reason for attrib- uting an earlier date to the loam of the uplands, than to the loam of the valleys, the latter being in that case only a redeposited wash from the sur- face of the upland loam, during a period of high water in the Mississippi* when the high terrace of that great valley was being deposited. Such a high-water stage would fill the tributary valleys with the necessary shallow lakes for the action of waves, winds and currents on the foot of the bluffs that should rise above it, and at the same time leave the uplands uncovered and liable to the freshets that are necessary for the production of the coarse material within the loam. Thus both materials' (fine, stratified loam and coarse, unstratified gerolle) would be accumulating simultaneously within the valleys. This will explain the phenomena of the section given, and generally of the main valleys of the county, and yet not require anything •See the report on Houston county. 264 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Springs. but an earlier more extensive fresh water lake for the production of the upland loam. Fossil remains in the alluvium. At Minnesota City the remains of a mastodon were taken out of the alluvium, and logs and "sea mud" are found in deep wells at Dresbach, within the Mississippi valley, but at the mouths of ravines descending from the uplands. Springs. Of the numerous copious springs in the county which issue from the base of the bluffs, almost invariably at the level of one of the shaly members of the St. Croix sandstone, it is only necessary to allude specifi- cally to that of Mr. F. C. Bryan, which has acquired a local repute for medi- cinal qualities. This is located near the centre of section 15, Rollingstone. The water of this spring has been analyzed by Dr. W. A. Noyes for the geological survey, and has been found to contain the following mineral in- gredients. The sample here reported also contained sulpuretted hydrogen gas. A second sample received later, gave no reaction for sulphuretted hydrogen. Analysis of water from F. C. Bryan's spring, near Minnesota City, obtained in October, 1882. Composition of residue from evaporation. Part* per I,( OO.OOO. Percent -ge. Grains per gallon. Silica 16 3 5 2 0 95078 Alumina and oxide of iron. . . Carbonate of lime 2.5 182 0 .8 57 7 0.14583 10 61606 Carbonate of magnesia 104 3 33 0 6 08382 Carbonate of lithia trace. Carbonate of potash 1.6 .5 0.09333 Sulphate of potash '. . . .7 .2 0 04083 Nitrite of potash trace. Sulphate of soda 7 7 24 0 44914 Chloride of sodium .5 .2 0 02917 Total 315.6 100.0 18.40896 Iodine and bromine, absent; phosphates, traces; borates, absent; hardness, 11.5 degrees. The water rises in a peat bog on the slope from the foot of the terrace on which the village of Stockton is situated. This terrace rises fifty feet above the spring, and contains white limy concretions and a bed of red clay at the level of eighteen feet above the spring, visible at another place, which probably runs through the terrace. Beneath the peat bog is a sloping bed of blue clay, the result, presumably, of the denudation and redeposit from the high rock bluffs that enclose the valley, of the shales of the St. Croix. WINONA COUNTY. 265 Quarries.] This underlying blue clay is the cause of the accumulation of the peat-bog, since it sheds the surface waters as effectually as the beds of shale within the strata. It is highly probable that the water of the spring derives its qualities mainly from the bog through which the water slowly seeps after its issue from the St. Croix formation. This is rendered more probable from the fact that at many other places where springs rise from the same formation, their water shows no such qualities; and especially from the fact that other springs near the same place, situated so that their water does not pass through this bog before rising to the surface, though they feed the bog along its upper margin, do not in any known case possess these qualities. MATERIAL RESOURCES. Stone quarries in Winona county. The principal quarries of the county are at Winona, in the lower strata of the St. Lawrence limestone. These have been prosecuted for many years (since 1854), both for building-stone and for quicklime.* They are owned by John O'Dae, C. H. Porter and E. 0. Wallace, and they supply an excellent material for building-stone and for quicklime. The character of the stone has been sufficiently described in giving the characters of the St. Lawrence limestone. The quarry in the same formation at Dresbach is owned by Mr. S. V. Brown. Outside of the city of Winona but little use has been made of stone for construction in Winona county. Brick is more common. Mr. Bottle Ringley has a stone farm house, about two miles east of Utica. The Pickwick flouring-mill is built of stone quarried at Pickwick on land owned by the mill company. The flouring-mill at Troy is constructed from the Shakopee limestone at that place. The new quarries in the St. Croix sandstone at Dresbach and Dakota, which promise to become very important to the county and to the state, have been fully described in the proper place in the chapter on the build- ing stones of the state. There are a few quarries also in the Trenton in the southwest part of the county, which supply stone to St. Charles. Quicklime. The lime burned at Winona, and generally in the county, has the superior qualities that dolomitic limestones impart. It is slow to slack and set, evolves less heat, and is believed to be more enduring when 'Compare the chapter on the building-stones of the state. 266 THE GEOLOGY OP MINNESOTA. [Brick. suitably handled in the mortar, than lime derived from pure limestones. This industry is carried on extensively at Winona, by Messrs. Porter and O'Dae, and to some extent in several other places in the county. John Died- rich burns lime, section 8, Elba, supplying a local demand. Brick. Throughout the county the clays of the loess-loam make red brick. The principal manufacturers are the following : John Groff, three miles south of Winona; produces from six to seven hundred thousand per year; sells for eight dollars per thousand; oak wood costs from $4.50 to $5.00 per cord; uses the loam of the upper slope from the bluff. 0. Biesanz, west of Winona, thirteen hundred thousand per year; sells at $8.00 per thousand; wood $4.00 per cord; uses the loam of the country, which there has no limy concretions. Sherwood and Johnson, Dresbach; in good weather make 30,000 per day; two millions were made in 1881; sell at $6.00 per thousand, loaded on the cars; oak wood is $3.00 per cord, soft wood $2.50; ship by cars and by river; steam machinery for molding. Mosse and Dresbach, Dresbach; sell hand-mold brick at $6.00 per thou- sand, on the the cars ; this is a new firm. Williams and Schmidtz, a new firm, sell for the same price. The brick-yards at Dresbach are in active and nourishing condition, and they furnish a fine quality of red brick, some of them being a superior pressed brick, equal in texture and fineness to those from St. Louis, but not yet their equal in the mechanical execution of the molding and handling. The loam used is free from limestone and from concretions. It lies directly on the sandstone of the St. Croix, but has in its upper portions (which are rejected)' layers of debris, like Nos. 3 and 5 of the section at Pickwick. Archceology. At Dresbach have been found interesting implements in making excavations in the loam for extending the brick-yards. It became necessary to remove several of the ancient earth-mounds, and in so doing two copper implements were obtained, together with fragments of chert and pieces of human skull, and of ancient pottery. The skeleton accom- panying these specimens was stated by Mr. Geo. B. Dresbach, Jr. and by Mr. Mosse, to have measured eight feet in length. This also agrees with a statement made by Col. George B. Dresbach, concerning the size of a skele- WINONA COUNTY. 267 Minerals.] ton exhumed several years ago from a mound situated on the high loam- terrace of the Mississippi, near the same place. From the latter mound were taken several skulls and other human bones, a lot of flint arrow-points, and one copper hatchet, the edge of which was said to have been hardened by some process. Minerals. An impure limonite, pseudomorphous after marcasite, is frequently seen lying loosely on the tops of the wind-worn bluffs along the Mississippi, among other fragments of siliceous rock and of quartz. Sometimes it is in cock's-comb aggregations, and sometimes irregularly spreading and hepatic in outline, or botryoidal or mammillated. It seems to be mainly at the bottom of the debris covering the rock. At St. Charles was formerly a large piece of lamellar calcite, very dense and firm,* lying on a sloping surface underlain by the St. Peter sandstone. It was originally four or five feet across, and about a foot thick, but has • been broken up for hand specimens and carried away. It very nearly re- sembled argentine and had a wavy and curly internal structure, in layers, giving it much the appearance of woody fiber, and it was regarded as a specimen of petrified wood for a number of years after its discovery. FIG. 14. PROFILE ROCK, WINONA. •See the Houston county report for an account of similar deposits in that county. CHAPTER YI. THE GEOLOGY OF FILLMORE COUNTY. BY N. II. WINCIIELL. This county is shown on plate 10. It is situated next w.est of Houston county and borders on the Iowa state line. Its area, including land and water, amounts to 555,014.44 acres, of which 1,912.54 acres are water. It contains no lakes, this water area consisting of the actual water surface of the larger streams, as meandered by the United States surveyors. The most of the county is suitable for farm tillage. The county seat is Preston, in the valley of the south branch of the Root river. Lanesboro, Spring Valley, Chatfield and Rushford are its other principal towns. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. The surface waters of the county are removed almost wholly by the various tributaries of Root river, the only exceptions being in Beaver, Bristol, Harmony and Canton townships, where a few small valleys are drained by the Upper Iowa river, which skirts along the state boundary in this county. Root river, flowing toward the east, spreads out its tributaries toward the north, west and south, like the rays of a fan' crossing the entire county from west to east. Many of these tributaries rise in the counties next west and north, in a tract of country covered by the northern drift. After passing the county line they soon enter canon - like valleys, the drift at the same time becoming much lighter. They then converge toward the main valley, following deeply cut rocky valleys, and leave the county in one volume a little east of Rushford, in the northeastern corner. These streams furnish frequent water-power, and in a number of places this has been improved in the erection of mills. Water-power and water-power mills in Fillmore county. At Chatfield, T. Dickson's mill has thirty horse-power; twenty feet head ; making forty bar- rels of flour per day. The main mill has a 26-inch Mulligan wheel. There are also one 17j-inch Leffel wheel, 4 run of stone (one for feed| and one set of smooth rollers. John Cozzen's mill has 20 or 25 horse-power, with a twelve-foot head, making from fifteen to twenty barrels per day ; has a 40-inch Dayton (Ohio) wheel, one set of smooth rollers and two run of stone, one being for feed. I>L.\'I'K 111 *SH MOW •'.9.* C 0 U N T '. N o j. s n o * FILLMOEE COUNTY. 269 Water-power.] The mill of Dickson, Easton and Johnson has a capacity of one hundred barrels per day of 24 hours ; 13 feet head, foi r Mulligan wheels (30 36-inch), two run of stone (none for feed), four sets of double, corrugated rollers, and three or four sets of smooth rollers There is also a woolen- mill at Chatfield run by water-power. It is owned by Marsden and son, and has a 48-iiich turbine wheel, giving 20-25 horse-power- The dam is 6 feet 9 inches. The factory has one 40-inch set of woolen machinery. On section 34, Sumner, the Tunnel mill on Bear creek has a head of 26 feet, with an average of 39 horse power in summer. During one-tldrd of the year this power is doubled, and in freshet stage of the river it sometimes amounts to a hundred times that. There is about one-third more water in Bear creek at the Tunnel mill than at Odell's. On Bear creek, above the Tunnel mVl are the following powers: At Hamilton, one mill, 14 feet fall, with nearly as much water as at Lime City ; at Lime City, the old Frazer mill-site, with twelve feet head. By the use of the possible tunnel here this power might be improved. This tunnel, when constructed, would produce a fall of 16£ feet, and would be 400 feet in the rock, and 500 feet from water to water. With a six-foot dam this fall may be increased to 21 feet. The Tunnel mitt dam "flows back" to the old Frazer site. Below the Tunnel mill on Bear creek are the following powers: Stone mill, has one-fourth more water than the I'unnel mill, with ten feet head, with a possibility of twelve ; an unimproved power (12 feet head); Washington mill, 8 feet head, and double the water at the Tunnel mill; Qrei- iier's mill, water about the same as at the Washington mill, head 14 feet: Yeariny's mitt, head 13J feet, same water as at Greiner's ; Thompson's mill, 12 feet head, and ten per cent, more water than at the Washington mill. On Deer creek are the following: Weisbach's mill, S. E. J sec. 11, Spiing Valley, fall 5 feet ; Olds' mill and Fritz' mill. On Hush creek, see. 3, Kushford, Gore and Company have a flouring mill, with saw-mill machinery connected. It has forty horse-power, 12 to 15 feet head of water, two Leffel wheels, and three run of stone (one for feed). At Clear Grit, on the Root river, sec. 22, Carrollton, one flouring-mill. At Preston, on the Root river, are one flouring-mill and one woolen-mill. At Carimona, on the Root river, is one flouring-mill. There is one also at Forestville, on the same stream. At Etna is a flouring-mill run by a tributary of the south branch of Root river. At Fillmore, on the middle branch of Root river, are two mills. At Baldwin's bridge, sec. 21, Forestville, is one mill on the south branch of Root river. De For's flouring-mill is on sec. 24, Bloomfleld, on the south branch of Root river. There are three flouring-mills at Rushford, one at Peterson, two at Whalen, two at Granger, and three on the south fork of Root river. '1 he Hammer mills are owned by Dr. Hammer. They are on Trout run, in Pilot Mound, have eight horse-power, two tribune wheels, three buhrs (one for feed) and 18 feet head, making forty barrels per day. At Lanesboro the horse-power of the mills is estimated as follows: Seven cubic feet of water per second, under 26 feet head, is reckoned as one power. Ten of these constitute the capacity of the Lanesboro Company's dam, at lowest water; ordinarily there are four more of these powers available here. James Thompson's mill has the same water; under 17 feet head. The others a} Lanesboro are: White, Nash and Co., six powers ; White and Beynon, four powers. At two miles south from Lanesboro is Durschee's mill. This is run by the water that gushes out from the bluff in a single spring It has a 15}-inch Leffel wheel and 28 feet head, and is capable of about v6 horse-power, but as a considerable quantity of the water is wasted, only about fifteen horse-power is actually used. It carries three run of stone. At the Tunnel mills, sec. 24 Sumner, advantage has been taken of the winding course of Bear creek. The creek is enclosed on both sides by high rocky walls. A tunnel has been cut through a narrow neck, excavated in the rock, admitting the water, which falls again into the river on sec. 34, producing a fall of 26 feet in 600 feet. The cut in the rock is 600 feet long, for the tunnel, and 100 feet for tail race. At G. Weisbach's mill a similar opportunity is offered. This is on sec. 11, Spiing Valley. By a tunnel of 70 feet through the " hogsback", a fall of 17 feet 10 inches may be secured, and at the limekiln of Mr. J. H. Hall, near Weisbach's, a tunnel of 070 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Topography. 125 feet will furnish a power of 20 feet. About twenty rods from Weisbach's, a tunnel of 45 > feet will afford 64 feet head of water. The rock is limestone, in horizontal bedding. Topography. That portion of the county which is covered with a thick deposit of foreign drift presents the usual monotony of surface character- istic of the drift latitudes. This includes the most of the range of town- ships across the western end of the county, and some portions of the next range east. There are, however, even within this drift area, a number of narrow, deeply cut valleys, with precipitous rocky bluffs, having very much the nature of canons, like those of the driftless territories of the west. Toward the east these deeply cut valleys are more numerous. All the little streams, and a great many narrow valleys that have no running watef in them, have high rocky bluffs along their whole course. These valleys and streams, constituting the drainage system of the county, converge toward the valley of Root river. The valley of this stream with its prin- cipal tributaries presents some of the most remarkable and instructive phe- nomena of erosion to be found in the state. It passes nearly at right angles across the strike of the formations. These are alternating limestones and sandstones, with an occasional bed of soft shale. The Trenton limestone, underlain by the easily eroded St. Peter sandstone, the same as at the falls of St. Anthony, although about a hundred and sixty feet in thickness, is eaten into by the retroaction of the water as it plunges over the falls at the point where the streams cross the line of its superposition over the St. Peter, until they have each excavated in the Trenton a deep channel from fifteen to thirty miles in extent. Through the line of the strike of the St. Peter these valleys are widened out, the surface of the low ground within the bluffs being usually one of rich meadow with undulating surface, from one to two hundred feet below the general level. The Cambrian formations are entered upon by the streams while they are yet a good many miles within the general area of the Trenton. As these formations consist of two lime- stones, separated and succeeded by sandstones, they repeat the succession of phenomena witnessed in the erosion of the Trenton and St. Peter. As the water leaves the Shakopee limestone and enters upon the Jordan sand- stone, it passes over a series of rapids, or a fall of several feet perpendicular, which falls or rapids undergo a process of recession under the same causes as produce the recession of the Trenton-St. Peter falls. Again when the FILLMORE COUNTY. 271 Topography.] stream passes from the St. Lawrence limestone upon the St. Croix sand- stone the same conjunction of circumstances causes another rapid or water- fall. Thus by a series of steps more or less evident, the branches of Root river descend from the area of the Galena limestone to the St. Croix sand- stone. The valleys widen in the sandstone areas, and become abruptly nar- row in the limestone belts. In passing down a stream, within a sandstone area, where the valley is perhaps half a mile wide, with tilled farms in the bottom land, the high bluffs being remote from the stream, the first indica- cation of an approaching change in the formation is the rise of a terrace along the immediate river bank, with an occasional exposure of limerock facing the water. This terrace, which becomes almost continuously rocky, rises slowly till it exposes the full thickness of the rock which causes it. On the other hand the first evidence of a change from limestone to sand- stone, visible in descending the stream, is the occurrence of a waterfall or rapid. Such changes produce water-powers, many of which have been improved. Hence the location of a flouring-mill, on one of these branches, is an intimation to the geologist that at that point one of his boundary lines crosses that stream. Around these points gathered the first village settle- ments. Preston is located where the water-power formed by the descent of the river from the Shakopee to the Jordan induced the construction of mills. The water-power at Chatfield is formed in the same way. Near Fillmore the branches of Root river, known as Deer and Bear creeks, afford good water-powers by their descent from the Trenton to the St. Peter. Mills have been built at both points. On the south branch of Root river, above Forestville, the stream leaves the Trenton, and the waterfall has been improved in the same manner, at Baldwin's mill. The same fact is illus- trated by a great number of eastward flowing streams in the eastern border counties, between Fillmore county and the falls of St. Anthony at Minne- apolis. Of course rapids are also likely to be formed, specially in small streams, when passing through the areas of rocks of uniform hardness. Such water-powers, and others that are formed by the construction of dams, do not fall into this class. While the immediate valleys of Root river and its tributaries are apt to be rocky, the country that spreads out in either direction, after leaving the valleys, is not rough. It is rolling, or undulating. In the eastern por- 272 FILLMORE COUXTY. [Topography. tion the rocks are covered by a heavy deposit of rich, clayey, loam, known as the loess, which fills up many depressions and lends a uniform and remarkable fertility to the soil. It constitutes the soil. The farms are all well drained, naturally. The county contains no lakes. In York township there is a slough which on some maps is represented as a lake. It is about a quarter of a mile across. The Trenton area is distinctly separated, topo- graphically, from that of the St. Peter and the lower formations. From the Trenton to the Shakopee the surface descends by a step or terrace, about 125 feet. Some of the Trenton areas are isolated from the main area, and constitute small tables or mounds, which are well known as " Trenton mounds", in the early reports. Some travelers have referred them to the agency of the ancient "mound-builders", and a good many of the residents, who are not aware of the causes that have produced them, still believe that they are artificial instead of natural. From some of the elevated Trenton areas, overlooking the river valleys, magnificent views of landscape may be had. From the elevated Trenton area, in Newburgh township, the eye looks over the valley of the south fork of Root river, and can almost discern the Trenton bluffs on the opposite slopes of Root river in the northern part of the county. From the penin- sula of the Trenton running north between Camp and Willow creeks in Preston township, the village of Fountain is plainly discernible across the valleys of the south branch of Root river and Watson's creek, with a wide expanse of alternating timber and prairie between, while on either side is a broad undulating valley 'of prairie land. On the east is Camp creek valley, and on the west is that of Willow creek. These valleys are deep and wide, but owing to the thickness of the loess-loam the slopes are gentle and broad; and, in the fall of the year, when the industry of the farmer is exhibited in the plowing of his wheat fields, and the threshing of his last crop, in every direction may be heard the rattle of threshers, often running by steam, and a hundred teams may be seen preparing for the next harvest. Another magnificent view may be obtained from the Trenton peninsula on sections 10 and 15 in Carrollton. From here the view extends north over the valley of Root river to the Trenton bluffs along the north boundary of the county, a distance of over forty miles, and toward the south over the valley of the south branch of Root river, looking over Preston and Lanesboro, which are FILLMORE COUNTY. 273 Topography.] situated within the river bluffs, so far below the general level of the country that they can be seen but a short distance before reaching them. Further down Root river valley, the gorge in which the river runs be- comes wider, being at Rushford about two miles in width, with fine farm lands in the bottoms. The bluffs are rounded off with age and have a thin soil, generally turfed, though showing frequent rock exposure. The river is there 565 feet below the tops of the bluffs, as measured by aneroid. At Whalen, in Holt township, the river is by the same measurement, 470 feet below the top of the Trenton terrace on section 20. Whalen's bluff is 250 feet high above the river. At Lanesboro, in Carrollton, the river is 285 feet below the immediate river bluffs, which consist wholly of the Cambrian for- mations, and about 440 feet below the top of the Trenton terrace on section 20, Holt. At Preston the river at the stone mill is 335 feet below the Tren- ton terrace, which forms the general level about a mile south of the village. At Isinour's station the river runs 145 feet below the top of the Shakopee limestone, which forms there the brow of the immediate river bluffs. At Forestville the hight of the country north of the village, above the river, is 285 feet. The immediate river bluffs are 190 feet above the mill pond. At Chatfield the river is about 222 feet below the general level of the country. At Fillmore the prairie upland is 200 feet above the river level. From Fountain to Isinour's station the track of the Southern Minnesota railroad descends 401 feet, passing from the Galena to the St. Lawrence, and enter- ing the latter formation about twenty-five feet, the rocks all lying nearly horizontal. At Weisbach's mill, on Deer creek, section 11, Spring Valley, the river is 205 feet below the general level of the country. There is here a little drift, but the cut is mostly in the Galena and Trenton limestones. The village of Fountain is about 350 feet higher than the terrace at Preston on which the Stanwix House stands. These measurements might be mul- tiplied, but enough have been given to show the u»evenness of the surface due to erosion. The rocks lie everywhere nearly horizontal. The varied topography of the county is due to the influence of running water, and atmospheric forces, on the rocks, combined with their alternations of lime- stone with soft sandstone. The limestones are firm, and resist these forces much longer than the sandstones. They alternate in the following manner in descending order: 18 274 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. I Topography. Trenton limestone. St. Peter sandstone. Shakopee limestone. Jordan sandstone. St. Lawrence limestone. St. Croix sandstone. The limestones form the prominent features in the topography. They have the most frequent outcrops. They project along the summits of the bluffs and constitute the brows of benches or terraces that diversify the county. The sandstones never, or very seldom, appear in the tops of the bluffs. They outcrop in sheltered nooks, or below the line of the limestone exposure. They are more likely to be hid by soil and turf. The Lower Trenton is overlain by a layer of about twenty feet of easily eroded green shale, which, outcropping by roadsides, introduces a series of springs and muddy spots, being impervious to water, that invariably follows that boundary line wherever it goes. It withstands the disintegrating action of the elements even more successfully than the limestones themselves. For that reason it protects the Trenton which lies below it, long after the Galena limestone which lies above it has been entirely denuded. (Jrc/tfun&rrace) FIG. 15. SHOWING THK EFFECT OF THE TUENTON AND GEEEN SHALES ON THE TOPOGRAPHY. FILLMORE COUNTY. 275 Topography.] Explanation. At a the Galena and Trenton have their full thickness, about 160 feet. Such a point may be found at Fountain ; b represents an outcrop of the Galena, or Upper Trenton, as seen along the gorges that are frequent in the Galena area. Such an outcrop is visible at the "Big Spring" a few miles northwest of Fountain, where the water rashes out in a great volume near the base of the bluff, and probably on a level with the top of the green shale. At c is a marshy tract, or one that is gently sloping, having a springy margin, near the brow of the lower bluff. Such spots are visible particularly at Chatfleld, in the northern part of the village, near Jacob's limekiln, and west of there. A fine illustration of the effect of this shale on the surface drainage may be seen in section 35, Holt, where a copious spring issues from near the top of the mound of Trenton, the water being shed by the shale overlying, and gathered by troughs into a tank for watering stock, d rep- resents the outcropping edge of the Trenton. It is this which is seen in the summits of the isola- ted mounds, and which forms the conspicuous shoulder that exists wherever the strike of the Trenton crosses the county. The slope e is occupied by the St. Peter sandstone. Sometimes this is quite precipitous, and its upper forty or fifty feet are very apt to be, but its lower portion is very gently descending, so that it is impossible to determine where it is replaced by the Shakopee which underlies it. The horizontal distance between & and d is sometimes several miles. This is apt to be the case along the eastern margin of the Trenton area. Indeed the detached Trenton areas in Holt and Amherst,~and notably that in Pilot Mound, townships comprise only this lower portion of the Trenton. The Shakopee limestone, /, underlying the St. Peter, is that which occurs along the tops of the immediate bluffs of the river, as at Preston, Lanesboro, Clear Grit, and Whalen. At Chatfield it is seen at the mill, and rises about thirty feet above the river. The strike of the Galena and Hudson Elver formations is often driven back several miles from that of the Lower Trenton. The limerock which lies below this shale is about twenty feet thick. The singular Trenton mounds, which have already been mentioned, are composed of the Lower Trenton, protected by a greater or less thickness of this green shale, and a portion of the St. Peter sandstone. The preceding diagram illustrates the manner of weathering down of the Trenton and St. Peter. Instances of this may be seen in almost any square mile, in the loam-covered area, along the out-running strike of the Trenton. Throughout the Galena and Upper Trenton areas are found a great many depressions that are well known as "sink-holes". These consist of bro- ken down spots in the drift, or loam, where it had been spread over a pre- existing canon in the rock. In some places they are very numerous, but they are confined, so far as known, with but very few exceptions, to these limestone areas. They throw some light on the condition of the rocky sur- face prior to the period which witnessed the spreading of the drift. The rock was wrought, at least in Fillmore county, in very much the same man- ner as we now see it along the river gorges. The immense valleys of erosion which we see, not only in Fillmore county but also throughout the tract that has been denominated the "driftless area", were excavated before the glacial period. Where the streams of the present time run in such gorges they have been so located by the exigencies of surface drainage and ero- sion since the last glacial epoch. That these gorges antedate the last ice 276 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. I Topography. period is shown by their existence beneath the glacial drift. These sink- holes sometimes occur in lines, and with increasing frequency and size toward a large valley, and at last coalesce so as to form a continuous valley, though frequently without running water, that becomes tribu- tary to the larger gorge. These gorges under the drift can sometimes be traced for some distance by a series of successive sink-holes. Some- times streams are lost in them, and re-appear at lower levels. There are several well-known subterranean passages in the county. Lost creek, in Jordan township, and the Brook Kedron, in Sumner, both have under- ground passages for several miles. Canfield creek, south of Forestville, runs underground about twelve miles, and, finally, the south branch of Root river sinks in the N. E. J sec. 19, Forestville, and runs underground, except in high water, to about the center of section 21, where it re-appears. These underground passages are in the area of the Galena. They indicate the corrugated appearance the country presented prior to the overspread- ing of the drift and the loess-loam. The Galena cannot be supposed to have been any more subject to such causes as produced this channeling in the rock than the formations of the Cambrian. .There is some reason, how- ever, why these gorges are found almost entirely confined to that limestone. As has been said, the Cambrian consists of alternating sandstones and lime- stones, which conduces to their breaking down laterally, the sandstones easily crumbling out. The Galena limestone, on the other hand, in con- junction with the Trenton, while they have a thickness of 160 feet, more or less, have, near the bottom, a bed of impervious shale which prevents the downward infiltration of the surface water, and protects the underlying sandstone. Hence the erosions that operate lateral!}', in tearing down the Cambrian formation, are occupied in the Galena and Trenton limestone area, in cutting narrow perpendicular gorges. For this reason the Galena area is everywhere the highest in the county. From the eastern boundary of the Trenton, looking east, one beholds a broad landscape, lying several hundred feet, in some places, below him, the effect of the more rapid denu- dation of the rocks in that portion of the county. Into such narrow gorges neither the drift nor the loess-loam, however deposited, would enter with such compactness as to close up the pre-existing water courses; and when partially closed up, as they were wherever sink-holes have since appeared, FILLMORE COUNTY. 277 Elevations.] they have been undergoing ever since a process of re-excavation. This process is revealed in the occasional collapsing of the surface soil, and thus the formation of a new sink-hole, and in the enlargement of others, since the settlement of the county. Elevations in Fillmore county on the Southern Minnesota division, Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul railway. From George 15. Woodworth, assistant engineer, La Crosse. Distances in miles Hightsinfeet from La Crosse. above the sea. Rushford, - 29.9 714 Peterson, 31.6 748 Whalen, 43.4 778 Root river bridge, 46.0 793 Root river bridge, . 47.5 816 Lanesboro, 48.0 833 Root river bridge, 51.7 865 Isinour's, 53.6 891 Fountain, 59.3 1294 Depression, grade, 60.6 1251 Summit, grade, 64.7 1322 Wykoff, - 66.6 1302 Summit, grade, 68.6 1359 Spring Valley, - 73.6 1258 Mean elevation of the county. From the contour-lines shown on the map the average elevation of each township is estimated as follows : Rushford, 1025 feet above the sea; Norway, 1150; Preble, 1050; New- burgh, 1150; Arendahl, 1075; Holt, 1050; Amherst, 1150; Canton, 1175; Pilot Mound, 1025; Carrollton, 1050; Preston, 1125; Harmony, 1200; Chatfield, 1100; Fountain, 1200; Carimona, 1175; Bristol, 1250; Jordan, 1200; Fillmore, 1225; Forestville, 1225; York, 1275; Sumner, 1275; Spring Valley, 1275; Bloom- field, 1300; and Beaver, 1300. The mean elevation of Fillmore county, derived from these figures, is approximately, 1170 feet above the sea. Soil and timber. The soil of the county is generally very fertile. The immediate surface is a loam. This varies in color and composition, as well as in origin. That portidn of the county covered with the northern drift has primarily a drift soil, which consists of gravelly clay. Where this forms the immediate surface, which is the case only on knolls and on the brows of the river bluffs, it affords a soil of an ashen color, if dry. In tim- bered belts it is more stony or gravelly. In the open prairies, and in low ground, it is covered with a loam. This is believed to have resulted from the natural decomposition of the coarse materials of the drift, under the calcining influence of the prairie fires, and the frosts of the ages. It has 278 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Soil and timber. never been stratified, or arranged with any regularity that would indicate its having been deposited either by standing or running water. In most cases, specially on the open prairie, it is nearly black. As it is mingled with the drift clay it becomes lighter colored. In the low grounds it is much thicker, and also of a black color. Overlapping the drift area in a belt about five miles wide, is a soil formed by the mingling of the loess-loam with the drift. The loess-loam is later than the glacial drift, and in the process of deposition it is modified by contact with the drift clay. The loess-loam is indistinctly stratified, though it usually appears massive, and consists of fine, often clayey sediment. The soil derived from it, usually sandy and light colored or rusty, is sometimes so clayey as to make, when wet, a fine and very slippeiy mud. The soil derived distinctly from the loess-loam covers at least one-half of the county, and is supposed to extend to the Mississippi river. It makes a rich and apparently strong soil, as it supports a cropping of wheat from year to year. It is impossible to define its western limit. If it were derived from a long-standing inland lake some beach-lines would be found indicating its western boundary. No beach- lines have been found. That it was deposited from standing water can hardly be questioned. It thins out westwardly gradually, passing through a confused or mixed condition resulting from the mingling of the drift ma- terials with the sediment, or by its overlapping the drift. While the essen- tially loess-loam soil of the eastern part of the county, can be distinguished easily from the drift soil of the western, no line of demarkation separating them has been noticed. A line drawn from the southeast corner of Bristol to the northeast corner of Jordan would roughly set off the area that has a distinctively loess-loam soil. West of that is a belt of five or six miles wide, in which the loess-loam soil mingles with the drift soil. The rest of the county toward the west is occupied with a distinctively drift soil, or drift- loam soil. Trees and shrubs of Fillmore county. The following list embraces such native trees and shrubs as were seen in the survey of the county. The trees are arranged in the estimated order of frequency. The area covered by native timber is steadily increasing. A large proportion of the county is covered with bushes which are composed of hazel, aspen, oak (two sorts) and, where these are wanting, a species of low willow which seems to come up first after the prairie fires are stopped. After the willow, hazel and oak and aspen gradually come in, and in time convert the original prairie to a bushy or timbered re- gion. Over some large tracts in the county this process is going on. There are thousands of acres FILLMORE COUNTY. 279 Trees and shrubs.] of young native timber, not exceeding five or six inches in diameter, due to this gradual change since the suppression of the prairie fires. Quercus macrocarpa, Michx. Bur oak. Quercus coccinea, Wang., var. tinctoria, Gray. Black oak. This is the oak that is abundant as underbrush, and small trees. It often forms thickets skirting the outlines of a prairie. Large trees are found in the heavy timber in the northwestern portion of the county. Populus tremuloides, Michx. Aspen. Generally small, and on the borders of prairies. Quercus alba, L. White oak. Common in the timber in Spring Valley and Jordan town- ships, and generally along the valleys of the principal streams. Prunus Americana, Marshall. Wild plum. Populus grandidentata, Miclix. Great-toothed poplar. Very frequently mistaken for the American aspen. Ulmus Americana, L. (PI. Clayt.), Willd. American elm. Tilia Americana, L. Bass. Fraxinus Americana, £. White ash. Pirus coronaria, L. American crab-apple. Common along the margins of prairies and in open valleys. Ostrya Virginica, Willd. Ironwood. Acer dasycarpum, Ehr. Soft maple ; white or silver maple. Acer saccharinum, Wang. Sugar maple. Common in the heavy timber in Spring Valley and Jordan townships. Populus monilifera, Ait. Cottonwood. Prunus serotina, Ehr. Black cherry. Trees generally small. Carya amara, Nutt. Bitternut. Juglans cinerea, L. Butternut. Seen most abundant in the heavy timber in the north- western part of the county. Prunus Pennsylvania, L. Wild red cherry. Crat»gus coccinea, L. Thorn apple. Crataegus Crus-galli, L. Cockspur thorn. Betula papyracea, Ait. Paper or canoe birch. Trees small ; generally on stony soil, or along rocky river banks. Juglans nigra, L. Black walnut. In the heavy timber of the northwestern part of the county. Negundo aceroides, Moench. Box-elder. Juniperus Sabina, L. , var. procumbens, Pursh. Trailing cedar ; savin. Along the rocky river bluffs. Pinus Strobus, L. White Pine. An occasional large tree is seen along the river bluffs, but the most of it suitable for lumber has been cut. Carpinus Americana, Michx. Water beech. Carya alba, Nutt. Shagbark hickory. Seen in the valley of Root river, and in the tributary gorges, at Rushford. Rhus glabra, L. Smooth sumach. Cornus paniculata, L'Her. Panicled cornel. Cornus circinata, L'Her. Round-leaved cornel. Symphoricarpus occidentalis, B. Br. Wolf berry. Lonicera grata, Ait. American woodbine. Amelanchier Canadensis, Torr. and Gray. Juneberry. Corylus Americana, Walt. Hazelnut. Rubus villosus, Ait. High blackberry. Rubus strigosus, Michx. Red raspberry. Rubus occidentalis, L. Black raspberry. Rosa blanda, Ait., and R. lucida, Ehr. Dwarf wild rose. Vitis cordifolia, Michx. Frost grape. Ampelopsis quinquefolia, Michx. Virginia creeper. Spiraea opulifolia, L. Nine-bark. 280 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Geological structure Viburnum Lentago, L. Sheep-berry. Rhus typhina, L. Staghorn sumach. Bare. Celastrus scandens, L. Climbing bitter-sweet. Trees in ike order of abundance at Lime City. Mr. L. G. Odell estimates the trees about Lime City in the following order of abundance. Black oak, basswood, sugar maple (largely cut off), aspen, white ash, ironwood, white elm, white oak, red elm, rock elm, black ash, butternut, bitter- nut, hackberry, white pine, red cedar, box-elder, cotton wood, black cherry, water beech, black wal- nut, bur oak (on the outskirts of the timber), juneberry, black haw, stag (or spotted) alder, juniper (a shrub that hangs over the bluffs, growing in clumps), balsam fir, whitewood (also called yellow poplar, formerly cut into lumber, uow nearly gone, probably the Populus gmndidentata), leather- wood (on the tops of the bluffs), and doubtfully the American yew. THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. The rocks of the county belong to the Devonian, and to the Silurian and Cambrian ages. The Cretaceous also appears in Sumner township, in the extreme northwestern corner of the county. They occur as arranged in the following order, with their approximate thicknesses. 1. Cretaceous, thickness unknown, perhaps twenty-five feet, lying unconformably over the older rocks. 2. Upper Devonian, Hamilton, ) 3. Lower Devonian, Corniferous ? ^ 4. Niagara, of the Upper Silurian, 5. Maquoketa, of the Lower Silurian, 6. Galena, of the Lower Silurian, 7. Trenton, of the Lower Silurian, 100 ft ? i Hudson River, i and Utica slate ? 8. St. Peter, 9. Shakopee, 10. Jordan, 11. St. Lawrence, 12. St. Croix, Cambrian, - 100-150 ft. 75-100 ft.* 75-100 ft. 160 ft. 122 ft. 75ft. - 25-40 ft. 200 ft. - Exposed 375 ft. With the exception of the Cretaceous these formations have a strike across the county northwest and southeast. They have a gentle dip, at least theoretically, toward the southwest, though no general dip is perceptible. The oldest rock in the county is the St. Croix sandstone, which appears in the northeastern corner of the county. The latest, except the Cretaceous, is the Devonian, in the southwestern part of the county. The areas of out- crop are shown by the colored map of the county (plate 10) accompanying this report. The boundary between the Trenton and the St. Peter is the 'Geology of Witeontin. 1862. Vol. I., p. 181. FILLMORE COUNTY. 281 St. Croix sandstone. \ most accurately defined, owing to the terrace which marks it. The bound- ary between the St. Peter and Shakopee it is impossible to ascertain cer- tainly, because of the universality of the loam, which acts, in that respect, just the same as a heavy drift deposit, and also because of the persistency of the Shakopee compared to that of the St. Peter. When the friable rock is below a hard and persistent one, as the St. Peter below the Trenton, the boundary between them can be traced out easily by the resulting topo- graphy; but when the soft one is uppermost it wedges out imperceptibly under the loam, or drift, and one can not say when it is all gone. In the western part of the county the lines are all obscured by the prevalence of the drift. The Maquoketa shales have but little exposure in the county. They are visible in the bluffs of the Upper Iowa river, at Lime Springs, about three miles south of the state line, and continue through Fillmore county, in the strike of the Lower Silurian, appearing at Spring Valley. The St. Croix sandstone. The area of the St. Croix sandstone is small. It occupies the lower portion of the river bluffs, and the bottom-land in- cluded between them, from the county line, near Rushford, to near Lanes- boro. This bottom-land is sometimes two miles, or more, in width, but it is an alluvial deposit and never reveals the rock. The only rocky outcrops are in the slopes of the bluffs. This sandstone also enters the county in a similar manner, in the valley of the south branch of Root river, and extends about three miles west of the county line. Its general litholoyical character is all that can be learned of this rock from its exposures in Fillmore county. The opportunity for examination is very unfavorable. The bluffs, over the interval occupied by it, are almost universally turfed, and a heavy talus rises nearly or quite to the lower level of the St. Lawrence limestone. It is in general a light-colored sandstone, with alternations of limestone, and some shale, in its upper portions. The sandstone layers crumble easily. Some of the beds are of a very coarse grain, but the quartz is generally white, almost transparent. The lime- stone layers are like that of the St. Lawrence, and contain a few fossils, none of which have been studied yet with care sufficient for reliable specific identification. At Whalen about ninety-five feet of the St. Croix sandstone is included in the lower slopes of the bluffs. This thickness of bedding dis- appears below the river level before reaching Lanesboro. At Rushford the 282 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. (St. Lawrence limestone. t sandstone and tains, which is supposed to consist mainly of sandstone, rise 375 feet above the river. Near the upper portion of the sandstone a con- spicuous terrace or line of frequent exposure, producing a shoulder, may be seen along the creek in entering Rushford from the south. The St. Lawrence limestone. This is the lowest portion of the Lower Magnesian formation of Dr. D. D. Owen. In the annual report for 1873 the geology of the Minnesota valley is given. It is there announced that the great formation to which the name Lower Magnesian had been applied, con- sists of three distinct members — two limestones separated by a sandstone— and the names of the localities where these members have their character- istic outcrops, in that valley, were applied to distinguish them, as they were certain to play an important part in working out the detailed geology of the eastern portion of the state. The area of this limestone is embraced in one with that which on the accompanying plate includes also the areas of the Jordan and Shakopee formations. Along the river bluffs nearly to Rushford it is found only in the lower portion of the limestone belt, as the Jordan sandstone and Shak- opee limestone are both preserved and overlie it, but toward Rushford this limestone begins to be the only one that is found in the bluffs, the upper members of the Cambrian having a strike across the country some miles in either direction away from the immediate valley, There are places, how- ever, even further east still, where the overlying Jordan and Shakopee are preserved and appear in the tops of the river bluffs. The St. Lawrence ex- tends in the bluffs of the Root river to some distance above Isinour's station, and nearly to the lower mill at Preston. The valley of Watson's creek at Isinour's station is cut about twenty-five feet into the St. Lawrence. At 9 Lanesboro the amount of the St. Lawrence visible is about 195 feet. At Whalen 155 feet are seen in the upper portion of Whalen's bluff. At Rushford the uppermost 190 feet of the bluffs are of the St. Lawrence. The thickness of the formation is not far from two hundred feet. The St. Lawrence in Fillmore county is a dolomitic limestone, with some of its layers distinctly arenaceous, and stained with green sand. In general its bedding is regular and evident, but there is a thickness of about fifteen feet near the bottom of the formation in which the bedding is confused, or the layers are lost horizontally Below this confused bedding are, however, FILLMORE COUNTY. 283 St. Lawrence limestone-] • about twenty-five feet of regular beds, which have a fine even grain, and though not plainly arenaceous, yet have a very fine grit. On fresh surfaces it is of a buff color, varying to cream coloi1. The upper portion abounds in patches of white calcite. There are also in the upper portion spots that show thin, concentric, though wavy laminations, as if from concretionary forces, or the result of silicified masses of foraminifers, reminding the ob- server of the laminated masses of limestone from the Laurentian containing the Eozoon Canadense of Dr. J. W. Dawson. Though the most of the rock of this formation is vesicular, often coarsely so, it is much used for building, for which it furnishes both large blocks for the heaviest masonry, and fine- grained stone that can be cut into delicate forms. When cut for window caps or sills the cut surfaces are nearly white. The bedding varies in thickness from two or three inches to two or three feet, and sometimes embraces thin beds of shaly, light-colored, fine-grained rock that is useless for all purposes. At Clear Grit mills, in the valley of Root river, the St. Lawrence begins to show a continuous line of bare rock, in the river bluffs, running along the lower slopes, and causes a shoulder or terrace 'in the general descent. A quarry near the mill-dam shows about fifteen feet of even layers. Above these are the layers represented in the railroad cut near that place. These are light-colored, dolomitic, vesicular, abounding in patches-of calcite with some chert and siliceous concretions, the latter sometimes covered with limonite, pseudomorphous after pyrite or marcasite. The annexed profile exhibits the cut and the materials exposed. PIG. 16. RAILROAD CUT AT CLEAR GRIT. Explanation. a. Loess-loam, red 3 feet. i>. Drift-gravel, red 4 feet. c. Jordan sandstone, red 16 feet. d. St. Lawrence limestone - 30 feet. 284 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Jordan sandstone. • At Whalen the St. Lawrence is finely exposed in the bluff that stands in the valley about half a mile below the village. It has here been consid- erably quarried, and furnishes a very good stone for buildings. It lies in even layers which are easily broken into desirable size and shape, furnish- ing a good cut-stone of close grain, without openings. Of the 155 feet that here overlie the St. Croix sandstone, only the lower portion is well exposed. The exposed layers are separated from those seen at the quarry at Clear Grit by an interval of fifty feet. They consist of the following parts, aggre- gating sixty feet. Section at Whalen. 1. Slope, hid by turf (St. Lawrence), 95 feet. 2. Heavy beds, even-grained, vesicular, the best general building stone, 20 feet. 3. Bedding confused, not evident, lenticular, - 15 feet. 4. Fine grit, regular beds, dolomitic, - 20 feet. 5. Hard, arenaceous, projecting, fossiliferous with the remains of trilobites, 5 feet. At Lanesboro the St. Lawrence has" been used in the construction of the principal buildings. The quarries are owned by the Lanesboro Mill Company. The stone presents the usual characters, but has associated masses of marcasite, largely converted to limonite, showing orthorhombic and other forms of crystallization. In s*ome of the cherty nodules are found small orthorhombic crystals of hydrated iron peroxide formed by the con- version of marcasite into limonite. This iron ore is quite plentiful, but seems not to be a native of the rock. It embraces crag and bog-ore depos- its, and is referable to the drift period. (See under drift.) The Jordan sandstone. The sandstone lying next above the St. Law- rence limestone, is not so frequently seen along the river bluffs. It is most commonly embraced in that interval of slope that comes between the two lines of limestone outcrop, which is mostly turfed over, as in the bluffs at Lanesboro, and at points between Preston and Lanesboro. Farther down the river, where the strike of the Shakopee runs back from the river a few miles on either side of the valley, it occupies the undulating surface between the immediate river bluffs and the boundary of the Shakopee, as at Rush- ford.* In Fillmore county the thickness of the Jordan is not so great as it is FILLMOKE COUNTY. 285 Jordan and Shakopee.] in the Minnesota valley. It seems to vary from twenty-five i'eet to forty feet. It is uniformly a coarse-grained quartzose, crumbling and light-col- ored sandstone. It is sometimes locally stained with iron from surface water, when it presents a reddish or rusty color, and is apt to be much harder. It has in _such cases a shell or thin coating of harder rock about half an inch in thickness on the weathered surfaces, on penetrating which the grains are loosely cemented and even crumbling. In other places it presents internally a streaked appearance, due to the stoppage of iron fil- tering through its strata. No fossils have been found in it in this county. One of the best exposures for examining this sandstone may be seen at Preston, where it rises twenty-five feet above the level of the river opposite the stone mill, and is surmounted by about thirty-five feet of the Shakopee limestone. The bluff itself rises about ninety-five feet above the river, but the contents of the upper portion, though probably of the Shakopee, are not certainly known. The loam covers it. The bedding of the stone here'is regular, though in some places a little wavy, and is of all thicknesses from a foot to three or four inches. At Lanesboro the Jordan exhibits, near the top, a finely concretionary structure. The balls vary from a few inches to nearly a" foot in diameter. Some of them are elongated, and several are frequently united. The rock itself is generally friable and crumbles out, leaving the concretionary shapes visible. They are often loosened and roll down the bluff. They lie in approximate layers for a thickness of four or five feet. Some of them are pendant from the projecting shelf, and stud the whole under surface. They are generally spherical, but when they are lengthened perpendicularly they show the original lamination that ran through the rock, in the form of rings and furrows. At Clear Grit the Jordan is twenty-five feet thick, and is exceedingly ferruginous. At Lanesboro it is about forty feet thick. The Shakopee limestone. This is so named from the village of Shakopee in Scott county, on the Minnesota river, where it was first identified as a distinct member of the great Lower Magnesian formation of Dr. Owen.* In Fillmore county it is more frequently seen along the valley of Root river *Dr. Owen's detailed descriptions apply the name Lower Magrnesian to the St. Lawrence limestone, and Dr, Shu- mard's to the Shakopee, as these limestones were regarded as one. Wherever they saw the Jordan sandstone they inis- teok it either for the St. Peter or the St. Croix, though in the latter ease supposing it to be of the age of the Potsdam. 286 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Shakopee limestone. and its tributaries than any other formation. As it lies between two sand- stones, each of which easily crumbles away under the operation of the elements, it is made to have a prominent position in giving form to valleys and river bluffs. The north branch of Root river enters it about six miles northwest of Chatfield in Olmsted county; the middle branch near the town line between Chatfield and Jordan, and the south branch but a short dis- tance below Forestville. South Root river strikes it near Henry in Amherst township. Thus throughout about two-thirds of the county it is the con- stant companion of the traveler along the river valleys, and it meets him often in the uplands, and in the valleys of little creeks. Its effect on the topography is to render the valleys narrow, rocky and abrupt. East of the general area of the St. Peter sandstone and the Trenton limestone it pro- duce j a shoulder in the descent from the uplands to the valley. The fol- 1 ,:\ ing diagram, taken at Chatfield on the northern boundary of the county, illustrates in general the effect of this limestone in producing a terrace along the lower slopes of the river bluffs. drift gravel FIG, 17. PROFILE OF THE NORTH SIDE OF THE VALLEY AT CHATFIELD. Explanation. 1. Loam ............. .................................... 6— 16 feet. 5. St. Peter ........................................................ 1J2 feet. 2. Upper Trenton ................................... 20—50 feet. 6. Shakopcc.. ........................................................ 30 feet. S. Green shale ......................................... 15 feet. 7. Flood plain. 4. Lower Trenton .................................... 20 feet. The descent from the general level of the country at Chatfield (No. 1) to the river (No. 7) is about 222 feet, of .which about thirty feet are of the Shakopee, the Shakopee being at the river. The broad terrace on which Chatfield stands is constituted of the Shakopee overlain by irregular thick- nesses of the St. Peter, with some drift and loam. The lithology of the Shakopee is very much the same in Fillmore county as has been described in reports on Houston and Winona counties. It is very similar to the St. Lawrence, with much less of green-sand. It contains at Chatfield con- FILLMORE COUNTY. 287 Shakopee limestone.] siderable disseminated sand, and nodules of calcite. The calcite is some- times purely transparent, so as to exhibit the double refraction of Iceland spar, parting into large rhombohedrons, but the most of it is opaque. It is sometimes interspersed with sand grains taken up in the process of crys- tallization. These are so abundant as to make, of some crystalline masses, a sandstone which is then nodular and hard, with warty projections. At Parsley's ford, center of section 15, Chatfield, a bridge has been built over the river, the abutments being of the Shakopee stone taken out near the ford on Mrs. Doyle's land. At the ford the river is on the Jordan sandstone. There has been considerable stone cut off the bluffs, in the Shakopee, for use in the railroad bridge near the same place, and laid up in heavy blocks; but much of the Shakopee is in irregular and thin layers, unfit for such use. At almost any point east of Chatfield and Carimona the Shakopee can be seen by one crossing the valley of the Root river, exhibiting its peculiar tendency to narrow the valley, and forming a conspicuous bench or shoul- der. The following diagram of a general profile section of the valley illus- trates its form at points between Preston and Lanesboro; also between Chatfield and Lanesboro along the north branch. At Preston the rocks show a dip to the south. • 3 to 5 Mil as FIG. 18. GENERAL PROFILE SECTION ACROSS THE VALLEY OF ROOT RIVER. Bj'Itlanation. 1. Galena or Upper Trenton limestone. 2. Green shales. 3. Trenton limestone. 4. St. Peter sandstone. 5. Shakopee limestone. 6. Jordan sandstone. 7. St. Lawrence limestone. At Isinour's station the battlements of rock that enclose the valley, rising about thirty feet above the water, are of the Shakopee. There is an undulating ascent thence over the St. Peter to near the Trenton terrace, which rises nearly perpendicular about fifty feet. Beyond that is a flat, running sometimes but eight or ten rods, but not unfrequently a quarter 288 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [St. Peter sandstone. of a mile, when a further gradual ascent begins, covering the Green shales and the Upper Trenton. This last ascent, with the loam that here covers the country, generally makes about 175 feet. H.O FIG. 19. At Carimona the Shakopee is visible in the banks of the river, rising twenty-five or thirty feet. Its average thickness is about seventy-five feet. The St. Peter sandstone. The thickness of this well-known formation in Fillmore county does not vary much from 125 feet. At Chatfield it measures, by aneroid, 122 feet. In lithological characters it is uniformly a clean, white sand that easily crumbles. Near Fountain an exposed section near the top of the formation afforded fragments of an unknown species of Lingulepis, the first and only fossil of any kind that had ever been re- ported from this rock.* The following section was taken at this place. It includes the overlying Trenton and the tjreen shales, as seen at the old quarry of Mr. Joseph Taylor, section 13, Fountain. Section 'near Fountain. Quarry of Joseph laylor. No. 1. Green shale, embracing lenticular slabs of limestone that are eminently fossilifertus, seen 3 feet. No. 2. Limestone, of a bluish-gray color, in beds four to six inches thick, free from shale, though the layers are sometime!* thinly separated by shaly partings, 10 feet. No. 3. Arenaceous and ferruginous shale, alternating horizontally with firmly cemented patohes of sandstone, 2 feet. No. 4. Massive, coarse sand; white, except when iron-stained;. containing irony, quartzyte pebbles, and fragile remains of bivalves. No. 5. Green shale, with some arenaceous and calcareous laminations, 3 feet. No. 6. Cemented sandstone, the cement being shale and lime, forming when the bluff is weathered, the floor ol a bench, 1 foot. No. 7. White sand in beds that are about one foot thick and horizontal, 6 feet. No. 8. A course in the sandstone more firmly cemented, forming a table, but less persistent than No. 6, 1 foot. No. 8. Massive sandstone, in some places showing an oblique lamination, seen 6 feet. I'i i il . T. C. Chamberlin has since reported organic remains, consisting of the tubes of Scolithus and fucoidal mark- ings, in the St. Peter sandstone in eastern Wisconsin. Otology of Wisconsin, Vol. II., 1873-7, p. 288. See also the Dakota county report. FILLMORE COUNTY. 289 Trenton limestone.] The Southern Minnesota railroad here enters on its descent to the Root river valley. The species of Lingulepis mentioned is found in No. 4 of the foregoing section. The remains are exceedingly fragile, and as the grains of sand in which they are embraced are feebly cemented together, it is nearly impos- sible to transport or even to handle them without their falling to pieces. These fragments, for no entire specimens were obtained, are arranged pro- miscuously in the coarse sand, and are all confined within three feet of the top of No. 4. They seem to have suffered the attrition and fracture inci- dent to coarse sedimentary transportation. The remarks that have already been made on the topography of the county, and the diagrams that have been given, will sufficiently elucidate the nature of the St. Peter sandstone, and its important part in the causes that have diversified the surface of Fillmore county. The Trenton limestone. That which has been described hitherto, in this volume, as the Trenton limestone, embraces a thickness of strata amount- ing to not more than twenty -five feet. These calcareous strata are over- lain in Houston and Winona counties, by a series of shales and shaly strata, embracing some lenticular layers of very fossiliferous limestone, likewise belonging to the Trenton period, amounting to perhaps twenty-five feet, which have been referred to the Hudson River epoch ot that period. In Fillmore county, above these shaly strata, appears a considerable thickness of other calcareous strata belonging to the same period, which are the equivalent of the Galena limestone, and of the strata which in the reports of progress were distinguished as Upper Trenton, amounting to about 125 feet. The exact position of these strata in the Trenton period it is not possible to state, but there is some reason to include them all within the Hudson River epoch, with some evidence of the presence also of the hori- zon of the Utica slate.* It has already been stated that the "green shales" of the annual reports seem to belong to the Hudson River group of New York. This is based mainly on the lithological resemblance; yet the Trenton fossil Columnaria alveolata, Goldfuss, was taken from these shales near St. Charles, in Winona county. If this coral be regarded as diagnostic of the Trenton epoch, the •Compare Transactions of the Albany Institute, Vol. X. June, 1879. The Vtica Slate and Bflaled Formations C. D. Walcott. 19 290 THE GEOLOGY OP MINNESOTA. [Trenton period. Trenton proper is increased to a thickness of about 160 feet, and the Galena formation only can he thrown with the epoch of the Hudson River, as a possible equivalent of the Utica slate.* The proper arrangement of the rocks of the Trenton period in the county may be expressed thus: 1. Maquoketa shales of Iowa, seen about 15 ft. 2. Galena limestone, vesicular and magnesian, and Upper Tren- ton, about 125 ft. 3. Shales and shaly limestone, containing Columnariaalveolata, 20-25 ft 4. Trenton limestone, 20-25 ft. Of these, the first at least belongs to the Hudson River group of New York. There seems to have been little mention made of the "green shales," as such, in northeastern Iowa, in any of the geological reports of that state, although Prof. James Hall says that "a large admixture of shaly matter often marks the Black River limestone, which in some of its bands contains Ormoceras tenuifilum, and Gonioceras anceps" and that, "instead of alterna- tions of calcareous and shaly laminae at the base of the group, there are beds of shale of considerable thickness without defined limestone bands."! Dr. John Locke, also, noted a series of strata at Prairie du Chien, in 1839, of which he observed a thickness of thirty feet, made up of blue fos- siliferous limestone, abounding with its characteristic fossils, and having the usual external characters, alternating with blue clay-marl, the layers of stone being very thin and "apparently corroded," which he believed to .be identical with the rocks of the Cincinnati group, or the Ohio blue lime- stone.:}: These beds lie, according to Dr. Locke, immediately above the "buff limestone," which is twenty feet thick, non-fossiliferous, and lies upon the St. Peter sandstone. This horizon of green shales is brought out dis- tinctly after it enters the state of Minnesota, by reason of the'part it bears in producing the peculiar mounds of the "mound limestone." The transition from the St. Peter sandstone to the Trenton is quite ab- rupt. There is but little commingling of qualities from the Trenton down- ward into the St. Peter, although a shaly layer of about two feet separates them. The limestone always projects boldly beyond the sandstone, and the *8ee the reports on Goodliue and Rice counties. tReporton the geological survey of Iowa, Vol. I., part I., p. 55 57. JOwen's report of a geological exploration of part of Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. 1839, as published by the 0. • senate in 1844, p 135. FILLMOEE COUNTY. 291 Trenton limestone.] sandstone becomes immediately white and friable, with a very slight cal- careous cement. The Trenton plays the most important part in producing the marked topographical characters of the central portions of Fillmore county, since by its superposition over the crumbling St. Peter, it consti- tutes the edge of the shoulder or terrace that marks their line of superpo- sition, and not unfrequently spreads out on the top of an isolated table or mound, thinly overlain by the lower layers of the green shale. Under the head of surface features this point has been mentioned already, and the reader is referred to that section. In Fillmore county the Lower Trenton, known sometimes as the "buff limestone," which corresponds in horizontality with the limestone quarried at Minneapolis and St. Paul, is much less affected by disseminated shale than in those cities, and hence makes a much more desirable building stone. The color is light blue, and in quarrying the layers rarely exceed five inches in thickness. On weathered bluffs the bedding appears even thinner than that, being apparently not more than two inches. When these layers are opened and considerably quarried they combine, and produce layers that are from four to six inches in thickness. They are generally tough and hard, though when broken they often fracture conchoidally, and in unex- pected directions. The most striking fossils are species of Orthoceras, often regarded by the quarrymen as the remains of huge snakes, though really oceanic shell-fishes, a beautiful species of Lingula, named Lingitla Elderi by Mr. R. P. Whitfield, Orthis tricenaria, Con., 0. perveta, Con., Strophomena alternata, Con., and numerous other brachiopods. The following details concerning this limestone will farther elucidate this formation as it appears at various places in the county. S. E. J sec. 23, Spring Valley, quarry of John Kleckler. The rock here is a gray limestone, with interlaminations of shale. This is very different from the Devonian limestones, as seen at Spring Valley village. It is com- pact, and, with the exception of the thin laminae of shale, consists entirely of limestone. Exposed about ten feet. S. E. i sec. 23, Spring Valley, Jos. Lester has a quarry in the valley of the middle branch, very similar to Kleckler's. That of Henry Prosser occurs on S. E. J sec. 14. North part of sec. 25, Spring Valley. At Mr. H. Perkins' saw-mill the 292 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Trenton limestone. same rock is visible and has been wrought. From this point the banks of this creek become continuously rocky. G. W. Knight's quarry is near Fillmore, sec. 10. The stone is hard, gray, compact, brittle and fossiliferous, in beds of all thicknesses, depend- ing on the weathering and exposure, up to eight or more inches. It is sit- uated along the ravine, approaching Fillmore. Geo. Shepherd's quarry is also near Fillmore, on N. E. J sec. 9, and seems to consist mostly of isolated even layers in the shale that so frequently accompanies the Trenton. In this shale are Chcetetes, Rhynchonella and Strophomena. The stone is not of much account, owing to its being encum- bered so heavily with the shale, but is very desirable for the uniformity of its thickness. S. C. Pettit has a quarry of the same kind, N. E. £ sec. 10. At Chatfield the Trenton appears in the highest bluifs on the north side of the village. It is made up very largely of shale, but affords also some even layers that are wrought. These have the same stratigraphical horizon as the stone at Minneapolis and St. Paul, but do not contain so much argillaceous matter. They are much firmer and more compact, though not so thick in the aggregate. Below these layers the St. Peter sandstone is seen. The Trenton at this point has a gentle dip N. E., while the Shakopee at the mill by the river dips N. W. The brachiopods so com- mon at the falls of St. Anthony, are here seen in great numbers, and an occasional specimen oiLingula Cobourgensis, Bill. The section at the quarry of Dennis Jacob is made up of seven feet of limestone and shale, crumbling .away, underlain by about eight feet of limestone. The old qujirry of Mr. Joseph Taylor, sec. 13, Fountain, has been men- tioned already under the head of the St. Peter sandstone, and the exposed section given. At this quarry very large cephalopods have been taken out, and some fragments of galena have been encountered. The strata which belong to the Trenton at this point may be more fully described thus: Section of the Trenton near fountain. 1. " Upper Trenton" strata, 10 feet. 2. Green shales, containing various species of coiled shells, brachiopods, corals, lamellibranchs and a small trilobite. Some of the calcareous layers em- braced in this shale are charged with oolitic brown haematite, giving them a very rusty color when disintegrating, 20 feet. 8. Limestone, of a bluish gray color, with some shaly layers, 10 feet. 4. Arenaceous and ferrugiuou* shale, 2 feet. FILLMORE COUNTY. 293 Upper Trenton and Galena.] The quarry of Mr. Enoch Winslow is on the same horizon as Mr. Tay- lor's. It is situated on the bank of Sugar creek, S. W. J sec. 4, Fountain. Another on the same horizon is that of John Johnson, two miles south of Fountain. The green shales. The interval covered by the green shale (20 feet) is not often seen well exposed. The uppermost layers have been seen in Fillmore county only at Mr. Taylor's quarry above, but the lower layers are visible in many places where the Trenton is quarried. When wet constantly this shale becomes a plastic clay. Along the brow of the Trenton terrace it colors the earth in nearly all roadways that cross it, and produces, by shedding the sur- face water, very muddy spots, in which teams are sometimes mired. This shale always lies in thin layers, and sometimes embraces continuous beds ot blue limestone which are exceedingly fossiliferous. It also sometimes holds fragments of limestone of the same kind, in the form of slabs. A great many fragments of Ch&tetes Lycoperdon accompany this shale and i-oll down the face of the weathered slope, besides crinoidal fragments, and species of Orthis, Leptwna and Strophomena. The Upper Trenton and Galena. By the Iowa geologists the Trenton limestone has been considered as embracing not only the lower calcareous beds, and the green shales, but also a part of the overlying limestone strata, fading off to the Galena formation upward by a gentle lithological change in the rock. But since the Hudson River horizon actually covers every thing of the Lower Silurian above the Trenton (in the absence of the Utica slate) this distinction between the " Upper Trenton," of the annual reports; and the Galena limestone, becomes one of much less importance, and of -still less importance in counties farther north where the distinctive lithology ot the Galena fades out altogether. Hence for the sake of convenience, if any designation besides Hudson River, be needed, the term Galena may include all the calcareous strata above the green shales, belonging to the Lower Silurian. These calcareous beds, which have in part been denominated Galena, and in part Upper Trenton, include a thickness of about 125 feet, and con- sist of a bluish, or grayish, evenly bedded limerock varying from fine- grained and compact, in the lower part, in layers of a few inches, to more vesicular, sometimes arenaceous, and often magnesian, beds of one to two 294 TH£ GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Galena timeitooe. feet, toward the upper portion. They contain but little shale in Fillmore county, and that is near the base and near the top. This rock forms a great many precipitous bluffs. It appears in the form of mural faces along a great many creeks and canons in the central portion of the county. It generally rises nearly perpendicularly from the top of a short talus to the summit, exhibiting a continuous section of the bedding. Its area is pre-eminently the region of sink-holes. The canons that are so frequent in it run out in ascending the valleys, and disappear in a succession of sink-holes which become smaller and smaller, and more and more distant, till the general prairie level is reached. While in general its ithological characters are quite uniform, near the top the layers begin to alternate with layers that exhibit the characteristic lithology of the Galena, and are accompanied with some thin layers of green shale. It seems to pass gradually into the Galena, or rather to assume the features that have b«en ascribed to that formation. "VIEW ON T>EZR CREEK raEARWEISBACHJS MILIJ FIG. 20. The accompanying views represent the manner ot weathering of the Galena and Upper Trenton. At Weisbach's dam, on Deer creek, S. E. \ sec. 11, Spring Valley, the face of the bluff which rises perpendicularly about a hundred feet, is wrought into a series of majestic pilasters running from the bottom to the top of the escarpment, as shown in figure 21. 296 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Galena limestone. The weathering and erosion of the Galena and Upper Trenton have left many scenes of picturesque beauty in the county. The following are some of the most noteworthy, Fig. 22 shows the Eagle Rocks, situated in the valley of the south branch of Root river, on sec. 27, Forestville. They stand isolated in the valley, but do not rise higher than the common rocky walls of the valley. FIG. 22. EAGLE ROCKS. Chimney rock is on the side of the bluft of a ravine, tributary to the south branch of Root river, on sec. 27, Forestville. A crevice, originally due probably to a plane of jointage, enters the rock at a small angle with the face of the bluff, and has been widened by frost and water till it will admit a man. The detached, wedge-shaped mass, has been broken through PILLMORE COUNTY. 297 Galena limestone.] near the foot of the bluff, and by the falling out of repeated fragments an opening having a fancied resemblance to an oven with a low chimney has resulted. Sometimes the Galena shows, on freshly opened quarries, along the bluffs, almost a white color. This is particularly the case on the N. -Jsec. 35, Sumner, where an opening in a long-weathered "hogsback" reveals a very light-colored limestone, in beds of about three inches, of a fine grain and compact texture, not much crystalline and evidently impure with argilla- ceous and siliceous qualities. Extensive working and burning of the Galena into quicklime is carried on along Bear and Deer creeks, the banks of which are continuously rocky, rising perpendicularly from one to two hundred feet from the water, in Sumner and Spring Valley townships. These quarries are described under the head of Economical Geology. The Galena is also wrought at Forestville and near Carimona, presenting no exceptional features. At Forestville it contains Receptaeulites and Strophomena, and exposes a thickness of about 140 feet. The same rock appears in the S. E. £ sec. 6, Forestville, along a little ravine, and is slightly opened by John Hipes. It also appears at other points between there and Spring Valley. At Baldwin's dam. sec. 21, Forestville, 130 feet of these calcareous strata are seen. S. E. J sec. 30, Forestville. In some fragments thrown out in the dig- ging of a .well a fine-grained rock occurred, resembling the fine shale seen in the race at De For's mill, which crumbles to pieces in the weather. It here lies below some heavy calcareous beds seen in the hills enclosing the valley, and contains doubtfully species of Graptolithus, Orthis and Orthonota. At Granger the Galena only occupies the bluifs; but at two miles west of Granger, where the river enters the state for a short distance, the bluffs are high, and are made up of the Galena with a topping of fifteen or twenty feet of the Devonian. N. W. £ sec. 36, Bristol. Hiram Andrews has a quarry in the Galena, which alone occupies at this place the river banks, though the beds of the quarry are apparently in the upper portion of the formation. The layers are thicker than usual, somewhat vesicular, and present some of the con- 298 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Galena limestone ventional aspects of the Galena. The rock shows a slight dip to the south. Mr. Andrews has built a stone barn and stable. The only separating horizon between the " Upper Trenton" and Galena limestones is a lithological change in the rock. There is no unconform- ability between the layers of the formations, and there in no known differ- ence of fossil contents. Near the upper portion of the calcareous strata, occasional layers appear that are much more porous and have a light butt color. They are also much thicker than the layers of the Upper^Trenton, reaching, after the change is fully established, a thickness of four or five feet. Mingled with these heavy magnesian layers are thinner layers of green shale. When these heavy magnesian beds are near the top of a bluff they give it a roughness but at the same time a persistence of outline which the thinner beds alone do not possess. This rock is sub-crystalline. It con- tains numerous cavities of irregular shape, some due to the weathering out of carious material and some to the absorption of fossils. It holds consid- erable masses of calcite, and sometimes lumps of galena, from which it has derived its name. Although the " Galena limestone " near Dubuque, in Iowa, is stated by Prof. J. D. Whitney to be about 250 feet, (Geology of Wis- consin, Vol. I., p. 172), the distinctive Galena characters enter Minnesota with a thickness much less than that. From all that can be seen of the strata in Fillmore county, they appear to be less than seventy-five feet thick. The Trenton, on the other hand, is given by the same authority, at seventy feet, average thickness, at Dubuque. The characters that distinguish the Galena are not constant.. In Fill- more county the "lead fossil", Receptaculites, pervades the strata as low as the green shale, at least, although regarded as characteristic oi the Galena: and the Lingula quadrata (or its near ally, with which it seems to have been confounded, Lingula Elderi, Whit.,) also said by Prof. Whitney not to appear in the lead region in the "blue" nor the ''buff," is found throughout both. A very fine specimen was obtained, of Lingula Elderi, at Mr. Taylor's quarry near Fountain, from the Trenton ("buff limestone" of Prof. Whitney), and of L. Cobourgensis, Bill., from Chatfield from the same horizon. Lithologically also the two limestones appear to merge into one another. The compact, hard, blue limestone, characteristic of the lower beds, gives place near the top to a lighter-colored, slightly vesicular, even-grained, more heavily bed- FILLMOKE COUNTY. 299 Galena limestone.) ded rock that is very useful for an ornamental cut-stone. This is seen ii> some of the quarries a mile or two east of Spring Valley, where it is diffi- cult to assign the beds either to one horizon or the other. A short distance farther east the well characterized lithology of the Trenton appears. The lead ore, moreover, which has given name to the Galena, is not confined to that formation. It is found to some extent both in the characteristic Galena and in the underlying more compact strata, though in neither to that extent that will warrant sanguine expectations. The principal exposures of the typical Galena in the county are on Bear and Deer creeks, and on the south branch of Root river. At J. Shumaker's quarry, one mile east of the valley, about eight feet of the bedding are ex- posed. The layers here are of a finer and more uniform texture, and are associated with shales. When cut for building they are much whiter than the stone obtained at Mr. Allen's at Spring Valley. Inconsiderable quanti- ties of galena are obtained at Spring Valley. No systematic exploration, however, has been undertaken, the pieces found being at or near the sur- face. It has been found at a number of other points in the county. There is a weathered exposure of the Galena on land owned by Mr. Harris, N. W. J sec. 26, Sumner. This outcrop fairly presents the typical lithologicai features that characterize the formation. By the Galena char- acters are meant a yellowish, or buff, limestone, vesicular, crystalline, in heavy layers, even on weathered bluffs, having usually a very rough exterior in consequence of atmospheric destruction of the looser portions. When these looser portions are removed, the surface of the rock presents a pitted aspect, becoming covered with thimble holes, and depressions of all shapes, with angular knobs and excrescences separating them, the whole overgrown with lichens. The exposure here shows perpendicularly about twelve feet, in layers from one to four feet thick, piled up on either side of the road in detached mounds, like bridge abutments from which the roadway has been removed. The "lead fossil", Receptaculites, appears in these layers. The following is the composition of the Galena burnt for quicklime at Lime City, sec. 9, Spring Valley. Oxide of iron, - .73 Calcium carbonate, 70.53 Magnesium carbonate, - - 23.49- Silica, &c., - 4.67 99.32 300 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. I Maquoketa shales. The bluffs at Lime City consist of one kind of rock, being this dolomitic Galena, but rather more even and in thinner beds than is seen in some other places, making good white lime. They rise about seventy-five feet, but the perpendicular rock-bluffs are generally not more than forty. Some of the beds v/hen quarried become three and four feet thick, and are firm and crystalline. They contain the fossils Murchisonia and Maclurea, and a Strophomena which is very prolonged-convex, like fluctuosa; also Endoceras magniventrum, and another orthoceratite at least nine inches in diameter and circular in section, and the "sun-flower coral." At Weisbach's the top of the bluff is magnesian, and like that burned for lime at Lime City, amounting to about fifty feet, but below that the rock is more nearly a pure limestone ; at least it is sometimes gray and aluminous, and sometimes like the compact rock at St. Charles in Winona county, ashen and brittle and fossiliferous; while in other places it is so aluminous as to disintegrate like that at the railroad cut near Spring Valley. There is perhaps a thickness of a hundred and twenty-five feet of this gray "Upper Trenton" rock below the magnesian beds that are burnt for lime. , The level of the dam at Weisbach's must be nearly on the top of the green shale, but it can not be seen. The Maquoketa shales. In Iowa Dr. C. A. White has given this name to a series of shales overlying the calcareous beds of the Trenton and Galena.* These were then believed to be the sole representative of the Hudson River rocks, in the Northwest, but since the underlying shales (the "green shales" of this report) contain well known Hudson River fossils, the whole interval of strata from the Lower Trenton to the Niagara are allied to that geologi- cal epoch. While it is very probable that this upper series of shales enters Minnesota from the south, being seen two and a half miles south of the state line, at Lime Springs, it has, as yet^ hardly been identified within the limits of the state. Being made up of soft materials its outcropping edge is apt to be hid by the falling down of drift or loam, or of the overlying limestone. It will probably be a long time before any well authenticated localities of its'existence are known. The following points may be mentioned at which possibly the upper shales exist in Fillmore county, viz., the shale excavated in the mill race of De For's mill, N. E. ^ sec. 25, Bloomfield, and N. E. \ sec. •Geology of Iowa. 1870. Vol. I., p. 180. FILLMORE COUNTY. 801 Maquokcta shales.] 35, York. At Lime Springs, Iowa, the great shale bed which sheds water, causing the springs which gave name to the place, is supposed to be the Maquoketa. Besides the foregoing points, the outcrop of shaly rock about a mile east of Spring Valley, exposed by the grading for the Southern Minnesota railroad, presents various interesting features. The fossils here seen con- sist in part of Orthis testudinaria, Dal., 0. subquadrata, Hall, Lynx, Eich., plicatella, Hall, subcequata, Con., amoema, Winch, and Whitfieldi, Winch.; also Strophomena fluctuosa, Bill., and Leptcena sericea, Sow., as well as some forms of Chcetetes, and of crinoids, indicating sufficiently the Lower Silurian age of the strata. These can be picked up in considerable numbers on the sloping surface which was scraped to obtain the loam for the railroad grading. This is on the north side of the track, but at a point a little nearer Spring Valley these beds are also exposed on the south side in the same way. In passing toward Spring Valley depot the grade descends a little, and reaches the spring-bearing horizon which has given origin to the name of the village. At the same time the argillaceo-magnesian strata of which but little can be seen at one mile east of the depot, are brought out more conspicuously, and are seen in outcrop on the north side of the valley at several old quarries that have been abandoned. Here these beds contain large specimens of Strophomena alternata ( ?), Leptcena sericea, Sow., and a small Rhynchonella that has not been named. But a little higher, in order of actual level, are the coarse cavernous magnesian layers on the south side of the valley, in the highway near the school-house, that have been parallelized with the Lower Devonian.* The actual superposition cannot be seen, but it is not possible for many feet of strata to intervene between them and the recognizable Lower Silurian strata. The general section at Spring Valley may be arranged as follows in descending order: Section at Spring Valley. 1. Coarse magnesian strata, containing Atrypa reticularis, Spirifer and other shells ; in 01 terop only on the south side of the valley by the school-house, - 4-6 feet. 2. Argillo-magnesian strata containing Orthis alternata (?) and Leptcena sericea and Strophomena fluctuosa, Bill., in outcrop on the north side of the valley at the abandoned quarries, in the northwest part of the village, and slightly at the railroad cut about a mile east, 20 feet. 3. Shaly and argillaceous, containing numerous species of brachiopods of the Trenton period ; seen at the railroad cut, and probably underlying the village, causing springs by its impervious nature. Under it are the limestone beds burnt for lime on Deer creek. - Thickness unknown. *See the Mower county report. 302 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Niagara limestone. The Niagara limestone. This formation has been indentified in Fillmore county at but one point. It is much more enduring than the shales under- lying it, but it enters on a drift-covered area, with small valleys of drainage only, some distance south of the state line. The nearest important point of its known outcrop is at Lime Springs, in Iowa. It differs from the Galena limestone in being much lighter colored, especially when broken or pow- dered. It is strongly crystalline, and often porous, but it is also, in some parts, a very firm and enduring limestone. It also has a very diiferent and much more abundant fossil fauna. It is separated from the Maquoketa shales, at Lime Springs, by a limestone breccia of about eighteen inches. Its color, in its heavier and close-textured portions, is somewhat grayish, or leaden, and it is interbedded with hard shale which turns nearly white on exposure. This shale, in broken pieces, makes up the larger part of the breccia mentioned, and falls down the bluff in that condition, where it is » lost in the weather, the framework of the cement only remaining, making a curious open network or mesh, the partitions and threads enclosing angu- lar apartments. The great bed of shale, which causes the water-power here, may be 75 or 80 feet to the water, at the quarry of Mr. John Smith, though near the mill it is reduced to ten or fifteen feet. Throughout the most of that interval a heavy debris covers it from sight, the overlying Niagara only being visible along the top of the bluff. The Niagara has a dip of five or six degrees to the S. W., and passes below the Devonian lime- stones which are exposed and quarried at Lime Springs station, about a mile further south. The thickness of the Niagara included in that interval may be 100 or 150 feet. This underlying bed of shale gives rise to springs of limy water that enter the river along the bluff. In the S. E. J sec. 33, York, about forty rods north of the state line is a very small exposure of the Niagara in the bottom of a ravine, with the Devonian in the enclosing hillsides. A slight opening has been made in these beds, which are very porous and light-colored, and about three inches in thickness. Although no fossils were found here to identify the forma- tion, the presence ot a very different rock well known as the Devonian, in the hills and ridges surrounding it, as well as the strong resemblance it bears to the Niagara at Lime Springs, will allow of its being regarded only as the Niagara limestone. FILLMOKE COUKTY. 303 Devonian limestones.] The Dernnian limestones. Since the report of the Iowa geological survey of 1870, by Prof. C. A. White, in which the rocks of the Devonian were all regarded as belonging to the Hamilton epoch, various new facts have been brought to light in the Northwest, bearing on the age of the different parts of the Devonian. Prof. S. Calvin has reported the existence of a dark shale at least twenty-five feet in thickness, lying beneath the Devonian lime- stones at Independence,* which he considers sufficiently similar 'to the shales at Rockford, which overlie the Devonian limestones, to indicate that all the Devonian strata of Iowa belong to a single group. Mr. W. H. Barris has shown a fossil fauna in strata at Davenport that has a strong general affinity with the Corniferous. | These same strata had in 1858 been assigned to the Corniferous by Prof. James Hall. Some shaly beds at Rockford Profs. Hall and Whitfield have also referred to the Chemung in the Twenty- third report of the New York state cabinet. So far as the Devonian appears in Minnesota it may be grouped in three parts, but to what particular portions of the New York nomenclature these may belong, it is still impossible to state. 1. Shales and fine-grained, hard, thin-bedded magnesian limestones. 2. Harsh magnesia?}, heavy-bedded limestones. 3. Fine, argillaceous sandstones, becoming arenaceous in some layers and calcare- ous in others. Of these only the second is known in Fillmore county, although it is possible that the first also exists beneath the drift in the elevated portions of Beaver and Bloomfield townships. The Devonian limestones that appear in Fillmore county are very dif- ferent, lithologically, from those that are found at Le Roy, in Mower county, They have the outward aspect of the Corniferous as seen in the states of Michigan and Ohio, and may be the equivalent of those strata, but owing to the meagerness of outcrops in the county no comparison can be made ot their fossils with those of the Corniferous of New York. The distinctively Onondaga features of the Ohio Corniferous | are the only ones seen in Fillmore county. The color of the limestone is like that of the Galena. Its texture is generally even and non-vesicular, harsh to the feel and granular like most magnesian limestones. The bedding is 'Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. Hayden. Vol. IV., p. 725 tProcecdings of the Duvenport Academy of Sciences Vol. II., p. 261. tThat portion of the Ohio Carniferous here referred to is the lower— as seen at Columbus, Delhi, and Millpoint. The overlying blue beds, seen at Delaware, Marion and Sandu6 good good good good good good good good good good good good good no water good good tolerably good good good good good good .good good good good good good good good Water at 13 ft., but lost it by entering a cavity after drilling 5 or 6 ft. deeper. In vellow sandrock; last 2 ft clay. Drilled. Drilled. Sand and clay. "On the ridge." "On the ridge." Very hard water. In a "red sandstone." Three wells, same depth. Hard water. Water in limerock. No rock. " In a large crevice in the rock." Sandrock and limestone, water in limestone. Gets dry in summer. Gets dry in summer. Well incomplete. Last three feet in bluish-green shale. Last foot in bluish limestone; some "oily blue clay." Eight feet in St. Peter sandstone. Sand and gravel, 27 feet in Trenton limestone. 40 feet in blue limestone. 31 feet in blue limestone. 10 feet yellow clay and stone. Six feet of water. Two layers of gravel. 9 ft. in drift; 7 ft. in loose rock. Clay, quicksand and bluish stone. Found a vein of Venetian red, 10 ft from the surface, Soil, gravel and clay. Poor farm sec. 4, Canton "W II Strong Cariniona . Win llolton Carimona J. H. Hall, NE. i sec. 9, Bloomf'ld E Stfffins Spring Valley Col. C. G. Edwards, Spring valley Calvin E. Huntley, Spring Valley Peter Swab sec 6 Jordan .... Wm. Twiggs. 1J m. SE Spring V. S. S Belding, Etna J.M.Rixfoi(l,NE i sec36,Bloomf Id Jas. Smith, SE J- sec. 18, Beaver. . A. C. Seelye, Lenora jj X, Potter Lenora . Old town- well Lenora Wm. Barton, 1 J m. N. of Lenora. . Jas Walsh sec 20 Amherst . . W. Kimber, SW Jsec. 29, Amherst S. S. Stark, NW J sec. 2, Amherst Henry Rose, NE J sec 3, Amherst Public well, Highland P. O Andrew Vogt. SW Jsec20 Amh'st Mrs. Simmons, sec. 35, Spring V. Public well Spring Valley. A. N Hart Spring Valley S. W. Knight, sec. 11 , Fillmore. . . S Hoff Fillmore D S Hoff Fillmore J. Kleckler,SE i sec. 26, Spring V. F Greaves Chatfleld Tho Simpson Chatfleld* W. H. Dunham, Chatfleld tp. . . . E Leonard sec 14 Sumner J. B. Silbert, 2 m. E. Spring Val. C. B. Brocksom, 2J m. E. Spring V. F. Lageirg, 3 m. E. Spring Valley J. H. Hall, 2 m. S. Spring Valley O. H. Rose. 2J m. W. Spring Val. O. H. Rose, 2 m. W. Spring Val. The loess loam. The greater portion of the county is covered with this loain. It contains no gravel nor boulders, or with very rare exceptions, but consists almost entirely of fine siliceous material which becomes in some places quite clayey, making a very slippery mud when wet. This in outward appearance is of a light yellow or rusty color, and differs in that respect from the loam seen on the drift-covered portion of the county, 'There are but few wells in ( 'hatfleld because of the necessity of drilling from twenty to a hundred and fifty feet in the limestone. 316 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Loam. which is frequently black, or brown, varying to an ash-color when mingled with a considerable percentage of clay from the drift, and also contains gravel. The surface loam is very homogeneous over wide tracts, while that in the drift area is subject to local and sudden varations. The loess loam is indistinctly stratified, in valleys, but the usual appearance on the uplands is that of non-stratification. This stratified arrangement is rendered the less evident from the great similarity of the materials from the top to the bot- tom. It does not consist, apparently, in any change from coarse to fine in the sedimentation, but in a lamination of the homogeneous clayey loam, and is easily obliterated by exposure, or by trickling water. This condition was noted particularly in the valley at Preston, and indicates that it there was deposited in still, or gently moving water. Where this loam lies over the old northern drift, it passes through a gravelly stage,, the materials of the loam mingling with the coarser portions of the drift, and becoming finally replaced by the drift. The drift patches covered by this loam, pertain- ing to the eastern and central portions of the county, and believed to be- long to an earlier drift epoch, are, so far as seen, made up of gravel and sand, with small stones. Very little drift clay, or till, like that which covers the western part of the county, has been seen overlain by the loess loam, to the east of that which pertains to the general drift-sheet of the Northwest, and which occupies a narrow belt, five or six miles wide, where the loam overlaps the later drift. It may be seen at several points between sec. 4, Canton, and Lenora. At one point it is a light-colored, or ashen, gravelly clay, which above is very irony or rusty. Over the surface are numerous fragments of chert, with some small boulders of granite and green-stone, and jasper and quartzitic pebbles. It is covered by several feet of loam. It is seen similarly in the N. E. £ sec. 12, Canton. The pebbles that are thus mixed with the lower portion of the loam are smooth and waterworn, not covered with a coating of decayed material of the same nature as the pebbles themselves, as they would be expected to be if the loam were derived from the decay, in situ, of the materials of the drift. The thickness of the surface loam sometimes reaches twenty feet in the open upland, and under favorable circumstances, where it might have accumulated laterally, as well as perpendicularly, it is much .more. It is thickest in the eastern part of the county. FILLMOEE COUNTY. 317 Loam. Terraces.] It has already been stated that there is some reason to assign an earlier date to the origin of the upland loam than to the stratified loess loam of the valleys,* and it is equally true that there is some reason to assign to it a different origin. Indeed, the explanation of its origin advanced by Prof. J. D. Whitney,! m 1862, is applicable over a very large part of the "drift- less area" in the state of Minnesota. He says: " The great mass of super- ficial clay, loam and other loose materials lying on the solid rock in this region, is therefore simply the residuum left after the more or less complete solution and removal of the soluble portion of the rock." It is quite prob- able that all the instances of lamination that have been seen in the surface materials of the "driftless area" may be referred either to the agency ot rivers when existing with larger volume than at present, and flowing at higher levels, or to the effect of local drainage, bringing fine sediment from the higher levels farther west, perhaps at the time of the last glacial epoch, and depositing it both on the pre-existing drift materials and on the older loam. The rotted and disintegrated condition of the surface of the older rocks on the higher levels in the county, the existence throughout this de- cayed interval, and sometimes extending upward in the loam, of pieces of chert referable to the rock itself, the great uniformity in the character of this loam, and its massive or non-stratified structure, point to this theory for its origin. Alluvial terraces. At Preston, besides the flood-plain, the river has a high terrace-plain. The Stanwix House stands on it. It consists of loess loam undistinguishable from the loam that covers that portion of the county. The same may be seen at Lanesboro, and at Whalan, but it is not conspicuous. At Rushford fragmentary remains of this high terrace are seen in the valleys of the tributary streams. Along the main valley they are not well preserved. There are two terrace levels, besides the flood- plain. The highest terrace-plain is from seventy to eighty feet above the second, and about one hundred and thirty feet above the river. The lower terrace, on which Rushford stands, is about forty feet above the river, and is probably never reached by the river in even the highest water. Within this lower terrace-plain, which spreads out laterally and forms the most ot 'Report on Winona county, p. 262-3. tGcology of Wisconsin, 1802, p. 126. • 318 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Fuel. Iron. the alluvial land between the rock-bluffs, is the river channel, and a still lower flood-plain about twenty feet above the river at low stage. This terraced condition of the valleys of Root river and of the Mississippi, is confined, so far as observed, to the loam-covered area, which nearly coin- cides with the "driftless area", as defined and described by Prof. J. D. Whitney. MATERIAL RESOURCES. Fuel. In addition to the products of the soil, which will always be the chief source of material wealth, Fillmore county cannot expect any impor- tant mineral discoveries to augment her material prosperity. She has a good supply of forest for purposes of common fuel, and will not sutter from the absence of coal, as some of the counties farther west have suffered. She will have to depend on her native forest trees, or on those that are being propagated succesfully, for the most of her home fuel supply. There is a marked absence of peat in this county as well as in Mower, but a single locality being noted. That occurs on S. E. ^ sec. 26, Spring Valley, land of John Kleckler and David Broxlem, and is said to be about 'four feet thick, covering four or five acres. There is no doubt that other, isolated, small areas, of a turf-peat, also exist in the county, but the circumstances which promoted the production of so large a surface of peat in a belt far- ther west, including Freeborn county, were certainly wanting in Fillmore county. The frequency of lakes and swamps, and abundance of peat coin- ciding as they do in Freeborn county, taken with the absence of both in Mower and Fillmore, point to the existence of a common cause for these surface features. Iron. Throughout the western portion of the county there is a great deal of surface iron, manifesting itself generally in the form of a cement in gravel, forming a dark-colored crag. There is also much evidence of the ex- istence of a heavy, continuous layer, or deposit, of limonite iron ore a few feet below the surface, in Bloomfield and Beaver townships. The details of these localities, and of the evidence of iron so far as ascertainable, have been given under the heads of Cretaceous and Drift. Should this bed prove to be extensive, its actual value for commercial purposes may vary greatly from its intrinsic value. It consists of a loose-textured hydrated peroxide, PILLMORE COUNTY. 319 Lead. Quicklime. J with ochery impurities, and bears a close resemblence to some bog-ore de- posits; but its occurrence on high land, instead of in swamps, necessitates some other explanation for its existence than that ascribed to the occur- rence of most bog-ore deposits. It may have originated during that swampy condition of southern Minnesota when the peat grew that is em- braced in the drift deposits, as already detailed. It is not probable that it will ever be found valuable for the manufacture of iron. Before the opening up of the vast and richer iron ore beds of Michigan and Missouri, the bog- ores were considerably used in the production of iron, on a small scale, in several of the western states, but the small furnaces that smelted them have all ceased operations many years ago. Another obstacle to the utili- zation of this deposit in Fillmore county will be the lack of fuel in conven- ient and sufficient quantities. Lead. While the Galena limestone, which is eminently" lead-bearing at Dubuque and Galena, passes in its northwestern trend across the south- western portion of Fillmore county, it has not been discovered to afford the same amount of lead as in Iowa and Illinois. Indeed, at points more re- mote from the Mississippi river, in Iowa, no remarkable deposits of lead have been obtained from it. There is not a total absence of lead from its layers, since a few localities are known to have afforded it in limited quan- tities. The same is true of the Trenton; which seems to indicate that the presence of lead in the limestones of this region does not depend on the kind or age of the formation, but rather on some later, superimposed con- ditions that prevailed over the region, subjecting various formations to the same influences. Quicklime. All the limestones of the county are suitable for quicklime, but by far the greater quantity is made from the Galena. In *he townships of Sumner and Spring Valley all the circumstances necessary for the cheap and rapid production of quicklime of the best quality co-exist, viz.: a suit- able limestone, abundant [exposure, and plenty of fuel. The Galena there forms some of its characteristic outcrops, constituting the bluffs of the streams continuously for many miles, and rising a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet above the valleys. The kilns are built at the foot of the bluff, and the stone is cheaply obtained, without much cost of transportation. Wood is 320 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Quicklime. also abundant at present, much of that portion of the county being covered by a heavy forest growth. The following list of lime-burners with their localities and estimated production for the year, will give some idea of the extent of the business in 1874. Palmer & Miller, Bear creek, three kilns 2,000 bushels. N. E. Fetterly, Bear creek, three kilns, 5,000 bushels. L. G. Odell, Bear creek, three kilns (one draw-kiln) - - 5,000 bushels. Charles Gorton, Bear creek, one kiln, 1,000 bushels. Allen Brothers, one kiln, - 1,000 bushels. J. Finley, Bear creek, one kiln, - 2,000 bushels. Isaac Kegley, Bear creek, one kiln, 600 bushels. Lem. Stout, Bear creek, one kiln. 2,000 bushels. T. J. Hammer, Bear creek, one kiln, - - - - 2,000 bushels. Elder Cyrus Young, Bear creek, two kilns. Not in use. Harvey McQuillan, Bear creek, two kilns, - - Not in use. Olds & Brakey. sec. 9, Spring Valley, one kiln, - 2,000 bushels. J. N. Cummings, sec. 11, Spring Valley, one kiln, J. H. Hall, sec. 12, Spring Valley, one kiln, 3,600 bushels. These all burn the Galena, and there is no noteworthy difference in the quality either of the rock or of the lime produced. According to the testimony of several, however, there are certain layers near the bottom of the formation which are not suitable for quicklime. Some layers also are arenaceous, and have to be avoided, but the great mass of the rock is ex- ceedingly well adapted to making quicklime. The kilns used, are, for the most part, of the rudest construction, present- ing no improvement over the ancient and well-known ''pot-kiln." They have to be emptied and refilled for every burning. Mr. L. G. Odell has the only draw-kiln seen in the county. In this part of the county mixed wood sells for two dollars or two dollars and fifty cents per cord. The average price of lime is twenty-five cents per bushel, but it fluctuates from twenty to forty. In Jfculy, 1875, it was selling for twenty cents; but in September it brought forty cents. The lime itself is generally nearly white after be- ing burnt, but in some places it has an ashen white color, though on slack- ing it is always white. It slacks with rapidity, evolving considerable heat. It requires from sixty to seventy-two hours to burn a kiln, depending on the size of the kiln and somewhat on its shape, and consuming about ten cords of dry, mixed wood. When freshly and thoroughly burnt one bushel by measure weighs about seventy-five pounds, but it not well burnt it will exceed eighty pounds. " Delivered at Spring Valley by weight, it is sold at FILL. MORE COUNT V. 321 Blick, gold and copper.j t the same price as by measure at the kiln." When shipped from Spring Valley it generally goes west, to points along the Southern Minnesota rail- road, and is known as Spring Valley white lime. Throughout the county, where the Trenton limestone appears, there are other lime kilns that supply the local demand. The following were noted: At Carimona, owned by William Benslow. Sec. 35, Carimona, by Mr. Rollins. At Forestville, by Frank Turner. Sec. 25, Canton, by Simon Houck. At Chatfleld, by Dennis Jacobs. The Shakopee is not used for making lime in Fillmore county, though it is extensively burned in the lower Minnesota valley, at Mankato and at Shakopee. The St. Lawrence limestone is somewhat employed for this purpose, and affords a lime that is nearly white, and is said to weigh eighty pounds per bushel of measure. At Lanesboro this lime sells at $1.25 per barrel, or fifty cents per bushel, wood costing five or six dollars per cord. Mr. Sherman's kiln holds about three hundred bushels and requires ten to eleven cords of wood for thorough calcination, burning about forty-eight hours. But little is shipped from here. The lime is about white and slacks perfectly white. The following list embraces all known kilns that were run from the St. Lawrence in 1874. At Lanesboro, by B. Sherman. At Rushford, by Jos. Otis. At Lanesboro, by Moses Greer. At Rushford, by Wm. Crampton. At Lanesboro, by Mr. Butler. Brick. There is no lack of materials for making common red brick. In some places the surface of the drift clay is used, containing some fine gravel, and at others the loess loam. Brick-making machinery was met with in the survey of the county at the following points: Sec. 20, Spring Valley, J. W. Smith. Chatfleld, Wm. Stafford. Forestville, Michael Shields. Lanesboro, W. H. Roberts. Preston, Franklin Coleman. Rushford, Ole Tuff. Lanesboro, Thomas Dunsmore. Granger (formerly), Mr. Ferris. Gold and copper. In small quantities gold has been washed, by rude meth- ods, from the drift at several points in the county. It was found on Hugh Hague's land in gravel, K E. J sec. 26, Spring Valley, and at Yeariton's saw mill, sec. 31, Jordan. There are accounts also of fragments of native cop- per having been found in the drift. It is hardly necessary to say that these discoveries do not indicate any valuable deposit of the kind in the 31 322 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Building stone. rocks of the localities where they may be found. They pertain to the' drift and have been transported hundreds ot miles along with the other foreign substances in which they occur, from the northern part of the state. Such discoveries have sometimes awakened an interest that has culminated in stock companies formed for mining, and in the wasting of thousands of dol- lars. Similar small quantities of gold can be got by a minute washing of the drift at almost any place where the drift-sheet is attenuated, or where the older glacial drift has been denuded, leaving the gold, which is inde- structible either by lapse of time or by the chemistry of the elements, on the rock surface underlying. Almost every geological report in the country makes mention of them, extending at least through Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa. Building stone. With this necessary article Fillmore county is also well supplied, and it has been put to an extensive use. There are hundreds of openings made to supply a local demand, besides a great many more extensive quarries which are known for a good many miles around. A great deal of stone for building is shipped to counties west, which are drift- covered and without accessible building stone. Probably three-fourths of the building stone used in the county is derived from the Galena and Tren- ton, the other fourth being made up from the Devonian and the St. Law- rence. The Trenton is most frequently employed. This is largely owing to the prominent manner of its outcrops, as shown under the head of Drainage and of Surface Features. The Galena has been used in the con- struction of several school-houses and private residences. At Spring Val- ley the Devonian is principally used; at Lanesboro, Whalan, Peterson and Rushford, the St. Lawrence. The Shakopee and Jordan are but rarely resorted to. The beds of the Trenton are usually less than six inches in thickness, and they are easily broken to any desired size. It is a hard stone, not easily cut, but can be dressed if necessary. It is not injured by dissemina- ted shale, as much of the Trenton at points farther north, and hence makes a very durable material. The quarry ot Mr. Joseph Taylor, formerly well known, situated near Fountain, has been closed for several years. At Fountain are several buildings constructed of stone from this place. Besides the quarries in the Trenton that have been mentioned in giv- FILLMORE COUNTY. 328. Building swne. Sand.] ing the scientific geology of that formation, a number were visited ; no new facts of interest were noted. Such were Ole Olesoii's, N. E, £ sec. 36, Harmony; Wm. Wilbright's and Martin Quinn's, sec. AS,-, Fcnrestrville; ,Geo.; Drury's, sec. 3, Bristol; Garrett Mensing's, S. W. J sec. 27, Forestville. It would be impossible and unnecessary to mention all the places where this limestone has been wrought. In traveling over the county- a.ioiumbei' of ' stone houses for residence were seen, belonging to farmers. Such artfQ/ O'Hara's, S. W.^sec. 18, Amherst, from the Trenton; Mr; Geo. Park's, sec. 37. Bloomfield, from the Galena of Mr. S. S. Belding's quarry. Tho stone mill' at Preston is of the Trenton. Of the quarries in the> Devonian at Spring Valley, those of Mr. Shumaker and of Mr. Allen are . 'the mosti important. The former furnishes a beautiful, fine-grained cut-stotae-f or1 trimmings, as well as stone for common walls. The latter supplies a dairkea^colJored amd, coarser stone, which has been considerably used. 1wJ t noi-tesup on off From the St. Lawrence limestone a very fine building idtonaje-isioftitaiiBedo It is a fortunate circumstance that very much of this formatidn is.ia<(regntj lar, and often in heavy layers. These are also not so firm afejiba 'resist K >\ ->|l' i MO) f .!L' CHAPTER VII. BY M. W. HARRINGTON.* THE GEOLOGY OF OLMSTED COUNTY. irfT oidmiiX mrt't Situation and area. This large and wealthy county (plate 11) lies in the second tier of counties north of Iowa, and is separated from the Missis- sippi river by only Winona county on the east. Its form is nearly that of a rectangle, with five ranges of townships east and west and four ranges north and south. This geometrical figure is rendered irregular by Wa- basha county which takes two townships from the northeast corner. This irregularity is further increased by the addition of an east and west row of twelve sections on the western part of the south side of the county, which extend also half a mile farther west than the rest of the county. The land area of the various townships is given in the subjoined table derived from the records in the office of the state auditor: JNAME. TOWNSHIP N. RANGE W. ACRES AND FRACTIONS. Elmira. . . 105 11 23,008.69 Dover 106 11 23,019.01 Quincy 107 11 23,038.81 Orion 105 12 22,992.53 106 12 22,983.90 Viola 107 12 22,977.97 Pleasant Grov6 . . 105 13 23,020.18 Marion 106 13 22.963.10 107 13 23,005.91 108 13 22,810.11 High Forest ( 104 14 (6 sections) ( 26,804.42 ) 105 106 1 14 22,973.76 107 14 22,915.45 Oronoco . .... 108 14 22,968.06 Rock Dell • I 104 15 (6 sections) ) 26,809.22 | 105 106 15 ( 15 23,002.35 Kalmar 107 15 22,990.60 New Haven 108 15 23,057.89 *To the original survey and report of Prof. Harrington (fourth annual report) considerable new material has been added. THE GEOLOGY or MINNESOTA. [Natural drainage. The area of Olmsted county embraces G58.42 square miles of land, or 421,391.08 acres; its water area is 3.94 square miles, or 2,520.20 acres; mak- ing a total of 662.36 square miles, or 423,911.28 acres. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. Streams are plentiful and their fall is moderate. The central, northern and western parts of the county are drained by the Zumbro river. This stream runs north into Wabasha county, where it turns east and makes its way to the Mississippi. It comes into Rochester from the southwest, and within the city limits Bear creek from the south- ill «9f east, Silver creek from the east and Cascade creek from the west, empty -ai8f- into it. Near the north line of the county it receives quite a stream, re- to suiting from the union of the middle and north forks of the Zumbro. The southern tier of townships are drained by Root river, which, very sinuous, takes a generally east course to the Mississippi. This has no affluents of much size in the county, except at Chatfield where a small stream known as Mill creek joins it from the north. On the eastern border of the county some small branches of the Whitewater river reach within the county. There are no lakes in this county, but it contains {a few small ponds which in no sense deserve the name of lakes. Streams which sink into the ground and disappear are occasionally met with. They occur in Farming- ton, Elmira, Haverhill and Viola townships, and are especially frequent where the sandstones of the Cambrian have combined with the magnesian limestones to produce a gorged and broken condition of the strata in pre- glacial times, followed by a thin spreading of till or of loam. The same conditions produce sink-holes and subterranean streams in the area of the Galena limestone wherever the drift is light so as not to have filled com- pactly and completely the pre-existing gorges.* These phenomena are more particularly noted on a subsequent page where these formations are discussed. Living springs of cool, pure water, of the best quality, are not rare. They are by far the most common on the south or west sides of the bluffs where the green clay derived from the lower rocks of the Trenton period comes to the surface. This clay is impervious to water. The formations •Compare the report on Fillmore county. 1'LATF. II. OLMSTED COUNTY. Water-power.] 327 dip slightly toward the southwest. The layer ol clay forms a nearly level floor of which the southern and western sides are lower than the others. The water consequently appears at the surface on these sides. These springs are frequently of large size. The phenomenon of a row ot springs some distance up the side of a bluft, while the base of the bluff furnishes no springs, is by no means a rare one. Spongy earth, and some- times calcareous tufa, are apt to collect about these springs. When filled with water the earth is soft and very miry. In former times where the roads crossed such spots, bad mudholes were formed. They have now been generally tapped and drained, though they are still occasionally met with on the less-traveled roads. Water-power. Olmsted county is more than usually favored with good water-power. This results from the large number of streams, the swift- ness of their currents and the favorable nature of the banks and bottom. The Zumbro river, in some of its affluents, has a descent of about three hundred and fifty feet within the county, from Rock Dell to Oronoco, while the main stream descends about two hundred feet in the same distance. The Root river falls three hundred feet within the county in passing through Rock Dell, High Forest, Pleasant Grove and Orion townships. Water-power mills in Olmsted county. Name of mills. Owner. Location. Stream. Feet of head. °s fl§ 3 -e «M Capacity per day. Rochester City mills. . . Olds & Fishback Rochester Zumbro . . . 16 4 100 bbls. Zumbro mills Jno M Cole Rochester Zumbro and Cascade mills Lyman Tondro Rochester Bear cieek. Cascade cr . 10 17 4 2 100 bbls. 50 bbls. Woolen mills Wm Bartley Rochester . Bear creek 17 f 50 horse | power, only Oronoco mills Allis Gooding | partly im- (. proved. & Hibbard Oronoco Zumbro .... 15 7 150 bbls. Middleton's mill ... . R Middleton Xalmar Zumbro 6i 2 35 bbls. Saw mill New Haven Zumbro ... 6 Stewtville Chas Stewart High Forest Root 12 50 bbls. J Fugle Orion Root 8 50 bbls. Custom mill English Orion Hoot small. small. tjuincy mills Quincy Whitewater 10 2 or 3 Saw mill — Ambler New Haven . . . Zumbro 10 There is quite a number of unimproved water-powers in the county; some are between Rochester and the north boundary of the county, where the difficulties of the banks prevent their ready improvement. There are 32S THE GEOLOGY OF MLXXKSOTA. [Topography, said to be two good mill privileges between the Oronoco mills and the main stream; another is at Genoa, and another at High Forest. The mills at Chatfield are enumerated in the preceding chapter. Topography. The surface is much diversified, and the natural scenery very pleasing to the eye. The surface is generally rolling or undulating. The contour-lines of the county plate express the frequency of changes in the elevation of the surface. Along the streams bluffs are found sometimes nearly two hundred feet high. These bluffs are usually steep, level-topped, and characteristic of the rock-formation that makes them. They are most common in the central and eastern parts of the county. Rochester lies in a valley, with bluffs all around it, rising gently at some distance on all sides except toward the west where it climbs the bluff. Dover Center, Marion and Chatfield lie in similar valleys. Eyota and Byron are on elevated undu- lating prairies nearly thirteen hundred feet above the ocean. Curious isolated mounds are common, especially along the east side of the Zumbro in Farmington and Haverhill townships. They are also found in Elmira. In the western portion of the county the surface is nearly level but also more elevated. Much of Rock Dell township is like the prairies just south and west of it, but in its northern part are narrow rocky gorges formed by the south branch of the Zumbro, which gave name to the town. Elevations. The following elevations are mostly on a proposed line ot railroad from Wabasha to Austin, from notes of Horace Horton, the sur- veyor who ran the line. They have been referred to sea-level by com- parison with elevations determined at Plainview, Brownsdale and Austin. derations, from the notes of Horace Horton. C. E. Above the Missis- ,, . sippi river at low Ff {* above water at Wabasha. Head of East Indian creek, five miles northeast of Plainview (Wabasha county) 529 1191 Street of Plainview (Wabasha county) .518 1175 Elgin (Wabasha county) - 385 1047 Summit of Lone Mound, sec. 11, Farmington, within 10 feet of Plainview level, 513 1175 Near center of sec. 14, Haverhill, - - 611 1273 S. W. corner of sec. 24, Haverhill (rock seen some feet above) 547 1209 Base of Sugar Loaf, sees. 31 and 32, Haverhill, - 367 1029 College street bridge, Rochester, - 317 979 Surface of water beneath, - - 302 964 S.E. corner sec. 10, High Forest, - 644 1306 Low water at High Forest village, - - 547 1209 Sec. 29, T. 1O4K., R. 15 W., Mower county, i mile south of John Rowley's house, 734 139fi Dr. ThornhilFs farm, 4 miles east of Brownsdale, in Mowercounty, - 707 1369 Southern Minn. R. R. at Brownsdale (Mower county) - 609 1271 St. Paul and Milwaukee R. R. track at Austin (Mower county) - - 535 1197 Pleasant Grove, about 644 1306 Creek near the school-house in sec. 15, Cascade, about - 342 1004 N. W. corner of sec. 10, Cascade, - 477 1139 (Quarter stake, sections 33 and 34, Oronoco, - - 467 1129 Center stake, sec. 21 , Oronoco, - 442 1104 Surface of river at Oronoco, - - 292 954 OLMSTED COUNTY. 329 F.levations.] Elevations on the Winnna and St. Peter din.tion of the Chicago and Northwestern railway. Miles Feet above from Winomv. the sea. St. diaries. - 28.35 1,139 Dover, 32.19 1,138 Eyota, - - 36.87 1,237 Chatfield Junction, - 37.73 1,275 Plainview Junction. - 37.93 1,275 Chester, 42.74 1,122 Rochester - 49.26 991 Hochseter and Northern Minnesota Railway Junction, 50. (U 999 Olmsted . - 54.22 1,054 Byron, 58.71 1,250 Kasson - 63.87 1,252 Elevations on the Chatjteld branch. Chatfield Junction. - 37.73 1,275 Summit grade - 40.75 1 ,295 Chatfield depot, 48.87 976 Elevations on the Plainrietr branch. Plainview Junction - 37.93 1,275 Doty, 40.00 1,310 Viola - 43.00 1,129 Whitewater creek. - 47.00 1,055 Elgin - 48.17 1,069 Plainview. 52.93 1,167 Elevations on the Rochester and Northern Minnesota railway. Rochester and Northern Minnesota Junction, - 50.64 999 Douglas, 58.35 1,091 Zumbro liver, - - 60.25 966 Zumbro bridge, 60.25 986 Oronoco, - 61.72 1.041 Zumbro river, 65.20 984 Zumbro bridge, - - 65.20 993 Pine Island, 65.86 998 Mean elevation of the county. Estimates of the average bights of the town- ships of this county are as follows: Quincy, 1150 feet above the sea; Elmira, 1175; Viola, 1225; Eyota, 1250; Orion, 1200; Farmington, 1125; Haverhill, 1200; Marion, 1200; Pleasant Grove, 1250; Oronoco, 1075: Cascade, 1075; Rochester, 1125; High Forest, 1275; New Haven, 1100; Kalmar, 1150; Salem, 1175; and Rock Dell, 1275. The mean elevation of Olmsted county, derived from these figures, is approximately 1180 feet above the sea. SURFACE FEATURES OF THE VARIOUS TOWNS. Farmington. This was a prairie town originally. It is quite broken in the southwestern portion, and an isolated mound, rising 150 feet above the surrounding surface, stands in the northeastern. Otherwise the surface is undulating, with fine loam soil, becoming sandy near the bluffs. Oronoco. The bluffs of the Zumbro and of its western tributary crossing this township give It great diversity of surface characters. The bluffs are frequently rocky and rise over a hun- dred feet perpendicular. In other places they are covered with gravelly clay and gravel, so that no rock is visible, or very little, but the valley still is deep and difficult. Outside the valleys, which are generally timbered, the undulating prairies spread out indefinitely. 3HO THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Surface features. New Haven. This town is more broken than Oronoco, and more timbered, and from the same causes. Quincy. This town is almost entirely one of smooth undulating prairie, there being a rather abrupt ascent from the northeastern portions to the soutli western, brought out prominently in the neighborhood of the drainage valleys. Some scattered oaks and aspens are found in the eastern sections between the Whitewater and its northern branch. Viola. This is mainly a high and undulating prairie, its southern border being about thir- teen hundred feet above the sea. Toward the north the surface descends abruptly to the valleys as the outcroping rock changes from the Trenton limestone to the St. Peter sandstone. Some of the streams that rise near the center of this township take their origin from small elevated marshes that lie on the high prairie. Haverhill. This township is similar to the last, but its general slope is in the opposite direc tion. Cascade. This township has great variety of surface, with considerable timber in the north- western and southwestern portions, but by far the larger part is naturally prairie. Much of the timber is small, especially at some distance from the streams. Kalmar. About one-half of this township was originally covered with timber, a large tract in the northwestern portion being very heavy and valuable for fuel. The bluffs of the river which crosses it are rocky and frequently perpendicular seventy-five to one hundred feet. Dover. With the exception of scattered thickets of small trees of aspen or oak this town- ship is one of prairie. Most of it is high, but it has a conspicuous valley running east and west, through the center, occupied by the Whitewater river. Some of the highest land in the county is n the southern part of this township. Eyota. The most of this township is also high prairie like the southern part of Dover; in its western portion it has a broad belt of heavy timber about the southern tributaries of Bear creek- Along its southern boundary it is somewhat broken by the headwaters of some of the branches of Root river. Marion. A considerable portion of this township is rolling and lightly timbered ; the up- lands are prairie. The valleys have a sandy soil, but the prairies have a clay soil. Rochester. Much of this township is timbered, generally with scattering oaks, sometimes with a variety ot heavy timber. The valleys are sandy and gravelly, but broad and generally tilled. The uplands are sometimes prairie and have a clayey soil. The bluff-slopes ate not generally rocky, but are often turfed from top to bottom. Salem. Much of this township is covered with timber, which is often rather brush than trees, consisting of oaks, hazel and aspens. The uplands sometimes bear marshes which furnish source to the branches of the Zumbro. Elmira. This is a town of mixed wood and prairie. Its eastern and southern portions are more broken, and descend rather quickly to the valleys which drain them ; the northern and west- ern portions are high with scattering timber. The upland is set off from the lower prairies by a conspicuous bench that rises abruptly about a hundred feet, its upper line being about twelve hundred feet above the sea. Orion has much timber along the valley of Boot river. This valley is about two hundred feet below the uplands, and is about a mile wide. Pleasant Grove. The valley of Root river is here also about two hundred feet below the up- lands, but it is narrower and more precipitous than in Orion. In the center of this township is a large area of timber. High Forest. This is nearly all prairie, but has some wood along the streams. The valley of Root river is less deep, but its banks are sometimes rocky. Rock Dell. The banks of the Zumbro, in the northern part, are steepand rocky, but those of the Root river are in the drift deposits. This town in general is one of high undulating prairie, with occasional small marshes. Timber. When first settled this county had a large amount ot native heavy timber, and also much in the condition of "openings". Some of it has now been cut, but it is not probable that the standing trees are less OLMSTED COUNTY. 331 Trees.] numerous now than then. The suppression of the prairie fires, and the reservation of large areas for the purpose of growing timber, added to the trees that have been artificially raised on the open prairies, have served to favor the forest growth. The brush and the "openings" have been cleared off, but on every prairie farm have been raised hundreds ot cotton- woods or poplars, or willows, or maples, box-elders or elms, which have probably more than equalled the number of trees cut for fuel and for farm- ing. The following trees, shrubs and twining plants were observed in the survey of the county. • I. Trees of Olmsted county. Tilia Americana, L. Bass wood. Acer saccharinum, Wang. Sugar maple. Acer rubrum, L. Red maple. Acer darycarpum, Ehr. Soft maple. The first two maples do not usually attain any considerable size, while the soft maple, in a state of nature, becomes a large tree. Negundo aceroides, Moench. Box-elder. This tree is common along streams, and is a favorite in cultivation. In transplanting it is trimmed up too much to easily take root. It is a pretty tree, of a pleasing form and a full light- green foliage. Fraxinus Americana, L. White ash. Ulmus f ulva, Mich. Slippery elm. Ulmus racemosa, llumias. Corky, or rock, elm. Of the latter elm several trees are seen in the streets at Rochester. It is a common species in dry woodlands. Ulmus Americana, L. (pi. Clayt.),-Willd. American elm, or white elm. Juglans nigra, L. Black walnut. A grove of these trees was seen in Kalmar. Juglans cinerea, L. Butternut. Carya amara, Nutt. Bitternut, or hickory. Of the hickory only very small trees were seen. It is said to be winter-killed before reaching a mature size ; further it is extensively cut when small for round barrel-hoops for the large export of Minnesota flour. Quercus macrocarpa, Michx. Bur oak. Is very abundant. On prairies it is low, 3-8 feet high, forming extensive thickets and fruit- ing abundantly. In more favorable localities protected from fire it becomes a large tree. Quercus alba, L. White oak. Is hard to distinguish at a distance from the last. Undoubted specimens were seen near High Forest. Quercus coccinea, Wang., var. tinctoria, Gray. Black oak. Like all the species of this group of oaks, this tree is hard to identify. It is very common, but its largest specimens are disappearing with the advent of civilization. It is frequently seen dead or dying without apparent cause. Betula papyracea, Ait. Paper birch. Small, along streams in the western part of the county Populus tremuloides, Michx. American aspen. Very common, usually less than six inches in diameter. Populus grandidentata, Michx. Great-toothed aspen. Populus monilifera, Ait. Cottonwood. A great favorite in cultivation. Populus balsamifera, L. Balm of Gilead. • Populus alba, L. Silver poplar. 332 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Shrubs. Vines. Populus dilatata, Ait. Lombardy poplar. The last three are introduced and very common in cultivation. Salix sp? Willows. Several species were seen, some of them becoming large trees. Finns Strobus, L. White pine. A few straggling specimens appear about the river bluffs. Kobinia Pseud acacia, L. Commonly cultivated. Several species of pine, spruce and a larch are also cultivated. II. Shrubs of Olmsted county. Xanthoxylum Americanum, Mill. Frickly ash. Rhus glabra, L. Smooth sumac. B. Toxicodendron, L. Poison ivy. Amorpha fruticosa, L. False indigo. A. canescens, Kutt. Lead plant. Prunus Americana, Marshall. Wild plum. Apparently several varieties, some of them producing the greatest abundance of pleasant fruit. P. Pennsylvanica, L. Wild red cherry. P. Virginiana, L. Choke cherry. P. serotina, Ehr. Wild black cherry. Spirsea opulifolia, L. Nine-bark. Bosa blanda. Ait. Wild rose. Bubus strigosus, Michx. Wild red raspberry. B. occidentalis, L. Wild black raspberry. Flavor of the fruit is said to be remarkably good. B. villosus, Ait. Common blackbeny. Not common. Cratsegus tomentosa, L., var. pyrifolia, Gray. Black thorn. Cratsegus tomentosa, L., var. punctata, Gray. Black thorn. Pirus arbutifolia, L. Choke cherry. P. Americana, DC. American mountain-ash. Cultivated. P. aucuparia, Gcert. European mountain-ash. Cultivated. Cornus stolonifera, Michx. Bed-osier dogwood. C. paniculata, liHer. Panicled cornel. Symphoricarpus occidentalis, It. Br. Wolf-berry. Viburnum Lentago, L. Sheep-berry. Wild haw. V. Opulus, L. Cranberry-tree. Is frequently cultivated. Corylus Americana, Walt. Hazel. Abundant on prairies. Betula pumila, L. Low birch. Cold bogs. Alnus incana, Willd. Speckled alder. Along streams. Juniperus Sabina, L., var. procumbens, Pursh. Juniper. Seen only on a rocky bank on Boot river, in sec. 35, Bock Dell. III. Vines in Olmsted county. Clematis Virginiana, L. Virgin's-bower. Vitis cordifolia, Michx. Frost grape. Ampelopsis quinquefolia, Michx. Virginia creeper. Common wild, and a favorite in cultivation. It is often erroneously called ir.y, and is fre- quently known as woodbine. Celastrus scandens, L. Climbing bitter-sweet. Humulus Lupulus, L. Hop. Wild and in cultivation. THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF OLMSTED COUNTY. The outcrops of rock are numerous throughout the county, and are specially frequent along the tops of the bluffs that line the deeply eroded valleys that prevail over several counties in this part of the state. This system of deep valleys tributary to the great Mississippi toward the east, OLMSTEL) COUNTY. 333 Geological structure. ceases rather suddenly in Olmsted county. The streams and all ravines rise, in the western part of this county, to near the surface of the surround- ing country, and flow upon the drift-sheet which grows deeper and deeper as one passes further westward. Tliis material is rather thin in Olmsted county, except in the southwest corner where it is thick enough to conceal the rock features entirely. Eastward it appears only in thin outlines, mark- ing the ragged edge of deposition, or in patches and masses which are rem- nants left by subaqueous erosion. In order to see to the best advantage, the changes either in the drift, the features of erosion, or the stratification of the rocks, one must cross the county obliquely. The drift is lightest, generally speaking, in the northeastern corner, and thickest in the south- western corner. On the other hand the southeastern and northwestern cor- ners are much alike in the very features in which the other two corners differ. In a rough way the lines of change cross the county diagonally in a southeasterly and northwesterly direction. This is due to two facts which may have some relation to each other. In the first place the great river in the vicinity of the county runs in a generally southeast direction. The erosion-valleys extending from it would tend to take a direction per- pendicular to it, and the lines of equal depths of erosion would tend to be parallel to it; again the dip of the rocks of this county is slight toward the southwest; hence the edges of the strata as presented on the surface would tend to be in lines perpendicular to this direction. There are no signs of noteworthy upheaval, depression or other changes, in the relations of the strata to each other in this county, as in the whole of this part of the state the strata are in general conformable.* The pecu- liar structure of the bluffs enables one to trace some of the strata at a dis- tance. As far as the eye can follow them their planes occupy the same position with reference to the horizon. The strata do not lie in a horizontal plane, but they dip slightly to- ward the southwest — perhaps at the rate of ten feet to the mile. The stratigraphy of this fine county is easy to read in most cases. The form of the bluffs, the line of springs marking a definite point in the rocks of the Trenton period, the varying solubility of the rock and the conse- quent occurrence of sink-holes and caves in/>neTormation and not in an- *See, however, the report on Winona county, p. 250. 334 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [St- Lawrence limestone. other, the notably distinct lithological characters of some of the forma- tions, and the gradual and regular dip of the strata, when taken with the erosion, enable one to decide with certainty the rock over which he is standing, even when it is hidden from view. All these enable one to read the stratigraphical enigma of the county with little trouble. In this study the intimate knowledge of the county possessed by Mr. W. D. Hurl- but aided greatly, as he cheerfully rendered all the assistance in his power. Many of the details of the map illustrating this county were supplied by him. Olmsted county furnishes an excellent field for teaching stratigraphy to a class of students. The strata are interesting. The characters men- tioned above make the reading of them, under their varied degrees of ex- posure and erosion, easy and instructive. For instrution in geological field- work no district could be better adapted. The formations found in the county are the following, as known in geological nomenclature. g ( Hudson Tlivei group. .Shales, shaly sandstones and impure limestones, the prob- able equivalent of the Maquoketa shaks of Iowa. Seen.. 15ft. f 1. Dolomitic limestones of the Galena formation 40-50 ft. '2. Calcareous strata, less dolomitic and more argillaceous, Trenton group < sometimes designated Upper Trenton 100 ft. 3. Green shales with limestone strata 40 ft. [ 4. Limestone. Trenton 15 20 ft. I Sandstone— St. Peter about 110ft- „ , . j Dolomitic limestone— Shakopee 30-40 ft. m' '• ] Sandstone— Jordan 20ft. [ Dolomitic limestone — St. Lawrence about 200 ft. Perhaps it would be more in keeping with the actual state of our knowledge to include the Lower Silurian strata all under one designation— the Trenton period — than to attempt to express the parallelisms between its parts and any of the New York members of that period, since there is some reason to include not only the Hudson River and Trenton epochs but also the Utica slate and the Black River limestone, among our strata. The St. Lawrence limestone. The actually known area in which this limestone forms the surface in Olmsted county is small, and on the plate representing the geology of the county it has been designated by horizon- tal purple bars. It is found in the town of Oronoco, and is abundantly exposed along the banks of the Zumbro and its north-middle branch. In its lithological characters it does not differ essentially from the descriptions OLMSTED COUNTY. 335 Jordan s»ndstone.] that have been given of it in reports on Winona and Fillmore counties. Its beds are quite irregular in some places, and show much chert and other siliceous aggregations. It is sometimes compact and finely granular, but is more frequently vesicular and with sparry cavities. The following sec- tion was taken at Oronoco, at the lime-kiln of James Barnett, just northeast of the village. Section at Oronoco, in descending order. " Calciferous sandstone, much broken in thin layers, buff 14 ft. Compact, little broken calciferous sandstone, light buff 2 ft. Sandstone (mostly saccharine) in layers 4 ft. 3 in Aluminous limestone, in thin layers, light buff 1 ft. 7 in.' Dark sandstone with numerous blue spots 1 ft. 8 in. Arenaceous vesicular dolomite 3 ft. 6 in. Like the second above 4 ft. Like the second above, but more irregularly bedded 1 ft. Vesicular, sparry, irregularly bedded dolomite 4 ft. Total, as far as seen 36 ft. In the above section no fossils could be found. The lowest layer is employed for making lime. The lime is light buff, slow, and contains considerable cement. The Jordan sandstone. This sandstone, which was identified in 1873 as a distinct stratunr in the Cambrian formations, separating the limestone that Dr. D. D. Owen designated the Lower Magnesian into two important and persistent members, has a thickness of about twenty feet in Olmsted county. It can be seen at the mill-dam at Quincy on the Whitewater below the Shakopee, with an exposed thickness of ten feet. It is here a firm sandrock or granular quartzyte. West of Oronoco it is again visible in some of the bluffs and mounds that rise above the Zumbro valley and reach a hight of about 1100 feet above the ocean. About two and a half mile west of Oronoco a slight excavation has been made in this rock tor its sup- posed utility for building. It was done by Mr. Robinson; but the rock was found to be rather poor, some of it being very fine-grained, and susceptible of being carved into delicate forms. The most valuable result of the work was the demonstration of the geological horizon hereabouts. The Shakopee and Jordan cause the undulating country just north and west of Oronoco The St. Lawrence is seen at Oronoco, rising about twenty feet above the main part of the village, its upper line of outcrop running somewhat above the dam. About a quarter of a mile southwest of Robinson's the Shakopee and Jordan combine to form a couple of conspicuous mounds in the river valley, in the same manner precisely as the St. Peter and Trenton combine :;:;(•, THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. I Shakopee limestone . in so many cases, except that in this instance the effect is somewhat in- creased by the direct action of the Zumbro's waters. The. Slml-opev linn^fone. The area of this formation in the county is as follows: It follows the larger streams, beginning on them when well in the county, and broadening out until it leaves the county with them. It appears in the beds of the branches of the Zumbro far up in Rochester, Marion. Haverhill and Cascade townships. Rochester lies on a floor formed by the upper surface of this formation. The valley of Rochester city is entirely shut in by bluffs, except where the Zumbro passes out to the north and along a geological valley, now dry, to the northwest. This valley of Rochester- city is somewhat crab-shaped, and is formed by the meeting of the various streams which make up this branch of the Zumbro. Cascade township is about half occupied by the Shakopee, the remaining surface being occupied by spurs and islands of the formations above, one of these islands being quite large. Oronoco township is mainly underlain by this limestone, closely associated along the river valleys with the Jordan sand- stone and the St. Lawrence. Farmington has a Shakopee floor, except the southern edge and some outliers of Trenton and St. Peter. In New Haven the middle fork of the Zumbro soon rises to the Trenton, while the north fork- lies on the Shakopee or Jordan, until it passes into the next county west. A large portion of Quincy and a little of the northeast of Viola are on the Cambrian. An arm of the same appears at the surface in the bed of the river, passing nearly through Dover from east to west. Elmira is also floored with the Cambrian for the most part, as is a small portion of Orion. The village of Dover lies in a Cambrian valley, something like that of Rochester city. The same is true of Chatfield. Something more than 20 per cent, of the county has a floor of these alternating sandstones and dol- omites. Illustrative of the lithological characters of this limestone the following section may be taken. It occurs at Quiucy: The same broken and con- fused stratification accompanies the Shakopee throughout the county, and may be seen in some quarries near Rochester.* Descending section at Quincy, Olmsted county. No. 1. Dolomitic limestone; quite arenaceous, falling out in huge masses which are rough, distorted in their crude bedding, and unmanageable as a quarry stone, showing much calc-spar. *Sec also the description of the Shakopee in Eice and Dakota counties. OLMSTED COUNTY. 3§7 St. Peler sandstone.] Limestone and sandstone are minified with occasional strips of light-green shale. In general the face presents the appearance of an alternation of horizontal layers of thin and more shaly beds, with heavy, coarse and rough limestone beds. Some green-shale layers alternate with dark, nmber-colored (ochreous) shale, neither being more than two inches thick. They are tortuous and not continuous. This phase appears like the tops of the bluffs at Winona. but is at a considerably higher horizon 30 ft. No. 2. Persistent white sandstone (Jordan) seen 10 ft. Total exposure • : 40 ft. This rock, in connection with the underlying Jordan, produces charac- teristic surface features. When worn deeply into by erosion it presents bold cliffs and craggy, rounded, hills. When not covered thickly by drift, or by the loess loam, it makes a poor surface for agriculture, as may be seen in some parts of Oronoco. Its area is nearly barren, or covered with scant grass, with hazel and scrub oak (in this case a dwarfed growth of Quercus macrocarpa), or with small paper birch, and other wood-growth not large enough to be of importance economically. When this floor is covered by drift, as in the beautiful prairie township of Farmington, the soil may be unsurpassed. The most of this township is devoted to wheat, and at the proper season it seems to be one continuous wheatfield. This rock does not furnish much good building material in this county. It is not of even bedding and homogeneous texture generally. Pieces are sometimes employed at Rochester for window-caps and water-tables. These pieces are found only in the uppermost layers. No general use is made of them. The St. Peter sandstone. The area of this rock is difficult to represent on a map. It is so friable that it will not endure erosion when left to itself. It is only where it is capped by the lower layers of the Trenton that it successfully resists the attacks of water. By itself, uncovered by other formations, it occupies but little space. It juts out beneath the cap of lime- stone only a few feet or rods. From a projecting spur of limestone it may extend further, as is illustrated in the city of Rochester. A spur of Trenton comes in from the west, and ends "near the city limits. The sandstone, however, can be struck in'sinking wells almost anywhere in the western portion of the city. Occasionally, where erosion was incomplete, an outlier of crumbling sandstone can be seen not capped by limestone. Such out- liers may be found in the southwestern'part of Farmington, and in other 22 338 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [St. Peter sandstons. counties.* Such outliers are not common, and are generally small. Streams of considerable size usually leap from the Trenton to the Shakopee in very short intervals, the intervening St. Peter sandstone having been washed completely away at an early period. Sometimes, however, streams of small size remain in a bed of St. Peter sandstone; in which case the vally is sandy, covered with small oaks and worth little for agriculture. This is seen in the valley of Bear creek and its branches. The surf ace features caused by the presence of this sandstone are inter- esting, and have already been referred to in reports on other counties. As the incoherency of this rock deprives it of the power of resisting erosive forces, it is usually carried away cleanly wherever exposed. The conse- quence is a precipitous descent from the Trenton to the Shakopee. This appears in lines of remarkable, level, bluffs. The hight of these bluffs is usually the thickness of the formation, with fifteen or more feet of lime- stone on the top. These bluffs are especially noticeable around Rochester. To the east their top is reached by a rugged ascent, to the west by a gradual slope of the surface. The erosive forces have left many small and isolated bluffs, which can be properly described under this head, though the lower layers of Trenton limestone assist in their formation. They appear as rug- ged mounds rising from the Shakopee floor, and form a striking feature in the aspect of the neighborhood. They are most abundant in southwest Farmington and in Elmira. A few are seen along the railroad, just east of Rochester. Perhaps the most remarkable is "Sugar-loaf mound," about two miles east of the city and close to the railroad. Its shape and relative proportions are those of a sugar-loaf. Another remarkable one is " Lone mound", of sec. 11, Farmington. It is about three miles north from the line of Trenton bluffs. Two or three miles northwest are two similar mounds, called" Twin mounds". They are in Wabasha county, but have no limestone capping. The thickness of the St. Peter was ascertained with an aneroid barom- eter, near Rochester. The upper layers of the Shakopee were found on Bear creek, near the woolen mills. The upper surface of the St. Peter was ascertained as carefully as might be near Whitcomb's quarry, and near Jenkins' quarry. Three comparisons were made. The proper allowance *dce reports of Wabasha and Dakota counties; also p. 231, OLMSTED COUNTY. 339 Trenton period.] having been made for dip and atmospheric change, the value of 111 feet was obtained for the thickness of this formation. The lithological character of the St. Peter is uniform and simple. It is a rather coarse, friable sandstone, pure white except where contam- inated by foreign substances or percolations from the formation above. It contains no fossils so far as could be seen in this county. This formation is useful in several ways. When with a tight, magne- sian floor, it holds water, and furnishes a good supply to wells. It is some- times excavated where it comes out on the face of a bluff. Excellent cellars, dry and of uniform temperature, are thus formed, which are used especially for the preservation of vegetables. In the rear of the second Insane Asylum at Rochester is a fine root-cellar in the St. Peter sandstone. Mr. W. D. Hurlbut, of the same place, has an extensive silo embracing over 150 feet of chambers, wholly excavated in this rock. It supplies an inex- haustible amount of pure white sand, round-angular, and excellent for mortar or glass-making. The rocks of the Trenton period. The highest rocks, stratigraphically considered, belonging to this series are found at High Forest, and at two miles west of High Forest. These are shaly, both aluminous and arena- ceous, sometimes indurated and bedded and sometimes easily crumbling. On sec. 35, Rock Dell, they appear along Root river, having a light buff color, breaking like a hard shale, sometimes arenaceous, even so much so as to become a coarsely arenaceous white sandstone, and at other times some- what calcareous, with a very fine grit, worthless for lime and for all other uses. It was tested for quick-lime by Mr. Brewer some years ago. In the winter it is cracked to pieces by frost; bedding never more than four inches thick, some of it very thin and clayey. The total thickness seen here is about ten feet, but at High Forest, at the quarry of Russell Williams, this shale is seen overlying a body of limerock which at the village rises into per- pendicular bluffs twenty-five to forty feet high, and is extensively quarried for building purposes. In this shale no fossils have been found at High Forest, except an indistinct valve of a small brachiopod like Lc[)1(t')iasericea, but reminding one of the Spirifer family by its eared extremities and its 1 leaked hinge-line. The shale here so far as seen amounts to fifteen feet, contains no lw!>!> !<• M 1 E et. ~r. I Water Remarks. 35, Farmington — 85, Farraington.. . . 36, Farmington — 25, Farmington... . 30, Haverhill 9, Haverhill 32 Haverhill C. E. Stacy •2-2 •20 U 44 25 40 25 12 25 31 24 10 50 :: 53 41 11 44 35 '.id 2o 12 2.~i 40 SO 27 2o 25 7:', 32 01 21 (10 30 20 2.-, 3(1 3(1 40 IS . W Hymes 20 SO 2-j 2.3 30 .iO 4d 40 T. C. Cumings.. . J. 11. Hodgman.. E. Babcock P. Boardman. .. . J. Gardner I M. Westfall. 1 7 , Cascade 1 7 Cascade 15 Cascade 15, Cascade 15, Rochester 2, Rochester 5, Viola W.L. Brackenridge D. 1>. Whipple.... 18 44 50 Cedar logs at considerable depths in the drift are found but rarely. Mr. Sprague says they are always under the blue clay. Rotten wood is occasionally found in the blue clay. It is a striking fact, often mentioned, that water is often found on the bluffs at a much less depth than at their base. The geological formation satisfactorily accounts for this. MATERIAL RESOURCES. The soil of Olmsted county is and will always remain its chief source of material wealth. It has great variety. It is arenaceous in some of the valleys, and produces and ripens crops quickly, but it is more clayey on the uplands, and generally blackened by charred grasses and other vege- tation— the residue of the prairie fires that formerly raged annually over the most of the county. Brick of a red color are made at many places in the county, in all cases from the washed clay, which is the same as the loess loam. It is in 346 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Brick. Gold. deposits from two to ten or twelve feet thick. Although this material is sandy, more sand is usually put in in making the brick. The brick are con- sequently tender and of poor quality. They vitrify but little when burned. Gold has been found in the drift along the Zumbro from Rochester and Oronoco down to the Wabasha border and beyond. It is found only on the Cambrian limestones. Murchison calls attention to this fact as generally true. It is found in the drift about the stream, but mostly in the bed of the stream, or in material worked over by it at a comparatively recent date. In the same alluvial material is found a small amount of black mag- netic sand, of a specific gravity approaching that of gold. When the gold is obtained by washing, after all the other materials are washed away this heavy black sand remains, and the minute fragments of gold are picked out from it. It is therefore here called the "mother of gold," and the two are thought to be always together, a conclusion which need not necesarily follow. The gold is in minute, angular fragments. The quantity is so small that it does not pay to work it by the ordinary method of hand-washing. Washing on a more extensive scale might be made to pay. It has been tried two or three times, but never under favorable circumstances, or for periods of much length. It may be worth while just here to call attention to the fact that gold is frequently found under these circumstances. It has been found over ex- tensive regions in Canada where attempts at obtaining it on a large scale have always failed to pay. It occurs thus in Vermont, Ohio, Indiana. Wis- consin, Iowa, and has been reported in other counties in Minnesota, viz. : Fillmore, Wabasha and Scott. I 'L AT}': 12 CHAPTER VIII. THE GEOLOGY OF MOWER COUNTY. BY N. H. WINCHELL. Situation and area. This county, which borders on the state of Iowa, opposite Mitchell county, is bounded west by Freeborn county, and north by Dodge and Olmsted counties, and has an area of 711.18 square miles, or 455,155.75 acres. Of this area 1,352.65 acres are water, and 453,803.10 are land. It is represented by plate 12. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural ilnthwye. The western line of towns is crossed in a due south- erly direction by Cedar river. From the west this stream receives Wood- bury, Orchard and Turtle creeks. Its eastern tributaries are Roberts, Dob- bin's, Rose, arid Otter creeks. Thus the whole western half of the county is drained into the Mississippi through Iowa. The southeastern portion is also drained toward the south through the sources of the Little Cedar, the Wapsipinicon and the Upper Iowa rivers. The northwestern portion of the county is drained by the headwaters of the Root river toward the north and east. This river flows eastward through Fill more and Houston coun- ties into the Mississippi near La Crescent. The divide between streams running north and those running south crosses Mower county from S. E. to N. W., nearly through the center, and includes some of the highest land in that portion of the state. The highest point in the county, on the South- ern Minnesota R, R., is at Dexter station, in sec. 13, town 103 N., range 16 W., 7sf> feet above the Mississippi at La Crosse, or 1,412 feet above tide water. These streams are all small, and some of them become nearly dry during the summei'. Some of them furnish water-power at a number of 348 THE GEOLOGV OF .MINNESOTA. 1 W;iter-power. Topography. places. This has been improved on the Upper Iowa at Le Roy, and on the Cedar at Ramsey, Austin and at several places below Austin, in the con- struction of flouring mills. Water-power and water-power mills in Mower county. At Lansing on the Cedar is the Lansing mill, owned by Alderson and company; head ten feet; thirty horse-power; one "American turbine"' wheel of forty-two inches; five sets of rollers (Noyes); capacity, seventy-five barrels per day. At Ramsey is Matthew Gregson's mill, which has a head of water of nine feet; one forty- two-inch Leffel wheel, with twer.ty-five horse-power; one other wheel for machinery, giving thirty horse-power; three n.n of stone; capacity fifty barrels. At Austin is Warner's mill (now owned by C. Alderson), situated on Dobbin's creek, with dixteeu feet head; two Huston wheels (17 and 15 inches); fifteen horse-power, more or less, for each wheel; one pair of millstones; five sets of rollers, of Cosgrove's patent; capacity forty bar- rels. The full capacity of this stream is about twenty-five horse-power. At Austin on the Cedar is the Engh roller mill, owned by Job Engle; has eleven feet head; two Huston wheels (45-inch and 27-inch), giving respectively forty and fourteen horse-power; eleven sets of single (Noyes) rollers : capacity 125 ban els. Two miles below Austin on the Cedar is Jonathan Gregson's mill, with thirteen feet head ; it has one Leffel wheel of forty-two inches, and one '-American turbine" of forty-two inches, mak- ing together 100 horse power ; eight sets of rollers (Case's patent); two buhrs; capacity 125 bar- rels. This power is not all employed. Five miles below Austin is \V. II. Officer's mill; this has eight feetTiead,'one "American turbine" and one Leffel wheel, each being forty-eight inches in diameter; sixty horse-power; two sets of rollers (Noyes). and three run of stone. At seven miles below Austin on the Cedar is the old site known as Tiff's mitt, now owned by Alderson and company. This has not been employed for twenty years, and a part of the dam is gone; but there is here available over 100 horse-power. There is another available privilege near the mouth of Rose creek, amounting to ten horse- power, not now used. At Le Roy, on the Upper Iowa river, is Isaac II. Thompson's mill ; this has ten and a half feet head ; one forty-eight inch Leffel wheel; three run of stone (one for feed); capacity twenty- four barrels. Topography. This county is one of high prairie. Its surface is smooth, and gently undulating. The broad valleys of the small streams that appear in the eastern and western portions are basin-shaped in cross-section, though they sink, in the towns of Frankford and Racine, from fifty to seventy-five feet below the general level. The summit of the principal N. W. and S. E. watershed is formed by the Lower Devonian strata. Toward the east from this summit, particularly toward the northeast, the view over the valleys of Deer and Bear creeks, introduces a decided change in the landscape as it first appears before the traveler. The expanse is broad, low, and wooded more or less. A similar change is introduced in the southeast, 'where the Upper Iowa river passes through the township of Le Roy. The western MOWER COUNTY. 349 Elevation1 .] portion of the county is considerably lower than the central and eastern. This is owing to the valley of the Cedar, the effect of which is felt'over a wide belt, in depressing the general level. The southern townships of Lyle, Nevada and Adams may be characterized as flat. The same is true of much of Marshall, Windom and Austin. There are extensive tracts of pi'airie in the central and eastern townships that are still in their pristine condition. Elevations. The following points of elevation above the ocean will give the average altitude along the railroad lines, and this can not vary much from the actual average for the county, since the roads easily follow the undulations of the prairies with very little of either cutting or filling. Elevation* on tlie Southern Minnesota division of the Chicago, Mihcaukee and St. Paul railway. Miles from Feet above La Crosse. the 0ea. Spring Valley (Fillmore county), 73.6 1266 Summit (grade), 80.1 1358 Grand Meadow, 83.0 1338 Depression (grade), 85.2 1317 Dexter, 89.8 1412 Brownsdale, 98.0 1271 Cedar river (water), - K>2.9 1192 Ramsey (crossing of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway), - 103.1 1214 Depression ( grade on bridge at Turtle creek), - 107.7 1197 Oakland (Freeborn county) 109.9 1265 Elevations on the Iowa and Minnesota division of tlie Chiaiyo, Mihcaukee and St. Paul railway. Miles from Feet above St. Paul. the sea. Madison, 90.2 1250 Lansing, - 93.8 1224 Ramsey (crossing of the Southern Minnesota railway i, 96.3 1215 Cedar river (water), 96.7 1185 Cedar river (grade), 96.7 1200 Wolf creek (bridge), 97.7 1203 Austin, 99.3 1197 Dobbin's creek (water), 99.6 1175 Dobbin's creek (grade), 99.6 1194 Austin Junction, - 99.8 1194 Rose creek (bottom), 107.3 1222 Rose creek (grade), 107.3 1236 Rose Creek station, 107.7 1245 Summit (grade, cutting 7 feet), 111.1 1301 Little Cedar river (water), 111.9 1252 Little Cedar river (grade), 111.9 1272 Creek bottom, - 113.8 1259 Creek crossing (grade), 113.8 1274 Adams, - 114.1 1276 Summit (grade, cutting 2 feet), 117.0 1343 Taopi, 117.9 1336 Creek bottom, 122.7 1270 Crossing of creek (grade), 122.7 1285 Creek bottom, 123.2 1268 350 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevations. Soil and timber. Miles from Feet above St. Paul. the sea. Crossing of creek (grade) 123.2 1285 Summit (grade, cutting 5 feet), 124.0 1300 Le Roy, • 125.4 1280 State line (natural surface and grade), - 126.0 1263 Elevations on the Austin and Mason City branch of the C/iim'j'j, Milu- "chx. Bur oak. (^uercus coccinea, Wang., var. tinctoria, Gray. Black oak. Populus tremuloides, Michx. Aspen. Ulmus Americana, L. (pi. Clayt.), Willd. American elm. Salix V Different species. Coryltis Americana, Walt. Ilazelnut. Bhus glabra,' L. Sumac. Ostrya Virginica, Willd. Ironwood. Tilia Americana,'£. i Bass. [Sambucus Canadensis, L. Elder. Symphoricarpus occidentalis, K. Br. Wolf berry. Kibes Cynosbati, L. Prickly gooseberry. Cornus (sp. V) Cornel. Pirus coronaria, L. American crab-apple. Cornus stolonifera, Michx. Bed-osier dogwood. Alnus incana, Willd. f Alder. Populus monilifera, Ait. Cottonwood. Cratiegus coccinea, L. J. Thorn. Primus Americana, Marshall. Wild plum. rrunus>erotina,^'/u\ Black cherry. Vitis cordifolia, 'Michx. Frost grape. Celastrus scandens, L. Climbing bitter-sweet. Kibes floridum, L, Black currant. Bosa blanda, Ait. Wild rose. Cratasgus Crus-galli, L. Cockspur thorn. 352 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Fraxinus Americana, L. White ash. Carya alba, Nutt. Shag-bark hickory. At Lansing, and in the valley of the Cedar, one foot in diameter. Acer saccharinum, Wang. Sugar maple. Carya amira, Null. Bitternut. Finns strobus, L. White pine. Along the rocky banks of the streams in the eastern part of the county. Ulmus fulva, Mich. Slippery elm. Fraxinus sambucifolia, Lam. Black ash. Viburnum Opulus, L. High-bush cranberry. Rubus villosus, Ait. High blackberry. Juniperus Virginiana, L. Red cedar. THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. Of the older rocks the lower portion of the Devonian and the upper portion of the Lower Silurian are found within the county, dipping toward the southwest. The western portion of the county is known to be imme- diately underlain by the Lower Cretaceous, without ascertainable eastern limits. The underlying rock is nearly everywhere hid by the drift, and for that reason the actual position of the boundaries of the formations is unknown. It is possible, indeed probable, that the Cretaceous area extends farther east through the northern part of the county, since traces of it are found in the northern part of Fillmore county. The central and northwestern parts of the county are underlain by the argillaceous sand- stone, and associated shales, which are seen at Austin. In Pleasant Valley and Racine townships u limestone which is the extension of the Galena and Upper Trenton is found. This lies below the Austin rock. The Devonian limestones, which overlie the Austin rock, occupy the southern and south- eastern townships, and the western portions of Lyle and Austin, on the west side of the Cedar river. The stratigraphy of the formations is as fol- lows, in descending order. Nothing is known of their thickness, except what can be learned from a study of their outcrops in other counties. There is no reason to suppose they vary much in that respect from the descriptions that have been given already of them in Fillmore and Olm- sted counties. L 1. Blue clay. Cretaceous. •? 2. White sandstone. ( 3. Pebbly conglomerate. C 4. Limestone, fine grained, dolomitic. Devonian. •< 5. Limestone, coarse grained, dolomitic. ( 6. Argillaceous sandstone. 7. Calcareous shale. 8. Limestone, dolomitic, with shale beds. MOWEE COUNTY. 353 Cretaceous strata -J The Cretin-con*. The principal exposures of the Cretaceous are found in the valley of the Cedar river, and in the vicinity of Austin. These less in- durated strata overlie unconformably, with an immense lapse of intervening time not here represented by any rocks, the older rocks of the Silurian. They have been broken up by the glacial forces, and their materials have been forced into the pre-existing cavities and channels of the older strata. They also lie undisturbed in some of these old cavities. Similar apppear- ances have been noted in Iowa by Profs. Hall and Whitney and by W. H. Ban-is.* but in that state they seem not to have been referred to the agency of the Cretaceous ocean. With respect to the clay, which is probably the uppermost of the Cre- taceous deposits in the county, it is frequently seen at Austin, and at points below Austin, in the quarries that are opened in the Silurian rocks. A quarry in the left bank of Dobbin's creek, just below the mill of Mr. C- Alderson, opened in the Austin rock, shows the beds everywhere greatly broken. Throughout, the partings and all the interstices are closely filled with this greenish clay. The clay here very rarely has any distinct bed- ding. It varies from green to reddish, or buff', and is accompanied also with considerable clean white sand. These are both lodged in the cavities of the rock in such a manner that they seem to have been jammed into them. They pertain to no particular horizon, and show no definite arrangement. They are disposed everywhere, from the top to the bottom of the bluff, though the sand seems to be more abundant near the bottom. At a quarry of Mr. Alderson's, near Austin, the rock was overlain by the following Cretaceous clays. 1. Black sandy loam and soil, 2 to 4 feet. 2. Band of red and variegated compact clay. - 6 in. to 4 feet. 3. Yellow ocherous band of clay 6 in. to 4 feet. The superposition of these bands of clay is not so regular as indicated by the foregoing section. Occasionally number 3 is broken through, or is wanting, and number 2 lies on the rock, or passes down into its crevices; yet number 3 is generally the first over the rock. They vary in thickness and swell out in shapeless masses, and become very hard when dry. Such hard masses are seen sometimes to embrace bits of angular earthy rock, •See the second annual report, and the report on Blue Earth county; also, Geology of Iowa, Vol I pp 84 and 130; also, Proceedings of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, Vol. II., p. 264. 23 :!.VJ THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Cretaceous strata much like ocher, varying in color, from u dark burnt-umber color to a lighter shade, even to buff', and appearing when of a light color much like the mass of number 3. They can bo scratched easily with a knife, and however black they may be, they give a red Im-matitic streak. When they are faded the streak also fades into a brown or yellowish-brown like limo- nite. Intermingled very irregularly with number '2. and sometimes also with number 8, are masses of greenish clay which has in ev-ery other re- spect the same outward characters as number 2. There are here also large, crystalline, detached masses of apparently a siliceous limestone which is very hard and close-grained. In some cases, however, this varies to a porous and nearly white limestone that appears to be very pure.* In the digging of Mr. L. G. Basford's well, at Austin, the rock quarried at Austin was struck at twenty-four feet and was penetrated eight feet. Overlying this was a deposit of blue clay. This deposit was also found in the crevices of the rock. The clay contained angiospermous leaves. Two distinct varieties of leaf were discovered, one resembling /Wo«/!•' MIXXKSOTA Ji-; COTNTY. BY M.W. HARRINGTON. fJtHitriHUfV ' ////, .intOatJt tlrUJ U n !>,! 'I'ri'ii fun Li rti t:\~ttitii- : ( fnwnnftt?h' C O U N Y O 0 D H U LI \\ XVI W. N T Y CHAPTER IX. THE GEOLOGY OF DODGE COUNTY. BY M. W. HARRINGTON. (UK/ (u-i'ii. This county occupies the angle formed by the boundaries of the two la:;t described, being west of Olmsted and north of Mower. Its form is that of a rectangle, being four towns long north and south, and three in width east and west. Its total area is 43>S.6"> square miles, or '2S().7:!s.(.)U acres, of which 279.956.47 are land, and 782.43 are water, according to the measurements of the original survey by the United States surveyors, on record in the office of the State Auditor at St. Paul. SURFACE FEATURES. Natttni/ ilniiiiiif/t'. The surface waters leave the county for the most part toward the east and northeast by means of the branches of the Zum- hro river. The largest of these is the south branch of the middle fork of the Zumbro, which rises in Rice lake, on the western border of the county, and flows eastward through nearly the central portion of the county. The north branch of the same stream has its source in the wet prairies in the northwest corner of the county, and flows nearly eastward also. The south branch of the Zumbro reaches this county by two small streams which have their sources in the southeastern part. The upper tributaries of the Cedar river, known as the west, middle and east forks, rise in Westfielcl and Hayh'eld townships, in the southwestern corner of the county. These sources of the Cedar consist of a series of shallow lagoons which during the summer and autumn are not connected visibly by water currents. Lying in the broad depressions of the high prairies, they act as 368 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Drainage. Water-power. basins to receive the drainage from a large tract of country, and when they become full discharge successively into each other until their volume is sufficient to maintain a continuous stream. The water-shed between the sources of the Zumbro and the Cedar is very broad and flat, and from its summit the horizon fades out before the beholder in the dim, blue dis- tance so gradually, that unless the air be clear it is difficult to distinguish it either to the north, south or west. This divide consists immediately of drift, as indicated by large boulders along the shallow drainage lines, and by the excavations for wells. The fall of all the streams is inconsiderable in all parts of the county, but greater in the northern part than in the southern. Water-power. The only improved water-power in the county is found on the middle and north forks of the Zumbro river. The following list shows the location and manner of improve- ment of these powers: Mills. Owner. Location . Stream, (tfl Kim of atone | Kind of mill. Wasioja." . . Blake's Mantorville. Kockton. . . . Agawaui... . Eagle Valley Buchanan... Milton .... A. Mason & Son.. . J I) Blake Wasioja village — Sec. 13, Wasioja... Mantorville village 22, Mantorville 13, Mantorville... . 15, Concord Middle fork... Middle fork.... Middle fork ... Middle fork... Middle fork.... North fork 9 12 \ 10 ) 7 8 12 12 10 8 4 4 3 2 2 2 2 Custom and flour. Flouring . Custom . Custom and flour. Flouring. Custom . Saw mill . Custom. Adams & Kneeland John Bradford Chase & Swaringan J. Gordon . . Widow Irish Buchanan village . 9, Milton North fork James Elias North fork . ... Of the above mills tbat at Mantorville has two powers, one being about a hundred and ten rods above the other. There is an unimproved mill privilege at Concord. The south middle branch of the Zumbro rises in Rice lake, which also has a natural outlet toward the west into Straight river, through Maple creek. In order that the mills on the east- ward-flowing stream should have as much water as possible, the western outlet was cut off. Still the supply is so uncertain that the mills are compelled to stop some years during several months in the winter season. The water in the north middle branch is still more unreliable. Topography. The surface is but little diversified. The southern and southwestern portions of the county are an undulating prairie, with no visible rock exposure, sometimes marshy, and but thinly settled. On some of these high prairies are frequently seen large quantities of boulders. They seem to prevail in the lower spots, and especially in boggy surfaces, yet are not wanting on the upland prairies. Some are twenty-five or thirty feet long, with corresponding width and hight. They are found all the way fi'om a few miles south of Kasson to the Mower county line.* They con- stitute the most marked natural exception to the monotonous features •See the Mower county report. DODGE COUNTY. 369 Elevations. Trees and shrubs.] of the prairies. The valleys in the northeastern part of the county are from one to two hundred feet below the average level. They are some- times precipitous and rocky, but not generally. About in the center of the county these streams pass from the drift deposits onto the rocky structure. Above this point their valleys are shallow and broad, and below it they change rather rapidly to the features that^ prevail, but more character- istically, in the "driftless area", and become narrow and rock-bound. Elevations. The townships of Hayfield, Ripley and Ashland rise over thirteen hundred feet above the ocean. The valley of the north middle branch of the Zumbro descends from twelve hundred feet to slightly less » than one thousand feet above the sea in crossing the county. The south middle branch descends from about twelve hundred feet to ten hundred and fifty feet in crossing the county. From the contour-lines of the map (plate 13) the townships have the following estimated average elevation, viz: Westfield, 1300 feet above the sea: Hayfield, 1340; Vernon, 1300; Ripley, 1310; Ashland, 1310; Canisteo, 1260; Claremont, 1250; Wasioja, 1225: Mantorville, 1190: Ellington, 1200; Concord, 1175, and Milton, 1140. This gives an aver- age for the county of about 1250 feet above the sea. According to the engineers of the Winona and St. Peter division of the Chicago and Northwestern railway, the elevation of Byron, in Olmsted county, is 1250 feet above the ocean, Kasson 1252 ft., Dodge Center 1288 ft., Claremont 1280 ft., and Havana, in Steele county, 1246 ft. Timber, trees and shrubs. Along the streams in the eastern portion of the county is found considerable heavy timber, but the most of the county is natural grassland or prairie. In addition to the woody species named in the Olmsted county report, the following, not observed there, occur in Dodge county, and probably also others: Menispermum Canadense, L. Moonseed. Ceanothus Americanus, L. New Jersey tea. Cratsegus coccinea, L. Scarlet-fruited thorn. Cr. Cius-galli, L. Cockspur thorn. Ribes Cynosbati, L. Wild gooseberry. Cornus circinata. L'Her. Large-leaved dogwood. Found in cold woods and on bluffs. Fraxinus viridis, Michx. Green ash. Celtis occidentalis, L. Sngarberry. Ostrva Virginica. Willd. Hop-hornbeam. lietula lutea, Michx. f. Yellow birch. Piuus Strobus. L. White pine. A few straggling specimens were seen iii Olmsted county. There is a grove of the trees near Mantorville. Abies balsamea, Marshall. Balsam fir. With the preceding. Juniperus communis, L. Common juniper. J. Virginiana, L. Red cedar. 24 370 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Geological structure. THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF DODGE COUNTY. The underlying rocks can only be seen in the valleys of the streams in the northeastern portion of the county. Canisteo, Mantorville, Milton, Concord and Wasioja townships include all the rocky outcrops. Over the remaining seven townships the drift conceals every feature of the rock be- low. All the evidence that there is indicates that to some extent, at least, the rock so covered is Cretaceous, but no facts of observation can be cited to demonstrate this. The Shakopee limestone is found in the bottom of the valley of the north branch of the Zumbro but a short distance east of the county line, and the characteristic arrangement of the bluffs, indicating that formation, enters the county about two miles and a half. The rock has not actually been seen in Dodge county, although the overlying St. Peter sandstone appears in several places. It is on the strength of this evidence that the Shakopee limestone is shown on the accompanying map as forming^the floor of the valley in Milton township. St. Peter sandstone. Surrounding this valley is the bluffy outcrop of this sandstone. It^is sometimes seen in digging wells or is cut by the grad- ing for the highway. It preserves its characters as a white, friable sand- stone, growing reddish and attaining more firmness when exposed to the air. The Trenton limestone comprises the remaining exposures along this stream. In descending the stream everything is covered by drift until reaching the vicinity of the Eagle Valley mills, sec. 15, Concord. Here a rock in rather thin layers is quarried, but without affording any good ex- posure of the strata. Two miles farther down the stream is a quarry at Concord, in the south bank N. W. J sec. 23, with the following Descending section at Concord. 1. Black loam and reddish clay 4 ft. 2. Rubble, stone 2J ft. 3. Dolomitic rock, yellow, with fine reddish lines; layers two to eight inches thick 3 ft. 4. Bluish stone, less dolomitic, in even beds from one to two feet thick 3 ft. 5. Bluish stone, not dolomitic, in thin layers 1 ft. 6. Heavy layers of bluish stone 3 J f t. Total.. 17ft. DODGE COUNTY. 37] Trenton limestone.] Below this is a compact limestone, not well exposed. It is not dolo- mitic and is good for burning. At the saw-mill near the middle of sec. 17, Milton, the road passes • around an exposure of rock. Here are about ten feet of shaly limestone and blue clay. A fine specimen of Receptaculites lay in the wheel-track of the road, and had been considerably marred. Many other incomplete specimens were found. An eighth of a mile below this saw-mill (still in sec. 17, Milton), is an irregular bluff on the south side of the stream. It is concealed by debris, bushes, etc., and not very accessible. The following measurements and observations were obtained with as much accuracy as circumstances would admit. They are taken from above: Section on sec. 17, Milton. 1. Yellowish limestone in thin layers 10 ft. 2. Compact aluminous layers, 4 to 6 inches 1 ft. 3. Shale, limestone, and blue clay in alternate layers, usually thin 15 ft. Below, passing under the debris and probably occupying the present river bed is a thick stratum of compact limestone, with a depth of upwards of twenty feet. Receptaculites is abundant in the rock. As might be anticipated from the structure of the rock, living springs are abundant along these bluffs. One very fine one, the size of one's arm pours out from the rock just above the saw-mill, at a distance of twenty feet above the water of the stream. Here these springs are almost equal in number in bluffs facing north or south, betraying the absence ot dip at this point in either of those directions. Other small exposures of Trenton rock were seen in the road in several places within the Trenton area as marked on the accompanying map, as at sections 19 and 30 of Milton township, and in sections 12, 13 and 14 of Mantorville. The lower parts of the exposures at Mantorville and Wasi- oja are, in all probability, Trenton; but as it is impracticable to tell where this rock begins and the rock above ceases, these exposures will be de- scribed under the Galena. The Trenton can also be traced into this county from Olmsted, in sec. 14, Canisteo, and from Goodhue along the north fork of the middle branch of the Zumbro, near the north county line. The Galena limestone is found cropping out along the south middle branch of the Zumbro. In descending this stream no rock is found until 370 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Galena limestone. reaching sec. 14, Wasioja. The first important quarry is that of Thomas Arnold, on the north bank of the stream, in sec. 13. At the top of the ex- posed wall is a layer of five feet of rubble stone. Below this are thirty feet of dolomitic, sparry stone, yellow when weathered, but blue within. It is in evenly bedded layers from six inches to three feet thick. It works smoothly and is soft, without flint. Near the bottom the rock is gray when weathered. A few rods below this, on the same side of the stream, are the lime- kilns of James Paul, two in number. This is in the village of Wasioja, in sec. 13. The rock, of which he has eight or ten feet exposed close by, is yellow and in thin, rather irregular, fragments. It is in all probability Ga- lena. Mr. Paul obtains from this a lime of a light yellow color. He burns about 840 barrels per year, for which he obtains $1.00 per barrel. He uses for this eighty-six cords of wood, for which he pays $4.00 per cord. Mr. Paul praises his lime highly, and it is acknowledged by all to be good tor laying stone. It is, however, generally said to be slow in slacking, and not strong. At Blake's mill, on the eastern edge of sec. 13, of Wasioja is an exposure of about thirty feet of rock where materials have been ob- tained for the mill and dam. The upper five feet are of broken rubble stone. The remainder is in solid, even beds, six inches to three feet thick. The stone is a limestone, yellow, dolomitic, compact, coarse-grained. About half a mile above Mantorville, in section 17, of Mantorville township, is a natural exposure of about forty feet of rock, on the north bank. The upper twenty feet are composed of a compact rock in thick beds, yellow in color, wearing away very evenly by weathering, in a cas- tellated manner. Below it the rock wears much more unevenly and is grayish. Between the two lies a thin soft layer which was not accessible. It wears out much more rapidly than the other rocks. It is probably a clay-shale. About twenty yards from this place is a fine spring, always flowing. It is caused by a layer of gi-een shale lying just below it. In the bed of the stream, just below the first clam at Mantorville, sec. 20, is a compact, dark limestone, in thin beds and not dolomitic. Just be- low the village of Mantorville are the quarries owned by H. Hook, P. Man- tor, A. Doig and others. DODGE COUNTY. 373 Galena limestone.] Section at Hook's quarry, Mantorvillr. 1. Loose .fragments, 4ft. 2. Beds from six to twenty inches each, of vesicular magnesian limestone, almost free from iron, very much used formerly for all kinds of construction, - 30 ft. 10 in. 3. Thin, slaty, argillo-magnesian beds, 1 ft. 6 in. 4. Good heavy beds of magnesian limestone, same as No. 2, - lift. 6 in. 5. Shaly and thinner beds, seen. 5 ft, NOTE— Where these beds are weathered out, a white deposit is accumulated on the slope below, having much the taste of lime, yet it may consist of alumina and lime. On the face of the rocks the coating is bitter and sour, tasting some- what like Epsom salt. 6. Heavy magnesian layers, of a buff color, with considerable shale - 20 ft. Total 63 ft. 10 in. The stone taken from the quarries at Mantorville is highly prized, and has been placed in some important buildings.* It is evenly bedded and can be got out in good shape. It has but little grit or flint to take off the edge of tools, working easily and cheaply. It hardens after exposure, and has a pleasant, light yellow color, or when from deep within the quarry shows a light blue color. It is rarely affected by spots of iron pyrites. Section at Mantor's quarry. 1 . Loose material, with broken rubble stone 2 ft. 2. Light yellow rock, in layers three inches thick 1 ft. 3. Yellow dolomitic rock, in thick beds 4 ft. 6 in 4. Shaly, yellowish rock, including a layer of two inches of an uncemented, rather fine gravel containing numerous black quartzyte pebbles 6 in. 5. Yellow, dolomitic rock, in thick beds 4 ft. Total "lifft" In the bed of the race at the second dam at Mantorville, a hundred and ten rods below the mill, is a fossiliferous green shale. These sections, and that which follows, show that the transition from the Trenton to the Galena was gradual, the occurrence of the buff and magnesian layers mark- ing those changes favorable for the deposition of the Galena limestone which preceded the full introduction of that epoch. Section at Rockton mills, sec. 22, Mantorville. 1 . Slope from the summit of the bluff (hid) estimated 40 ft. 2. Magnesian layers, buff, much shattered 4 ft. 6 in. 3. Shale : 2 ft. 6 in. 4. Good layers of vesicular, buff, magnesian stone, with some argillaceous patches. lift. o. Argillo-magnesian limestone, weathering into rather thin beds 3ft. 6. Vesicular, buff, magnesian limestone. In one bed 10 in. 7. Shale and shaly limestone 2 ft. 2 in. -'Compare the chapter on buiMing stones, p. 167. 374 THE GEOLOGY OF MINXESOTA. [Drift. 8. Beds of argillaceous limestone, each of about eight inches and separated by shale beds, each of the latter being about two inches, containing Iteceptacu- lites 5 ft. 2 in. 9. Shale 4 in. 10. Vesicular limestone, argillo-magnesian, in one bed 9 in. 1 1 . Shaly and calcareous beds (thin) 8 in. 12. Crystalline beds of a gray color, weathering buff , one bed 1 ft. 7 in. 13. Shale and shaly limestone 1 ft. 4 in. 14. Shale 8 in. 15. Argillo-magnesian limestone, some parts crystalline and calcareous only: in three beds 6 ft. 4 in. 16. Shale 4 in 17. Argillo-magnesian; one bed 10 in. 18. Shale. i ft. 2 in. 19. Hard crystalline limestone of a gray color with some cavities and specimens of Rcceptaculites 2 ft. 2 in. 20. Shale 6 in. 21. Argillo-magnesian, one bed; showing Chcetetes and fucoids of the Trenton epoch 1ft. 6 in. 22. An interval, not well seen, of beds of greenish-blue shale and argillaceous limestone, each varying from eight to twelve inches, showing abundant fossils of the Trenton 16 ft. 23. Blue, earthy limestone; under water and not well seen 6 in Total 103 ft. 10 in. In Canisteo township, due south from Kasson, is an exposure of the Galena limestone at the crossing of one of the branches of the Zumbro, and along the stream for some distance be- low. It appears in heavy, coarse, cavernous layers eight to sixteen inches thick, of a buff color, and without apparent fossils, and has been slightly opened by quarrying. Rock that resembles the Galena is used at Concord for building stone, and by the farmers for foundations between Concord and Mantor\ille. THE DRIFT. • This covers nearly the whole county. Boulders are abundant and sometimes very large, as has been stated under the head of topography. A stony blue clay underlies the southern and western portions of the county, and its tenacious and impervious character is the cause of numerous marshes in that part of the county. This clay is uniformly met in digging wells, at the depth of from ten to thirty feet, and sometimes it contains logs and other vegetation. While it is essentially a drift-clay, probably, in nearly all cases it is augmented by the disrupted and disseminated shaly beds of the Cretaceous, which has added largely to the thickness of the drift-clay in other counties. These characters fade out toward the northeast, in Dodge county, so that the drift-clay loses its blue color, and all the ma- terials of the drift are affected by yellow loam that there takes the place of the drift-clay. DODGE COUNTY. 375 Drift.] On the railroad between sees. 32 and 33, of Wasioja, the water washed out a ditch to a con- siderable depth so that the following section could be seen: Black loam 2 ft. Yellow, sandy clay, with some small pebbles below 6 ft. Alternations of thin, ferruginous, sandy films and black, or yellowish, sandy clay 4 ft. Total 12 ft. In the bottom of the ditch was a bluish quartzyte boulder, fifteen inches across, and six inches thick, worn off smoothly on one side by glacial action. The smooth side was polished, but scratched. At the crossing of the railroad over a stream a similar section amounting to fifteen feet was seen, except that the bottom clay was dark blue and without the ferruginous films, and contained numerous drift-pebbles, and a piece of Galena limestone. In some of the railroad cuttings in Wasioja. some ferruginous concretions of small size and much decayed were seen, with numerous fragments of Galena limestone, and a solitary piece of argillyte. Two miles east of Kasson Mr. Watson Houston found a stick twenty-five feet beneath the surface, two feet long and three and a half inches in diameter. It was like Norway pine or tam- arack, with loose texture and coarse annual growths. Brick are made from the surface loam at Dodge Center, and three miles east of Dodge Center. At Kasson are made brick and drain tiles, for which, however, the clay is obtained at Mantorville. Lime is burnt in sec. 17, Milton, from the strata of the Trenton, and on sec. 10, Milton, from a surface deposit of travertine. CHAPTER X. THE GEOLOGY OF FREEBORN COUNTY. BY N. H. WINCHELL. Situation and area. This is one of the southern border counties, and lies very near the center of the southern boundary of the state. It embraces five government towns east and west and four north and south in the form of a rectangle, making an area of 701.94 square miles, or 449,242.53 acres, after deducting the areas covered by water, the latter being 13,271.87. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. With the exception of Freeborn. Hartland and Carlston townships, the surface drainage is toward the south and south- east. The county embraces the headwaters of the Shell Rock and Cedar rivers of Iowa, and those of the Cobb river which joins the Minnesota toward the north. Hence it lies on the watershed between two great drain- age slopes. For the same reason none of its streams are large, the Shell Rock, where it leaves the state being its largest. The streams have not much fall, but afford some water-power, which has been improved in the construction of flouring mills. Such are found at Albert Lea and Twin Lakes. In these cases the body of water confined in the upper lake serves as the water-head and reservoir, the mills being constructed near their out- lets. There is also an available water-power near Shell Rock village, but its use would cause the flooding of a large body of land adjoining the river. Topography. The surface of the county.* although having no remark- able changes of general contour, yet is marked by two belts or areas of rolling prairie which cross it from north to south, and is more or less cov- ered with sparse oaks and oak bushes. The rolling tracts mentioned differ *Some notea on the topography and on wells in this county are derived from Mr. Upluun. FAR1BAULT FREEBOEN COUNTY. 377 Surface features. | considerably in area but are alike in a1! essential features. The eastern belt of rolling land passes through sections 5, 9, 16, 21, 2S, 33, in Newry township; through sections 4. 1). IB, 20, 30 and 31 of Moscow; through sec- tions 6. 7. IS, part of 17, 19 and 30, of Oakland: section 36 of Hay ward, and diagonally southwestward through Shell Rock, leaving the state east of Shell Rock river. In Shell Rock it is less marked, but a rolling surface is found along the valley of the Shell Rock river, accompanied by timber, and through sections 2. 10. 15, 16. 21. 22. 27, 28, and 33. This belt varies from one to three miles in width, and the short ridges and conical hills of which it consists rise from twenty-five to sixty feet above the smooth prairies adjoining on either side, their most characteristic development being in Newry. in section 16. The other area of rolling surface occupies much of the central portion of the county, and varies from four to twelve miles in width* its most marked development being in sees. 1 and 2 in Pickerel Lake township. It covers nearly all of Bath, Bancroft and Albert Lea, and the northwestern third of Freeman. It also embraces the southeastern third of Hartland. the eastern three-quarters of Manchester, nearly all of Pickerel Lake and Nunda, the southeastern corner of Alclen and a belt about two miles wide through the west part of Mansfield. It extends westward and northwest- ward in Faribault county nearly to Lura. The hills that diversify the surface in this part of Freeborn county are generally formed by smooth swells and gentle depressions in the gravelly clay, or hardpan of that part of the state, but sometimes they are abrupt and and stony, rising from seventy-five to one hundred feet. The valleys between are frequently wet, and contain much peat. The material of which the hills consist is the drift-sheet of the Northwest, mainly a gravelly clay, but sometimes gravel and sand in oblique stratification. The rest of the county is either flat or moderately undulating. The smoothest portions are the eastern two- thirds of Oakland, the greater part of London and the western "half or two- thirds of Freeborn and Carlston. The marsh occupying sec. 12, Hayward, and parts of the adjoining sections, is commonly called the "big slough.'' The maximum depth of Freeborn lake is reported to be twenty-five feet, and of Geneva lake fifteen to twenty feet. The town of Albert Lea is forty-two feet above lake Albert Lea. The stream flowing from Fountain 378 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [ Surface features. lake into lake Albert Lea falls eight and a half feet, and is the site of a dam and mills. The plats of the United States surveyors, on file in the Register's office at Albert Lea, indi- cate considerably more area covered with timber, or as "oak openings," when the county was surveyed by them, than is now the case. The following minutes are based on an examination of their plats, and will give a pretty correct idea of the distribution of the oak openings and the prairie tracts throughout the county. London. The most of this township is prairie, a belt of oak onenings and timber entering it from the north about three miles wide, and extending to the center, bearing off to the southeast and terminating in section 24. The magnetic variation throughout the town was, when surveyed (1851i, from 8° 20' to 10" 42 , the greatest being in sees. 33 and 34. Oakland. A little more than a half of this township consists of oak openings, an area in the easten: half only being prairie, with a small patch also in sec. 31. Two large sloughs cross the town, one through sections 30, 31 and 32, and the other through sections 4, 5, 8, 7 and 18. Magnetic variation about 9°, varying from 8" 12' to 10° 8', in 1854. Moscow. Nearly the whole of this township is taken up with oak openings and marshes. Turtle creek crosses it from N. W. to S. E. A large portion of the northern half of the town is a floating marsh, containing a great quantity of peat. Magnetic variation from 9° 20' to 10° 20' in 1854. Newry. ' There is a small patch of prairie in the northeast part of this town, sees. 1, 12, 13 and 24, and a small area in sees. 20 and 21. There is another in the N. W. corner, embracing sections 6 and 7, and parts of 5, 8 and 18. The rest is openings and marsh, particularly marsh in the S. W. corner. Magnetic variation 8° 20' to 9° 40', in 1854. Shell Eock. A belt about U miles wide along the west side of this town, accompanying the Shell Rock river, constitutes the only openings or timbered portion, the rest being prairie. This district also comprises some marsh, viz.: sees. 19 and 31. The first house in the county was built in sec 33 in this town, in the S. W. quarter. Magnetic variation 8° 45' to 10° 15-, in 1854. Hayward. A wide belt of prairie occupies about two- thirds of this town, running north and south through the center. On the west of this is a rolling tract embracing a portion of lake Albert Lea and some tributary nurshes, while on the east a large marsh covers sections 12 and 14, and portions of 13, 11, 15, 22 and 23. There is also a prairie tract in sec. 1. Eiceland. This township is about equally divided between prairie, openings and marsh the first being in the south central portion, the second in the northwest and central, bordering on Rice lake, and the marsh in the northeastern part of the town. Magnetic variation from 8° 45' to 10° 30'. Geneva. There is but little prairie in this town, the southern portion being comprised in a large marsh which is crossed by Turtle creek, the outlet of Walnut (or Geneva) lake. The cen- tral portion is occupied by oak openings which also extend to the N. W. and W. boundaries. The prairie is in the northern and eastern portions. Magnetic variation 9° 10' to 10° 23 , in 1854. Freeman. This township comprises no prairie. It is mostly devoted to oak openings, but a series of marshes, drained by the tributaries of the Shell Rock, that cross it toward the S. E. take up a considerable area in the central and eastern portions. Mag. var. 9° to 10P 40', in 1854, the greatest being in sec. 31. Albert Lea. This township is nearly all taken up with oak openings, but a few small marshes, trending N. W. and S. E. are found in different portions. There is also a small patch of prairie in sec. 6, and another in the S. E. corner of the county. The western arm of Albert Lea lake, through which the Shell Rock river runs, is in the central and eastern part of this town and adds greatly to the variety and beauty of its natural scenery. Pickerel lake is also partly in this township. Mag. var. 8° 46' to 10° 8'. Bancroft. A little more than one-fourth of this township is prairie, situated in the central and southwestern portions. The rest of th'e town is covered with oak openings. The source of Shell Rock river is in the N. W. part of this town. Mag. var. 8° 50' to 10" 15-, in 1854. Bath. An area of openings comprising about half of this town in the central and eastern FREEBORN COUNTY 379 Surface features.] portions is nearly surrounded by a belt of prairie. Small marshes are scattered through the town. Mag. var. 8" 45- to 10° 35', in 1854. Nunda. This town is also mostly openings, but an area of prairie occurs on sections 4, 5, 9 and 3: another lies southwest of Bear lake. Considerable marsh land is embraced within the area of openings. Mag. var. in 1854 10° 5' to 12° 15', the latter in section 31. Pickerel Lake. The west half of this township is prairie, and the eastern is devoted to open- ings with lakes and marshes. Mag. var. 9° 45' to 11° 50' in 1854. Manchester. About one-half of this town is prairie, the remainder being oak openings. The prairie lies in the northwestern and southern portions. Small marshes occur both in the prairies and openings. Mag. var. 10° to 12" 15' in 1854. llartland. Ttiis town is almost entirely composed of prairie, the only timber being about Mule or Le Sueur lake, and in the southern portions of sections 34, 35 and 36. There is not much marsli in the town. Mag. var. 9° 45' to 12° 25' (1854). Mniitfield. This town is nearly all prairie, a small patch of oak openings occurring in sec- tions 3, 10 and 15. The northwest part of the township is rolling and the southeast is level and wet with marshes. Mag. var. 11° 30' to 13° 40' (1858). Alden. This town is all prairie, with scattered small marshes. Mag. var. 11° 27' to 13° 15' (1854). Carlston. This town is all prairie except a narrow belt of sparse timber about Freeborn lake. Long narrow marshes spread irregularly over the central and eastern portions of the town. In the southeast quarter of section 36 there is also a small area of sparse timber. Mag. var. 11' 13- to 13° (1854). Freeborn. In this town there is a little sparse timber about the north ends of Freeborn and Spicer lakes, and a little adjoining Spicer lake on the east. There are also some openings in sec- tion 26, where the arms of the marsh protect the timber from the prairie fires. The rest is of prai- rie, with spreading marshes. Mag. var. (1854) 11° 55' to 12° 50'. North and west of Albert Lea is a very broken and rolling surface of sparse timber. This tract consists of bold hills and deep valleys wrought in the common drift of the country. On some of these hills are granitic boulders, but the country generally does not show many boulders. The drift is usually in this broken tract, a gravelly clay. In some of the road cuts for grading a gravel is found containing a good deal of limestone. A great many of the marshes of the county are surrounded with tracts of oak openings, a fact which indicates that the marshes serve as barriers to the prairie fires. Such marshes are really filled with water and quake with a heavy peat deposit on being trod on. They are very different from those of counties farther west, as in Nobles county, which in the summer are apt to become dried, and are annually clothed with a growth of coarse grass which feeds the fires that pass over the country in the fall. As a general rule but little pr no grass grows on a good peat marsh. The contour of the county is further exemplified by the following elevations obtained from lines run for railroad surveys: Elevations taken from a preliminary survey made in July, 1870, through Freeborn county, Minnesota, by WM. MORIN. Commencing on the state line (south) 930 feet east of the quarter stake on the south side of sec. 32, T. 1O1, R. 3O; thence north to Glenville on sec 6, T. 1O1, R. 2O; thence north 40° west to Albert Lea on sec. 8, T. IO2, R. 21 ; thence north 40° east to Geneva on sec. 8, T. 1O4, 11. 80. and thence north to the Steele county line. Above ocean. Feet. Station No. 1, at point 930 ft. east of quarter stake on sec. 32, T. 1O1, R. 8O, 1212 Station No. 100, 1221 Station No. 190, 1199 Station No. 199 + 10. Water in Shell Rock river, east bank, 1197 Station No. 200+80. Water in Shell Rock River, west bank, 1197 Station No. 202, 1212 Station No. 300. Glenville (town plat) 1221 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. ["Elevations. Station No. 494. Summit between Glenville and Albert Lea, 1313 Station No. 654. Albert Lea (town plat), 1243 Lake Albert Lea, 1201 Station 1064. Summit at Clark's Grove, 1314 Geneva lake (or Walnut lake) 1214 Station No. 1330, at Steele county line, sec. 5, T. 1O4. R. 2O, 1206 Elevations obtained of George B. Woodworth, assistant engineer of the Southern Minnesota railroad, La Crosse. Miles from Feetabove La Crosse. the sea. Ramsey, crossing Iowa and Minn.div. of Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway, 103.1 1214 Depression, grade, 107.7 1197 Oakland, 109.9 1265 Summit, grade, 113.8 1270 Depression, grade, 117.6 1241 Hayward, • 118.0 1248 Summit, grade, 121.5 1263 Depression, grade, 124.2 1206 Albert Lea, 124.6 1221 Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern crossing. 121.7 1220 Summit, grade, 128.9 1323 Armstrong, 129.8 1270 Summit, grade, 133.5 1317 Alden, 135.2 1261 Bood's switch, 139.7 1189 Wells, 144.4 1153 Elevations on the Minneapolis and St. Louis railway, from Robert Angst, assistant engineer. Miles from Feetabove Minneapolis. the sea. Hartland, 94.9 1247 Manchester, 100.9 12-58 Albert Lea, 108.0 1224 Twin Lakes, 115.0 1255 Norman, 121.4 1279 Average elevation of the county. The most of the county is more than 1 .209 feet above the sea, the range being between 1,100 and 1,400, the average elevation for the county being about 1,250 feet. The average elevation of the different townships is about as follows, estimated from the contour lines: Ne wry, 1.275 feet above the sea ; Moscow, 1,250; Oakland, 1,260; London. 1,225; Geneva, 1,240 ; Riceland, 1,240; Hayward, 1,240; Shell Rock, 1,260; Bath, 1,280; Ban- croft, 1,290; Albert Lea, 1,250; Freeman, 1 ,250 ; Hartland, 1,225; Manchester, 1,275; Pickerel Lake, 1,290; Nunda, 1,275; Freeborn, 1,175; Carlstou, 1,210; Alden, 1.260; Mansfield, 1,275. The mean elevation of Freeborn county, derived from these figures, is approximately 1,250 feet above the sea. Soil. Throughout the county the soil depends on the nature of the drift combined with the various modifying local circumstances. There is nothing in the county that can properly be designated a limestone soil, or a, -sandstone soil. The materials of which it is composed have been trans- ported perhaps several hundred miles, and are so abundantly and univers- ally spread over the underlying rock that they receive no influence from it. The sub-soil is a gravelly clay, and in much of the county that also constitutes the surface soil. In low ground this of course is disguised by a FREEBORN COUNTY. Soil. Tree* and shrubs. J wash from the higher ground, causing, sometimes, a loam and, sometimes, a tough, fine clay, the latter particularly in those tracts that are subject to inundation by standing water. On an undulating prairie, with a close clay, or clayey subsoil, such low spots are apt to have a black, rich loam or clayey loam, the color being derived from the annual prairie fires that leave charred grass and other vegetation to mingle with the soil. The same takes place on wide tracts of flat prairie. In these there may be but rarely a stone of any kind — indeed that is usually the case — but below the immediate surface, a foot or eighteen inches, a gravelly clay is always met with. This at first doubtless formed the soil, the disintegrating forces of frost, rain and wind, combined with the calcining effects of the prairie fires, having reduced the stones and gravel to powder, leaving a finely pul- verized substance for a surface soil. , In a rolling tract of country, while the low ground is being filled slowly with the wash from the hills, and fur- nished with a fine surface soil, the hills are left covered with a coarse and stony surface soil. For that reason a great many boulders are sometimes seen on the tops of drift knolls. Along streams, and about the shores of lakes, the action of the water has carried away the clay of the soil and often eaten into the original drift, letting the stones and boulders tumble down to the bottom of the bank, where they are often very numerous. Along streams they are sometimes again covered with alluvium — indeed are apt to be — but along the shores of lakes they are kept near the beach line by the action of winter ice. After a lapse of time sufficient, the banks themselves become rounded off, and finally turfed over or covered with trees. Thus lakes sometimes extend their limits laterally, but slowly be- come shallower. This county is furnished with a number of very beautiful lakes. These are generally in the midst of a rolling country, and some of their banks are high. Timber. In the "survey of the county the following species of trees and shrubs were noticed growing native: Quercus macroearpa, Miclix. Bur oak. Quercus coecinea, Wany., var. tinetoria, Populus tremuloides, Miclix. Aspen. Gray. Black oak. Ulmus Americana, .L.ipl.Clayt.), J-PiMd. \Vhiteelm. Prunus serotina, Ehr. Black cherry. Finis coronaria, L. American crab-apple. Carya aiuara, Nutt. Bitternut. Juglans nigra, L. Black walnut. Corylus Americana, Walt. Hazelnut. Vitis cordifolia, Michx. Frost grape. Celastrus scandens, L. Climbing bitter-sweet. Frunus Americana, Marshall. Wild plum. Fraxinus Americana, L. White ash. 382 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Geological structure. Juglans cinerea, L. Butternut. Rhus glabra, L. Smooth sumach. Rubus strigosus, Michx. Red raspberry. Rosa blanda, Ait. Rose. Symphoricarpus occidentals, B. Br. Wolfberry. Tilia Americana, L. Bass. Xanthoxylum Americanum, Mill. Prickly ash. Cornus. Different species. Salix. Different species. Ribes Cynosbati, L. Prickly gooseberry. Crataegus coccinea, L. Thorn. Celtis occidentalis, L. Ilackberry. Acer saccharinum, Wang. Sugar maple. 1'opulus monilifera, Ait. Cottonvvood. Acer dasycarpum. Ehr. Soft maple. CraUegus Crus-ealli, L. Cockspur thorn. Ulmus fulva, Mich. Slippery elm. Fraxinus sambucifolia, Lam. Black ash. Viburnum Opulus, L. High-bush cranberry. Primus Virginiana, L. Choke cherry. Carya alba, Nutt. Shagbark hickory. The last is seen on land of M. B. Bullis, in Moscow township, near the county line. — A. A. HAKWOOD. Besides the foregoing, the following list embraces trees that are frequently seen in cultiva- tion in Frteborn county. Juuiperus Virginiana, L. Red cedar. Pirus Americana, DC. Mountain ash. Populus balsamifera, L. var. candicans, Gray. Populus dilatata, Ait. Lombardy poplar. Balm of Gilead. Robinia Pseudacacia, L. Locust. Larix Americana, Miclix. Hackmatack. Thuja occidentalis, L. Arbor vitse. THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. There is not a natural exposure of the underlying rock in Freeborn county. Hence the details of its geological structure are wholly unknown. It is only by an examination of outcrops in Mower county and in the adjoin- ing counties of Iowa, together with a knowledge of the general geology of that portion of the state, that anything can be known of the bed-rock of Free- born county. In the absence of actual outcrops of rock within the county there are still some evidences of the character of the rock that underlies the county, in the nature and position of the drift materials. There is, be- sides, a shaft that has struck the Cretaceous in the northwestern portion of the county, in exploration for coal. Although the drift is heavy it lies in such positions that it shows some changes in the surface of the bed-rock. It is a principle pretty well estab- lished that any sudden great alteration in the rock from hardness to soft- ness, as from a heavy limestone layer to a layer of erosible shales, or from shales to more enduring sandstone, each stratum having a considerable thickness, is expressed in the drift by changes from a rough and rolling, more or less stony surface to a flat and nearly smooth surface, or v ice versa. It sometimes happens that the non-outcropping line of superposition of one important formation with another, either above or below, can be traced across a wide tract of drift-covered country by following up a series of gravel knolls or ridges that accompany it. or by some similar feature of FREEBORN COUNTY. 383 Geological structure.] the topography. Again the unusual frequency of any kind of rock in the drift at a certain place, especially if it be one not capable of bearing long transportation, is pretty good evidence of the proximity of the parent rock to that locality. Applying these principles to Freebovn county, we find throughout the county a great many boulders of a hard, white, compact, magnesian lime- stone, many others of which have been burned for quicklime. These attracted the attention of the early settlers, and before the construction of the Southern Minnesota railroad supplied all the lime in the county. Although these boulders are capable of being transported a great distance, their great abundance points to the existence of the source of supply in the underlying bed-rock. In the drift also are frequently found pieces of lignite, or Cretaceous coal, which cannot be far transported by glacier agencies. This also indicates the existence of the Cretaceous lignites in Freeborn county. In regard to changes in the contour of the natural sur- face, we see an evenly flat and prairie surface in the western tier of towns, and in the southeastern part of the county, and a hilly and gravelly tract of irregular shape in the central portion. There are two ridges or divides, formed superficially of drift, that occur in the central part of the county, one north of Albert Lea, and the other south of it, separated about eleven miles, as shown by a series of elevations for a preliminary railroad survey by Wm. Morin, already mentioned. What may be their direction at points farther removed from Albert Lea it is not possible to state with certainty, but on one side they seem to trend toward the northwest. Indeed there seems to be a northwest and southeast trend to some of the surface features. Such rough surfaces, and especially the ridges of drift are more stony and gravelly than the flat portions of the county. They mark the location of great inequalities in the upper surface of the underlying rock, the exact nature of which cannot be known. In addition to these general indications of the character of the rock of the county, the shaft sunk for coal at Freeborn reveals the presence of the Cretaceous in that poition of the county, and examinations of the nearest exposures in the neighboring county of Iowa disclose the Hamil- ton limestone of the Devonian age. This limestone is exactly like that found so abundantly in the form of boulders in Freeborn county. As the general direction of the drift forces was toward the south, and as the strike of the Hamilton in Iowa is toward the northwest, there is abundant reason for concluding that that formation also extends under Freeborn county. The great distance toward the northwest through which these limestone boulders can be traced with 334 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Explorations for coal. equal abundance, is an evidence of the former extent of the Devonian rocks in that direction. The Devonian does not certainly cross the Minnesota river. Yet in McLeod county, which lies in the line of strike of the Devonian of Iowa and Freeborn county, toward the northwest, on the opposite side of the Minnesota river, the same limestone boulders are very abundant, some being so large as to have been reputed rock in tilu, and quarried as such till exhausted. There is, in the neighborhood of Fieeborn, an area of the Cretaceous, which must overlie the Silurian limestones. This Cretaceous area is believed to extend north and south across the west end of the county and to be roughly coincident with the flat and prairie portion in the western part of the county, in which case it also overlaps the Devonian. Explorations for coal. In common with many other places in southern Minnesota, Freeborn township, in the north- western corner of this county, has furnished from the drift, pieces of Cretaceous lignite that resemble coal. These have, in a number of instances, incited ardent expectations of coal, and led to the outlay of money in explorations* Such pieces are taken out in digging wells. The opinion seems to grow, in a community where such fragments are found, that coal of the Carbon- iferous age exists in the rocks below. In sinking a drill for an artesian well at Freeborn village, very general attention was directed to the reported occurrence of this coal in a regular bed in con- nection with a "slate rock''. This locality was carefully examined, and all the information was gathered bearing on the subject that could be found. The record of the first well drilled is given below, as reported by the gentleman who did the work. 1. Soil and subsoil, clay 15 feet. 2. Blue clay 35 feet. 3. " Conglomerated rock " (Had to drill) 2 in. 4. Sand with water 5 feet. 5. Fine clay, tough, and hard to drill, with gravel, and limestone pebbles 60 feet. 6. Sand with water 4 in. 7. " Slate rock " i \ 7 feet. 8. "Coal" | Probably Cretaceous ) _6feet_4_in. Total depth 127 ft. 10 in. This indication of coal induced the drilling of another well situated one hundred feet distant. toward tha northeast. In this the record was as follows, given by the same authority. 1. Soil and subsoil, clay 15 feet. 2. Blue clay 33 feet. 3. " Conglomerated rock " 2 in. 4. Sand with water and pieces of coal 12 feet. Total depth 60 feet 2 in. When the drill here reached the "conglomerated rock", it was supposed to have reached the "slate rock'', No. 7, of the previous section. The amount of coal in the sand of No. 4 was also enough to cause it to be taken for No. 8 of the previous section. Hence the boring was stopped ; and having thus demonstrated the existence of a coal-bed, to the satisfaction of the proprietors, the enterprise was pushed further in the sinking of a shaft. In sinking this shaft water troubled the workmen so that at thirty-five feet it had to be abandoned. Three-quarters of a mile north of these drills a shaft was sunk fifty-seven feet, but not find- ing the coal as expected, according to the developments of the last section above given, this exploration ceased. In this shaft the oveiseer reports the same strata passed through in the drift as met with in the first well drilled, but the so-called "conglomerated rock" was met at a depth of forty-five feet. The sand below the ''conglomerated rock" here held no water, but was full of fine pieces of coal. Before sinking the shaft at this place a drill was made to test the strata. These being found "all right" the shaft was begun. In that drill gas was first met. It rose up in in the drill-hole, and being ignited it flamed up eight or ten feet with a roaring sound. The shaft was so near the drill-hole that it drew off the gas gradually, allowing the intermixture of more air, thus preventing rapid burning. From this place the exploration was re-directed to the first situa- tion, where another shaft was begun. This was in search for the "lower rock", so called, or the "slate rock" supposed to overlie the "coal". Here they went through the same materials, shutting FREEBORN COUKTY. 385 Drift.] off the water in the live-foot sand bed. and sixty feet of tine clay, when water rose so copiously from the second saud bed (No. 6 of the first section given) as to compel a cessation of the work. In this shaft were found small pieces of the same coal, all the way. These pieces had sharp cor- ners and fresh surfaces. The total depth here was 106 feet, and the water seems to have been impregnated with the same gas as that which rose in the drill at the point three-fourths of a mile distant. Such water is also found in the well at the ho'el at Freeborn. With sugar of lead it does not present the reactions for sulphuretted hydrogen, and the gas is presumed to be carburetted hydrogen. Further exploration was undertaken in 1880. This was done by Mr. E. B. Clark, the shaft going to the depth of 144 feet. The section as reported by Mr. Clark, was found to be soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 14 feet; softer blue till. 29 feet; sand, 1 foot; gray till, harder than the yellow till, 47 feet; saud, 1 foot; gray till, 2 feet; quicksand, 44 feet, "containing at 124 feet from the surface a stratum of slate two inches thick, underlain by six inches of coal''. Small fragments of lignite were found in the blue and gray till, but apparently not larger nor more numerous than are often found in this formation in wells throughout southern and western Minnesota. The remaining four feet were said to have been drilled in "slate"; but nearly all the detritus brought up was gray sand, with which was intermingled a small proportion of black slaty particles, perhaps making up a quarter of one per cent. This boring is eight rods farther east, and at a site three feet lower, than the first of those above mentioned. This account of explorations for coal is but a repetition of what has taken place in numer- ous instances in Minnesota. The Cretaceous lignites have deceived a great many, and consider- able expense has been needlessly incurred in fruitless search for good coal. In the early discov- ery of these lignites some exploration and experimentation within the limits of the state were justifiable, but after the tests that have already been made it can pretty confidently be stated that these lignites are at present of no known economical value. This, not in ignorance of the fact that they will burn, or that they contain, in some proportion, all the valuable ingredients that charac- terize coal and carbonaceous shales, but in the light of the competing prices of other fuels, the cost of mining them, and the comparative inferiority of the lignites themselves. The drift. Till. This deposit covers the entire county and conceals the rock from sight. It consists of the usual ingredients, but varies with the general character of the surface. In rolling tracts it is very stony and has much more gravel. In flat tracts it is clayey. It everywhere contains a great many boulders, and these are shown abundantly along the beaches of the numerous lakes of the county. The frequency of limestone boulders, and their significance, have already been mentioned. Thousands of bushels of lime have been made from such loose boulder masses, mainly gathered about the shores of the lakes. The two belts of prominently rolling till described on page 877 are parts of a series of terminal moraines that mark the boundary of the ice-sheet in the last glacial epoch.* The average thick- ness of the drift in Freeborn county does not vary much probably from one hundred feet. Gravel and sand. In general the drift of Freeborn county is glacier hardpan or till. Yet in some places the upper portion is gravel and sand, showing all the effects of running water in violent currents, such as oblique bedding and sudden transitions from one material to another. •For a description of the mode of formation of the moraines, see the report of Wuseca county. 25 :jS(j THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Modified drift. In a gravel bank at Albert Lea, according to Mr. Wm. Morin, the jaw bone of a mastodon was found a number of years ago. It was sent to St. Paul, but was lost in the capitol fire in 1881. From Albert Lea to a distance of four miles northward, the valley of the Shell Rock river is occupied by modified drift, consisting of stratified fine gravel, sand and silt, or clayey sand. This deposit has an area from one and a half to two miles wide, about two-thirds of its width being on the west side of the stream. Originally this nearly fiat plain was contin- ous from the east to the west side of the valley, through which the Shell Rock river has since cut its channel about forty feet in depth. A portion fully a mile wide remaining on the west side of the river in sections 29, 31 and 82, Bancroft, is known as " Itasca prairie",* a little collection of houses in the southeast quarter of section 31 being called " Itasca". The level site of the town of Albert Lea, consisting of stratified fine gravel and sand, is part of the same formation, which here is underlain by a mud or fine sand of dark color, sometimes yielding branches or twigs of wood. Besides the extension of this deposit upon both sides of the Shell Rock river and Foun- tain lake to the west end of lake Albert Lea, it also reaches from Itasca prairie two miles southwestward, by White lake to Pickerel lake, its width for this distance being from one to two miles. It is here nearly level, with its surface about forty feet above Pickerel and White lakes; against which, as also at the end of lake Albert Lea, it is terminated by steeply sloping escarpments. The origin of these beds of stratified drift is believed to have been from the floods formed by glacial melting, chiefly during the final recession and departure of the ice-sheet. It has evidently been in some places excavated by streams since the ice age. Yet it can scarcely be sup- posed that the hollows of all these lakes have been formed by such erosion; in some instances they must apparently be attributed to the presence of masses of ice remaining where the lakes now are, causing their basins to be left empty when the adjacent plains of modified drift were deposited. Another remarkable area of modified drift known by the name of " Bear lake prairie," is found in Mansfield and the west end of Nunda, reaching six miles from north to south and the same distance from east to west in this county, while its southern portion continues two miles or more into *This was named Paradise prairie by Lieut. Albert Lea. See page 67. FREEBORN COUNTY. Modified drift | Iowa. This is a flat plain, consisting, beneath its fertile soil, of stratified sand and gravel. It is bounded on the east and southeast by Bear lake and Lime creek. Rolling areas of till jut up, island-like, twenty to forty feet above this plain in the three miles next southwest from Bear lake. The highest part of this expanse is its northwest and west border, which rests, along most of its extent, on the flanks of morainic hills. From this side a scarcely perceptible slope descends eastward thirty or forty feet in a dis- tance varying from three to six miles, and terminates by descending beneath the water-level of Bear lake, which this modified drift bounds with a very low and flat, marshy shore. It is evident that the waters from ivhich this plain of sand and gravel was deposited flowed in the direction of its slope, from west to east; and it is demonstrable that they were poured down upon this area, loaded with detritus, from the melting surface of ice that covered the country adjacent westward. Bear lake prairie is surrounded by knolly and hilly accumulations of till, with an abundance of boulders and stones enclosed and strewn upon its surface, belonging to the inner or western belt of the terminal moraine. At the east these scattered and irregularly grouped hills rise twenty-five to fifty feet above Bear lake and Lime creek. At the west, in sections 31 and 32, Mansfield, they rise fifty to one hundred feet above this plain of modi- fied drift; and three to five miles farther northwest in Kiester, Faribault county, they attain a hight fully 150 feet above the upper west edge of this plain, or about 200 feet above Bear lake. From the "Kiester hills a series of morainic accumulations extends twenty-five miles or more northwestward, crossing Faribault county. At two places on the west border of Bear lake prairie, head-streams of the East fork of the Blue Earth river have their sources and thence descend westward and northward. One of these is Brush creek, which begins upon an area of low, moderately undulating till in sections 29 and 30, Mansfield, and flows south of the Kiester hills. The other is Jones' or Dunnell's creek, which rises in springs in the north- east quarter of section 17, Mansfield, issuing at the base of a bluff or bank of gravel and sand about twenty-five feet in hight, from whose top the broad Bear lake prairie stretches eastward. For a considerable distance thence northward, in section 8. this stream flows in a ravine forty to sixty feet deep, enclosed by rough knolls of morainic till. Along its next mile. 888 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Kames wells. in section 5, Mansfield, the morainic accumulations are less prominent and give place to smoother, undulating or moderately rolling till; except that here the stream is bordered by well-marked kames, or hillocks and ridges of water-deposited gravel and sand. One ridge, or kame, twenty to forty feet high, extends nearly a mile along the east side of the creek, separat- ing it all this distance from a slough, to which two gaps supply outlets. Before these gaps were cut through, the slough was probably a lake. These kames are in large part gravel, very full of pebbles up to three or four inches in diameter, fully half of them being well water-worn. They also contain rarely boulders up to two or three feet in diameter. These rock-fragments, like those contained in the till of this region, are mostly granite, syenite, schists, and limestone. Though these kames are lower than the Bear lake prairie, they are believed to have been formed at a higher level, in the ice-walled channels of the glacial streams which car- ried forward their finer gravel, sand and silt to that plain. When the ice had wholly melted, these ridges of coarse gravel fell upon the till, which gradually descends northwestward from the moraine in a smoothly undu- lating surface, with no noteworthy accumulations of modified drift beyond these kames. The plate (No. 14) which illustrates the geology of this county is designed only to show the features and distribution of the drift. In the areas represented as till-covered will be found numerous patches of modified drift which were too small to be noted. Of these, two areas of gravel and sand, which are more important than others, should be mentioned. One is along the Shell Rock river, particularly along the east side of the river, and the other extends northward from Geneva lake. Throughout the very rough portions of the morainic till there is also a fre- quent occurrence of large knolls and of flat tracts of modified drift, the morainic accumulation itself often consisting largely of this. Wells. In the survey of the county considerable attention was paid to the phenomena of common wells with a view to leain the nature and thickness of the drift, and the following list is the result of notes made. Good water is generally found throughout the county, in the drift, at depths less than eighty feet; but some deep wells that occur within the Cretaceous belt, in the western part of the county, are spoiled by the carburetted hydrogen. This must arise from carbonaceous shales in the Cretaceous, and indicates the extent of that formation. The only well in the county that is known to have struck bed-rock is that of the Minneap- olis and St. Louis railway at Albert Lea. It is near the station, on a flat which is about twenty feet below the main streets of Albert Lea and twenty feet above Albert Lea lake. Deep well at Albert Lea. 1 . Clay, said to be free from gravel 34 ft. 2. Quicksand 4 ft. 3. Clay 32 ft. 4. "Dark gray limestone," thought to be the same as that at Northwood 32 ft. 5. White sandrock, giving a little water, which rose to within twenty feet of FREEBORN COUNTY Wells. ] 3H9 the surface 4 ft 6. "Dark limestone," same as No. 4, with more water which rose to within six feet of the surface 41 ft Total depth 1d7 ft Aotes of wells in Freeborn county. Owner's name. Location . Depth n feet. Kind of water. Remarks. W. P.Sargent Geo. Stevens . . . T. A. Southwiek . . Ezra Stearns lizra Stearns . . James Hanson . . . F 1) Drake Sec. 29 Albert Lea 28 47 4li 30 42 50 90 94 96 61 37 50 50 96 48 125 142 35 iO 12 12 a 72 33 52 25 72 85 30 28 72 42 34 2H 65 28 28 32 65 44 80 80 75 40 30 70 75 32 50 40 38 30 18 45 16 75 125 70 K 1UO 20 15 10 20 30 44 f.0 15 to 21 96 56 18 15 to 30 12 to Id Good Carburetted Soft . . . Good y, bushel of coal at 2'1 feet. Pieces of coal in 1 he bine tlay; 26 feet of water. 44 feet of water. Kound pieces of coal. Found pieces of coal. Pound pieces of coal. Water siands 5 feet from the top. Artesian; at first bringing stones and gravel. Found pieces of coal in clay. Kound pieces of coal in clay. Found pieces of coal in clay. Artesian Nearly artesian. Bore lor coal. Bore for coal: lost tools. Blue c'ay; water in sand and gravel. Water in quicksand. Water in quicksand. Water in quicksand. Water in quicksand. Struck gravel below the blue clay. In gravel. Small bed of gravel in blue clay. In gravel. [n gravel below the blue cl*y. ^truck black clay, no sticks nor grit. [n very fine blue sandy clay. Yellow clay" all the way. Yellow and blue clay; then gravel, travel and sand: water in quicksand, travel and sand; water in quicksand. Water in gravel. Gravelly clay; fine sandy clay; on rock. Water in green sand. Water in green sand, travel and sand, then quicksand. LJravel and sand, then quicksand. En gravel. Drift clay; water in gravel. 'Tastes iike kerosene." Clay only. Lump of coal at 27 feet. Mainly in hard stony clay. Vlainly hard stony clay; water from gravel at 67ft. Water in sand and gravel below the blue clay. Contains much wood; water seeps from blue clay. Inexhaustible water from quicksand. \Vater in sand at the bottom Water from a thin bed of sand 10ft. belowsuface. Water seeps from the yellow till. Water from sand at the bottom, rising 20 feet. Wa'er at U ft. in sand and gravel below yellow and blue till. Muck at 7J ft injures the water. Water rises from 100 ft ; stands 21) ft. below surface. Passed through till, with some layers of sand. Water in gravel at 38 ft. In till all the way. Water from sand at the bottom . Water in sand at 12 ft. All fine gravel and sand. All fine gravel and sand. Gravel and sand, 18 ft.; till, 10 ft. Water rises 25 ft from sand at the bottom . Mostly gravel and sand, underlain by till. Ontv sand and gravel Water seeps from till at 16 ft ; only till . Bored in clay. Water from gravel and sand at the bottom. Yellow and blue till. In gravel and sand, underlain by fossiliferous clay. Freeborn Kreeborn 1 '2 mile west of Freeborn . . . i'2 mile west of Freeborn .. 1 mile N \V of Freeborn. Sec. 13, Freeborn . . Byron. Waseca eountv . . . 6 miles N. W. of Freeborn 2 miles N. W of Freeborn . Good Carburetted Carburetted Soft . ... jJood Carburetted 'arburetted jiood Good 'arburetted Carburetted O. U. Weseott L. U Taylor Geo Snyder, Jr .... A. M. Tri»g ... H. M.Foot John Melender ... L. C. Taylor Wm. Oomstock Charles Ayers John Ayers T. A. Southwiek . . Alden Alden 6 miles N W. of Freeborn . .) miles N. E. of Aldcn.. . N. W, corner of Kreeborn Trenton Jarburettod Good Soft ... . .. Soft Soft iood !3ood 3ood . . .. jiood }ood Sot good., jood .... jood jrood . A. Hatch Ole Knutson W. \V. i argill Geo Topon And. Palmer Dr A. C. Wedge . W. C. Lincoln Krank Hall Town well Albert Lea Sec. 4, Albert Lea Albert Lea Sec 28, Albert Lea Sec. 29, Albert Lea Sec. 29, Albert Lea Sec 8, Albert Lea Albert Ijea Good Good Good Good. . . Sot good . . . Sot good . Sot good . . Sot good . Sot good. . . Good Good Good Liood ... . . Sood :!ood Good .... Good .... f Jood Poor Poor No water.... Good No water. . Hood Good Good Uood Good (food Good Good Scanty .... Good Good... . Albert Lea Alden A. W, Johnson Rev. G. W. Prescott. Town well A. Palmer, Jr Wm. Bell Jos. H. Butler . . . James Bush NV m. r*ace S. G Wat-rs G D. Barron Sec 29, Albert Lea Sec. 21, Newry Sec. : S. Xewry Sec 27, M oscow S. E. yi sec. 34, Moscow Sec. 35 . Hay ward - K. ' , >ee"2, Shell Rock . N". E '4 sec 21, Bath "ec 25 Bath Ingebret Erickson . Christ . Lyngby Mark A. Freeman . John E. Hatle .. . Ole Peterson Rolf 1 hvkeson A. D. Le Kave .... Jason Goward ... Asa Walker Janaes Fisk J. A Burdick Ole J.Ophdal .. Knut Oleson Saland John Cross Edward Emerson. A. H Stewart Several other wells -lohn Niebnhr . ... Wm. Emerson . . Wm Emerson Several wells at . Several wells at Sec. 14. Freeman N. W i , sec I, Hartland ->. W. * , sec 15, Manchester 1. E % sec. lt>, Manchester Freeborn village See. 24, Carlston Sec. 7, Alden S W. Vi *ee 24, Alden Sec. 11, Mansfield Sec. 14, Mansfield N. W. ^ fee. 20, Mansfield. . Sec. 22, Mansfield . S. E. Y± sec 18, Mansfield -i 1 1. off at the ends [probably gnawed by beavers]. It was accompanied by peat-moss and sticks a few inches in diameter. In Shell Rock, S. E. } sec. 2, Mr. G. D. Barren's well contained a small stick of wood eight- een inches long at about thirty-five feet from the surface, and a single fragment of lignite. On sec. 28 the well of Mr. W. H. II. Gordon contained wood at about twenty-five feet beneath the surface, with fragments of bark ; also that of E. Barber, on sec. 29, at about the same depth. In Manchester, sec. 15, Ole Peterson encountered a bed of muck in his well at seventy feet below the surface. It was a foot thick and injured the water. As already stated, considerable soft muck is found in many wells at Albert Lea. Boulders. A few years ago a boulder was found on the border of a marslt about twelve miles south of Albert Lea, in Shell Eock, near the state line, which was supposed to be of mete- oric origin, and was carried to Albert Lea for preservation. It was owned by Mr. G. D. Parker. Of this stone no further note would be made, were it not that it has been regarded by many who have seen it as a true meteorite, and that such opinion has been published. When found it was at first nearly covered by earth. On excavation it proved to be dark colored. It was among other drift boulders scattered promiscuously about. It is roughly pitted and has fragments ami pebbles of quartzyte standing out all over it. It is rudely pyramidal in form and contains soim - thing more than three cubic feet, weighing about five hundred pounds. A couple of thin quart/, veins cross it from one end to the other, one of them, however, running off the surface before reaching the end, being nearly parallel with the sides of the mass. It also contains hornblende. and perhaps other minerals. The quartzyte is pinkish and compact, grayish. The mass contain. no iron that can be seen. The regular quartz seams are evidence of its having been embraced once in the rocky crust of the earth. The rough exterior is due to the we ithering out of some of the softer materials. It seems to have come from the great Ogishke Muncie conglomerate: but it is a rare thing to see a fragment from that formation in the drift in the central and southern parts of the state. A large boulder exactly like the above, but one-third larger, was found about the same time in Murray county, and was offered for sale in St. Paul, with the belief that it was a meteorite. COUNTY. 891 Lime.] MATERIAL RESOURCES. p In addition to the soil Freehorn county has very little to depend on as a source of material prosperity. As already stated there is not a single exposure of the bed-rock in the county. All building stone and quicklime have to be imported. The former comes by the Southern Minnesota R. R. from Lanesboro in Fillmore county, or Stockton in Winona county, though it is very likely that the Shakopee stone from Mankato will also soon be introduced. The latter comes from Iowa, largely, (Mason City and Mitchell) and from the kilns at Mankato and Shakopee. Some building stone is also introduced into the eastern part of the county from the quarries at Austin. Lime. At Twin Lakes three or four thousand bushels of quicklime have been burned by Mr. Carter from boulders picked up round the lake shores. This lime sold for seventy-five cents per bushel. It was very fine lime, and purely white. The construction of the railroad put a stop to his profits, as ^ the Shakopee lime could then be introduced and sold cheaper. The boul- ders burned were almost entirely of the same kind as those that are so numerous in McLeod county. They are fine, close-grained, nearly white on old weathered surfaces, and of a dirty cream color on the fractured surfaces. « They very rarely show a little granular or rougher texture, like a magne- sian limestone, though this grain is intermixed with the closer grain. They hold but few fossils. There are a few impressions of shells, and by some effort a globular mass of coarse favositoid coral was obtained. Besides the above, which are distinguished as "white limestone", there are also a few bluish-green limestone boulders. One of these, which now lies near Twin Lakes, is about seven feet long by five or six feet broad, its thickness being at least two and a half feet. It has been blasted into smaller pieces for ntaking quicklime, but nearly all of it yet lies in its old bed, the fragments being too large to be moved. This stone is also very close- grained. It is heavier than the other and more evidently crystalline. It holds small particles of pyrites. It is not porous, nor apparently bedded. On its outer surface it looks like a weathered diorite, and it would be taken, at a glance, for a boulder of that kind. It is said to make very fine lime. Several hundred bushels of lime were formerly burned also at Geneva. llrick. At Albert Lea the following persons have made brick: George Broughton, Wm. Cook, G. C. Dillinghani, and Rusfeldt and 392 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Brick. Kleven. These all make what is known as "slop brick'', i. e. they handle and dry them after mixing in water, without the use of sand. The latter method (with sand) is much quicker and pleasanter, but in the use of the brick there is not much choice between the methods. At Broughton's the brick are red. The clay used, which is about five feet below the surface, is fine and of a yellowish ashy color. It is underlain by gravel. The clay itself locally passes into a sand that looks like "the bluff". At other places it is a common, fine clay-loam, with a few gravel-stones. There is but little deleterious to the brick, in the clay, although some of the brick are, on fractured surfaces, somewhat spotted with poor mixing, and with masses of what appear like concretions. The clay itself is apparently massive, but it is really indistinctly bedded, rarely showing a horizontal or oblique, thin layer of yellow sand. Oak wood costs from five to six dollars per cord. The yard of Mr. Cook also furnishes red brick. He uses the same stratum of fine clay overlain by the same yellowish sandy clay or loam. The clay here shows to better advantage and is plainly bedded. It contains sticks, the largest observed being a little over half an inch in diameter. These sticks are plainly endogenous in cellular structure, but have a bark. They are not oxidized so as to be brittle, but are flexible stiil, with small branches like rootlets hanging to them. It is uncertain whether they belong to the deposit, or are the roots of vegetation that grew on the surface since the drift. There are no boulders of any size in the drift just here; but a few granitoid gravel stones. The aspect generally indicates that this clay has a local character largely, but no outcropping beds can be found in the neigh- borhood. Mr. Cook has made in one year 250,000 brick. The yard has been running twelve years. Brick here sell for $1.30 per hundred, as they come from the kiln, or $10.25 per thousand. Hard brick from the arch sell at • $1.50 per hundred. The brick here seem to show a little more lime, but they are well made and well burned. About a quarter of a mile south of Albert Lea, in the west edge of sec. 16 of that township, bricks have been made by Rusfeldt and Kleven since 1878. For several years previous to 1880, they made 500,000 to 700,000 yearly, selling at $7.00 per M. In the spring of 1880 they were putting in brick-making machinery, and expected to produce 1,500.000 bricks that year. The clay forms a ridge fifty or sixty rods long from north- FREEBOKN COUNTY. 393 Peat.] ^ west to southeast and about twenty feet high;ifc is yellowish in its upper ten feet and gray below. This clay when excavated a,nd mixed from the upper and lower portions of the bank, contains the right proportion of sand, and none is used except for making the bricks slip from the mould. No fossils, as shells or wood, have been found in this deposit. Bricks were formerly made at Geneva, and at a point about two and a half miles east of that place. At Geneva the clay was taken from the bank of Allen creek, about eighteen inches below the surface. It was a drift clay, with small pebbles. That used two and a half miles east of Geneva was of the same kind. In both places sand had to be mixed with the clay. About Geneva sand is abundant, taken from the gravel and sand knolls, and from the banks of the creek. Peat. In Freeborn county there is an abundance of peat. The most of the marshes, of which some are large, are peat-bearing. In this respect the county differs very remarkably from those in the western portion of the same tier of counties, which, being entirely destitute of native trees, are most in need of peat for domestic fuel. The peat of the county is generally formed entirely of herbaceous plants, though the marshes are often in the midst of oak openings. The peat-moss constitutes by far the larger portion. There is no observed dif- ference in the peat-producing qualities between the marshes of the prairie districts and those of the more rolling woodland tracts of the county. At Freeborn peat has been taken out on John Scovill's land. Here it is eight feet thick, two rods from the edge, and it is probably much thicker toward the center of the marsh. That below the surface of the water now standing in the drain is too pulpy to shovel out; and after being dipped out and dried on boards, it is cut into blocks and hauled to town. That above the water is more fibrous, and can be taken out with a spade in convenient blocks. Yet the level of the water varies, and that datum is not constant. It appears as if there were here a stratum of more fibrous peat, about twenty inches thick, that separates from the lower, and floats above it at certain times. In the peat at this place a sound elk-horn was taken out, at the depth of six feet. There is a large peat marsh in sec. 11. Hayward, which extends also on much of sees. 12, 13, and 14. CHAPTER XI. THE GEOLOGY OF STEELE COUNTY. BY M. W. HARRINGTON. Situation and area. Steele county* (plate 15) lies in the second tier of counties from the Iowa line. It lies next west of Dodge county, being the fourth in number west of the Mississippi river. It has the form of a rect- angle, and is bounded on the south by Freeborn, on the west by Waseca, and on the north by Rice county. The area of Steele county, compiled from the plats of the United States surveyors, is 430.59 square miles, or 275.579.16 acres, of which 2,817.69 acres are covered by water. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. This county is well provided with lakes, as may be seen in the following notes. Marshes also are numerous. These are due to the nearly level character of the county, and to the very slight elevation of one part above another. The small amount of slope in the surface is further shown by the sluggishness of the currents in the various streams. The course of the Straight river shows that some increase in bight occurs as we travel southward. But, although the county is very nearly level and has little change of elevation within itself, its elevation with reference to the rest of the state is considerable. This is shown by the fact that two streams originate here, viz: the Straight river in the southern part of the county, and a branch of the Zumbro. in Steele ea. Meriden (Steele county), - ... 96.85 1149 Waseca, 102.63 1158 Janesville, 112.91 1063 Eagle Lake (Blue Earth county), 122.56 1012 WASECA COUNTY. 401) Elevation*. Soil and timber.; Elevations on the Minneapolis & Saint Louis railway. From Robert Angst, assistant engineer. Minneapolis. Milts from Feet above ^ Minneapolis, the sea. At the north Hue of Waseca county, - 67.0 1049 losco, 69.7 '1146 Summit, natural surface, 1168; grade, - 70.3 1154 Loon lake, water, 75.7 1134 Crossing Winona & Saint Peter railroad, - 76.0 1154 Waseca, 76.2 1151 Creek in sec. S, Otisco, water, 1071 ; grade on bridge, - - 81.2 1077 Le Sueur river, water, 1103 ; grade on bridge, 84.8 1116 NewKichland, - 88.7 1178 The highest portion of this county is the east half of New Richland and the southeast quarter of Otisco, which are about 1200 feet above the sea. Its lowest land is where the Le Sueur river and other streams cros* its west line, at hights between 1000 and 1050 feet above the sea. the ele- vation of the Le Sueur river at this line being approximately 1010. Mean elevation of the county. Estimates of the average bight of the townships of Waseca county are as follows : Blooming Grove, 1150 feet above the sea; Wood ville, 1150; Otisco, 1160; New Richland, 1190; losco, 1100; Saint Mary, 1120; Wilton, 1110; Byron, 1150; Janesville, 1060; Alton j 1060; Freedom, 1070; and Vivian, 1100. The mean elevation of the county, derived from these figures, is approximately 1120 feet. Soil and timber. The black soil varies in thickness from one to three feet, being least on swells and on the hillocks of the moraine, and greatest in depressions. It is a very fertile gravelly clay, with occasional boulders and differs from the subsoil, both of which are till, in having been enriched and colored by the decay of vegetation through many centuries. This glacial drift includes a considerable proportion of limestone, both as boul- ders and pebbles, and also in a finely pulverized condition, which contrib- utes in an important degree to the productiveness of the soil, and at the same time makes the water of wells hard. Wheat, oats, corn, potatoes, flax, sorghum, and all the crops that belong in this latitude, are successfully cultivated. Timber covers the greater part of Janesville, the west half of Alton, and northwestern losco, this being the southeast edge of the Big Woods. About half of Blooming Grove is also wooded, and numerous large groves occur in the townships of Saint Mary, Woodville and Otisco, and in the northeast part of New Richland. The Le Sueur river is bordered by timber, 410 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. I Geological structure. which attains a width of one to one and a half miles at the east side of this stream in the southeast part%of Wilton and the adjoining edge of Otisco. Southwest from the Le Sueur river, the flat expanse which reaches thence to the limits of the county is prairie, and its green mat of grass sometimes bears no tree nor bush within an area several miles in extent. The lakes, however, within this tract are usually bordered by wood, and belts of timber mark the course of its streams. White and slippery elm, bass, sugar and red maple, box-elder, black and bur oak, butternut, white and black ash, ironwood, wild plum, Juneberry, American crab-apple, common poplar or aspen, cottonwood, and willows, are the principal species of trees in this county. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. No outcrop of the strata underlying the drift occurs in Waseca county, but they have been reached by wells at three localities. One of these wells, reported by Prof. L. B. Sperry, "near Janesville, after passing through 200 feet of blue clay, reached a sandstone said to be identical with the St. Peter in appearance. An abundance of good water, which rose to within 30 feet of the surface, was found between the clay and the sandstone." At the town of New Richland, a well at Dunwoody & Corson's mill reached a depth of 110 feet, finding the following section: soil, 2 feet; yellow till, with streaks of sand, yielding water, 30 feet; blue till, softer and sticky, 66 feet; sand, 2 feet; and hard, straw-colored sandstone, 10 feet. At this depth water was struck, and rose in two minutes to 30 feet below the surface. Another well at this mill, 149 feet deep, drilled by Mr. C. E. Whelpley, is reported by him to be drift, 107 feet; yellow calcareous sand- rock, 40 feet; and similar rock of blue color, 2 feet. A very large supply of water was obtained, rising to the same hight as the last. The well at the depot, about forty rods north of the foregoing and on land of the same hight, is 129 feet deep, and found the soil 2 feet thick; yellow till, spaded, 10 feet; blue till, mostly very hard, picked, 115 feet; and yellowish sandstone, similar to that of Dunwoody & Corson's well, 2 feet and extend- ing lower. Water, found in this sandstone, rose 80 feet. It is noteworthy that the top of the bed-rock in these wells, only an eighth of a mile apart, differs about 25 feet in hight, probably on account of erosion in a formation WASECA COUNTY. 411 Drift. Well..] horizontally stratified. About three miles northwest from New Richland, a well 110 feet deep on S. W. Franklin's dairy-farm, went 10 feet into this rock, after penetrating 100 feet of drift, obtaining water in the rock which rose to ten feet below the surface. At Owatonna on the northeast, and at Wells, in Faribault county, on the southwest, similar formations of sand- stone, with associated layers of shale and limestone, encountered by deep wells, appear to be of Cretaceous age; and very probably these beds and the sandstone of New Richland belong to the same horizon. The evidence pointing to these conclusions is set forth in the report of Faribault county, to which the reader is referred. Drift. Under the description of the surface features of this county, its glacial drift and terminal moraine have been already described in a general manner. The thickness of the drift varies from one hundred to two hun- dred feet over this county and a large adjoining region. This formation is principally the unstratified gravelly and stony clay called till, boulder-clay, or hardpan, with which are associated beds of modified drift, which were gathered from the melting ice, assorted and deposited by water. The fol- lowing notes of wells exhibit in detail the character and order of the drift deposits. Wells in Waseca county. Blooming Orove. William Habine ; sec. 3: a well 100 feet deep in till found no water; while another well only 16 feet deep, six rods farther east, on land of about the same hight, found plenty of water. I. D. Beeman; sec. 10: well, 24 feet; soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 21 feet; blue till, soft and sticky, 1 foot and extending deeper; the water seeps. P. Healy; sec. 15: well, 20; soil, 2; yellow till, 10 feet, containing veins of gravel, two to four inches thick; harder blue till, 8 feet; the only water obtained is from sandy and gravelly veins in the upper till. Waseca, in Woodville. William Everett: well, 68 feet; soil, 3 feet; till, yellowish in its upper portion and bluish below, 47 feet; vein of sand, 6 inches; blue till, 15 feet; sand and gravel, 3 feet and reaching lower; from this bed, water rose to the vein of sand at 50 feet, there run- ning off. At McCutchins' elevator, on the Winona & St. Peter railroad, a well 140 feet deep is reported to have been all drift, but no particulars were learned. Water rises from the bottom to stand ten feet below the surface. No thick beds of sand are found here enclosed in the till, and no bed-rock is reached. Most of the wells of this town are only 15 to 20 feet in depth, and find water hi the lower part of the yellow till. Otisco. J. A. Canfield; sec. 3: well, 22 feet; soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 14 feet, shoveled, con- taining streaks of sand; blue till, harder and more gravelly, picked, 6 feet; water is found only in the yellow till. Knut II. Esping; sec. 13: well, 24 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, shoveled, 12; sand, 3 feet; blue till, picked, much harder than the upper till, 7 feet; to sand at the bottom, from which water rose seven feet, ilowing off in the upper sand. 412 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. New Ricldand. Wells in this towu. penetrating to the bed-rock, are described on the pre- ceding pages. losco. N. N. Norcutt; S. E. } of sec. 30: well, 30 feet; soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 18 feet; much harder blue till, 10 feet; the water seeps from the yellow till, and is excellent. Saint Mary. E. Brossard; sec. 2: well, 16 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 10; much harder blue till, 4; water seeps from the upper till. Wilton. At the town, in sec. 1, a well for a steam saw-mill went 90 feet, its lower and greater part being in soft blue till, finding no water. John HcLin; sec. 20: well, 22 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, hard, but spaded, 18 feet; softer blue till, 2 feet and extending deeper: the water comes in seams of sand in the lower part of the yel- low till. Hans Krager; sec. 36: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, shoveled, 6 ; blue till, harder, picked, 22 feet; no sand nor gravel was found in the blue till, and no water was obtained. Byron. Garrett Hope; sec. 6: well, 38 feet deep, the only ''fountain,'' or flowing well, in this township; soil, 2; yellow till, 10; blue till, 25; very hard, dark layer, 6 inches; gravel and sand, 1 foot, and extending lower, from which water rose instantly to the top, and has since flowed away from the mouth of this well during four years. This water threw up the auger and shafting, with which the well was being bored, weighing five hundred pounds or more, fourteen feet, and filled the boring with gravel to that bight. The site of this well is about fifteen feet below the general level of the country. Janesville. The deepest wells learned of in this township are at the elevator beside the rail- road near the depot, said to have been bored 150 feet, with loss of two sets of boring tools, but thought not to have reached the bed-rock; the well at the Taopi mills, 100 feet deep, in which the water rises to 60 feet below the surface; and the well at the railroad station, 7t> feet in depth. The latter was dug twelve feet square for 56 feet, and then bored 20 feet more, finding a large supply of water, which, however, does not rise so as to fill the bottom of the portion dug. From all that could be gathered respecting these wells, they appear to have been till, with no notable layers of sand or gravel. The common wells of this town and its vicinity are 12 to 20, or sometimes 40 feet deep. Mostly they get water by its seeping from the yellow till. Wells that go lower sometimes find layers of dry quicksand in the blue till, ready to drink up the water derived from sandy streaks in the upper till. Alton. E. F. Nettleton; S. W. J, sec. 32: well, 28 feet; soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 24; gravel, 1 foot; blue till, softer and more sticky than the upper till, 1 foot and extending lower; water rose five feet. Alma. W. E. Lockwood: well, 46 feet; soil, 2J feet; yellow till, 17 feet; harder blue till, 10 feet; sand, 6 inches; blue till, as before, 15 feet; gravel, 1 foot, from which water rose seventeen feet. Alma City flour-mill: well, 63 feet, the deepest in this vicinity; soil, 3 feet; yellow till, 6 feet; harder blue till, 20 feet; gravel and sand, 5 feet; blue till, 25 feet; gravel and sand, 4 feet and reaching lower, from which the water rises thirty feet. Freedom. Chris. Priem; sec. 23: well, 64 feet; soil, 3; yellow till, 14; soft blue till, 20; darker till, very hard, 13; soft blue till, 5 feet; dry sand and gravel, containing gas, which rose with such force as to throw up the gravel and sand three feet, and continued " blowing " three days; this stratified drift was penetrated to a thickness of 9 feet, and extended lower; water was found in the last four feet. Henry Converse; S. W. J of sec. 27: well, 107 feet, the deepest in this part of the county; soil, 3; yellow till, 16; soft, blue till, 88 feet, containing a layer of dry sand one foot thick at 70 feet below the surface; no water is found in this blue till; the well is used, but has only " surface water," which seeps from the upper till. Vivian. Henry Laver; sec. 3: well, 95 feet; soil, 3; yellow till, 16; soft blue till, 30; dark till, very hard, 20; soft blue till, 25; black sand, 1 foot; water rose to five feet below the top in three hours. John Bushou; sec. 12: well, 37 feet; soil, 3 feet; yellow till, 13; soft, blue till, 18; darker very hard till, 2 feet; gravel, 1 foot and extending lower, from which water rises and flows over the top of the well, making it a fountain. Mr. Clarence W. Converse, well-maker, living on the S. W. J of sec. 27, Freedom, thus sums WASKCA COUNTY. 413 Material resource*. 1 up his experience in boring some two hundred wells in this and neighboring counties: The yel- lowish upper till is harder to bore than the blue till next below, which is moist and sticky, the auger going down five feet in the latter as easily as two feet in the former; but a third kind of till, called " hardpan," darker than the soft blue till, is generally as hard as the yellow till, and often, probably in half the instances of its occurrence, it is harder. The upper, yellow till is character- ized by sandy streaks, and crevices which yield seep-water, found in half of all the wells. It is almost always directly underlain by the soft and moist blue till, which has no crevices with seeping water, but bears sand-veins from two or three inches to four feet thick, which contain water. The very hard, darker till is similar in yielding water with the last. The maximum thickness of the yellow till found by Mr. Converse was 35 feet, in Spring Lake, Scott county. The greatest thickness of the soft blue till found is 88 feet, at his home in sec. 27, Freedom. The thickest bed of the very hard, darker till was 40 feet, occurring at French lake, in Bice county, six miles northwest from Faribault. An average of the thickness of this dark hardpan may be eight or ten feet; and about a quarter or a third of its beds are only from one to five feet thick. Fragments of lignite, up to four inches in diameter, are often met with in these drift deposits, most frequently in the dark hardpan. Pieces of wood, up to one foot long, are found rarely, but no shells nor other organic remains have been noticed. MATERIAL RESOURCES. The agricultural capabilities of Waseca county, its fertile soil, and its good supply of timber, have been spoken of on page 409. No water-powers have been utilized in this county. Drift boulders are the only stone found for the construction of founda- tions, walls of cellars and wells, culverts, etc. These boulders occur quite commonly upon the morainic belt, and are found sparingly in all parts of the county. They are mostly varieties of granite, syenite, and gneiss, with occasional blocks of limestone. In size they reach to five feet, and rarely to ten feet in diameter. Lime has been burned from the boulders of magnesian limestone in the drift by E. R. Tuttle in Janesville, during the last twelve years, producing annually from 100 to 200 barrels, selling it at about SI. 25 per barrel. The greater part of these boulders, estimated to be three-fourths or more, make white lime; while the remainder yield lime of yellowish or darkish gray color. Brick have been made also by Mr. Tuttle about a third of a mile north- west from Janesville during the past twelve years, producing from 100,000 to 400,000 yearly, selling at about $7 per M. He uses stratified yellow and gray clay, which contains sandy layers so that it needs no intermixture of more sand. Tt is excavated to a depth of five feet. These bricks are red and of good quality. In the northwest \ of sec. 2, losco. close to the north line of this county, 414 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Bricks. and one and a half miles south of Waterville, red brick have been made during several years by Mr. David Wood, producing 200,000 to 300,000 annually, of excellent quality, bringing $7 to $8 per M. The clay used is stratified. It contains no sand in its upper four or five feet; but its layers below are separated by little seams of sand, occasionally with a thin film of iron-rust. This clay-bed extends to a depth of at least 13 feet, and is sufficient to make many millions of brick. A kiln of red bricks, inferior in quality because cracked after burning by particles of limestone contained in the clay or sand used, was burned by I. C. Trowbridge several years ago in Woodville beside the railroad one and a half miles east of Waseca. No brick-making has since been undertaken in that vicinity. Clay suitable for this use, having no gravel, is said to occur on two or three acres of J. A. Canfield's laud in section 3, Otisco, at about sixty rods northeast from his house. Springs, chalybeate and also supposed to be salty because licked by cattle, occur in section 9, Otisco, south of the creek, being near the middle of the north side of the southwest quarter of this section. Another irony spring, somewhat resorted to by the people of its vicinity and from Waseca because of its medicinal properties, alterative and tonic, is situated northwest of the fore- going, in the southeast quarter of section 5, Otisco. Aboriginal earthworks. The only mounds which seem to be perhaps artificial, observed or heard of in Waseca county, are two or three low, circular and dome-like heaps of earth 20 or 30 feet in diameter but only one to two feet in bight, seen in and beside the road that runs from Wilton southwest to Vivian, occurring nearly at the south line of section 10, and again in the northeast quarter of section 20, Wilton. CHAPTER XI El. THE GEOLOGY OF BLUE EARTH COUNTY. BY WARREN UPHAM. Situation and area. Blue Earth county (plate 16) lies in the central part of southern Minnesota, being in the second tier of counties north of Iowa. Mankato, its largest town and the first in size within the basin of the Minnesota river, is distant about 70 miles, measured in a straight line, southwesterly from Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The length of this county from east to west is five townships, or 30 miles, and its breadth from north to south varies from 21A to 29 miles, being least through the center of the county, from South Bend, and greatest upon its western boundary line. The Minnesota river separates this from Nicollet county. After Mankato, the towns and villages of most considerable size are Lake Crystal, Garden City, Vernon Center, Good Thunder, Mapleton and Eagle Lake. The area of Blue Earth county is 776.88 square miles, or 497,201.73 acres, of which 21,619.39 acres are covered by water. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. This county lies wholly within the basin of the Minnesota river, which at South Bend and Mankato turns from its south- east course and thence flows northeastwardly almost at right angles with its upper portion. The drainage from the greater part of Blue Earth county, as also of Waseca, Faribault, Martin, and Watonwan counties, is discharged into the Minnesota by the Blue Earth river, which has its mouth about one mile west of Mankato. The slopes of this county and the courses of its drainage descend from three sides, east, south and west, toward the middle of its north side. In general the county is to be described as a 416 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Top.gr.phy. nearly level, slightly undulating expanse, with mostly imperceptible slopes, which give direction to its streams. These at first flowed upon the general surface, 50 to 200 feet above the valleys, now enclosed by steep bluffs, which these streams by their long-continued wearing have excavated. About three miles above its mouth the Blue Earth river receives from the east a tributary of nearly equal size with itself, namely, the Le Sueur river. This also has two large tributaries, the Maple and Big Cobb rivers, which unite with the Le Sueur from the south, respectively four and five miles above its junction with the Blue Earth. On its west side the only important trib- utary that the Blue Earth receives in this county, is the Watonwan river, which has its mouth about two miles above Rapidan Rapids, and includes within its basin of drainage all of Waton- wan county and parts of the adjoining counties. Perch creek in Ceresco township, is a consider- able tributary to the Watonwan from the south. Above the mouth of Blue Earth river, the Minnesota in this county receives three other tributaries worthy of mention: Lyons or Minneopa creek, which forms the picturesque Minneopa falls; and Morgan creek and the Little Cottonwood river, which have their mouths about a half mile apart in section 16, Cambria, the most northwestern township of the county. Lakes, Many lakes occur in this county, of which the largest are as follows: lake Wita, in the east part of Lime, having a length of one and a half miles and an area of about one square mile; lake Ballantyne, and Duck and Gilfillan lakes, in Jamestown, each about a mile long; lake Madison and Eagle lake, at the north side of Le Ray, each about three miles long and covering two square miles; lake Alice and Indian lake, each about a half mile long, in the southeast part of Le Ray; Rice lake, one and a half miles long, in southwestern McPhersou; Perch lake at the west side of Medo, and Cottonwood lake in the southwest part of this township, each about two- thirds of a mile long; Rogers lake, of similar size, at the west side of Danville; Lura lake and lake Jackson, in Sterling, the former three and a half miles long, reaching south into the edge of Faribault county, and the latter about two miles long and from a half to one mile wide; a series of four lakes in the north part of Garden City township and the south edge of Judson, namely, in their order from southeast to northwest, Mills lake, Loon lake, Crystal lake, and lake Lily, of which the third is the largest, being one and a half miles long and from two-thirds to one mile wide; and Dackins, Stram, and Solberg lakes, the last, which is the largest, having an area of about a square mile, in Butternut Valley. Nicollet named the area drained by the Blue Earth river (which he called the Mankato river) and its tributaries the Undine region, because of its great number of streams, " spreading themselves out in the shape of a fan," its numerous lakes surrounded by woods, and its wide, fertile prairies. The name was "derived from that of an interesting and romantic German tale, the heroine of which belonged to the extensive race of water-spirits living in the brooks and rivers and lakes, whose father was a mighty prince. She was, moreover, the niece of a great brook (the Mankato) who lived in the midst of forests, and was beloved by all the many great streams of the surrounding country."* Topography. Nearly all of Blue Earth county has a smooth and flat or only slightly undulating surface; but this is deeply channeled along the river-courses. The south half of the county contains two small tracts of rolling land, in the northwest part of Sterling, and in the southeast of Pleasant Mound. In general, the northeast and northwest parts of the county are the most undulating. The Minnesota river at the north occu- pies a valley 200 to 225 feet below the general surface; and the Blue Earth •For Nicollct'i dworlptien of thiit region, see page 71. BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 417 Topography. Eroded valleys.] river and its tributaries have cut channels that increase in depth from 50 to 100 feet along the upper portion to 150 and 200 feet near the Minnesota valley. The central and southern portions of the county, embracing about three-quarters of its whole area, are a level, or only slightly undulating sheet of glacial drift, except that the rivers have cut deep valleys, which may be properly called channels, in the otherwise unbroken plain. This expanse includes the following townships in their order from' the southeast: Danville, Medo, McPherson; Mapleton, Beauford, Decoria, Mankato; Sterling, Lyra, Bapidan, South Bend; Shelby. Vernon Center, Garden City; Pleasant Mound, Ceresco, and Lincoln. Exceptions to the prevailing flatness of this area are the rolling tract mentioned in the northwest part of Sterling, reaching a mile or two north from the north end of lake Jackson, and rising 30 to 40 feet above the general level; the northwest part of Lyra westward from Good Thunder, and the most of Vernon Center and Garden City townships, undulating 10 to 20 feet in long slopes; and section 25, Pleasant Mound, where a group of katnes. which suggests the name of the township, extends about a mile from north to south, with a width of one fourth to one third of a mile, consisting of many mounds, knolls, and short ridges, from 30 to 75 feet high, of no very notable parallelism in trend, but perhaps most frequently elongated from north to south. Their material is gravel, containing pebbles up to six inches in diameter, irregularly interstratified with sand. Boulders up to two or three feet in diameter occur rarely upon the surface of the mounds. In the south part of this section the contour charges to a more smoothed, rolling surface, with crests 20 to 30 feet high. The material here is the unmodified glacial drift or till, which also forms all the surrounding land, in prolonged low undulations. No other gravel deposits were observed in this vicinity. Butternut Valley, Cambria, and Judsou, including the part of Blue Earth county northwest from Lake Crystal, are gently undulating till, with the highest portions 10 or 20 feet above the lowest, the slopes occupying from one fourth of a mile to one mile. Isolated knolls of fine gravel and sand, 5 to 15 feet above the general level, occur rarely in these townships. Like the group of kames in Pleasant Mound, these accumulations of modified drift are believed to have been formed by streams that descended from melting ice-fields. In the northeast part of this county, Mankato is nearly level from the top of the bluffs of the Minnesota river at the east side of the city through five miles east to Eagle Lake. To the east and north, nearly all of Le Ray, Jamestown, and the east part of Lime, are slightly or moderately undulating, with crests 10 to 25 feet above the hollows or 20 to 40 feet above the numerous lakes. Sections 19, 20, 29, and 30 of Le Ray are in massive swells 30 to 40 feet high. The northeast part of Jamestown, and the vicinity of Marysburg, are quite smooth, only undulating 5 to 15 feet in long distances. Eroded valleys. The most notable topographic features of this county are the trough-like valleys that have been excavated by its rivers. The valley of the Blue Earth river through Shelby and Vernon Center is from 75 to 100 feet deep; in Rapidan and South Bend, before joining the Minnesota valley, its depth becomes 200 feet. Its exposures of rocks underlying the drift begin in section 13, Garden City, and extend interruptedly to its mouth. The width of this valley, between the tops of its bluffs, is mainly from a quarter to a half of a mile. Watonwan river, tributary to this from the west, has a valley 60 to 75 feet deep through Ceresco, and from 100 to 150 feet deep through Garden City. Its only rock exposures are a few low outcrops of Shakopee limestone. Maple river, tributary to the Le Sueur river, flows from south to north , being through the center of the county nearly parallel with the Blue Earth river and three miles east from it. In Mapleton and Sterling the valley of the Maple river is 40 feet below the general level; at Good Thunder, 75 feet; and near its mouth in Rapidan, 150 feet. The last two miles of this river, in sections 24, 13 and 12, Rapidan, have frequent exposures, and good quarries, of the Shakopee limestone. The Big Cobb river empties into the Le Sueur about one and a half miles farther east. Its valley increases in depth fro"m 40 feet in the southeast part of the county, to 100 feet at the quar- ries of Shakopee limestone in sections 19 and 18, Decoria, which are its only rock older than the drift. The Little Cobb river in Medo flows about 40 feet below the general level, 27 41S THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Valleys. Pre-glacial erosion. The valley of the Le Sueur river in Blue Earth county is 50 feet below the average surface at Winnebago Agency, and 75 feet below the highest points; thence it rapidly deepens, and through Decoria, Uapidan and South Bend, is from 1 50 to 200 feet deep. Its last three miles, in the north- east part of Rapidan, and in South Bend, have numerous exposures of rock. Excepting these and the other outcrops of rock before mentioned, the material through which the valleys of the Blue Earth river and its tributaries are eroded, is till, which encloses only few and thin layers of gravel and sand. Their bluffs rise steeply from narrow bottom lands to the nearly flat expanse of the drift-sheet. The width of the valleys thus enclosed increases with their depth from an eighth of a mile near their sources to a third or half a mile where they approach the Minnesota river. Indian lake, three miles south west of Mankato and one mile east of the junction of the Le Sueur river with the Blue Earth, occupies an old valley cut by the Le Sueur river, but forsaken because in their long-continued erosion the barriers bjtween these rivers was cut through. This former valley is from 100 to 175 feet below the general level, and is about three miles long, extending from the S. W. \ of section 35 northeast about one mile to Indian lake and thence two miles north to the west part of the city of Mankato. Its highest point, about 50 feet iibove the present Le Sueur river, is southwest of the lake, which outflows northward. West of this valley the remnant of the drift-sheet between it and the Blue Earth river has been divided by erosion into two plateaus, and the railroa & from Mankato to Wells passes between them in the N. E. } of section 26. A third and smaller plateau lies a half mile southwest from this gap, at the east side of the mouth of the Le Sueur. The diversified scenery here and the high and picturesque bluffs along the meandering courses of all the rivers of this region are due to erosion. Along the deeper valleys this erosion has usually cut through the thick sheet of drift and reaches a considerable depth into the under- lying rocks. The valley of the Minnesota river in Blue Earth county is bounded above Mankato by bluffs which are from a half mile to one miJe distant from the river. Through Mankato this distance is about a mile, but below this city, in Lime township, it becomes fully two miles. The top of these bluffs is from 200 to 225 feet above the river. This deep val ey has many exposures of the rocks that underlie the drift. About a third part of Mankato, including Front street, is on the bottomland, only 20 to 30 feet above the river, while the rest of the city occupies a gradual slope that rises 40 or 50 feet to the base of the bluffs which then ascend steeply 150 feet to the general level of the drift-sheet. These bluffs of boulder-clay nowhere present a smooth front like that which commonly bounds terraces of modified drift; but they are seamed and gullied into deep ra- vines by frequent rills and springs, many of which flow only at times of snow-melting or of large rains. At the quarries and lime-kilns in the north part of Mankato the thickness of the limestone, varying in portions to calciferous sandstone and shale, all of light buff color, is about 65 feet, and this formation i« underlain by white sandstone. A terrace of these strata, decreasing from two miles to one mile in width, and averaging 75 feet in hight above the river, extends thence eight miles north to Kasota; beyond which it continues at a less hight on the other side of the river through St. Peter. From Mankato to the north line of Blue Earth county this terrace is nearly two miles wide, and is bordered on the east by bluffs of till, about 150 feet high, their tops bejng approximately 225 feet above the Minnesota river. It appears that the excavation in the old rocks along the Minnesota river was principally the work of pre-glacial streams; and that the erosion which has been effected here since the ice age has been mostly limited to clearing away a part of the drift with which the valley was then filled. The sheet of till appears to be spread with a somewhat uniform thickness, averaging about 150 feet, upon the bed-rocks, and doubtless at first pre- sented a nearly level but slightly undulating, unchanneled expanse, whose 'owest portions coincided approximately with the pre-glacial lines of drain- BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 419 Elevations.] age. The river, after excavating its valley through this sheet of glacial drift, found a channel in the underlying rocks which was eroded before the ice age. That it was not made in the recent epoch, seems to be proved by the fact that its bordering walls of rock, varying from one fourth of a mile to at least two miles apart, are through long distances concealed by drift, which alone forms one or both sides of the valley. The depth of the pre- glacial erosion was considarably bslow the present river, as is shown by the boring for an artesian well at the top of the river-bluff in Mankato, where the bed-rock was reached at 290 feet, or about 65 feet lower than the river. Elevations. The following hights have been determined by railroad surveys within this county; the reference, unless otherwise stated, being to the track at depots. St. Paul &• Sioux City diviiion of the Cliicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railway. Copied from profiles in the office of T. P. Gere, superintendent, Saint Paul. Miles from Feet above St. Paul. Hie sea. Mankato, - 84.0 791 Blue Earth river, low and high water. 86.2 753-774 Blue Earth river, bridge, - 86.2 795 South Bend. 87.6 808 Minneopa bridge, 68 feet above water, 89.2 863 Minneopa, 89.4 871 Summit, grade, 95.6 992 Lake Crystal, 97.3 994 Summit, grade, - 102.2 1009 Iceland, 104.1 998 Winona & St. Peter division of the Chicago & Northwestern railway. From John E. Blunt, engineer, Winona. Miles from Feet above Winona. the sea. Eagle Lake, - 122.56 1012 MankatD Junction, 127.99 906 Mankato, - - 131.00 781 Mankato branch of the Southern Minnesota division, Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. From George B. Woodworth, assistant engineer, LaCrosse. Miles frim Feet above l.a Crosse. tlie sea. Mapleton, 161.4 1031 Maple river, -water, - 168.5 935 Good Thunder, 169.3 974 Rapidan, 175.6 979 Le Sueur river, water, 772; bridge, - 177.9 825 Crossing St. Paul & Sioux City railroad, 181.3 795 Mankato, - 182.5 770 The low-water slope of the Minnesota river descends 35 feet, approxi- mately, along the north side of Blue Earth county, according to the 420 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevations. Soil and timber. following elevations from the United States engineer corps. Its highest Hoods rise about 25 feet above this line. Minnesota river, low wati i •. Feet above the sea. At the northwest corner of Blue Earth county, about 778 At Judson 760 At South Bend and the mouth of the Bl ue Earth river 756 At Mankato .". 7">i> At the line between Blue Earth and Le Sueur counties, about 71:; At the points of crossing the boundary of the county, the elevation of the Watonwan river is about 960 feet; of the Blue Earth and Maple rivers, about 990; and of the Le Sueur river, about 1010. The hights above the sea of the various townships of the county, excepting their portions which have been deeply excavated by rivers, are approximately as follows: Lime, the terrace of limestone in the west part of the township, reaching about two miles easterly from the Minnesota river, 820 to 840, and the remaining two-thirds, east from the top of the bluffs, 980 to 1020; Jamestown and Le Ray, 1000 to 1060; Mankato, 975 to 1020; South Bend, plateaus between the valleys, 960 to 990; Judson and Cambria, 975 to 1000; Butternut Valley, 980 to 1020; Lincoln and Garden City, 990 to 1020; Rapidan, 975 to 1000; Decoria, 990 to 1040; McPherson, Medo, and Danville, 1025 to 1075; Beauford and Mapleton, 1000 to 1040; Lyra. 975 to 1025; Veruon Center and Ceresco, 1000 to 1040; Sterling and Shelby, 1010 to 1060; and Pleasant Mound, 1025 to about 1100. The southwest part of the last named township, which is the most southwestern of this county, appears to be the highest portion of its entire area of flat or gently undulating drift; and the kames, or irregular hillocks and short ridges of gravel and sand, in section 25 of this town- ship, rising 30 to 75 feet above the adjoining region, and approximately 1100 to 1150 feet above the sea, are the most elevated points of land in Blue Earth county. These hillocks are thus about 400 feet above the lowest land of the county, in the valley of the Minnesota river. The mean elevation of Blue Earth county is 1,000 feet, very nearly, above the sea; but would be 1,025, without the reduction for its eroded valleys. Soil and timber. The soil of this county is uniformly very productive, and is well adapted for all crops which can be cultivated in this latitude. Though the land is mostly level or only slightly undulating, it is yet so intersected with water-courses that nearly all portions are well drained, giving opportunity for early sowing and planting, and preventing damage to crops by heavy rains. At the surface is a stratum of black earth usually about two feet, but varying from one to four feet in depth. It is clay, with more or less intermixture of sand and gravel, and including occa- sionally a stone or boulder of considerable size. Its black color has been produced by the decay of vegetation through all the years since this de- posit was spread here in the ice age. The subsoil is the same glacial clay or till, without this organic matter, and of light yellowish-gray color to a depth of ten or twenty feet, below which it is darker and bluish. This dif- ference has been produced by water and air, which to these depths below the surface have changed the carbonate of iron in this formation to the BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 421 Trees an.l shrubs.] hydrated sesquioxide. .A considerable proportion of carbonate of lime is present in the soil of all this region, adding much to its fertility and mak- ing the water of wells hard; but no appreciable amount of the bitterly alkaline magnesic and sodic sulphates are found. Aboiit five-sixths of this county was naturally prairie, and supplied magnificent pasturage for the herds of the first immigrants. This region is now entirely occupied by farms, and is mainly under cultivation. It generally has a good supply of timber, which fills its numerous river val- leys with a stately growth, and forms frequent groves on the shores of its lakes, and occasionally upon the general surface of the country at some dis- tance from lakes and streams. The northeast part of the county is cov- ered by a heavy forest, which was originally continuous but has now many clearings and excellent farms. The soil has the same character and pro- ductiveness as upon the prairies. This timbered district includes the town- ships of Lime (excepting the terrace in its west part), Jamestown, Le Ray, Mankato, and portions of McPherson, Decoria and Rapidan, reaching south to the Le Sueur river. It is the southern end of the Big Woods, which thence extend north nearly a hundred miles. The trees which make up the woods of Blue Earth county are mostly more valuable for fuel than for lumber for building purposes or wooden manufactures. The white pine, which supplies the greater part of the lumber used in this region, is not found in this county. The principal trees, according to Messrs. Ellison and Ford, owners of a saw-mill in sec. 29, Le Ray, arranged in their estimated order of abundance, are the white or American elm, bass, and iron wood, very plentiful; bur oak, slippery or red elm, black ash, box-elder and willows, common; sugar maple, white ash, black oak, wild plum, June-berry. American crab-apple, common pop- lar or aspen, and hackberry, somewhat common; butternut, and bitternut, soft or red maple, black cherry, large-toothed poplar, cottonwood, water beech, yellow or gray birch, paper or canoe birch, red cedar, black walnut and the Kentucky coffee-tree, rare; but no red nor white oak, nor tama- rack. Among the shrubs of the county are the frost grape, Virginia creep- er, climbing bitter-sweet, hazel, smooth sumach, prickly ash, choke cherry, nine-bark, meadow-sweet, thorn, rose, red and black raspberries, high black- berry, prickly and smooth wild gooseberries, black currant, wolf berry, com- 422 TnE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Geological structure. mon elder, high-bush cranberry, and species of honeysuckle and cornel. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. In the valleys of the Minnesota river, and of the Blue Earth, Waton- wan, Le Sueur. Maple and Big Cobb rivers, are numerous exposures of the middle members of the Lower Magnesian or Calciferous series, these being in ascending order the St. Lawrence limestone, the Jordan sandstone and the Shakopee limestone. These formations are nearly horizontal, and they probably underlie the drift or the Cretaceous throughout the whole county; but, because of the great depth of the till, they outcrop only in the bot- tomlands and lower half of the bluffs of these deep valleys. Under these strata, the deep well at Mankato penetrates the St. Croix shales and sand- stone, which are the lowest members of the Lower Magnesian or Calcifer- ous series, and a great thickness of the Potsdam sandstone and shales. Over the Lower Magnesian rocks, and often filling water-worn cavities in them, Cretaceous beds of clay, and sometimes of sand and gravel, are found at several places in the county. The various geological formations to be described in the order of their age, from the oldest to the newest, are: 1. Potsdam sandstone and shales; 2. St. Croix sandstone and shales; 3. St. Lawrence limestone; 4. Jordan sandstone ; 5. Shakopee limestone ; 6. Creta- ceous beds; 7. Glacial and modified drift. Potsdam sandstone and shales. One of the deepest drillings ever made in the United States or the world, is that done a few years ago at Mankato, in the hope of obtaining an artesian well. This was in the southeast edge of the city, at the top of a portion of the bluffs which is commonly called " Bunker hill ". Its elevation above low water of the Minnesota river is about 225 feet, making its hight above the sea approximately 975 feet. The depth of this drilling is 2204 feet, of which the greater part, reaching from about 900 feet to the bottom, is in red sandstone and shales that are believed to belong to the later part of the Potsdam period, being intermediate in age between the St. Croix group and the Cupriferous or Keweenawan series, which Prof. Winchell and the writer refer to the earlier part of this Pots- dam period. No exact record can be found to show the character of all the strata passed through and the depths at which each began and ended; but two sets of specimens of the rock encountered at suc- cessive depths are preserved, one by Mr. W. Hodapp, druggist, showing the material at eighteen BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 423 Deep well at Mankato.] points in the section, and the other by the city council, representing twenty-nine depths. The second of these series of drillings was divided and supplied a complete duplicate set, which has been placed in the state museum. Descriptive notes were also taken of Mr. Ilodapp's series, and the information gained from both is presented in the following table. Mr. G. C. Hurt states that the thickness of the drift here was 290 feet, consisting mainly of the ordinary boulder-clay or till, excepting occasional layers of sand, varying from a few inches to five feet in thickness. He de- scribes the first stratum of rock, reached at 290 feet, as a hard limestone, of light gray color. Drillings from the deep well at Mankato. At 310 feet, calcareous clay or shale, of greenish color. At 330 feet, dolomite (magnesian limestone), reddish gray, somewhat siliceous. At 380 feet, siliceous, reddish gray dolomite, containing green-sand. At 390 feet, sandstone, with calcareous and greenish cement; containing much green-sand; the pulverized portions appearing like green shale. At 450 feet, pinkish, somewhat siliceous dolomite. At 453 feet, dull red quartzyte, or firmly cemented sandstone, finely granular, containing minute specks of green-sand. At 495 feet, white, friable sandstone. At 560 feet, fine shale, of dull pinkish color; not arenaceous, but the specimen of drillings includes intermixed sand, probably derived from a higher part of the well. At 600 feet, like the last. At 640 feet, yellowish, iron-rusted sandstone, with rounded, mainly siliceous grains; also including angular particles of dark red quartzyte, or hard, firmly cemented sandstone, similar to that at 453. Some of the quartz grains are covered with a thick scale, which on the outside is iridescent or sometimes black. These coated grains are occasionally aggregated into little lumps which seem to be the same with the dark red particles mentioned. At 645 feet, similar to the last, but with less of the hard, dark red sandstone, and fewer coated grains. At 650 feet, fine-grained sandstone. At 660 feet, yellowish sand rock, consisting of white and yellowish siliceous grains, all rounded; and also containing occasional particles of red grit, and of greenish white, kaolin- like matter. At 800 feet, coarse-grained, light gray sandstone. At 850 feet, light gray sandstone, like the last, but less coarse. At 915 feet, shale, slightly gritty, ocher-like, of dark, dull red color. At 1010 feet, sandstone, composed mainly of grains of quartz, partly white, and partly stained with the dull red color of the last. At 1060 feet, iron-rusted, somewhat pinkish, shaly sandstone. At 1100, 1110, 1130, and 1140 feet, light red, medium-grained sandstone, consisting mostly of particles of white quartz, which are more or less covered with pinkish shale. At 1150 feet, coarse gray sandstone, with mostly angular grains. At 1240 feet, white sandstone, medium-grained, slightly red-stained. At 1265 feet, fine, light pinkish sandstone. At 1270 feet, coarser sandstone, reddish gray. At 1280 feet, sandrock, having the quartz grains covered with films of red shale. At 1320 feet, reddish, shaly sandrock. At 1327 feet, very fine-grained, soft, pinkish gray sandstone. At 1332 feet, sandstone like that at 1150. At 1340 and 1342 feet, fine, reddish gray, soft sandstone, partly ochery or iron-rusted. At 1450 feet, coarse, somewhat iron-rusted sandstone, made up largely of grains of white quartz, party water-worn, but often angular, of all sizes up to an eighth or sixth of an inch in diameter. At 1500 feet, similar to the last. At 1600 feet, medium-grained sandstone, reddish, in part ochery and shaly. At 1650 feet, fine sandstone, whitish; including red and orange, apparently clayey, grains. At 1700 feet, arenaceous, ochery shale, dull red in color. At 1720 feet, red shale, without apparent sand-grains. 424 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Potsdam and St. Croix formations. At 1810 feet, fine sandstone, with grains partly light gray, and partly dusky brown, the latter averaging slightly larger than the former. In the pulverized drillings these differently colored portions remain separate, though abundantly shaken; giving the powdered stone a mottled and streaked appearance. At 1827 feet, medium grained, reddish, friable sandstone. At 1860 feet, fine-grained, reddish gray, soft sandstone. At 1872 feet, ochery and siliceous, very fine-grained, dull red shale. At 2000 feet, red shale, with occasional grains of sand; resembling pipestone in color and fineness; but with scarcely more hardness than common clay. At 2150 feet, similar red shale, slightly arenaceous. At 2200 and at 2204 feet, was the same red shale, containing fine grains of white quartz. From the depth of 915 feet in this well, to its bottom at 2204 feet, its section thus consists of sandstone and shale, mostly reddish in color, and not remarkably indurated. At 915 feet and again at 1700 and 1720 feet are beds of red shale; but from 1010 to 1650 feet, and from 1810 to 1860 feet, the specimens are siliceous, principally reddish and soft or friable, ordinary sandstone, with water-worn grains. At and below the depth of 1872 feet, the remaining 332 feet consist largely and perhaps wholly of dull red, slightly arenaceous shale, which extends below the bottom of the well. This formation of sandstone and shales, thus shown to have a thickness of about 1300 feet, appears to be, stratigraphically and lithologically, the same with the .nearly horizontal red sandstone, including frequent beds of shale, which borders the south shore of lake Superior almost continuously from Fond du Lac to Grand island and again rises into view at the falls of St. Mary. St. Croix sandstone and shales. The white sandstone in this well at 495 feet, the shale at 560 and 600 feet, and the light-colored sandstone from 640 to 850 feet, belong to the St. Croix formation, which is exposed in the bluffs of the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers. These beds, with the St. Lawrence, Jordan, Shakopee and St. Peter formations, are the western equivalents of the Calciferous, Quebec and Chazy rocks in the northeastern United States and Canada. The presence of the Potsdam sandstone and shales beneath the St. Croix in this and several other artesian wells in southeastern Min- nesota, and the uniformity of the sections thus shown, demonstrate that these are two distinct formations, and make it almost certain that the St. Croix beds lie conformably upon the latest Potsdam deposits. St. Lawrence limestone. This formation is the lowest of the three mem- bers of the Lower Magnesian series which are exposed in the valley of the Minnesota river and its tributaries in Blue Earth county. It was encoun- BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 425 St. Lawrence limestone.] tered in the Mankato well, according to Mr. G. C. Burt, at 290 feet, and extended 163 feet to the depth of 453 feet below the surface. Besides the magnesian limestone from which the formation takes its name, it includes beds of shale and sandstone, mostly calcareous; and in all these deposits it contains green-sand, sometimes in minute scattered grains, but often in considerable amount, forming so large a proportion of the rock as to make it appear like green shale, in the specimens pulverized by drilling. The only outcrops of the St. Lawrence limestone in this county are in the valley of the Minnesota river in Judson; and, with the ledges of the same rock on the opposite side of the river, at Hebron, in Nicollet town- ship and county, these are the first exposures of the Lower Magnesian series found in descending this valley. Along all the lower part of the Minnesota river, alternate strata of limestone and sandstone belonging to this series are frequently exposed in the bluff's and bottomland. In Judson, at the middle part of the north side of the township, the St. Lawrence limestone is exposed along a distance of about one and a half miles, and has been considerably quarried at several places. It rises 30 to 35 feet above the river, and forms the border of a terrace covered by modified drift of the same hight and a half mile wide, which lies between it and the bluffs. Next southeast, at the east line of section 3, Judson, the road ascends to a terrace 60 feet above the river and a quarter of a mile wide, composed superficially of drift and abundantly strown with granitic and gneissic boulders of all sizes up to ten feet in diameter. Eastward this terrace sinks a little, to a hight about 45 feet above the river, and near the middle of the south part of section 2 it shows a bed of reddish arenaceous limestone, which does not, however, rise above the surface of the drift. It is believed to be the upper part of the St. Lawrence formation. Leaving this terrace at about a half mile farther southeast, the road next climbs about 125 feet in the N. W. J of section 12, passing an unnamed waterfall in the Jordan sandstone, the brink of which is about 90 or 100 feet above the river. At Mrs. G. W . Wolf's house (Judson post-office), in the S. E. J- of section 33, this limestone has been quarried along an extent of about twenty rods, exposing a vertical thickness of four to eight feet, the top being 30 to 35 feet above low water of the river. Another quarry on the same farm, about sixty rods farther southeast, also shows a thickness of eight feet. The section here is at top 5 or 6 feet of a very hard and durable, flesh-colored or buff, magnesian limestone, somewhat striped or mottled with greenish tints, in layers from a few inches to one foot thick, having their planes of bedding and jointage often covered with green films; then a dark greenish, sandy shale, much of it finely laminated, crumbling under the influence of the weather, 1J feet; chang- ing below to a yellowish gray calcareous sandstone, about 4 feet thick; underlain by sandy shale, which is blue for its first foot, becoming yellowish gray below, excavated only 2 or 3 feet, but reaching deeper. 'All these beds, and their other exposures, both in Judson and Nicollet, are nearly level, but appear to have a slight general dip, in some portions amounting to two or three degrees, to the southeast. About a third of a mile west of Mrs. Wolf's, a hard calciferous sandrock is exposed along a little creek for a distance of a quarter of a mile, sometimes showing a vertical thickness of six feet. It is green when first uncovered, but weathers to a mottled buff, of yellowish and reddish colors. It is probably the same with the third stratum of the foregoing section, and with the arenaceous limestone and crumbling sandstone seen in the race-way of the stone mill at Hebron. Near the ferry, about a mile east from the first described outcrops, a thickness of eight feet of this limestone is seen at John Goodwin's qnarry, lying 25 feet above the river. Professor 426 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Jordan sandstone. Wincliell says of this: " The beds are four to eight inches, although the uppermost three or four feet of the quarry are very much weathered and in thinner beds. The bedding planes are usually entirely covered with a green coating, and the body of the whole is specked thickly, and some- times largely made up of green particles." The Jordan sandstone directly and conformably overlies the St. Law- rence formation, but their contact has not been observed in Blue Earth county. From the waterfall mentioned in section 12, Judson, this sand- stone, gray or white, sometimes stained in small portions with iron-rust, soft and often friable, has many exposures eastward along the Minnesota valley, and also in the valleys of the Blue Earth and Le Sueur rivers. In going southeast from this waterfall the road soon rises about 75 feet to a terrace of modi- fied drift, upon which it runs one and one-fourth miles to a wind-mill in the N. E. } of section 18, South Bend, where this terrace is called " Wind-mill bluff." Next the toad descends to a terrace of the Jordan sandstone, which is frequently exposed upon a width that varies from an eighth to a fourth of a mile thro it gh a distance of two and a half miles east-southeast to South Bend, its bight above the river being about 100 feet. The beautiful Minneopa falls, in the N. W. \ of section 21, South Bend, four miles west of Mankato. have been produced by the excavation of Lyons creek in this sandstone which here contaii s hard layers near its top, but is soft below, being readily undermined by the waterfall and crumbled by weathering. The brink of this fall is about 95 feet, and the highest exposure of the rock here about 110 feet above the river, these hights being 850 and 865 feet above the sea. Of Minneopa falls Prof. Winchell writes*: " The perpendicular fall of the water is about 30 feet, but 45 feet of the sandstone can be made out. Before reaching the point where the water leaps overr the stream works its way through a perpendicular thickness of 15 feet of sandstone beds. It then comes in contact with a harder portion of the 'sandstone, which has a thickness of about six feet. This resists the water longer than the underlying layers, and maintains a pro- jecting shelf. The mist that ris. s keeps the walls wet, and the freezing of winter crumbles away the soft sandstone, so as to form about the pool where the water strikes, a walled amphitheater rising about 40 feet on each side. This glen is more or less shaded with elms, cedars, birches, butternuts and oaks. It is prolonged in the form of a rough and shaded gorge, worn in the solid rock, of about the same depth, down to the point of issue of the stream upon the Minnesota bottoms, the distance of about half a mile. The gorge below the fall is darkened by the dense foliage, Ihe stream in its course being much of the time hid from sight but for a few rods. This gorge is crossed, about a quarter of a mile below the falls, by the St. Paul and Sioux City rail- road. At the foot of the falls a little lake of water is confined by the upheaved pebbles in front of the cascade. The gravel of the surrounding beach is hard enough to admit of a passage on all sides. There are also several narrow paths along the walls of the amphitheater, where the fallen fragments are sufficiently turfed and overgrown to permit a passage up or down the stream. An elm tree which is nearly three feet in diameter grows near the foot of the cascade, and on the right bank. Its annual rings of growth would indicate at least some part of the time elapsed since the retreat of the fall from the place where it stands. Within six feet of it the perpen- dicular sandstone wall rises to the bight of over forty feet. The stream is subject to great fluctuations of volume, sometimes becoming quite dry. In passing down the Minneopa gorge to its union with the Minnesota river, the bluffs become more and more wooded, the slone only showing alternately in patches on opposite sides, and no lower view of the Jordan sandstone can be had, at least none that can be proved to be lower." The unnamed waterfall in the N. W. j of section 12, Judson, three and a half miles north- west from Minneopa, has also been described by Prof. Winchell.f "A little creek, which is dry in summer time, exposes first about two feet of coarse sandstone in its bed. Following the creek 'Second annual report, p. ISO. t dame, p. 152. BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 427 Jordan sandstone.] down a few rods, there is a perpendicular fall of about fourteen feet, which in time of high watei must make a handsome cascade, similar to the Minneopa waterfall. The immediate cause of the fall is the occurrence of a layer of about a foot with a harder or more emluring cement, underlain by crumbling sandstone The alternation of layers here is as follows: No. 1. Closely cemented sandstone, projecting beyond the next 5 inches. No. '2. Coarse white sand, in water-worn grains, crumbling out easily 6 inches. No. 3. Same as No. 1 6 inches. No. 4. Same as No. 2 1 foot. No. 5. Brink of falls. Same as No. 1 1 foot. No. 6. Same as No. 2, seen 30 feet. "This horizon is undoubtedly the same as that at Minneopa falls. The appearance of the gorge below the falls, and the occurrence of a cemented part giving rise to the perpendicular fall of the water, are very much the same. The beds lie here, as there, nearly horizontal. The grains of sand are, perhaps, somewhat coarser here than at Minneopa. "This sandstone can be seen in the bluffs on the opposite side of the Minnesota river, sur- mounted by a great thickness of drift. The bluffs are mainly wooded, but some^smooth but- tresses and slopes, wrought apparently in the drift, and covered with grass, yet reveal the stone, large slabs and blocks from which lie on the hillside." The top of this sandstone in the foregoing section is approximately 100 feet above the river and 860 feet above the sea. About 50 feet below this is the highest outcrop of the St. Lawrence limestone, and this is probably very near the hight of the line of junction of these formations. East from Minneopa falls the Jordan sandstone has a slight dip eastward, and in one and a half miles sinks to a hight only 65 feet above the river, or 820 feet above the sea, at David P. Davis' quarry in South Bend, where the southeast end of its terrace before described (page 426) shows a vertical exposure of 20 feet, from 65 to 85 feet above the river, of the overlying Shakopee limestone. Only the upper one or two feet of the sandstone is exposed, seen at- nearly the same hight with the railroad track and on each side of it, at this quarry. At the former South Bend station, a quarter of a mile farther east, the top of the Jordan sandstone and its junction with this limestone is three feet above the railroad, 55 feet above low water in the river, and 8 1 1 feet above the sea. A mile farther east, at the highway bridge crossing Blue Earth river, the line of junction of these formations is 40 feet, very nearly, above low water of the Minnesota river. At the quarries and lime-kilns in the north part of Mankato, this line is about 10 feet above low water, the river at this stage being there 750 feet above the sea. About a mile and three-quarters below Man- kato, at a point on the river sometimes known as "Hurricane bend," in section 36 of Lime town- ship, the Jordan sandstone reaches 45 feet above the river, being overlain by the Shakopee lime- stone. The thickness of the Jordan sandstone in Blue Earth county appears to be about 75 feet In the section of the deep well at Mankato, this formation was absent, having been wholly re- moved, with perhaps some of the underlying St. Lawrence limestone, by pre-glacial erosion. The top of this sandstone at its most western outcrops, in Judson and at Minneopa, has a hight above the sea of 860 or 865 feet, while a half dozen miles eastward in Mankato and Lime, its top is at 760 to 790 feet. The dip eastward thus averages twelve or fifteen feet per mile, but in some por- tions, as from Minneopa to South Bend, it is as much as thirty feet to the mile, or about a third of a degree. Along the Blue Earth river the Jordan sandstone and the overlying Shakopee limestone are seen at many places in the two and a half miles below the mouth of the LeSueur river; and above this point these strata are frequently seen in the bluffs of the Blue Earth river along a dis- tance of two miles from the new bridge in section 27, South Bend, westward to the N. W. J of section 29. The course of the river in this distance passes about one mile south of Minneopa falls. Farther up the Blue Earth river no outcrops of the Shakopee limestone are found, but this sand- stone continues in exposures in the lower part of the bluffs, being in sight and forming vertical banks on one side or the other along nearly the entire extent of four and a half miles, measured in a straight line, to the N. E. } of section 13, Garden City, ending near the former site of Cap- pel's mill, half a mile below the mouth of the Watonwan river. In the two miles above the new 428 THE UEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. jurtlan sandstone. bridge, in South Bend, which show both the sandstone and limestone, the former reaches about 50 feet above the river, being capped by 20 to 25 feet of the latter. In sections 29 and 31, South Bend, this Jordan sandstone declines in hight from 50 to 40 feet; at Rapidan Rapids its hight is 30 feet; and beyond this its elevation above the river is diminished to only a few feet at its last outcrops, in the east edge of Garden City township. By comparison with the descent of the river, it appears that the top of the sandstone is nearly level in these exposures, having about the same hight as at Minneopa falls and in Judson. All these outcrops have the ordinary characters of the Jordan sandstone, being white or gray, soft and mostly friable, in horizontal beds from a few inches to one or two feet thick. At the bend of this river, in the south edge of section 21, South Bend, where this formation rises on the north side to a hight of about 50 feet and is overlain by 20 feet of Shakopee limestone, the upper part of the Jordan sandstone contains occasional flat- tened masses, two or three inches long and an eighth to a fourth of an inch thick, of a white powder, which when wet becomes a sticky paste. In the north bluff of the Blue Earth river, within a short distance above the bridge in sec- tion 27, South Bend, and about three-quarters of a mile above the mouth of the Le Sueur river, is the place where the Sisseton Indians, as stated by Featherstonhaugh, obtained a bluish green pigment which was held in high esteem. Nicollet says: lilt is massive, somewhat plastic, emits an argillaceous odor when breathed upon; color bluish green; easily scratched with the nail, when formed into hardened balls. The acids have no action upon it; it is infusible before the blowpipe, but loses its color and becomes brown. This color is due to the peroxide of iron" [otherwise com- bined chemically until changed by the blowpipe flame], "which it contains in the proportion of ten per cent, at least. It contains no potash, and but a small proportion of lime." This was found in a shaly layer at the line of junction of the sandstone and limestone; but it occurred here only in small amount, and had been nearly exhausted before the time of Featherstonhaugh and Nicollet.* In our exploration it was carefully looked for, but nothing of this kind worthy of note was seen. Somewhere in this neighborhood, either in the bluffs of the Blue Earth or Le Sueur river, as much as four thousand pounds of a similar green or blue earth, perhaps from this horizon of the Lower Magnesian, but more probably from the Cretaceous shales or clay common in this region, being supposed to be an ore of copper, was gathered and shipped to France by Le Sueur, in the years 1700 and 1701. Further reference to this subject will be found on a following page, in the description of the Cretaceous deposits. From this earth, the location and nature of which remain in some uncertainty, the name of the river and thence of the county is derived. On the Le Sueur river the Jordan sandstone is frequently exposed along a distance of one and a half miles next above the bridge of the railroad from Mankato to Wells, in section 35, of South Bend and Mankato, and section 2, Rapidan. In ascending the river the first of these out- crops is found four miles southwest from Mankato, 'and about a half mile south from the site of Red Jacket mill, which was recently burned. Here this sandstone forms a perpendicular bank 20 to 30 feet high and an eighth of a mile long, lying at the northeast side of the river next above the railroad bridge. It is a levelly stratified, but often obliquely bedded, friable, white sandstone. Its top here is 800 feet above the sea. Overlying it is a thickness of about 60 feet of irregularly interbedded clay and sand, with ochery and iron-rusted layers, probably Cretaceous deposits, and above these glacial drift forms the upper part of the bluff. The Jordan sandstone here presents a notable peculiarity which has not been observed in its outcrops elsewhere, excepting at the point before mentioned on the Blue Earth river. This is the existence of frequent cavities in the sand- stone, filled with masses of white friable clay, as described by Prof. Winchell, ;'about an inch in diameter, usually flattened, or pointed, or edged, which if dry crumble to powder in the fingers, revealing little or no grit, but which when wet are sticky and plastic." At the iron bridge, near the south line of section 35, South Bend, about half a mile southeast from the last, this sandstone rises vertically to a hight of about 20 feet in the bank on the west side of the river, and is overlain by 20 feet of Cretaceous clay and sand, succeeded by 10 feet of somewhat ferruginous drift. About a half mile farther southeast, on land of 0. Ilalberg, near the center of the east half of sec- tion 2, Rapidan, a short ledge of Jordan sandstone rises 15 feet or more above the river in its southwest bank; and the opposite bank, at 20 to 40 rods up stream from the last, shows this rock to a bight of 6 or 8 feet, overlain by 20 to 25 feet of Cretaceous clays, and capped by drift, the •See historical notes respecting this locality, pp. 60 and 72; and of Le Sueur's copper mine, pp. 16, 5', and 71. BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 429 bhakopec limestone.] whole bluff being 50 to 75 feet high. The Shakopee limestone, next in geological order above this sandstone, was not found in place on this part of the river, but about six rods northwest from the sandstone outcrop on O. Halberg's land, large blocks of this limestone lie at the base of the bluff beside the river, and have probably fallen from a ledge above; yet the steep, wooded face of the bluff now exhibits only drift. Xo fossils have been detected in the St. Lawrence limestone or Jordan sandstone in Blue Earth county. Shakopee limestone. This member of the Lower Magnesian series, and the sandstone just described, which it,conformably overlies, both having a very nearly level stratification, together make the rock-bluff's of the Min- nesota and Blue Earth rivers in the townships of South Bend, Mankato, and Lime. Other outcrops of the Shakopee limestone, without exposures of the underlying formation, occur on the Watonwan river at and close below Garden City, and on the Maple and Big Cobb rivers within their last two miles. This limestone has been quarried at many places, and has a high value for building purposes and for the manufacture of lime and hy- draulic cement.* It is mainly a compact and hard, thick-bedded, some- what siliceous dolomite or magnesian limestone, of light buff color, often mottled with slightly contrasted reddish and yellowish tints. The layer which is burnt for lime at Mankato, situated in the upper part of this for- mation, is sparingly fossiliferous.f Professor Winchell, from an examina- tion of the Mankato quarries and of the river bluffs for several miles below, gives the following general section, in descending order::}: Section of the Shakopee limestone in Mankato and Lime. 1 . Porous magnesian limestone, not used 4-6 ft. 2. Loose, friable sandstone 2-4 ft. 3. Magnesiau limestone burned for lime 2 ft. 4. Calciferous sandstone, in heavy beds, of various grain and texture, sometimes mottled, quarried for building 30 ft. 5. Upper shale bed, arenaceous and mottled with red 2-3 ft. 6. Calciferous sandstone, generally used as a cut stone, compact and even grained, 4 ft. 7. Rough and irregular magnesisn limestone, somewhat arenaceous, but unfit for cutting 10 ft. 8. Lower shale bed; very much the same as the upper 2 ft. 9. One heavy bed, generally good for cut-stone, becoming light blue on deep quar- rying , 3 ft. Id. Irregular and sandy bed; more or less cavernous and porous, with lenticular strati- fication, its lower three or four inches apparently broken; fine-grained, and stained with iron 3 ft. 11. Jordan sandstone, seen about 45 ft. Total of the Shakopee limestone, about 65 ft. •See the chapter on building stones, p. 166. The quarries of this stone, and analyses of it, are noted in a later part of the present chapter. tin the quarries ut Mankato. and e-tpecially in that of the Standard Cement company, which is in the lower part of the formation, a handsome Lingula is occasionally found. This shall is about half an Inch long, of acuminate-ubovalc outline, with concentric striae. tSecond annual report, p. 115. 430 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Shakopce limestone. This is approximately the thickness of this formation exposed to view in its outcrops through its whole extent of sixty miles along the Minnesota river. The quarries at the north end of Front street in Mankato exhibit the first nine numbers of the foregoing section, with a very slight dip northeast. The terrace, 75 feet above the river, one to two miles wide and ten miles long, made by the Shakopee limestone, underlain by the Jordan sandstone, extending from Man- kato north through Lime and Kasota to St. Peter, has been described in speaking of the surface features of this county. Opposite to Mankato this limestone and the underlying sandstone form the lower half of the river-bluff in Belgrade. Nicollet county. A mile west of Mankato, the Shakopee limestone makes the small plateau called Sibley mound, which lies at the east side of the Blue Earth river close to its mouth; and the similar plateau just opposite, on the west side of this river, to which the name L'Huillier mound has been given, consists of the same limestone with a considerable thickness of Jordan sandstone at the base. These mounds together reach about a third of a mile from east to west. The hight of the former is approximately 50 feet, and of the latter 75 feet, above the bot- tomland, which is five to ten feet above the Minnesota and Blue Earth rivers. Channels cut here by these streams, perhaps since the ice age, bave separated these mounds from the Belgrade bluffs and from each other.* Professor Wincbell reports the following Section of L'Huillier mound. 1. Pebbles and soil at the brink of the bluff 2 ft. 2. Dislodged, broken layers of Shakopee limestone 35 ft. 3. Crust of iron and manganese 2-4 in. 4. Green clay, or shale, becoming white toward the top and on the outer surface; evenly laminated, the laminae passing up into the white color. This is uncon- formably overlain by masses of dislodged Shakopee limestone, the under sur- face of which is crusted and rounded by water action. It also ascends between openings in these masses 3 ft. 5. Perpendicular cliff of Jordan sandstone, showing irregular seams and laminae of green shale, also small balls and bunches of curious shapes, sometimes con- forming to the general sedimentation, and somewhat also to the false bedding, so called. These thin deposits of green clay are fourteen feet below the gen- eral bed of green clay (No. 4) above 10-1 5 ft. 6. Talus, covering the Jordan sandstone, and reaching to the alluvial flood-plain. . 25 ft. The same strata outcrop in many places through a distance of six miles west-southwest from Mankato, occurring in the bluffs of the old channel of the Le Sueur river between three-fourths of a mile and one and a half miles north of Indian lake, in the bluffs of Blue Eirtli river a half mile farther west, in the terrace at South Bend, as before mentioned, thinly covered by modified drift, and again in the bluffs of the Blue Earth river a mile south of South Bend and Miuneopa. The top of the Shakopee limastone in these exposures has a hight 75 to 100 feet above the Minnesota river, or about 825 to 850 above the sea; and the glacial drift, lying on this limestone and forming the higher part of the bluffs, has its top 2i)0 to 225 feet above the river, at which elevation its slightly undulating expanse forms table-lands on each side of the valleys and thencs reaches with imperceptibly ascending slopes to the east, south and west, beyond the boundaries of the county. Like this sheet of drift, the underlying rocks appear to have a nearly level but slightly sloping top, which may have been the surface of this region before the ice age, but more probably was planed and brought to its comparative uniformity in hight by glacial erosion. In Blue Earth county the rock-surface, uncovered along the Minnesota valley, makes the terrace of Jord..n sand, stone in Judson and thence toMinneopa falls, and its continuation capped by Shakopee limestone at South Band; is exposed, overlain by drift, in the bluffs of the Blue Earth and Le Sueur rivers, and of the Minnesota river in Belgrade; forms the L'Huillier and Sibley mounds; and, below Man- kato, reaches in a broad terrace to Saint Peter. The Minnesota river, after cutting through the overlying 125 to 150 feet of till, found here an old valley which had been channeled in these rocks by pre-glacial streams. "The east mound derives its name from the encampment near it of the troops under the command of Gen. H. H. Sihley, on tlieir return fro n auppresitng tua Indian outbreak in 1852. L'Huillier was tuu assayer who examined LeSueur's copper ore, aud from whom his fort was named (see page 17). BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 43] Shakopee limestone.] At Garden City the Shakopee limestone is exposed on a small island and in the left bank of the Watomvan river, close below the dam and mill. The area of these exposures is about four rods square, and their hight three to five feet above the water. Professor Winchell records the occur- rence of a species of Euomyhalus in this stone, apparently the same fossil that was described and named Stmparollus Minnesotensis by Owen. This rock has nearly the same aspect as at Shakopee, having frequent cavities, and being sometimes a breccia. It lies in thick beds which are irregu- larly tilted and dip syncliually 10' to 20; from both north and south into the river. The probable explanation of this is that this limestone, at first horizontally stratified, has been fractured by the removal of a part of the underlying friable Jordan sandstone, through pre-glacial drainage into a river lower than that of the present time. Another outcrop of this limestone is found a third of a mile northeast from Garden City, on land of the S. M. Folsom estate. It is at the northwest side of the Watonwan river, and is principally covered with drift, being seen at only a few small ex- cavations upon an area fifty feet long and fifteen to thirty feet wide, adjoining the river and grad- ually rising about five feet above it. It has layers one foot or more in thickness, and has been somewhat quarried. The valley of the Le Sueur river has an outcrop of this limestone on land of Andrew Algren. in the N. E. J of section 1 1 , Kapidan, being on the southwest side of the Le Sueur about two-thirds of a mile below the mouth of Maple river. The ledge seen here reaches five feet vertically, and is in level beds six inches to one foot or more in thickness. It is about twenty rods from the river and fifteen to twenty feet above it. On the Maple river the Shakopee limestone is quarried at many places within a mile above its mouth, and occasional low outcrops of it are found along the next mile, to the south part of the N. W. } of section 24, Ilapidan. At these quarries the stone is a compact, light-buff dolomite, of nearly uniform texture and color, in horizontal layers one to three feet thick, reaching from the level of the river to nights twenty to thirty feet above it. On the Big Oobb river this formation outcrops and is slightly quarried three-fourths of a mile and one and one-fourth miles above its mouth. The first of these localities is on land of Matthew Ryan, in the S. E. J of section 18, Decoria, where this stone makes a terrace which ex- tends about a quarter of a mile in the bottom land, being twenty to twenty- five feet above the liver and seventy-five feet below the top of its bluffs and the general surface of the drift. The highest points of the limestone here are fully thirty feet above the river, and have the form of isolated mounds of horizontal strata, which have been spared, while the continuation of the snme beds has been removed, by the agenciesof weathering and erosion. These mounds rise ten to fifteen feet perpendicularly or often with overhanging sides. A similar picturesque weathering of this limestone, forming many such mounds five to ten feet high, was also seen four miles north of Mankato, on land of Joseph Kunz, in the S. E. J of section 19, Lime. At Mr. Ryan's quarries, near the south end of the exposures of rock on his land, its night at the east side of the river is about twenty feet and at the vfest side ten feet, their distance apart being ten or twelve rods. This stone has the same characters as in the quarries of Mankato and Maple river. It lies in beds which are from one to four feet thick, their stratification on the east side of the river being nearly level, but on the west side dipping 5° to 10? west. About a half mile farther south, on land of A. W. White, in the N. E. J of section 19, Decoria, the Shakopee limestone is again exposed, forming a vertical cliff which rises from the level of the river to about thirty-five feet above it, in its left (here the northern) bank. It holds this hight for an extent of nbout ten rods, and contin- ues with decreasing hight as much farther westward. At its west extremity this limestone is overlain by Cretaceous beds; but mainly this ledge is covered by till, which reaches seventy-five feet above the river. The elevation above the sea of the outcrops of Shakopee limestone on the Watonwan river at Garden City and on the Maple and Big Cobb rivers is 875 to 900 feet, being about fifty feet higher than the top cf this formation in Mankato and Lime, eight to twelve miles farther north. Cretaceous beds. The only deposits found in Blue Earth county above the foregoing Lower Magnesian strata and below the drift are beds of clay, sand and sandstone, and rarely gravel, which are believed to have been 432 THE OOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Cretaceous beds. formed in the Cretaceous age. Similar formations, containing character- istic Cretaceous fossils, occur in other portions of this state, toward the east, north and west, and have a great development farther west in the region drained by the upper Missouri river. No fossils have been found, however, in any of these deposits in this county, though they are exposed in many localities and present much diversity in material. They often occur in the ordinary manner of stratified sediments, unconformably over- lying eroded surfaces of the Jordan and Shakopee formations; but another frequent mode of occurrence is in large water-worn cavities and fissures of these rocks, principally of the Shakopee limestone. Before the deposi- tion of the beds here called Cretaceous, these Cambrian rocks at many places in the Minnesota valley had become channeled by rivers and sculp- tured into irregular basins, pot-holes, and hollows, from five to twenty-five feet in depth, often partly covered by overhanging walls. These pocket- like cavities are smoothly water-v/orn, and their surface is often thinly coated with iron ore. Within them clay has been sifted and packed so as to fill their irregular spaces, frequently covered in part by the limestone. The crust of iron ore Qimonite with a little manganese oxide) was probably formed, however, since the clay was deposited. It should be added that the clay was doubtless of greater depth and extent at some former time; so that all the ore-covered surfaces observed may have become thus en- crusted while enveloped in the clay. This deposit is, more strictly speaking, a very fine sandy and clayey silt, greenish or bluish, weathering white, hori- zontally bedded, or conforming somewhat to the shape of the hollow that holds it. The following descriptions of these Cretaceous beds are given in geo- graphic order, as they are found in descending the Minnesota valley, and afterward their exposures on the Blue Earth, Watonwan, Le Sueur, Maple and Big Cobb rivers are successively noted. Within the Minnesota valley, in this county, the first occurrence of deposits probably of Cretaceous age is on land of Edward Howe, in the west part of section 23, Cambria, where a con- glomeritic sandstone, much broken into masses of various sizes up to eight or twelve feet long and five or six feet thick, covers a small area beside the river, having about the same hight with the flood-plain. It is underlain by a fine blue clay, without gravel or pebbles. Comparing these with the other beds of similar character in this region, we find outcrops of the sandstone on the opposite side of the river, in Nicollet county, one mile below and about two miles above this point. At the second of these localities some of its layers contain fragments of wood, or lignite, and aiigiospermous leaves. The underlying clay appears to be the same with that which else- BLUE EABTH COUNTY. Cretaceous beds.] 433 where fills cavities in the Shakopee limestone. This order of deposition, first, clay, and later, sand and sandstone, is also found in these beds on the Maple river. In South Bend, at David P. Davis' quarry, the section on the north side of the railroad is, at the top, fifteen to twenty feet of Shakopeo limestone, in layers only a few inches thick, because of weathering, for its upper three to five feet, but below forming beds from one to three or four feet in thickness; containing many crevices and hollows up to twenty feet in diameter and ten to twenty feet deep, filled with a compact clay, mainly white or gray, but in a few places of a brick-red and elsewhere bluish green color (Fig. 23). Next below, this limestone appears, deceptively, to FIG. 23. CRETACEOUS CLAY IN HOLLOWS OP THE SHAKOPEE LIMESTONE, SOUTH BEND. a. Shakopee limestone. 'b. Cretaceous clay. c. Drift. be underlain by a nearly levelly stratified bed of this clay, four to five feet thick, lying on the Jordan sandstone, which forms the lowest one to two feet of the section. The horizontal bed of clay here is probably of small extent, filling a space from which the upper part of the friable sand- stone had been excavated by running water. South of the railroad track, this stratum of gray and green clay, two feet thick, becoming gray sand below, also two feet thick, is seen along a distance of fifteen rods, overlain by limestone debris, and underlain by the Jordan sandstone. Professor Winchell has described* an instructive section of the Shakopee limestone and its associated deposits of this clay, as observed in a cut near the railroad bridge which crosses the Blue Earth river about a mile above its mouth. "This cut is perhaps 70 feet above the river, the FIG. 24. SECTION NEAR THE RAILROAD BRIDGE, MANKATO. a. Shakopee limestone, cut by the grading of the railroad. &. Weathered surface of same. c. Cretaceous clay, greenish blue, bedded. d. Drift. bank of which is composed entirely of rock, the lower portion of which is the Jordan sandstone, and the upper the Shakopee limestone, the latter comprising about 20 feet. In general this raij- •Seoond annual report, p, 178, 38 434 '^HE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. • [Cretaceous beds. road cut shows a mixture of Cretaceous clay with the Cambrian, the top of the whole being thinly and irregularly covered over and chinked up with coarse drift. The Cambrian is more or less broken and tilted, at least the bedding seems to have. been cut out into huge blocks by divisional planes, which, either by weathering or water- wearing, were widened, the blocks themselves being subsequently thrown to some extent from their horizontally, tipping in all directions. The opened cracks and seams were then filled with the Cretaceous clay, which is deposited between these loosened masses, and sometimes even to the depth of twenty feet below the general surface of the top of the rock. The clay sometimes occupies nooks and rounded angles, sometimes shel- tered below heavy masses of the Cambrian beds. The clay is uniformly bedded, about horizon- tally, with some slope in accordance with the surface on which the sedimentation took place. But the most interesting and important feature is t/ie condition of these old Cambrian surfaces. They are rounded by the action of water, evidently waves. The cavities and porous spots are more deeply eroded, making little pits on the face of the rock; or along the lines of section of the sedimentation planes with the eroded surface, there are furrows due to the greater effect of water. The rounded surface of these huge masses of limestone is coated with a thickness of about a half inch, or an inch and a half, of iron ore, which scales off easily, and is easily broken by the ham- mer. While this scale of iron ore is thicker near the top and on the upper surface of the blocks, yet it runs down between the Cretaceous clay and the body of the-rock." Another deposit of greenish clay (Fig. 25) similar to the two last described, enclosed in a cavity of the Shakopee limestone and in part appearing to be a stratum overlain by it, was noted beside the carriage road from South Bend to Mankato close east of its bridge over the Blue Earth river. Surface. iH FIO. 25. CRETACEOUS CLAY BENEATH THE SHAKOPEE LIMESTONE, MANKATO. a. Shakopee limestone. 6. Bedded greenish clay, weathering white, but little sandy, c. Sandy, bedded greenish clay. d. Drift, mostly coarse fragments of Shakopee limestone. In the S. \V. } of section 20, Lime, the quarry of J. R. Beatty & Co. exhibits a thickness of twenty to twenty-five feet of the Shakopee limestone. The top of this ledge is waterworn and hollowed in shallow pot-holes. Near the middle of the quarry face, as it was at the time of exam- ination, these waterworn cavities reach to a depth of fifteen feet, their sides being in part en- crusted with an iron-rusty scale, an eighth to a half of an inch thick. They are filled with very coarse ferruginous gravel, much waterworn, so that sometimes its pebbles up to three or four inches in diameter are almost perfectly spherical. In some of these crevices scanty traces of white clay occur witli the gravel, the former being probably Cretaceous, while the latter seems to be older than the glacial drift, and may be Cretaceous or of earlier date, possibly representing the period in which these hollows were eroded. Close west of this quarry is found a thick bed of whitish, very fine earth (analysis 2, page 438), containing too little clay for brick-making. Professor Winchell writes as follows respecting these probably Cretaceous deposits at locali- ties recently examined by him near Mankato. "At the quarry of the Standard Cement company, lately opened in the east bank of the Blue Earth river about a third of a mile south of the rail- road bridge, the Shakopee limestone is separated from the Jordan sandstone by a course of light green or often nearly white shale or clay, highly siliceous and aluminous, having a thickness of about three feet. The hydraulic qualities of the Shakopee limestone seem to be associated with the occurrence of this bed of shale, and to be altogether an accidental and local character. The formation has before been known to be somewhat hydraulic, but here this quality is so far extended as to make a valuable source of hydraulic lime. In the Shakopee limestone here are also numerous pita and gorges, rounded off with age and crusted over with a ferruginous scale BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 435 Cretaceous beds.] that is sometimes as much as three inches thick. These old crevices cut across the strata and pass from top to bottom of the formation. They are filled with the same, or a very similar, light- colored clay, the same being continuous from the clay between the Shakopee and Jordan upward through the openings to the top of the limestone strata, and there spreading out, in imperfectly laminated beds, over the similarly rusted upper surface of the Shakopee. The bed of clay under this limestone is known to extend back from the bluff of the river about eighty feet, and seems to be in situ and of Cambrian age. Yet it seems not to be confined to this place between the Jordan and Shakopee formations, where the most of it is seen; and as it occupies eroded cavities and all seams and small openings within the Shakopee, and also overlies that formation, apparently unconformably, it has been considered of Cretaceous age.* Prof. A. F. Bechdolt, of Mankato, regards it as a result of chemical change in the overlying St. Peter sandstone and the underlying Jordan sandstone; but it more probably resulted from a local degradation of the hydraulic Shak- opee limestone, through long sub- aerial exposure, if its origin be at all attributable to such agents." "This white clay appears frequently at the same horizon, overlying the Jordan sandstone, at points in the Le Sueur valley. It was examined on the land of S. F. Alberger, along the banks of the Le Sueur in section 35, Mankato, where it lies about twenty feet above the river at the railroad crossing, and is overlain by a series of confused, concretionary and lenticular beds of sandstone, with alternations of clay, passing upward into a rusty conglomerate and crag-like rock, and into a sandstone containing traces of wood, similar to that seen in Fillmore and Mower counties, and at Fritz' quarry in Nicollet county, evidently of Cretaceous age. In ascending the river from the railroad crossing, the water line rises over the underlying sandstone, and reaches this clay bed. It is seen to become red in some places, and often somewhat gritty. The valley of the Le Sueur in this vicinity, and its tributary valleys, also the deserted channel through In- dian lake, to which Prof. Bechdolt has called attention, are wrought principally in Cretaceous strata, overlain by a deposit of drift clay which shows, in numerous instances, the effect of water in its deposition." Professor Winchell summarizes, in descending order, the following General section of the Cretaceous in the Le Sueur valley, sec. 35, Mankato. 1. Conglomerate and sandstone; with traces of woody fiber; in oblique and lenticular stratification; the probable equivalent of fossiliferous strata at Fritz' quarry in Nicollet county, and of the sandstone a few miles southwest of New Ulm 20-30 ft. 2. Potter's clays and fine sand, irregularly and lenticularly interbedded 20-30 ft. 3. Rusty and confused, concretionary sandrock 20-30 ft. 4. White (kaolinic?) clay; within of a light greenish color; becoming red and arena- ceous in some places 6-8 ft. 5. Jordan sandstone, seen 20 ft. Professor Bechdolt states that a slab of rusty sandstone was found some years ago on the bluff back of Mankato, containing fossil leaves resembling Salix; also, that a small shark's tooth was picked up in the alluvium at the mouth of the Blue Earth river; and that at any time small pieces of lignite coal may be found in the alluvium at the mouth of the Blue Earth, brought down by the latest freshet from the valley. All these were doubtless derived from Cretaceous forma- tions. On the Blue Earth river above the localities already mentioned, Cretaceous beds are reported by Mr. John Leiberg in the left (north) bank of the river about twenty rods below the new bridge in section 27, South Bend, being a somewhat sandy, deep green shale, exposed along an extent of about a hundred and fifty feet, rising in a flattened anticlinal about five feet above the line of low water; overlain by a bed of dark, ferruginous gravel, about ten feet thick, containing concretionary iron ore (limonite1; above which is light gray or white, friable sand or sandstone, about thirty feet thick; succeeded by till, which forms the upper part of the bluff, f At the east end of the Rapidan Rapids bridge, the cliff of Jordan sandstone, thirty feet high, is overlain by ten feet or more of interstratified clay, sand and fine gravel, referred to the Creta- Ihe second annual report, pp. 176 — 181; also the eighth annual report, p. 109. tit seems quite likely that this is the site of Le Sueur's copper mine, as it agrees well with Penicaut'a dncriDtion „„ 17 nnH 42H1. *See (See pages 17 and 428). 436 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Cretaceous beds. ceous age. The layers of clay are mostly white, but sometimes red; and the sand and gravel are occasionally cemented with iron ore. Above these the bluff consists of till, and rises to a bight about 150 feet above the river. A sandstone, which may belong to either the Jordan or St. Peter formations of the Lower Magnesian group, but seems quite likely to be Cretaceous, and other beds more certainly referred to this later age, occur in the banks of the Watonwan river at Garden City, southwest and north of the fair-ground, rising fifteen to thirty feet above the river. Of these deposits Prof. Wiiichell writes*: " It [the sandstone] is here associated with more or less clay, crag, and iron and lime cement. A heavy deposit of drift crag [cemented gravel, probably Cretaceous] may be seen on E. T. Norton's place, and also opposite Mr. Norton's. Under the crag is clean white sand. A little further up in the bluff is red and blue clay, belonging, undoubtedly, to the Cretaceous. This crag is sometimes made up of this white sand cemented, with little gravel. It lies in a continuous layer along the bluff, and projects like a bed of rock, the incoherency of the underlying white sand causing it to crumble out. This is also shown on the north side [of the fair-ground], along the bluff where the current of the river has kept the surface fresh. This sandstone is again exposed in the banks of the river about two miles above Garden City." On the Le Sueur river close above the railroad bridge the Jordan sandstone, described on page 428, is overlain by about sixty feet of clay and sa:;d or sandrock layers, irregularly inter- stratified. In the lower portion the clay is mostly white, but at one place is red and by being washed down paints a portion of the bluff a few feet in width. This is about a hundred feet southeast of "chalk run," a gap in the bluff which has its name in allusion to these white and red clays. The sand is mostly ferruginous, and is cemented by iron-rust. These beds rise from thirty to forty feet above the railroad bridge, which is 825 feet above the sea. The clay which is used at Mankato for the manufacture of pottery is obtained at this place, southeast of the railroad and about fifteen feet above the level of the railroad grade. In the bank four rods east of the railroad bridge, the following descending section was noted. It is embraced in No. 2 of Prof. Winchell's general section already given. Section of Cretaceous beds near the Le Sueur river railroad bridge, sec. 35, Mankato. 1. Coarsely rocky drift 4-10 ft. 2. Stratified gravel and sand, ferruginous, farther eastward iron-cemented . . . 3-5 ft. 8. Dull gray, horizonally stratified clay 1-2 ft. 4. Dull gray, horizontally stratified sand 4 ft. 5. Second layer of clay, like No. 3 1 j-2 ft. 6. Second layer of sand, like No. 4 4 ft. 7. Third layer of clay, like No. 3 1 j-2 ft. 8. Third layer of sand, like No. 4, seen 1 ft. The top of the last of these layers is six feet above the railroad, and is higher than the, white and red strata which overlie the Jordan sandstone in the adjacent river-bluff. At the iron bridge, about a half mile farther up this river, the Jordan sandstone is overlain by twenty feet of clayey and sandy, nearly levelly stratified Cretaceous strata, of gray and whitish color, in many portions containing small lumps of white clay. In the east part of section 2, Rapidan, the northeast bank of the Le Sueur river shows a few feet of Jordan sandstone at the base, on which rest white and gray Cretaceous clays, closely like the deposits which fill cavities of the Shakopee limestone in South Bend and Mankato, nearly horizontal in stratification, having a thickness of twenty to twenty-five feet and exposed along a distance of about twenty-five rods. These strata are reddish in a few small and inconspicuous portions. Above them the upper part of the bluff is drift. Again, an eighth of a mile farther south, Cretaceous strata of similar character form the bank on the southwest side of this river along a distance of nearly twenty rods, but at the time of obser- vation were much obscured by falling down. This blnff is 40 to 75 feet high, with ascent toward the south, all above 30 to 40 feet being drift. On the Maple river are numerous exposures of sand or sandstone and clay, which closely •Second annual report, p. lit. BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 437 Cretaceous beds.) i resemble the beds described in Garden City. At Columbus Ballard's quarry, on the west side of the river near its mouth, in the N. E. J of the 8. W. i of section 12, Kapidan, the west part of the ledge of Shakopee limestone which is worked, is overlain by twenty feet of Cretaceous clays, mostly whitish, in some parts irony, and rarely reddish. Here the limestone has a bight of only ten feet, but it rises twenty feet above the river a hundred feet farther east. Along the last two miles of this river, in the northeast part of Eapidan township, Prof. Winchell describes* "a fri- able, white sandstone. .... underlain by about two feet of a greenish blue clay, and as- sociated with concretionary and irregular sheets of brown hsematite. In the banks of the Maple, where the Shakopee limestone is exposed and somewhat quarried, there are occasional missing places in the beds of that formation. If by the action of the river the section is kept clear, so as to remove th<- drift, this bed of clay can be seen lying with distorted and dishing strata in these intervals. The strata are sometimes not preserved, but the masses appear as if thrust into the excavation in the Shakopee limestone, and are very sandy. In other cases the clay seems to have been shaped in layers conformable to the surface of the limestone, but unconformable with its bedding. At one place the following section can be made out: 1. Alluvium 15 feet. 2. Irony crag and impure iron ore 2 feet. 3. Greenish bedded clay 2 feet. 4. Strata of Shakopee limestone, more or less stained and encrusted with iron 4 feet. "These parts are arranged, relatively to each other, as shown in Fig. 26. Allurium iSf'r FIG. 26. SECTION IN THE BANK OF MAPLE EIVEB, KAPIDAN. "The white sand . . . is in some way associated with the iron ore. It seems to lie in patches, sometimes just below the iron, and in other places where the iron is wanting. It seems to lie above the clay or shale. ... At other places, a little above the point of the foregoing section, the iron and sand are found irregularly mingled, the iron occur- ring in the form of concretionary sheets, at least in sheets that enclose cavities. As much as four feet of this sand can here be made out, but the clay layer cannot be seen. "At a point a few rods farther up, the white sand can be seen in a bluff on the left bank of the river (probably on sec. 13), rising 40 or 50 feet, its exact upward limit being hid by the drift. At the bottom of this bluff the Shakopee limestone is exposed in the form of a rounded water- worn buttress, rising in a solid mass about twelve feet above the river. About this bare rock, which exposes not more than a square rod of surface, or 200 square feet, are fallen pieces of the iron ore mentioned. The rock itself seems coated with thin layers of the irony stone, which yet appear calcareous. No clay or shale, the equivalent of No. 3, of the last section, can be seen. Overlying this iron and mingled with it, is a deposit of white sand, rising, as already stated, about fifty feet. This sand is so incoherent that one cannot ascend it. It slides like drift sand, yet is perfectly homogeneous as sand, without any resemblence to any drift sand. It is purely white. It is mainly massive; yet irregular lines of sedimentation can be seen in it. Also vari- ously arranged in it are little, thin deposits of shale which probably were green till faded and oxydized. These are sometimes an inch thick, but usually not more than one-fourth of an inch. They are in detached, lenticular patches, and not now plastic, but soapy. No fossils can be seen. It seems to lie unconformably on the Shakopee limestone, separated only by a thin bed of greenish blue shale. . . . At a point a little further along, this sand is more persistent, and shows horizontal bedding, by reason of the manner of its falling down from the bluff. Beds, 3- 8 inches." At the quarries of Shakopee limestone on the Big Cobb river in sections 18 and 19, Decoria, about one and a half miles east from the last, are other Cretaceous beds. In two hollows of this *S«cond annual report, p. 132. 438 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Cretacaout bed«. limestone on the west side of the river at Ryan's quarry are deposits, one of white, and the other of red clay, each two to three feet thick. The west end of White & Curtis' quarry is covered by Cretaceous accumulations which are in turn overlain by drift. The section from top to base of the bluff here is as follows: Section in ilix, bank of the Big Cobb river, N. E. J of sec. 19, Decoria. 1. Yellowish sandy till 10-15 ft. 2. Dark bluish till 30 ft. 3. lied and yellow clay, seen at two places, each having an extent of only a few feet 2 ft. 4. Ferruginous, sandy shale, with much interstratifled loose sand, some of these beds being mainly white, others dark, while the greater part have an iron-rusted color, and are more or less cemented by limonite; visible along a distance of 25 rods, from the extremity of the Shakopee lime- stone southwesterly to the ford and foot-bridge; in thickness, about 10 ft. 6. Incoherent, irregularly stratified sandstone, straw-colored or nearly white, containing infrequent specks of a snowy white powder; exposed at 12 to 18 feet above the river, for a distance of only 25 feet, being ob- scured below and elsewhere by the fallen talus 6 ft. 6. Shakopee limestone, farther east rising 35 feet in a perpendicular cliff from the river, here 10-15 ft. Numbers 3, 4 and 5 are believed to be Cretaceous, but no fossils were seen in any of these strata. Analyses of Cretaceous clays from the vicinity of Mankato. Five analyses, shown in the table below, have been made for this survey, of samples of the very fine, more or less clayey silt which has been described in the foregoing pages in respect to its manner of occurrence. The first of these analyses (No. 67, eighth annual report) was made by Prof. S. F. Peck- ham, and is the clay or shale filling hollows of the Shakopee limestone in the west part of Man- kato. Prof. Peckham remarks: "Its composition places it with orthoclase, although it has the physical properties of kaolin. It is chemically a slightly decomposed feldspar, while it has the appearance and some of the properties of clay. It, however, appears to contain too much iron to admit of its being used for white ware, although a practical test is often required to definitely settle the value of clays for such purposes." The second analysis (No. 75, tenth annual report) was by Prof. J. A. Dodge, and is from a nearly white clayey bed of considerable extent, which has been tried unsuccessfully for brick- making, near the quarry of J. E. Beatty & Co., in section 20, Lime. "This was pulverized, without grinding up the particles of gritty matter that were to some extent intermixed with it; the powder was then mixed with distilled water, the suspended portion poured off and allowed to settle for a day or two; the settled portion was then collected, dried at 212°, and submitted to analysis by the common methods for silicates." The third (No. 138, twelfth annual report) was by Mr. C. F. Sidener, and is a nearly white, very fine-grained, somewhat friable earth, in the lower part of the succession of Cretaceous strata in section 35, Mankato (from the east bluff of the Le Sueur river close above the railroad bridge, in No. 4 of page 435). The fourth (No. 139, twelfth annual report), by Mr. Sidener, is from the same locality with the last, and is the red ochery clay which was mentioned on page 436. The fifth analysis (No. 146, twelfth annual report), also by Mr. Sidener, is the clay or shale observed between the Shakopee limestone and the Jordan sandstone in the L'lluillier mound (No. 4, page 430). Like No. 1 of this table, but in less degree, "it is rather remarkable for con- taining so much potash, which probably exists in it in the form of finely divided potash feldspar." 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Silica, Si O2 70.10 8770 93.65 73.34 68.70 Alumina, Al, O3 16.99 7.24 2.15 14.75 18.04 Lime, CaO 0.67 0.20 0.28 1.24 Magnesia, MgO 0.07 0.12 0.05 0.56 Potassa, Ka 0 10.69 0.49 traces traces 5.28 BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 439 Glacial drift. J Soda, Na> 0 3.17 traces traces 0.24 Ferric oxide, Fe.. Oj traces traces 0.25 5.45 1.53 Sulphuric oxide, 8 d 0.23 Phosphoric oxide, Pi O; 0.09 Organic matter traces traces Water, H2 0 1.98 traces 2.25 4.71 1.40 99.99 99.34 98.02 98.58 97.08 In the absence of palaeontological evidence, it is impossible to deter- mine to which part of the Cretaceous series these beds in Blue Earth county should be referred ; but there can be little doubt that they belong some- where in this age. Scanty exposures of Cretaceous strata are found in many parts of the western two thirds of Minnesota, enclosing sometimes marine fossils, sometimes impressions of leaves, and at a few places thin layers of lignite. Before the Cretaceous age, during which western Minnesota and the region of the upper Missouri were depressed and covered by the sea, deep channels had been cut by rivers in the Lower Magnesian strata of this county; and the slopes and course of drainage seem then to have been partly like those of the present day. At least we find where the Minnesota river now flows a remarkably water-worn and deeply excavated valley, in which these Cretaceous beds of clay and sand were deposited. Glacial drift. The drift in Blue Earth county has the same characters in its composition and sources of material, manner of formation, diverse deposits, and topography, as are found generally, except in its belts of ter- minal and medial moraines, throughout a very large area of southern and western Minnesota and upon much of Iowa and Dakota. In describing the surface features of the county, the topography of the drift-sheet, in its gently rolling or undulating and partly quite flat expanse, and the deep, trough-like valleys which intersect it, have been already sufficiently noticed. The thickness of this sheet of glacial drift is principally from 100 to 200 feet, but in the Mankato well it was found to be 290 feet. Its average upon the whole county is probably 150 feet. Before its erosion by rivers, this was a mantle entirely concealing the bed-rocks, which had no exposure in this region. The formation of the drift, including removal, intermixture and depo- sition, took place in the last completed period of geological history, and is found to have been accomplished by the agency of a vast ice-sheet that 440 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Glacial drift. -rested upon the land and moved slowly forward because of the pressure of its own weight, covering the northern half of North America, as now the Antarctic continent and the interior of Greenland are buried beneath ice thousands of feet deep. In Blue Earth county and generally through the greater part of Minnesota, the material of the drift is principally the un- modified deposit of the ice-sheet, composed of clay, sand and boulders, mixed indiscriminately in an unstratified mass. Very finely pulverized rock, forming a stiff, compact, unctuous clay, is its principal ingredient, whether at great depths or at the surface. This formation is denominated till, boulder-clay, or hardpan. Layers of stratified gravel and sand are enclosed in this deposit, and are the source of the sudden inflow and rise of water frequently found in digging wells. In this county and upon the western two-thirds of this state, the till has a dark bluish color, except in its upper portion, which is yellowish to a depth that varies from five to fifty feet, but is most commonly between fifteen and thirty feet. This difference in color is due to the influence of air and water upon the iron contained in this deposit, changing it in the upper part of the till from protoxide combinations to hydrous sesquioxide. Another important difference in the till is that its upper portion is com- monly softer and easily dug, while below there is a sudden change to a hard and compact deposit, which must be picked and is far more expensive in excavating. There is frequently a thin layer of sand or gravel between these kinds of till, which have their division line at a depth that varies from five to thirty or very rarely forty feet. Owing to the more compact and impervious character of the lower till, the change to a yellow color is usu- ally limited to the upper till. The probable cause of this difference in hardness was the pressure ot the vast weight of the ice-sheet upon the lower and older till, while the upper till was contained in the ice and dropped loosely at its melting. Again, in numerous places the upper till as here described is directly underlain by a softer till, moist and sticky, and dark bluish in color. This is usually of considerable thickness, or between twenty and fifty feet. It often encloses or is underlain by beds of water-bearing sand; but occasion- ally it has been penetrated and is found to lie directly upon a bed of very compact till, such as usually comes next below the upper till. In some BLUE EARTH COUNTS. 441 Glacial drift,] cases this soft and moist deposit is evidently stratified clay, free from gravel or only holding here and there a stone, and all varieties appear to be found between this and an unstratified and very pebbly till; as indeed it may be that the latter in different localities shows all gradations from its occasion- ally very soft character, where a shovel can be easily thrust into it to the depth of a foot or more, to the hardest deposits of the lower till in which a pick can be driven only an inch or two at one blow. The few beds found in this district which contain shells or trees that nourished in interglacial epochs, lie beneath two distinct beds of till, the lower sometimes showing its usual hard and compact character, but else- where being even softer than the upper till. Excepting the division into beds as before described, the till is an en- tirely unstratified deposit. There has been no assortment of its materials by water, and the coarsest and finest are mingled confusedly in the same mass. Often a thickness of fifty feet or more exhibits no evidence of stratification. The motion of the ice-sheet upon this part of the state was from north- west to southeast, as is shown by the direction in which the boulders of the drift in this region have been carried, and by the courses of the glacial striae, or the scratches and grooves worn on the surface of the bed-rock by stones and boulders carried along in the ice. Small rock fragments, vary- ing in size up to the dimension of six inches, are usually numerous and scattered through all parts of the till; they are, however, seldom abundant, and are sometimes so few that in well-boring none might be encountered. Boulders of large size are less frequent, and often a well or even a railroad cut in till fails to display any of greater dimension than two or three feet. Again, several may be found ot various sizes up to five or perhaps seven or eight feet. They appear to be usually more numerous on the surface of the till than below. The number of boulders over one foot in size to be found generally upon the surface of moderately undulating tracts of till is estimated to vary from one or two to ten on an acre; but often, and espec- ially on smooth or flat areas, they are more scarce, so that perhaps a dozen could not be gathered on a square mile. The very smooth, and in many portions flat, surface of the southern two-thirds of Blue Earth county, and of the township of Mankato east from 442 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [tilicial drift. the top of the river bluff, indicates the extent of a lake which covered this area during the departure of the ice-sheet. In its recession from south to north the ice became a barrier here, as with lake Agassiz* in the Red river valley, preventing free drainage northward, and forming a lake which found its outlet southward in Iowa to the East fork of the Des Moines river, until the ice-sheet was melted upon the region covered by the Min- nesota river from Mankato to its mouth. Besides its smooth or flat con- tour, the till upon the area occupied by this lake is distinguished by slight differences of its material from that of the more undulating districts sur- rounding it, in having a somewhat scantier intermixture of boulders and gravel, and occasionally in its imperfect stratification. Yet even where it shows distinct lamination, it usually is more like till than like ordinary modified drift, and contains stones and gravel through its entire mass. Rarely may be seen small areas of true laminated clay destitute of gravel. In the report of Faribault county, the outlet, boundaries, area and depth of this lake are treated of more fully. Near Mankato Junction on the Winona & St. Peter division of the Chicago & Northwest- ern railway, in section 32, Lime, a cut eighty feet deep (figures 27 and 28) as made in till at the edge of the valley-bluff. The upper forty feet here is yellowish, and the lower forty feet dark bluish. Their line of contact forms a narrow shelf or bench in the cut. six to eight feet wide, apparently due to the greater hardness of the lower till; but their outlines and position make it probable that here their differences both in color and hardness have resulted from weathering. At the southeast end of this cut the yellow till for an extent of two or three rods and a hight of thirty feet is intersected by many nearly vertical banded veins which form an intricate network (figure 29, representing a space ten feet square) upon the steeply sloping face of the excavation. These veins or seams (figure 30) are two or three inches wide, and consist of films of ferric oxide, parted by lamina? of clay, often including near the middle a white or gray calcareous band from an eighth to a third of an inch wide. They appear to be veins of segregation, of somewhat similar origin with the tubular irony concretions which are often met in stratified clay and sand, and more rarely in till. Nowhere else have such vertical veins been found during all my exploration of the glacial drift. FIG. 27. FIG. 28. FIG 29. FIG. 30. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE GLACIAL DRIFT, SEC. 32, LI.MK. Wells in Blue Earth county. ^ , The material and general character of the drift are illustrated by the following rec- ords of wells, including examples in most of the townships of this county. For the better ex- hibition of the succession of glacial deposits, this list is principally selected from the deeper wells of the county. Commonly an ample supply of excellent water, hard because of the presence of dissolved carbonate of lime, but not alkaline, is obtained from fifteen to forty feet below the sur- •Compare the eighth, tenth and eleventh annual reports. BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 443 face, seeping into the well from the lower part of the yellow till, or furnished by springs from thin seams of sand or gravel next below this or within fifteen or twenty feet in the blue till. Jamestown. Volk & Co.; Volksville, on the shore of Lake Washington, sec. 20: well, 120 feet deep; yellow till, 25 feet; blue till, 30; gravel and yellow sand, 15; ash-colored fetid clay, stratified, 10; sand, 40; no water. Another well, twenty rods from this, is 5D feet deep, being yellow till, 25; blue till, 33; a dark, cemented gravel, mainly composed of waterworn pebbles up to four inches in diameter, 6 inches; and common gravel, 6 inches, with water rising from it four feet. William H. Bapley; sec. 30: well, 100 feet deep; yellow till, 45 feet, containing veins of gravel from six inches to two feet wide and from four to twelve inches thick; yellow sand, 55 feet; no water. Le Bay. At Eagle Lake the wells are 16 to 25 feet deep, the deeper going through the yel- low* till and far enough into the blue till for a reservoir. Mr. A. W. Kedner, of Eagle Lake, a well-maker, states from an experience of about fifty wells in this and adjoining townships, that the yellow till is usually more filled with rock-frag- ments than the blue till, and is harder to bore or to dig with a spade. The blue till is more sticky. Lignite is frequently found, in pieces up to four inches long, mostly shaly and only half an inch or less in thickness. Charles & William Macbeth; sec. 20: well, 55 feet deep; yellow till, 20; blue till, 30; quick- sand, 1 foot; gravel, 1 foot; blue clay, containing small gasteropod shells, 3 feet. McPherson. Charles Dittman; S. W. J, sec. 5, one mile north of Winnebago Agency (Hilton): well, 75 feet deep; yellow till, 15; at its base a gravel vein, nearly round and about a foot in diameter, was found running across the well; blue till, 55; quicksand, 5 feet and extending below; a small amount of water came in the gravel at fifteen feet, but this was lost in the quicksand at the bottom. Mankato. Michael Bienbold; sec. 30 : well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, all below; water seeps, being six feet deep in dry seasons. Mrs. Mary Stuck; also sec. 30: well, 80 feet; yellow till, about 35; sand, 2 feet; blue till, softer than the yellow, 43; water rose forty feet from sand at the bottom. Decoria. Henry Lortz; sec. 20: well, 33; yellow till, 14; sand, 1J feet: yellow till again, 17; water rose three feet from sand at the bottom. Adam Lortz; sec. 21: well, 90; yellow till, about 20; blue till, about 25; light-colored sticky clay, 10 feet; with probably stratified sand and gravel below. This well has only surface water; none in a dry season. Kapidan. Fred Griffith; sec. 22: well, 24 feet; soil, 2 ; yellow till, spaded, 15; blue till, harder, but yet spaded, 7 feet; water seeps at the top of the blue till. Lyra. Graham House; Good Thunder: well, 48 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 16; soft blue till, 26; gravel and sand, 4 feet, witli water issuing in this stratum but not rising above it. B. L. Potter; sec. 33: well, 70; soil, 2; yellow till, 15; blue till, 53; water rises from gravel at the bottom to a hight six feet below the surface. This is the deepest well of its vicinity; it is at the general level of the country, about fifty feet above the Maple river. Nine rods farther east, a well 14 feet deep found a good supply of water, rising four feet from the bottom. Sterling. W. Wells; sec. 4: well, 16£ feet deep, being all yellow till; water rose ten feet in four hours from sandy streaks at the bottom. Garden City. At Lake Ciystal, in the north edge of this township, the common wells are 15 to 30 feet deep. The well for the railroad and elevator here has a depth of 110 feet, of which the last 50 feet were bored. Its section is soil, 2 feet; yellow till, spaded, 15; softer and moister blue till, becoming more gravelly in the last 6 or 8 feet, 90; gravel, 3 feet; water rose from the bot- tom only twenty-five feet, but the well, when not pumped from, becomes filled with surface water. Vernon Center. C. C. Washburn; N. W. i sec. 26, close east of Edgewood station: well 22 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 20 feet; water seeps. At his barn, twelve rods to the south', is another well, 34 feet deep, having soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 18; harder blue till, 10; sand and gravel, 4 feet, from which water rose twenty-four feet in a half day, and stands permanently at this hight! The wells of this region average 20 to 30, and are occasionally 40 to 50 feet in depth. Lignite, in fragments up to four inches long, is found sparingly in the till in nearly all these wells. 444 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Modified drift. Pleasant Mound. F. O. Marks; S. E. }, sec. 25: well, 55 feet; soil, 2; gravel, 6; light-gray " hardpan," very hard, 18; blue till, soft and moist, 29; water rose thirty-five feet in a few hours from a dark mud at the bottom. William Robinson; sec. 26: well, 64: soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 18; sand and gravel, 1 foot; soft and moist blue till, 43; with quicksand at the bottom, from which water rose thirty feet in six hours. • Ceresco. L. A. Pratt; sec. 24: well, 48; soil, 3; yellow till, spaded, 15; softer and moister blue till, 28; sand and gravel, 2 feet, reaching deeper; water rose four feet from this sand. Small fragments of lignite occur frequently in the wells of this region. Lincoln. W. G. Bundy; sec. 30: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 24; harder blue till, 4 feet, and reaching deeper; water comes in sandy and gravelly veins in this blue till, becom- ing four or five feet deep. Butternut Valley. Thomas Wilson; sec. 28: well, 58 feet; soil, 3; yellow till, spaded, 15; blue till, soft and moist for the first five feet, then mostly very hard and compact, requiring to be picked, in all, 40 feet, containing a piece of lignite, nearly a cubic foot in size, at a depth of about thirty feet from the surface; no sand nor gravel, and no good supply of water; this well has therefore been filled up. Martin Osten; sec. 21: well, 28 feet; soil, 2; yellow and blue till, 26; with gravel and sand at the bottom, from which water rose to six feet below the surface. Cambria. David T. Davis; sec. 26: well, 40; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 18 feet, containing gravelly streaks in its lower part, with a little water; much harder blue till, picked, 20; enclosing a vein of gravel and sand at the bottom, from which water rose two feet. William E. Jenkins; sec. 34: well, 24 feet ; soil, 2; yellow till, 18 ; harder blue till, 4 feet and extending lower; water seeps. Several small pieces of lignite were found in each of these wells. Modified drift. In addition to the beds of modified drift enclosed in the till or lying below it, other accumulations of this kind of drift, derived di- rectly from the ice-sheet but deposited by water, occur on the surface of areas which are mainly till. They consist of interstratified gravel and sand in knolls or mounds that rise ten to twenty feet, and rarely fifty to seventy-five feet, above the general level. These are seldom very numer- ous in western Minnesota, and are rarely extended in ridges or in any notable series. Their origin, however, was probably similar to that of the gravel ridges or kames which often form long series in other drift regions, being the deposits formed between walls of ice by glacial rivers that were poured down from the surface of the melting ice-fields. The only notable accumulations of this class in Blue Earth county are the group of hillocks before described in section 25, Pleasant Mound, and occasional knolls of fine gravel arid sand, ten to fifteen feet in hight, in Butternut Valley and Cambria townships. The valley of the Minnesota river at the north side of the county has been filled with modified drift to a depth ol about one hundred and fifty feet, but it has since been nearly all excavated and carried away by the river. BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 445 Modified drift.] At and opposite New Ulra. and four to eight miles farther down the valley, in Courtland, which adjoins Cambria, are conspicuous terraces of sand and gravel belonging to this formation, having bights from 100 to 150 feet above tbe river. Opposite to the southeast end of the Court- land terrace, a remnant of the same deposit lies in section 22 and the N. E. } of section 21, Cam- bria, between the Minnesota river and the lower part of Morgan creek, having a hight of 100 feet or more and a length of about a mile. Between Judson and Mankato, close southeast from the unnamed waterfall formed by the Jordan sandstone in section 12. Judson, the road rises about 75 feet higher, to a terrace composed mainly at its surface of coarse gravel and sand, irregularly and obliquely interstratified, upon which the road runs one and one-fourth miles southeast to the wind-mill in the N. E. } of section 18, South Bend, where it is called the "Wind-mill bluff." This terrace of modified drift is two and a half miles long, reaching from the N. W. i of section 12, Judson, to the S. E. J of section 17, South Bend; its greatest width is about a third of a mile; its hight is estimated at from 170 to 150 feet above the river, declining toward the southeast, the bluffs of till at its southwest side being 30 to 50 feet higher, or 200 feet above the river. In the farther descent of the valley, no other remains of this great deposit of stratified drift are found in the next ten miles; but, beginning again one mile beyond the north line of Blue Earth county, they are found thence commonly on one or the other side of the valley through its lower sixty miles, from Kasota and Saint Peter to its mouth. The depth of this valley drift, consisting of horizontally stratified gravel and sand, sometimes with thick beds of clay, is found by wells to be from 50 to 100 feet. This is at the side of the valley, in which this formation ap- pears to have been a continuous flood-plain, gradually raised by the deposition of sediment, till its thickness along the middle of the valley, from which it has now been eroded, was from 75 to 150 or 175 feet, having a slope down-stream of about two feet per mile. The floods which brought this deposit and flowed over its broad plain were supplied from glacial melting. The comparatively thin deposits of similar stratified gravel and sand, which cover the ter- races of the Shakopee limestone and Jordan sandstone within the Minnesota valley, in this coun- ty and below, and the alluvium of the bottomlands, which are composed of fine silt, sand and occasional beds of gravel, have been worn and assorted by water nearly like the modified drift; but their origin seems attributable to the ordinary action of the river in the processes of excava- tion and sedimentation, and may be accounted for without reference to glacial conditions. MATERIAL RESOURCES. The principal resources of Blue Earth county are the products of its invariably fertile soil, and the water-powers afforded by many of its streams, which, by using their lakes for reservoirs, may be made nearly uniform in flow throughout the year. The valuable areas of timber and the prairies of natural grassland in this county both possess rich, deep, and well drained soil, bountiful and never-failing in its productiveness. Besides the agricultural capabilities of Blue Earth county, which have been before noticed, we have to enumerate here its water-powers, its quar- ries of building stone, the manufacture of lime, hydraulic cement, bricks, drain tiles and pottery, and artesian wells and fountains. Water-powers in Blue Earth county. . The following water-powers are utilized in this county, all being employed for the manu- facture of flour, excepting two saw-mills, of which one is situated on the Le Sueur river, in the southeast part of Mankato township, and the other in Le Ray on the outlet of Eagle lake. Blue Earth river. Champion mills; V. II. Thompson; in the north part of sec. IB, Shelby; fall or head, seven feet; three run of stone. 446 THE GEOLOGY OP MINNESOTA. [Water-power* Standard mills; Berry & Crow; Vernon Center, west of road, and north of river; head, seven feet; three run of stone. Cable mills; Turner & Redfern; at middle of east half of sec. 18, Lyra; head, about seven feet. Union mill; N. E. J of sec. 31, Rapidan; head, about six feet; grist-mill. Rapidan mills; Rapidan Mill Co.; at Eapidan Rapids; head, ten feet; mostly a custom mill. Watomcan river. C. F. Butterfield's mill; in S. W. J of sec. 32, Garden City; head, eight feet, as now located; owner expects to remove mill to a point about an eighth of a mile northeast, there to have a head of nineteen feet, four of it being gained by raising the present dam. Wa ton wan mills; F. T. Enfield; upper mill in Garden City; head, seven feet; three run of stone. Northwestern mills; Andrew Friend; lower mill at Garden City; head, seven feet; three run of stone; custom (exchange) and merchant mill. Moore & Richardson's mill (formerly Folsom's); in S. E. i of sec. 23, one mile below Garden City; head, about nine feet; two run of stone. Maple river. Sterling mill; Mrs. M. Furman; just below mouth of Jackson creek, in the S. E. J of sec. 9, Sterling; head, six feet; obtains water for dry season by raising and drawing four feet from lake Jackson at the west side of this township, and the same from Rice lake in Del- avan, Faribault county. Good Thunder mills; Palmer & Miller; two-thirds of a mile southeast from Good Thunder, beside the Mankato branch of the Southern Minnesota railroad; head, seven feet. H. B. Doty's mill; in (or near) the N. E. J of sec. 3, Lyra, one and a half miles north of Good Thunder; head, ten feet. Maple River mills; George Gerlich; in the southeast part of Rapidan, four miles north of Good Thunder; head, twelve feet. All these are small custom flouring mills. Outlet of Eagle lake and lake Madison. On this tributary of the Le Sueur river mills are owned by Cate & Zimmerman; N. \V. J of sec. 20, Le Ray; one and a half miles southeast from Eagle lake; flour and grist mill; head, twenty-one feet. Ellison & Ford; one mile south of the last, in sec. 29, Le Ray; saw-mill; head, fourteen feet. Le Sueur river. Harvey & Bennett; Tivoli post-office, in sec. 25, southeast part of Mankato township; saw-mill; head, about nine feet. Red Jacket mills*; Hillyer & Biugham; S. W. J of sec. 26, Mankato, three and a half miles southwest from the city; head, twelve feet; canal, a third of a mile long; four run of stone; wholly a merchant mill. Quarried stone. The St. Lawrence limestone in Judsoii has been worked at several places. On land of Mrs. G. W. Wolf it is quarried both at the south and north sides of a small lake which is close northeast of her house (Judson post-office); and also about sixty rods farther southeast. Work was begun here fifteen years ago; and sales have averaged about a hundred cords yearly. Only rough stone of small dimension is obtained, bringing from $2 to $4 per cord. At C. G. Swanson's quarry, a half mile southeast from the foregoing, the excavation is twenty rods long and exposes a ver- tical thickness of four or five feet. The sales at present are about twenty- five cords annually, at $2.50 to $3 per cord. John Goodwin's quarry, about a half mile farther southeast, has not been worked during the last five years. The Shakopee limestone is much quarried in Blue Earth county. It •Burned since thi« report was written. BLUE EARTH COUNTY . 447 Quarries.] is strong and durable, of attractive buff color, easily wrought to any desired form, and usually thickly bedded, supplying the largest sizes of dimension stone.* Its quarries here noted lie within the Minnesota valley in South Bend, Mankato and Lime townships, and in Belgrade, opposite Mankato; on the Blue Earth river, near the west part of the city of Mankato, and in the K W. | of section 27, South Bend; on the Watonwan river close below Garden City; within the valley of the Le Sueur river in sections 2 and 11, Rapid an; along the last mile of Maple river; and on the Big Cobb river in the west part of Decoria. The character of the formation at these locali- ties has been already stated, and the ownership, situation, and extent of business of its quarries remain to be briefly mentioned. At South Bend, beside the railroad, this limestone has been considerably quarried by David P. Davis, but little has been done here within the last few years. In the north part of Mankato quarries are owned by J. R. Beatty, George Maxfleld, the Chicago & Northwestern railway company, Adam Jefferson, and others. J. R. Beatty 's east quarry reaches about thirty rods west from the north end of Front street. It has been operated about fifteen years, formerly supplying some eight hundred cords yearly at $3 per cord; but was not worked in 1879 and 1880. At present (1883) it supplies a large amount of stone both for building and for quicklime. In the bottom of the quarry the stone is blue. George Maxlield's quarry, extending thence a quarter of a mile west, was leased from 1878 to 1880 to O. R. Mather, whose annual sales amounted to about $8000. This quarry supplied the masonry of the bridge at Shakopee, and the trimmings of the high school building at Le Mars, Iowa. The section here is given on page 429, the bluff of these quarries reaching from the top of the formation as there described to No. 9. Some portions of No. 3 are fossiliferous. In No. 4, a layer three feet thick, twelve to fifteen feet above No. 6, is reddish, having about the same tint as in the Kasota quarries, and is a good stone for cutting. Next above this is a thickness of eight feet used for common masonry. Another layer in No. 4, which is somewhat used for cut-stone, lies about six feet above No. 5; it is light straw-colored, and is finely laminated with curving con- cretionary films of ferric oxide. No. 6, called the best cutting stone, has a brownish buff color. Adjoining the last and continuing northwesterly is another quarry owned by J. R. Beatty, from which the sales up to 1880 were about $1000 yearly. A third of a mile farther north, in the S. W. J of section 6, this bluff has been quarried by Stephen Lamm & Co., who, jointly with Sullivan and Duffee, quarrying in Belgrade, supplied the stone for the Mankato bridge. These quarries, or others recently opened near them, are at present extensively worked by the Chicago & Northwestern railway companyt, and for supplying the stone of the arched railroad bridge built in 1882 and 1883 at Minneapolis. Half a mile farther north, in the N. W. J of section 6, Adam Jefferson has quarried since 1877, selling about $1000 worth of stone yearly, at $3.50 per cord, and from fifteen to fifty cents per foot for cut stone, as window caps and sills. He supplied the masonry of the Le Sueur bridge. This quarry and that of Lamm & Co. expose a vertical thickness of fifteen to twenty feet, being in No. 4 of Prof. Winchell's section. About a quarter of a mile farther north, yet in Mankato, a small quarry has been worked by Nathan Brooks. In Lime township J. R. Beatty & Co. quarry extensively at the south side of a little creek in the S. W. J of section 20. The working extends about fifteen rods on the face of a bluff which *Consult th? chapter on building: stones, p. 168. fAt this quarry the workmen have the following designations for the different parts of the quarry, adopted for their own convenience. They are in descending order. 1. White ledge (very flne-2rained stone). 2. Heel ledge (harder and pinkish). 3. Gray ledge (course-grained). 4. Soft ledge (crumbled by freezing). 5. Bridge stone (coarse). 448 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Quarries. Lime. exposes twenty to twenty-five feet of this limestone, vertically, in beds from one to three or four feet thick. Quarrying was begun here in 1878, aud in 1879 furnished the stone used for the Belle Tlaine bridge, the sales of that year being $2500. Within a third of a mile southwestward, Joseph Kunz has quarried considerably at several places on his farm in the S. E. J of section 19. Valuable quarries of this limestone are worked upon the west bluff of the Minnesota river in Belgrade, Nicollet county, opposite to Mankato. The St. Paul & Sioux City railroad company have quarried upon both sides of the Blue Earth river near their railroad bridge. The stone for the new bridge crossing this river in section 27. South Bend, was being quarried in 1880, about a sixth of a mile above it, from the Shakopee limestone which forms the upper part of the bluff north of the river. The quarrying mentioned beside the Watonwan river, close below Garden City, on land of the S. M. Folsom estate, has been of small amount, perhaps supplying in all fifty cords of stone. In the valley of the Le Sueur river, the fallen blocks of Shakopee limestone before spoken of on land of O. Halberg, in the east half of section 2, Bapidan, have been somewhat used for masonry; but this rock was not seen in place in the bluff above, which rises to a hight of severity- five feet. Andrew Algren quarries this limestone slightly at its outcrop on his farm, less than a mile above the last, in the N. E. } of section 11, Rapidan, getting out ten to twenty cords yearly. Quarries on the Maple river within a mile above its mouth, in sections 12 and 13, Rapidan, are owned as follows: by Columbus Ballard, at the west side of the river, in the N. E. \ of the S. W. \ of section 12, leased to John C. Roland through several years past, considerably used for bridges, house-building, &c.; by Swan Larson, west of the river, in the S. W. } of the S. W. i of section 12, selling ten to twenty cords yearly at $3 per cord; by A. C. Wood, east of the river, in theS.E. J of the S.W. } of section 12, yielding excellent stone and considerably quarried; and by P. H. Kelly, in the N. J of the N. W. J- of section 13, also good, but not recently worked. The west pier of the bridge at Garden City was from Ballard's, aud the east pier from Kelly:s quarry. In Decoria the Shakopee limestone on the lower part of the Big Cobb river has been quar- ried since 1875 by Matthew Ryan, in section 18, selling some seventy-five cords yearly, at $3 per cord; and since 1877 by A. W. White and Samuel Curtis, in section 19, selling annually ten or twenty cords. These quarries only supply the demands of their vicinity, and are scantily worked because they lack a sufficient market; but the stone here and on Maple river seems to be equal in quality to that of Mankato. Lime. The St. Lawrence limestone in Judson appears never to have been used for lime-burning. From the Shakopee limestone on the Maple river lime was manufactured about fifteen years ago, but not since, be- cause its cheapness at the Mankato kilns prevents competition. At Mankato lime is burned by J. E. Beatty and O..R. Mather, from the layer No. 3 of Prof. Winchell's section of the Shakopee formation here. This buff dolomite produces a dark lime which slacks to a brown or cream color. It is magnesian, with a little admixture of sand, and is burned more easily, slacks with less heat, and sets more slowly, than pure lime. It is preferred by masons for brick and stone work, and for plastering ex- • cept the finishing coat. J. R. Beatty's kiln, at the west side of the north end of Front street, has been in operation ten years, averaging 7,000 barrels of lime yearly. It is a continual burner, with annual capacity of 12,000 barrels. O. R. Mather since 1878 has leased George Maxfield's kiln at the east side of the street, opposite to the foregoing, and burns about 6,000 barrels per year. This lime varies in price from fifty to seventy-five cents per barrel of about 225 pounds. One and a third miles northwest from these kilns, in the X. W. \ of section 6, Mankato, BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 449 Hydraulic cement.] Adam Jefferson has burned two thousand to three thousand barrels of lime yearly since 1868. The upper five to eight feet of the quarry worked by J. R. Beatty & Co., in Lime township, are excellent for lime, of which they here burned 2,000 barrels yearly in 1878 and 1879. Joseph Kunz, in the adjoining section 19. has also burned lime. Hydraulic ceriient is manufactured by the Standard Cement company, on the east bank of the Blue Earth river about a mile southwest from the west part of the city of Mankato. The discovery of the hydraulic quality of the Shakopee limestone at this place is to be accredited to Mr. J. R. Beatty. The cement is made from the regular layers of the Shako- pee, the whole exposed thickness of the strata, amounting to about twenty- two feet, being involved in the process. The rock varies somewhat from top to bottom, being too siliceous in one part and too calcareous in an- other, but when mingled in the process of manufacture makes a good hy- draulic cement. Samples of the strata, selected for their excellence, have been analyzed by Mr. C. F. Sideuer under the direction of Prof. Dodge, with the following result:* No. 144. The powdered rock was digested in hydrochloric acid, whereby the greater part of it was dissolved with effervescence due to the escape of carbonic acid gas. The composition of the soluble and the insoluble portions is as follows: Soluble in hydrochloric and. Calcium carbonate, CaO CO; 40.00 Magnesium carbonate. MgO CO* 31.50 Ferric oxide, FeaOi 2.73 Silica, SiO2 traces Alumina, A12O ., 0.85 Potassa, K2O 0.22 Soda. NajO 0.54 —75.84 Insoluble in hydrochloric acid. Silica 16.00 Alumina 5.00 Potassa traces Soda traces 21.00 Water 0.43 97.27 The soluble portion is seen to be mainly carbonate of lime and carbonate of magnesia, with some oxide of iron, while the insoluble portion is silicate of alumina. The chemical characters of the manufactured cement have been de- termined by Mr. Sidener as follows:* 3vTo. 145. This material was found to effervesce very little witli hydrochloric acid, [t was accordingly analyzed as a silicate, by fusion in the usual manner. The result of the analysis is as follows: 'Twelfth annual report. 29 450 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Hydraulic cement. Lime, CaO 38.53 Magnesia, MgO 22.73 Ferric oxide, Fe2O3 , 4.71 Silica, SiOi 16.24 Alumina. A12O3 5.35 Potassa, K2O ' 1.81 Soda, NajO 0.57 Water, II2O '. 0.51 Carbonic acid, CO.. 9.26 99.71 This company, beginning operations here in 1882 and 1883, have erect- ed extensive buildings for carrying on the business, using the same rock in their construction. The Shakopee formation at this place has a different grain and texture from the strata seen at the quarries in the north part of Mankato and elsewhere.* It seems to have more nearly the characters of the lower part of the Shakopee limestone quarried by J. K. Beatty & Co. in section 20, Lime, which on analysis showed a similar compo- sition, being reported by Prof. Dodge as follows:! No. 74. Rock a siliceous limestone. Digested with hydrochloric acid, a residue was left, amounting to 19.67 per cent. The dissolved portion was therefore 80.33 per cent. Analysis of portion dissolved by hydrochloric acid: — SiOi 27 per cent., being .21 per cent, of whole rock. AljOj 15 " " " .11'" " " " " FeaO3 3.03 " " " 2.43 " "'" CaOCO2 o5.62 " " " 44.68 " " " MgOCOi 39.13 " " " 31.59 " " '• 98.20 79.02 Analysis of portion not dissolved by hydrochloric acid:— SiOi 78.27 per cent., being 15.29 per cent, of whole rock. Al.Os 18.33 " " " 3.61 " " " " CaO 48 " " " .09 " MgO 23 " " " .04 " " " " Alkalies traces. Organic matter traces. 97.31 19.03 A determination of water in the dried powder gave 4 per cent, (of whole rock.) Tliis is therefore a magnesian limestone, containing about 15 per cent, of silica, and but a moderate quantity of oxide of iron. It would appear likely to make a good hydraulic lime. No. 71 might also serve that use. No. 71 is described by Prof. Winchell as •' light blue calciferous sandrock, from the lower part of the quarry of Maxfleld and Matlier, Mankato, showing non-hydrated (un-oxidized) natural condition of the deeper beds of the Shakopee formation." Prof. Dodge says of this rock:J Ten grammes of the powdered and dried mineral were digested with hydrochloric acid; a residue was laft which weighed 1.552 gms., making 15.52 per cent, of the rock; the portion dis- solved was therefore 84.48 per cent. «A bed of clay or shale underlying the Shako|>ee limestone at the Standard Cement company's quarry, and ap- parently aa*oainted with the qualities in the limestone which adapt it for the manufacture of hydraulic cement, is de- scribed on pa(?e 4^4. tTentll annual report, p. 204. JSame, p. Zo3. BLUE EABTH COUNTY. 451 Bricks.) Analysis of portion dissolved by hydrochloric acid:— Fe2Oj with small amount of A!2Oj and SiOj 3.U per cent., being 2.65 per cent, of whole rock. CaO CO.. 55.47 " " " 46.86 " " " •' " MgO CO2 39.73 " " "33.56 " " " " 98.34 83.07 Analysis of portion left undissolved by hydrochloric acid:— SiO2 77.90 per cent., being 12.10 per cent, of whole rock. A12O3 19.24 " " " 2.99 " '• " " CaO 34 " " " .05 " •' " " " MgO 12 " " " .02 " Alkalies traces. Organic matter traces. 97.60 15.16 It appears, therefore, that the rock is a magnesian limestone, with about 12 per cent, of silica and somewhat over 2£ per cent, of oxide of iron. Bricks. The principal brick-making in this county is at Mankato. The Mankato Brick company, O. K. Mather, superintendent, has three yards, two of which, making cream-colored bricks, are situated in the north part of the city, about fifty rods southwest from the lime-kilns, while the third, making red bricks, is a mile distant to the southwest. They all are on the bottomland, and the material used is the recent alluvium of the Minnesota river, the excavations reaching from the level of low water to fifteen feet above it. No sand is needed for tempering at these or the following yards. The difference in color of these bricks seems to be due to the mode of burning. With a rapid, hot fire, they take a light buff or cream color through the whole kiln; but when more slowly burnt they are red, except near the fire, where they become brownish or whitish gray. This business was begun ten years ago, and the annual product has averaged about 4,000,000. In 1880 it was 6,000,000, about two-thirds being cream-colored and one-third red. The bricks are sold at $5 to $7 per thousand, loaded upon the cars. Many of them go to distant points, as Saint Paul, Minneapolis, and Duluth. and to southwestern Minnesota and northern Iowa. About a sixth of a mile southwest from the third of the foregoing yards, in the west part of Mankato, F. Polchow & Co. have made red bricks eight years, averaging 4,000,000 yearly, and selling at about $6 per M. The material used is the same fine alluvial silt of the river. All these bricks are of excellent and durable quality. In 1879 Willimes & Grothe began making bricks about one and one-fourth miles north of Mankato, being at the south side of a creek close southwest of Jefferson's quarry. They also use alluvium, producing red bricks excepting near the fire, where they are light gray. About 150,000 were made in 1879, and 3,000,000 in 1880, bringing $5 to f 5.50 per M. Bed bricks have also been made since 1878, by Gekeler brothers, in the N. W. \ of section 8, McPherson, using the alluvium of the Le Sueur river. Their annual product is about 50,000, selling at $5 per M. Brick-making was formerly done, but is discontinued, at five places in the west part of the county, as follows: by O. E. Mather, from 1867 to 1871, on the southeast side of Willow creek, in the S. W. i of section 6, Shelby, producing red bricks of fair quality; also by Mr. Mather, dur- ing the next two years, in the southwest edge of the town of Lake Crystal; in 1869, south of the Garden City fair-ground, on the north bank of the Watouwan river, red bricks, cracked by par- ticles of limestone contained in the sand which was employed for tempering, while the clay used is free from gravel and is said to have been tested in the Mankato pottery and found suitable for making stone-ware; in the N. W. } of section 8, Shelby, on the east side of the Blue Earth river, about eight years ago; and, at nearly the same date, in the S. W. \ of section 32, Ceresco, west of I'erch creek. Fire-bricks. Mr. David P. Davis states that the Cretaceous clay in the lower part of his quarry at South Bend has been tested, and found to be 452 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. (Pottery. Artesian wells . of superior quality, for the manufacture of fire-bricks. From the pottery clay and sand of this age close east of the railroad bridge over the LeSueur river, fire-bricks are successfully made by Andrew Gapter, whose price for them is $40 per thousand at wholesale, and ten cents apiece in small lots. Drain-tiles. S. F. Alberger, of Mankato, has recently begun the man- ufacture of drain-tiles. The clay used is obtained in the bluffs of the Le Sueur river and its tributary from the east known as Chalk run, in the S. W. J of section 35, Mankato, being from No. 2 of the Cretaceous section recorded on page 435. The tiles made are firm and compact, and of a light red or pinkish color, varying to yellowish. Pottery. Andrew Gapter has made pottery in the northeast part of Mankato since 1877 ; obtaining the clay used during the first two years from the bluffs of the Cottonwood river in section 3, Sigel. near New Ulm; but since then getting all the kinds of clay and sand required from the Cretaceous strata just mentioned on the Le Sueur river. He sells yearly about $3,000 worth of ware, the price being eight to nine cents per gallon. It is strong and durable, having, when not glazed, a reddish brown color. Artesian wells and fountains. Some notice of the common wells of Blue Earth county, and of. the ample quantity and good quality of their supply of water, was given in treating of the glacial drift. The well at Mankato, 2,204 feet deep, the section of which has been i presented on page 423, found no artesian flow of water, and is not used. It was drilled for the city, in the winter of 1874-5, at a cost of $12,000. About half its depth is six inches in diameter; and the portion below, three and five-eighths inches. Water was found in one of the layers of sand in the till at 85 feet. Within the rock it was first found at 540 feet, from which depth it rose to 90 feet below the top of the well. At 1,160 feet the drill fell a little, and from this new source the water rose ten feet higher. At 1,975 feet the drill again dropped, and the water rose ten feet higher still, to 70 feet below the surface. The supply appears, as tested by pumping, to be enough for the city's needs; and as the well is at the top, and near the edge, of the bluff, 200 feet above the greater part of the city, the water maybe obtained and the well utilized by tunneling to it at a depth of eighty or ninety feet below its top. Many flowing or artesian wells, called fountains, probably more than BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 453 Fountains. ] one hundred in number, have been obtained by boring to slight depths, from 25 to 75 feet, in the till, upon the area drained by the head-streams of Maple river, from Sterling Center fifteen miles southeastward, including Sterling and Mapleton townships in Blue Earth county, and reaching into Faribault county. It may be that this artesian water is continuous a half dozen miles still farther southeast to Wells, where the most remarkable flowing wells, or fountains, in Minnesota have been found. Though the water at Wells is obtained 110 to 120 feet below the surface, it is yet at a greater hight above the sea than in the shallower fountains on the Maple river. These fountains are mostly bored in the valley of this stream, forty feet below the general level of the adjoiuing country, or in the similar valleys of its tributaiies, which are depressed fifteen to forty feet. Near the Maple river they are commonly about thirty feet deep, being pipe from a half inch to one and a half inches in diameter, and the water rises from them five to ten feet above the surface. The sand and gravel which yield this water are not encountered every- where upon this area, so that many borings in favorable situations get no artesian flow. It also seems likely that some localities have more than one stratum from which water may rise above the surface. For example, three fountains bored by AVilliam Randall in the southwest part of section 14, Sterling, in the valley of a small creek tributary to the Maple river which flows through t'.ie north part of this section, are 30, 50. and 60 feet deep, in their order as one follows down the creek. From the first to the third is about a third of a mile, in which distance the creek probably falls fifteen feet, making the difference in hight of the water-bearing sand at these points forty- five feet; suggesting, as the surface of the drift-sheet upon this region is nearly level, that these layers of sand, instead of being parts of any continuous stratum, may be distinct and independent of each other. The section of the lowest fountain here, 60 feet deep, was soil, 2 feet; soft and sticky blue till. 38 feet; sandy clay, thought to be free from gravel, 20 feet; with sand at the bot- tom from which the water rose in one minute to the surface. The owners of the four mills on Maple river, and of the Red Jacket mill on the Le Sneur river, having been often hindered by scarcity of water, offered to pay $60 from each mill, if a hundred cubic feet of water per minute should be added to the Maple river by fountains. Well- makers accordingly obtained the right to bore on two farms and six fountains were obtained on each. One of the farms is now owned by E. W. Hicks, living close east of the northwest corner of section 14, Sterling. The largest of the fountains bored here forms a stream two feet wide and six inches deep. The other six fountains are on Mr. Cornell's farm, in the west edge of Ma- pleton, three miles farther southeast. Together the twelve fountains yield 135 cubic feet of water per minute; for which these mill-owners paid $325. This was done in 1877, and is regarded as a good investment, for this additional flow is constant through the year and enables the mills to work in the driest seasons. CHAPTER XIV. THE GEOLOGY OF FARIBAULT COUNTY. BY WAKREN UPHAM. Situation and area. Faribault county (plate 17) is the central one in the tier of nine counties on the south side of the state, bordering Iowa. The distance from its north line north-northeast to Saint Paul and Minne- apolis is about 90 miles; and from its east line to the Mississippi river at La Crosse is 120 miles. This county is a rectangle, its length from east to west being five townships, or thirty miles, and its width from north to south four townships, or twenty-four miles. Its area is 723.72 square miles, or 463.184.53 acres, of which 9,151.21 acres are covered by water. The largest towns and villages are Blue Earth City, Winnebago City, Delavan, Easton, Wells, and Minnesota Lake. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. The whole of Faribault county lies within the basin of the Blue Earth river, which flows northerly through its two western ranges of townships; while the East fork of this river, formed by Jones and Brush creeks in the southeast part of the county, flows west through its southern half and joins the main stream at Blue Earth City. The middle part of the northern third of the county is drained by the head-streams of Maple river, which is tributary to the Le Sueur and through that to the Blue Earth river. Dunbar, the most northeastern township, is drained principally by the Big Cobb river, also reaching the Blue Earth through Le Sueur river. The general slopes of the surface thus descend northward; FAKIBAULT COUNTY. 455 Topography.] from the southeast part of the county westerly to Blue Earth City; and from its west boundary easterly to the Blue Earth river. Lakes. Faribault county has frequent lakes, the largest of which is Minnesota lake, two and a quarter miles long from east to west and one to one and a half miles wide, lying in the northwest part of Minnesota Lake township, with its north edge reaching into Blue Earth county. Others deserving .mention are Rice lake, in Delavan, three and a half miles long from north to south, and averaging about a half mile in width; Bass lake, north of the last, and only divided from it by a low and narrow ridge; Swan lake, about two-thirds of a mile long, with two or three others of smaller size, forming a group near the center of Barber township ; Ozahtanka lake, having an area of about two square miles, in Barber and Emerald; Walnut lake, also covering about two square miles, in the south part of Walnut Lake township, and extending south into Brush Creek and Foster; Goose and Swan lakes, within a mile farther south in Brush Creek; ami five lakes, from a half mile to one and one-fourth miles in length, lying in the southwest part of the county, in Jo Daviess and Pilot Grove townships. Topography. The greater part of this county has a slightly undulating or often nearly flat surface, with slopes ot very gentle and commonly im- perceptible descent toward the water-courses. The streams have channeled from thirty to one hundred feet into the drift, which forms the surface and everywhere covers the county so deeply that the bed-rocks have no exposure within its limits. The East branch of the Blue Earth river at Clayton, in the north edge of Seely township, flows 30 feet below the general level; at Blue Earth City the valley is 50 feet deep; and northward through Verona and Winnebago City, its depth increases from 50 to 90 or 100 feet. Its bottomland, five to twenty feet above the stream, is mainly from a quarter to a half of a mile wide, bordered by steep bluffs that rise to the almost flat expanse qf till upon which Blue Earth City and Winnebago City are built, and which covers the whole county excepting two belts of morainic hills. One of these extends from Kiester, in the southeast corner of the county, northwestward nearly to Delavan ; and the other, which lies mostly in Iowa, includes the southern edge of Elmore and Pilot Grove. Many fur- ther details respecting the contour are stated in a later part of this chapter, in the description of the drift. Elevations on the Southern Minnesota division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paid railway. From George B. Woodworth, assistant engineer, La Crosse. Miles from Feet above La Crosse. the sea. Dood's switch, near the east line of the county 139.7 1189 Wells 144.4 1153 Junction of the Mankato branch 144.7 1145 Minnesota Lake station, on this branch 153.0 1038 Easton 153.3 1046 Summit, grade 157.1 1077 Delavan ...159.2 1057 Depression, grade 159.6 1047 456 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevations. Soil nnd timber. I Crossing branch of C.. St. P., M. & O. railway 166.1 1095 Winnebago City 166.3 1096 Blue Earth river, water 168.4 1014 The elevations above the spa of the Blue Earth river and its tributaries in Faribault county are approximately as follows: Blue Earth river at the south line of the county and state, 1125 feet; at the mouth of the East fork, in Blue Earth City, 1050; at the north line of the county, 990; Jones creek at the east line of the county, 1200; Walnut lake, 1125; Maple river at the north line of the county, 980; and the Big Cobb river in Dunbar, 1075 to 1100. Mean elevation of the county. Estimates of the average hight of the townships of Faribault county are as follows: Dunbar, 1120 feet above the sea ; Clark, 1170; Foster, 1200 ; Kiester, 1250 ; Seely, 1175 ; Brush Creek, 1125; Walnut Lake, 1125; Minnesota Lake, 1050; Lura, 1040; Barber, 1100; Emerald, 1125; Rome, 1160; Elmore, 1160; Blue Earth City, 1120; Prescott, 1100; Delavan, 1050; Winnebago City, 1080; Verona, 1100; Jo Daviess, 1150; and Pilot Grove, 1180. The mean elevation of the county is thus 1130 feet, very nearly, above the sea. Its highest points, the hills in section 3, Kies- ter, are about 1400 feet above the sea; and its lowest land, in the valleys of the Blue Earth and Maple rivers, slightly less than 1000. Soil and Umber. The soil of Faribault county has the usual character of the whole area of slightly undulating glacial drift which overspreads the basin of the Minnesota river. It is almost universally the unmodified drift, or till, consisting principally of clay, but enclosing a considerable proportion of sand and gravel and occasional stones and boulders. A thickness of about two feet of this deposit next to the surface Jias been made dark by decaying vegetation, and is the black soil. On the top of swells, and especially of the morainic hills and ridges, its depth is some- times only about one foot, but is rarely much less; and in the depressions it is often three or four feet deep. This soil has a sufficient intermixture of sand to make it porous, easily allowing rains to soak into it and moisture to rise through it to the surface in a drought. It is therefore ready for early sowing and planting soon after the snow has melted in spring, and can well endure either very wet or unusually dry seasons. Besides wheat, which was formerly its leading crop, Faribault county is well adapted for raising oats, corn, hay, horses, pork, beef, butter, amber cane, flax, potatoes, and the ordinary vegetables and small fruits of the garden, all of which now receive due attention in the agriculture of this region. Timber of large and dense growth usually occupies the bottomlands FARIBAULT COUNTY. 457 Timber. Geological strufture.J and bluffs of the Blue Earth river through this county, and of its East fork to a distance of fifteen miles above its mouth. It also forms groves or nar- | row belts on the borders of nearly all the lakes and creeks. With these exceptions the whole county, including both its smooth areas of nearly level till, and its rolling and prominently hilly tracts of the same glacial drift in moraines, is prairie, destitute of trees or shrubs, and bearing everywhere luxuriant grass. The species of forest trees found in Faribault county, in the estimated order of their relative abundance, according to Mr. Alex. Halliday, pro- prietor of the Verona Star mills, are bur oak, slippery or red elm, soft ma- ple, box-elder, wild crab-apple, black walnut, bitternut, common poplar, or American aspen, the large-toothed poplar, and cottonwood, common; black oak, white or American elm, sugar maple, and June-berry, less common; black cherry, white ash, hackberry, and butternut, scarce ; Kentucky cof- fee-tree, rare. The species of shrubs are stated by the same authority to be prickly ash, black currant, and hazel, abundant; frost grape, climbing bitter-sweet, smooth sumach, thorn, rose, wolf berry, and elder, common; choke-cherry, red raspberry, and prickly and smooth wild gooseberries, less common; the wild red cherry, and the black ras'pberry or thimble- berry, scarce. Mr. Halliday has seen cottonwoods and black walnut trees in this county five feet in diameter. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. Faribault county has no outcrop of the bed-rocks that underlie the drift, but at five places wells have penetrated the drift and gone consider- able depths into rock beneath. These are at Winnebago City, Easton, Minnesota Lake, Wells, and in Seely township. Their sections are as fol- lows: Winnebago City mills, a steam flouring mill; bight about 1,095 feet above the sea: well, 230 feet deep; soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 18 feet; blue till, 140, containing occasional beds of sand, from a few inches to five feet in thickness; stratified sand, probably modified drift filling a pre-glacial valley, 40 feet; yellowish and reddish magnesian limestone, 30 feet, the tcp of this rock being ap- proximately 900 feet above the sea. Two other wells in Winnebago City go 150 and 160 feet in till, finding no bed-rock. Terhurne & Scheid; Easton; bight about 1,050 feet: well, 205 feet deep; till, 101 feet, includ- ing layers of sand one to two feet thick, to rock at approximately 950 feet above the sea; consist- ing of whitish limestone, 8 inches; thin-layered, gray rock, probably also limestone, 2 feet; light gray sandstone, 101 feet, and extending below, coarsely granular, in some portions quite hard, quickly dulling the drill. This well was made with the expectation of obtaining an artesian flow. 458 THE WKOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Bed-rock in welli. Water was struck in the two feet of thinly bedded rock next above the sandstone, and rose to seven feet below the surface, but no considerable supply of water was found in the drift, and none additional in the sandstone. Chauncy Barber; Minnesota Lake; at hight of about 1,040 feet: well, 140 feet deep; yellow till, 10; soft blue till. 80, to top of rock at approximately 950 feet above the sea; then, whitish limestone, 3 feet; thin-layered rock, probably limestone, 2 feet; soft, green shale, 2 feet; and gray sandstone, 43 feet, and extending lower. Xo water was found in the rocks below the drift. C.W.Thompson; one mile west of Wells; about 1,140 feet above the sea: well, 153 feet deep; yellow and blue till, 117 feet; then, gray sandstone, 34 feet; softer, whitish shale, 2 feet; supply of water, insufficient. The top of this sandrock is approximately 1,025 feet above the sea. Another well, near by on the same farm, is 118 feet deep, and found soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 10; blue till, soft and sticky, 106 feet, excepting three feet of quicksand, with a little water, at about seventy-five feet from the surface; from sand or sandstone at the bottom water rose in this well to fifteen feet below its top. In the twenty or more flowing wells, or fountains, at Wells, bed-rock is struck at 110 to 120 feet below the surface, or about 1,040 to 1,050 feet above the sea; and as soon as the thin stratum of the rock is pierced, water rises to the surface and five feet to fifteen feet above it. The sec- tion here is till, holding occasional layers of sand one to four feet thick, to a depth of 110 to 118 feet; then a stratum of yellowish or straw-colored rock is encountered, and after drilling into this a few inches or one or two feet, it appears that a vein of water one. to six inches in thickness is found, not in gravel and sand but filling a cavity of the rock, from which the artesian flow comes. If the pipe is driven farther after reaching the water, it directly strikes upon rock below and the flow of water is shut off. No specimens of the stratum next above the water were obtained, but from the descriptions of well-makers and others it appears to be a limestone or a hard, sandy shale. It lies above the sandstone of Mr. Thompson's well, and the water probably lies at the junction of these beds, being held down by the impervious upper rock. The greatest thickness of the rock was at the vinegar factory, about one and a half miles south of Wells station, and probably ten feet higher, where a thickness of five feet of the yellowish limestone or shale were passed through at the depth of 110 to 115 feet. Water was found immediately under this, and rose to three feet below fhe surface. In rare cases this rock is not found before reaching the water supply, as in W. W. Woodard's well, in the south part of Wells, and on the highest land within the limits of this corporation, where the section was soil, 2 feet; yellow sand and clay, 6 feet; fine sand, 2 feet; yellow till, 10; blue till. 97, containing occasional beds of sand from two inches to two feet in thickness, yielding no water, till reaching the bottom at 117 feet, whence, without striking the usual layer of rock, an artesian flow of water rose to five feet above the surface. The beds of sand found in the till here are not persistent, as shown by two wells at A. L. Taylor's stable, one of which went through some four feet of sand at the depth of about sixty feet, while another boring twenty feet distant encountered only till or boulder-clay in this portion of its depth. In two instances, at Mr. Taylor's stable and at the Wells House, the bark of trees was found near the base of the drift deposits, 112 to 115 feet below the surface, but no shells nor other organic remains have been reported from these wells, which are usually bored two inches in diameter. Rarely these borings at Wells fail to secure an artesian flow, and in one of this kind Mr. P. Morse, well-maker, informs me that he went to a depth of 148 feet, the section being till 115 feet, and then sand, probably soft sandstone, for the remaining 33 feet, not passed through at this depth. The only other point at which the bed-rock has been reached in this county is A. 13. Brant's well, in the S. W. J of section 4, Seely, close to Clayton post-office, which was bored 123 feet deep in hope of an artesian flow of water. This was soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 10; softer, moist, blue till, 80; harder blue till, 3 feet; bluish gray limestone, 28 feet, changing to lighter gray below, not penetrated. The top of this rock is estimated to be about 1025 feet above the sea. The only water obtained is from thin veins of sand which occur at various depths in the till, and it rises to four feet below the surface. From the strike, dip, and hight of the rocky strata which outcrop in Blue Earth county and farther to the northeast and east, we may decide FABIBAULT COUNTY. 459 licd-rock in wellt.J with much certainty that the rock of the Winnebago City well is the Sha- kopee limestone; and that the sandstone of the wells at Easton and Minne- sota Lake belongs to the next higher formation, the St. Peter sandstone, still retaining in these wells a thin cap of the Trenton limestone, which directly overlies this sandrock at Minneapolis and throughout southeastern Minnesota. The southeastward dip of these rocks, which carries them, with all the higher Silurian formations, beneath the Devonian limestone of Worth and Cerro Gordo counties in Iowa and of Mower and Fillmore counties in this state, makes it improbable that the limestone or shale and underlying sandstone encountered at Wells are the same with those of Easton and Minnesota Lake. But the Palaeozoic series in this state and Iowa has no thick beds of sandstone above the St. Peter; and the next geological age which is represented in this region by such deposits is the Cretaceous. We seem obliged, therefore, to refer to this age a formation of white sandstone, about 60 feet in thickness, enclosing a layer three feet thick of limestone and yellow shale at 21 to 24 feet below its top, which is found in the deep well at Owatonna, succeeded below by the limestones and shales of the Trenton group and the St. Peter sandstone (page 398). The same Cretaceous sandstone appears to be the bed-rock struck by wells at New Richland in southeastern Waseca county (page 410), half-way from Owatonna to Wells; and at the latter place it seems probable that the layer penetrated by its artesian wells corresponds to the limestone and shale enclosed in the Creta- ceous sandstone at Owatonna, while this sandstone lies next below and is found in C. W. Thompson's well to have a thickness of at least 34 feet. The top of the strata which thus appear to be a continuous Cretaceous formation has the following hights, approximately, above the sea: in the Owatonna well, 1111 feet, the included limestone and shale being found at 1090; at New Richland, 1070; and at Wells. 1040 to 1050. These places lie in a straight line, the distance southwest from Owatonna to New Richland being eighteen miles, and to Wells thirty-four miles. Respecting the age of the limestone found in the well of section 4, Seely, we can only say that the known stratigraphy and topography of the region indicate that probably it belongs to either the Galena or Niagara formations, intermediate between the Lower Trenton and Devonian, while 460 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Drift and contour. it may possibly represent either of the last. The nearest natural exposure of any rock older than the drift is thirty miles distant to the southeast, being on Lime creek in southwestern Worth county, Iowa. There the Hamilton limestone of Devonian age is found, and extends thence south- east to the Mississippi, having abundant outcrops along the Shell Rock and Cedar rivers. Indications of the existence of Cretaceous beds containing lignite are reported to have been found in the S. W. i of section 11, Verona. Mr. John Crapsey states that a great number of pieces of lignite, up to eight inches in diameter, were obtained by him there from the drift or talus forming the lower part of the east bluff of the Blue Earth river, a little above an island; and that near by the bed of the river seems to be a ferruginous sandstone or conglomerate. It is inter- esting to compare this with Prof. Bechdolt's observation (page 435) that fragments of lignite occur frequently in the alluvium of this river at its mouth. The layers of Cretaceous lignite in Minne- sota, however, are too thin to be of value as a source of fuel; though they lu.ve supplied fragments found sparingly in the drift throughout the western two-thirds of the state. Drift and contour. The thickness of the drift upon this county probably varies from 75 to 200 feet, averaging 125 or perhaps 150 feet. It is composed mainly of till, which encloses occasional veins and beds of gravel and sand, and shows the same differences in color, hardness, and other characters, that have been mentioned more particularly in the report of Blue Earth county. In northeastern Faribault county, the east half of Foster has a moderately undulating surface, composed of till, excepting occasional knolls or mounds of gravel and sand. From Freeborn lake to Wells, and thence north, northwest and west, to the north line of the county, to Minnesota and Lura lakes, and to Easton, the surface is very smooth and flat or more commonly somewhat undu- ting till, the descent of five to fifteen feet from the highest portions to the shallow depressions of sloughs being by long slopes. This area includes the west two-thirds of Freeborn and Carlston in Freeborn county; and, in Faribault county, all of Dunbar and Minnesota Lake, Clark, except- ing its southwest corner, the northeast part of Walnut Lake, and nearly all of Lura, except part of its southwest quarter. Again, on the other side of the moraine which extends northwestward from Kiester, flat or only slightly undulating till covers the southern and western parts of the county. Blue Earth river and its East fork have their course nearly along the center of this tract, from the west side of the Kiester hills westward to Blue Earth City, and then north by Winnebago City into Blue Earth county. The townships in this area are Seely, Brush Creek, Rome, Emerald, the south- western half of Barber, Elmore. except a width of one to one and a half miles on its south side, Blue Earth City, Prescott, Delavan, Pilot Grove, except a width of one and a half miles on its south side, Jo Daviess, Verona, and Winnebago City. Glacial lake in the basin of the Blue Earth river* The contour in these townships, as also in the northeast part of this county, in southwestern Waseca county, and through most of Blue Earth county, is generally quite flat, the drift being spread with an unusually smooth and even surface, nearly as in the Red river valley. The material of all these tracts is till, *First described in the ninth annual rep >rt, page 34V FARIBAULT COUNTY. Glacial UVe.] or a gravelly and stony clay. At many places, however, in western Fari- bault county and in Blue Earth county, its upper ten feet is found to- be in part obscurely or sometimes quite plainly stratified. In this characteristic, also, it resembles the till which generally forms the surface of the south end and of the sides or outer portions of the flat Red river valley, which was covered by lake Agassiz during the recession of the ice-sheet.* Much of the basin that is now drained northward by the Blue Earth river, dis- tinguished thus by its smoothed and sometimes partly stratified till, ap- pears to have been occupied by a similar glacial lake, dammed by the barrier of the waning ice-sheet of the last glacial epoch during a consider- able time in which this was retreating northward and northwestward from the south line of the state and from its eastern moraine, until its recession uncovered the present avenue of drainage to the northeast by the Minne- sota river. The hight of this lake was approximately 1150 feet above the sea, making its depth in the north part of Faribault county 50 to 1 25 feet, on the west line of Waseca county about 75 feet, and in the north part of Blue Earth county about 200 feet. Its exact boundary can probably be traced, with the aid of leveling, along considerable portions of its eastern, south- ern and southwestern shores, by its beach deposits of gravel and sand. When this lake attained its maximum extent, it is believed to have spread far to the northwest beyond the limits of the basin of the Blue Earth river.f The outlet of this glacial lake is found in Kossuth county, Iowa, at the head of the most southern branch of the Blue Earth river, where Union slough:}: occupies a continuous channel from the headwaters of the Blue Earth to Buffalo creek and the East fork of the Des Moines. It is stated that at the time of high water an wiinterrupted canoe voyage has been made by this route from Algona on the East Des Moines river north to Blue Earth City. Union slough (also frequently called the "Big slough" 'Compare the eighth and eleventh annual reports. tAt time of formation of the moraine that reaches f roni Kiester northwestward (page 462), this lah : Minnesota valley and permitted drainage to take its present course. JCompare Dr. C. A. White's Report on Ilif geological surrey of Iowa, 1 S70; vol . i , p. 57. 4(5 '2 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Glacial lake. Moraines. by settlers on its east side) lies in the east part of township 98, and in sec- tions 3, 4 and 9, of township 97, range 38, its length being about eight miles in a course first south and then south-southwest. Its width is from one-eighth to one-fourth of a mile, with enclosing bluffs which rise steeply twenty to thirty feet to the general surface of moderately undulating till on each side. The bottom of this glacial channel along the Union slough, where its descent was southward, is now mainly occupied by a marsh, because of the partial filling up of its continuation, since the ice age, by Buffalo creek. Along the head-stream of the Blue Earth river, from Union slough to the state line, this channel has a width of about an eighth of a mile, and is twenty-five to thirty feet below the average surface at each side, to which the ascent is by moderate slopes. This valley, eroded by outflow from the glacial lake of Faribault and Blue Earth counties, soon changes upon the smoothed area covered by that lake to channels eroded since the glacial period by the present drainage. Thus the excavation by this branch of the Blue Earth river in Elmore is thirty to forty feet deep, and has steeper banks, but is narrower, than the valley in which it lies farther south. Northward, the lacustrine area, otherwise a vast plain, has become deeply eroded by the Blue Earth river and its tributaries. Moraines. Exceptions to the generally smooth and nearly level con- tour of the drift are found in two rolling and hilly tracts, one in the eastern half of the county, the other on its southern edge. The most conspicuous elevations, in this part of the state are the drift hills in Kiester township. This tract is closely joined with the inner or western of the two approxi- mately parallel terminal moraines, which extend from north to south across Freeborn county, and which were accumulated at the east side of the vast lobe of the ice-sheet that in the last glacial epoch covered the basin of the Minnesota river and reached south to central Iowa. The drift upon this ice-covered area was left with a very smooth, slightly undulating surface, while its borders are marked by morainic belts of hilly and knolly drift. These hills in Kiester appear to indicate that the ice-margin here became indented by a re-entrant angle between two confluent ice-currents. Northwest from Kiester, a belt of hilly or more or less rolling drift reaches twenty miles, to the southwest part of Lnra; and ten miles beyond appears PABIBAULT COUNTY. 453 Moraines.] to be represented by a hilly and rolling tract in the southwest part of Sterling, in Blue Earth county. The first opinion of the writer, stated in the ninth annual report, that this morainic belt was formed wholly as a medial moraine by converging ice-currents, seems questionable. Further exploration is needed to determine whether it is not instead a terminal moraine, accumulated on the southwest side of this ice-lobe, after three distinct times of recession from its outermost limit. This explanation is strongly confirmed by comparison with the three similar morainic belts beyond this toward the south and southwest, all of which are apparently terminal, as shown in the report of Watonwan and Martin counties.* The most hilly portions of Kiester are its south side for a width of one mile, and a belt through its northeast part from section 13 to sections 3 and 4, in which are the most prominent of these hills, visible lifteen miles to the north and west. Their hight is from 100 to 200 feet above the lowland in these directions and above Bear lake in Freeborn county; the highest points, which are in the S. W. j of section 3, being about 1400 feet above the sea. These are massive hills of till, of irregular outlines, but trending somewhat more from east to west than in other directions. Between the hill-ranges of the north and south parts of this township, its central portion for a width of two or three miles is only moderately undulating till, reaching east at the head of Brush creek to the west border of the plain of modified drift in Mansfield, Freeborn county. In sections 8, 17, 20 and 29, through the west part of Kiester, a series of hills of till. 60 to 75 feet high, connects the west ends of these ranges and forms the west border of the lower tract between them, except at the gap through which Brush creek flows. In Foster, the township next north of Kiester, boldly rolling hills of till flf ty to seventy-five feet high extend from section 28 to the north and northwest by Rice lake, where they occupy a width from one-half mile to one mile on each side of the lake. Still farther northwest the same contour and material border the east, north and west sides of Walnut lake, including the most of sections 25 to 28, and 33 to 36, of Walnut Lake township. The land south of Walnut lake is low and gently undulating till, with frequent marshes. In Barber, the township next west, a prominently rolling tract is found about the little lakes in sections 14, 15, 22 and«23. The mate- rial here is till, and its swells or hills are thirty to fifty feet above the hollows. Through six miles thence northwest a more or less rolling surface of the unmodified glacial drift continues in a belt about two miles wide, to the southwest part of Lura and the east edge of Delavan. On the rail- road it is crossed in the first three or four miles east of Delavan, where its swells are twenty-five to forty feet high, not crowded and thickly set, but generally in long slopes, with no prevailing trend. This morainic belt divides two extensive areas of till, which are characterized by a very smooth and flat surface. In the south edge of Elmore and Pilot Grove a width from one to one and a half miles is hilly or prominently rolling drift, and forms part of a *Iii this connection it is important to note that Prof. N. H. Winchell in 1871 and 1872 observed four terminal mo- Blanehard ridges (Proceedings of the Am. Assoc. for Adv. of Science, vol. xxi, H72. pp. 160—177; also, Report of the geoloyicnl mavey at Ohio, vol. ii, IS74) Again. Prof. T. (J. Chamberlln observed three distinct morainic belts belonging to this epoch, divided bv smoother tracts, in a section between Black Brook (T. 33, K. 16) and St. Croix Falls, at the west side of Wisconsin (Gcnli/ay of Wisconsin, vol iii, 1880, pp. 381 and 385). If this be a fourth terminal moraine, its continuation northwestward is probably traceable to the vicinity of Big Stone lake. My observations of the area across which it would lie. make it certain that no very prominent accumula- tions of morain c drift occur there; but suggest that this formation should be searched for in a course extending by Madelin. near lake Hanska, Meepy Eye creek, and the northwest corner of Redwood county, to the southwest part ot Tyro in Yellow Medicine county, nnd thence to the eastern morainic belt in township ll'J, range 4«, Lac qui Parle county. The glacial lake before mentioned would extend along this ice-border, through Watonwan, Brown and Ked- wood counties, covering an area several mileswide in the depression between the ice-sheet and the Coteau des Prairies. Its first interruption by land higher than 1 15" feet above the sea would be in Yellow Medicine county, where a fourth morainic belt wa» observed, with a great water-course of some former time at its west side. * 464 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Modified drift. Boulden. belt of similar contour, which seems to be a terminal moraine, reaching in Iowa through the north part of Hancock county, southwestern Winnebago, and northeastern Kossuth county, into Minnesota. The most noteworthy hill of this area in Elmore is in the north part of section 32, rising 50 to 60 feet and about a sixth of a mile long, trending from east to west. In the south part of sec- tions 25 and 26, Pilot Grove, hillocks and short ridges form a somewhat continuous east-to-west series, 40 to 50 feet high. These accumulations are chiefly till, differing from its level or moder- ately undulating tracts in a greater abundance of boulders; but occasional knolls, sometimes the highest of their vicinity, are composed of obliquely stratified gravel and sand. In sections 29 and 32, Pilot Grove, these morainic deposits are inconspicuous or wanting; next they rise to the hight of 30 to 40 feet in section 31 and the south half of section 30, at the southwest corner of Faribault county; and thence they occur scatteringly all the way northwest to East Cha n, and less promi- nently to Fairmont. In this distance their material, and that of the whole region about them, is till. Their contour is seldom rough, but rises in swells, 25 to 50 feet above intervening depres- sions, with trends most frequentiy from northwest to southeast. Modified drift. Kames occur three miles south of Walnut lake, in sec- tion 23, Brush Creek. They consist of short northwest to southeast ridges and round or conical knolls, steep-sided, about twenty feet high, composed of coarse gravel and sand, and form a series three-fourths of a mile long. The region surrounding them is slightly or moderately undulating till. A portion of the moraine, situated in sections 16 and 8, Walnut Lake town- ship, two and a half to five miles northwest of the lake, is formed of kame- like deposits, accumulated in swells, knolls and northwest to southeast ridges, thirty to forty feet high, of very gentle slopes, composed mainly of stratified sand and fine gravel, as shown by wells, which do not reach the bottom of t]^is modified drift at the depth of fifty feet. Alluvium. The stratified clay and sand used for brick-making at Blue Earth City, and other similar beds of small extent, appear to be alluvium laid down along the avenues of drainage after the glacial lake that had covered this area was withdrawn by the departure of the ice-sheet which had been its northern barrier. Pebbles and boulders. On the Kiester hills pebbles and boulders occur more plentifully than on the lowlands, but are not usually very abundant, and blocks more than five feet in diameter are rare. About one-twentieth part of the large boulders and probably one-fifth of all the pebbles are limestone, often obscurely fossil iferous. The greater part of the rock- fragments, especially the larger blocks, are granite, syenite, gneiss and crystalline schists. One boulder, ten feet long, of garnetiferous horn- blende schist, was noted here. A greenish slaty rock is also sparingly FAR1BAULT COUNTY. 465 Pebbles and boulders. Wells,] represented. Only a few pieces of the red Potsdam quartzyte, which out- crops near New Ulm and southwestward, were seen, the largest being one foot long. ISTo conglomerate was found. It is noticeable that a considerable proportion of the pebbles upon these hills of till are water-rounded, and that some have the flattened, discoid form which is characteristic of the stones of a shingle beach, worn by sliding with the rise and fall of the waves, rather than by being rolled in the channel of streams, which gives more commonly a somewhat spheroidal shape. These water-worn stones are evidence that the ice-sheet gathered much of its drift from pre-glacial valleys and lake shores, lifted these gravels of ancient rivers and beaches into its mass, and at its border and during its final melting deposited them as constituents of the till and modified drift. Wells in Faribuult county. The following records of common wells afford further illustrations of the composition and order of the drift deposits. Clark. The sections before described in Wells and its vicinity are in this township. Foster. John Shequen; sec. 14: well, 18 feet; all sand; plenty of water. M. Butler; S. E. } of sec. 15: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 26; gravel and sand, with small amount of water, 2 feet; blue till below. R. D. Taylor; N. E. J of sec 21: well, 22; soil, 2; yellow till, 12; gravel and sand, 8. Kiester. John Harvey; S. W. J of sec. 31: well, 45; soil, 2; yellow till, with gravelly streaks, 12; gravel and sand, J foot; blue till, very hard at top for one foot, then moist and soft below, 31. This well has only seep water from the lower part of the yellow till. A copious spring, much resorted to by cattle, slightly chalybeate, issues near the middle of sec. 14, upon land twenty-five feet higher than neighboring depressions and a hundred feet below the highest hills near at the northeast and northwest. Mr. E. Porter, well-maker, of Lake Mills, Iowa, states that in the south part of Kiester the upper till, yellowish in color, is usually 8 to 10 feet thick; \inderlain by sand, 1 to 8 feet in thick- ness; succeeded by dark bluish till, called "hardpan", much harder than the uppertill. Generally, however, it has been his experience that the yellow till is more stony and harder to bore or dig in than the underlying blue till, which is moist and sticky. The greatest thickness of yellow till found by him is twenty-five feet. He has frequently found fragments of lignite, but no unchanged wood nor shells. Seely. 1. M. Riker; N. E. J of sec. 10: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 8; blue till, soft and sticky, 20; water rose ten feet from gravel and sand at the bottom. A. B. Brant's well in sec. 4, reaching to the bed -rock, has-been described on page 458. II. W. Everett, well-maker, states that the yellow upper till of this region almost always contains sandy streaks and seep water, while these occur less frequently in the blue till, which is moister and softer, and has fewer rock-fragments, than the till above. The greatest thickness of the yellow till, found in boring fifty wells, is 20 feet; and the greatest depth bored by him in the blue till is 70 feet. A dark " hardpan", much harder than either of these tills, is frequently found, varying from one to five feet in thickness, always lying under a considerable depth of the soft and moist blue till. Mr. P. Morse, of Wells, and W. Z. Haight, of Winnebago City, well-makers, agree with the foregoing as to the characters and order of the three distinct kinds of till generally met in deep wells throughout this county. Mr. Morse reports the maximum thickness of the dark hardpan, as found by him, to be 12 feet. Mr. Haight has found the yellow color of the till extending deepest on swells; while it is thin or wanting in depressions. Its maximum depth found by him is 50 feet; the greatest thickness of the soft, blue till, 50 or very rarely 75 feet; and of the darker till or hard- 30 466 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA [Well,, pan, which almost invariably is overlain by a considerable thickness of the last, 10 feet. Small pieces of lignite, derived from Cretaceous strata mingled with the drift, are frequently found; but no shells, and no interglacial peat nor wood. Brush Creek. Guslav Buscho; sec. 8; well, 20; soil, 2; yellow till, 4; quicksand, 1 foot; blue till, moist and sticky, yet harder than the upper till, 13 feet; water rose five feet from a vein of sand at the bottom. Walnut Lake. C. F. Zimmerman; 8. E. J of sec. 4; well, 32 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 15; harder blue till, 15; water rose in a half day twenty-five feet from sand at the bottom. O. A. Odell, sec. 8: well, about 50 feet deep; all stratified gravel and sand. C. S. Bates; S. W. ^ of sec. 15: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; a marly layer, 1 foot; fine gravel, con- taining pebbles up to two or three inches in diameter, and sand, 27; water abundant, fifteen feet deep. The two last are upon the high rolling tract of modified drift, apparently of kame-like origin, which forms part of the moraine. Mr. Morse has bored to a depth of 166 feet in this township, about two miles north of Walnut lake, not reaching the bottom of the glacial drift. Minnesota Lake. Chauncy Barber's well, near the depot, going through the drift into the bed-rocks, has been before described. Lura. Also see a preceding page for Terhurne & Scheid's well, at Easton, in sec. 36. John E. James; Easton: well, 70; soil, 2; yellow till, 15; softer blue till, 53; water rose forty-five feet from sand at the bottom. Watson Cole, in the 8. E. j- of sec. 32, has bored 160 feet, but the strata passed through were not learned. Mr. Ilaight reports that in boring a well in this township, about two miles north of Easton, he met, at 60 feet below the surface, a layer of mixed sand and grass-leaves, appearing like drifted grass on a sandy beach. This was between beds of till, and marks an interglacial epoch; but no other testimony of this kind was obtained in Faribault county. Barber. Andrew Wesner; sec. 22 : well, 20 ; soil, 2 ; gray till, 5 ; blue till, 5; yellowish gravel and sand, 8 feet, with water in its lower portion. Emerald. Fred Weber; sec. 10: well, 24 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 4; blue till, soft and sticky, 18; no gravel por sand layers; water seeps from the upper till, and is very scanty in a dry season. F. Dreblow; Ewald post-office, sec. 30: well, 22; soil, 2; gray till, 2; blue till, 18; seep water only. Elmore. Caleb McCarther; in southeast part of this township: well, 81 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 18; harder blue till, 60; coarse gravel, 1 foot; from which water rose eighty feet, stopping at one foot below the surface. Blue Earth City. George McCarther; in the city: well, 92 feet, being the deepest within the corporation; soil, 2; yellow till, 18; harder, dark till, 50; stratified gravel, sand and clay, 22; water rises, attaining a depth of fifty feet. TheTailroad well here is 68 feet deep, finding soil and yellow till, 20 feet; blue till, 48 feet; with water rising from the bottom thirty-five feet. The elevator, close north of the last, has a well 36 feet deep, containing twenty feet of water. Joseph Schimek, S. E. }, sec. 20; well, 44 feet; soil, 2; yellow and blue till, 42; only seep water. In another well, a quarter of a mile farther east, water rose forty feet from the bottom. G. B. Franklin, well-maker, states that the yellow till in this township is commonly 10 to 20 feet thick, its lowest foot being very hard, cemented by iron-rust. This is succeeded below by 15 to 20 feet of soft, bluish till, which in turn is underlain by a darker, harder, and more stony till, called " hardpan." Delavan. H. E. Mayhew; at the village and depot, in sec. 36; well, 60 feet deep; yellow till, 15; soft blue till, 45; water rises from sand at the bottom to twenty feet below the surface. Winnebago City. W. II. Holley; in the city: well, 96 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 15; soft, blue till, 74; dark hardpan, with many limestone pebbles, 5 feet; water rose fifty feet from sand and, gravel at the bottom. The ten bushels of this sand and gravel which were drawn up contained about a peck of lignite in small fragments. Mr. W. Z. Haight supplied the record of this well; as also of the deep well at the Winnebago City mills, which reaches into the bed-rock, as before described. He states that in the vicinity of this city the order of the drift deposits is generally as follows: yellow till, about twenty feet; soft, blue till, 30 to 50 feet, becoming near its base a lighter FARIBAULT COUNTY. 467 Water powers. Bricks.] bluish or brownish, soft mud, of fetid smell, 1 to 6 feet thick; and from this there is a change in two to five feet to the dark, very hard till called " hardpan," which is the hardest, most compact and most rocky of these tills. Verona. John G. Pace; sec. 24: well, 44 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 15; blue till, 16; gravel, sand and clay, 11; water rose ten feet. Alex Ilalliday; at Verona Star mills; sec. 24: well, 45 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 8; much harder dark till, 35; water rose nine feet from sand at the bottom. Pilot Grove. Dr. G. D. Winch estate; sec. 8: well, 100 feet ; soil, 2 feet; yellow till, about 5 feet; all below was blue till, about 93 feet, with few sand layers; at the bottom was sand, from which water rose ninety feet. Pitt Wilson; S. W. J of sec. 20: well, 70 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 18; harder blue till, 60; water rose from quicksand at the bottom, and after one and a half hours flowed from the top of the well. MATERIAL RESOURCES. Agriculture must always continue the leading industry, as it unfolds the most valuable natural resources of this county. We have here to speak briefly of its water-powers, brick-making, peat, and artesian fountains. Water-powers. Five water-powers are used in Faribault county, all situated on the Blue Earth river and employed by flouring mills, in descending order as follows: Blue Earth City mills; N. Dustin & Co.; just below the junction of the east and west branches of the river, in the west part of sec. 8, Blue Earth City; head, about nine feet. Verona Star mills; Alex Ilalliday; at the west line of sec. 24, Verona; head, eight feet. Rising Sun mills; at the bridge in the S. W. } of sec. 11, Verona; head, eight feet. Banner mills; C. II. Payne & Son; at the bridge in sec. 33, Winnebago City, one and a half miles west from the town; head, nine feet. Woodland mills; Dorsey Brothers; sec. 3, Winnebago City; head, about eight feet. Bricks. Brick-making was begun at Blue Earth City in 1867, and was carried on nine years; but nothing was done in this work here in the years 1876 to 1879. This yard, owned by S. P. Childs, was leased in 1880 to Christian Severson, who expected that season to make 600,000 bricks, selling them at $8 per M. The mixed wood used for the kilns formerly cost $5 per cord, but is now furnished by the railroad at $3J to $4. The bricks made here are red, of good quality, tempered by intermixture of one-sixth as much sand as clay. The excavation is in the south or right bank of the West branch of the Blue Earth river, about a quarter of a mile southwest from its junction with the East branch. The clay has a thickness of 25 to 35 feet, and at a few feet above the river is underlain by sand. The upper four to six feet of this clay are obscurely strati- fled. Its next ten feet are divided, similarly with the clay-beds at Carver and Jordan in the valley of the Minnesota river, into layers of light grayish color, composed of clayey and sandy fine silt, changing above and below to a nearly black, more unctnous and finer clay, which forms the part- ings between them. In the east part of this excavation the thickness of these layers is from a half inch to one inch, but within three rods to the west they are from one to six inches thick, being thinnest at the top. They are somewhat contorted or wavy, but in their whole extent are nearly level. The alternating conditions which produced these successive layers are believed to have been the yearly changes of the seasons, the principal mass of each layer being the deposition of the annually recurring periods of high water, and the darker partings being the sediment of a current of reduced volume and therefore slower and less turbid. The lower eight or ten feet of this clay are finely and obliquely laminated and very sandy. A well, 38 feet deep, at the top of this bank, even in bight with the brick-yard, finds the clay gradually become more sandy, and its last four feet are in clear sand, containing water at nearly the same level as the river. In section 11, Verona, at the Rising Sun mills, a kiln of 130,000 red bricks was made by Westbrook & Ferguson in 1879, not with satisfactory success because of particles of limestone contained in the clay and .sand, which after burning become slacked and crack the bricks. The clay used here is yellow, imperfectly stratified, apparently a part of the till, occurring in the northeast bluff at 15 to 30 fpet above the river. The proportions of clay and sand mixed for these 468 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Peat. bricks was three and one. Bricks of the same color have been made also at several other places near the river in its next three or four miles below, with poor or sometimes fair results. The best have been from the recert alluvium of the bottomlands. Nothing has been done here in this business during the last few years, excepting the kiln just mentioned. RiJ bricks of inferior quality, m Htly somewhat cracked by particles of limestone, but other- wise durable, were made from 1870 to 1872, at the north line of section 8, Clark, abont a quarter of a mile west of Wells, where they are seen in brick buildings. The material used was probably the obscurely stratified gravelly clay that often forms the upper part of the glacial drift upon this area which was covered by a lake while the ice-sheet was retreating across Faribault and Blue Earth counties. Peat. In the second annual report of this survey, Prof. Winchell has treated of the peat of this state, the following details being given in respect to Faribault county. Near Wells a slough on land of Clark W. Thomi son was found to have from four to six feet of peat, in part watery and fibrous, but mostly of good quality, underlain by a bed, six inches to one foot thick, of peaty mud and clay with shells and some sand. An analysis, by Dr. P B. Hose, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, of this peat, after drying in the air, gave in 100 parts, 16 of hygroscopic water; 18 of ash; and 66 of organic matter. The ash, or inorganic matter, contained of silica 61.32 per cent.; lime, 12.44; carbonic acid, 10.69; iron and alumina. 9.71 ; magnesia, 2.43; sulphuric acid, 2.37: potassa, 0.55; soda, 0.23; and a trace of chlorine. The organic matter was made up of carbon, 51.94 per cent.; of hydrogen, 6.17; and of oxygen and nitrogen, 41.89. The heating power of a hundred pounds of this air-dried peat appears to be equal to that of ninety pounds of dry oak wood. The residue of ashes from peat is fifteen to twenty-five times greater than from an equal weight of wood. Without some process of manufacture, or preparation for use by condensing its volume and forming it into blocks, peat is too soft and friable, and makes a slow, smoldering fire. In 1871 Mr. W. Z. llaight prepared peat for fuel at Wells, and it was considerably used by the locomo- tives of the Southern Minnesota railroad. This work was described by the Wells Atlas: "A bold bank is selected, in order to secure a good drying yard close to the bog, on which the engine and machinery are located, where a frame is erected 12x16 feet and eight feet high, from the top of which a wooden car-track, supported by a light trestle-work, descends to the surface of the bog, a distance of 150 feet, with a fall of 25 feet. From that point the track is made in sections of 14 feet each, which are portable, thrown down on the surface of the bog; and with the use of a few curved sections, the track can be shifted in any direction so as to excavate the entire bog that is in reach. This track can be extended many hundred feet out across the surface of the bog, if desired, giving access to several acres. On this track one car plies, which is loaded by three men who stand by the edge of the excavation (water being lowered about six inches from the sur- face to insure dry feet). The sod is cut up into chunks, with sharp, diamond-pointed, spade- like tools, from two to four feet deep, according to depth of the peat, and left submerged in the water until the car is at the proper place, when the chunks are pitched from the water into the car, with common four-tiued forks, and when the regular amount, about two tons, is loaded into the car, it is hauled by the power of the engine up the incline, over the large platform under which the mill is situated; and by a simple contrivance the car is made to dump its load, also to unship the windlass from the power that hauled it up, being no trouble to the feeder, who at will starts the car back, which, in going down the inclined plane gains momentum that carries it out hun- dreds of feet along the level track. Meanwhile the men in the bog do the necessary work, cut- ting chunks for another load, so there is no time lost in the absence of the car. The feeder, who stands on the platform, then feeds the turfy mass into the mill, which is an ingeniously con- structed machine, though simple, very durable, so arranged with knives cutting through grates, pickers, conveyers, &c., that it will treat the most fibrous mass or sod peat that can be produced and reduce it to a pulp or jelly at once, and that too without clogging or winding in the ma- chine. Owing to its perfectness it renders it unnecessary to strip off the top sod from the bog, all that is necessary being to mow off the grass or other vegetation, if there is any growing there- on, thereby saving considerable expense in labor, also a good part of the fuel, when ground up with the lower or more decomposed peat. By the conveyers, the peat, as fast as pulped, is forced through a pipe into a vat with dump bottom, which holds one cart load. Here the cartmsn re- ceives it by driving his cart under and dumping a load into it from the vat, adjusts the vat hot- FARIBAULT COUNTY. 469 Peat.1 torn, drives to the spreading ground, dumps his load from the cart and returns, during which time another load has accumulated in the vat. The pulp is dumped on a smooth plat of ground, where a man with a common shovel spreads it into beds four inches thick, nine feet wide, and as long as necessary, setting up boards at the sides to keep it from spreading, who is followed by another man with a tool similar to a rolling colter for a plow, fixed on a long handle, who cuts the beds of soft peat into blocks 8x13 inches, which commence to solidify at once by the ejection of the water; and in one or two days, by the use of a light tool made expressly for the purpose, these blocks are tipped up on edge or corners promiscuously, so the sun and wind can have a better chance at them. In two days more they are piled- in open ricks, in which posture they re- main on an average two weeks, when they are housed to finish drying. "The cost, tho past season [1871], of running this establishment, at a capacity of 60 tons of wet or 15 tons of dry peat per day (equal at least, when properly prepared and well seasoned, to 15 cords of good wood), is as follows: Superintendent $2.50 Engineer per day 2.75 Three men in bog to load car 6.00 Man to spread pulped peat into beds 1.50 Boy to turn blocks 1.00 Two boys to rick up blocks 2.00 Man to feed peat into mill 1.50 Boy to drive cart 1.00 Man to cut peat into blocks 1.50 Cart horse 1 .00 One ton peat at cost price for engine 1.72 For oil, and wear and tear on engine 1.00 Add 22 cts. for housing 15 tons, one day's product 3.30 Total |26.77 " All the peat is being sold at $4.00 a ton, except that to the railroad company, at which price the yield per day would ba $69.00." The value of the manufactured peat is estimated equal to that of good wood per cord; and the cost of the plant, capable of manufacturing 100 tons of wet peat, or 25 tons when dry psr day, including mill (1400), frame, trestle-work, car-track, car, dump cart, etc., is stated to have bsen about $703. Tlis demand, however, was too small to lead to the continuation of this business. Two or three years later Mr. Haight again worked peat in this manner near Eastern; but here, also, the enteiprise was soon abandoned, though a good fuel could be made at small cost, if sufficient quantities could be sold to keep the machinery and workmen employed. An analysis, by Dr. P. B. Eose, of the peat manufactured by Mr. Haight at Wells, gave of water, 14 per cent.; ash, 18; and organic matter, 68. The ash yielded silica, 58.31 per cent.; lime, 14.18; carbonic acid, 11.63; iron and alumina, 10.21; magnesia, 2.90; sulphuric acid. 2.11; potassa, 0.41; and soda, 0.18. Of its organic matter, carbon was 52.02 per cent.; hydrogen, 6.68; and oxy- gen and nitrogen, 41.30. A hundred pounds of this peat was found equal in heating power to ninety-eight pounds of dry oak wood. A peat deposit, eighty or a hundred acres in extent and said to reach a depth of four feet occurs on land of H. F. Quinby and J. Robinson, in section 30, Minnesota Lake. .Near Easton peat is found in considerable quantities on land of W. Z. Haight. Four speci- mens of this peat, air-dried, were submitted to chemical examination by Prof. S. F. Peckham, as to their " hygroscopic water, organic matter, and ash. They were all treated exactly alike. An average sample of each of the specimens was finely pulverized and thoroughly mixed. Of this one gramme was carefully weighed in a one-ounce platinum crucible. The covered crucible con- taining the assay was then placed in an air bath, and heated to 212 — 220 degs. Fahr., until it ceased to lose weight. The loss was estimated as hygroscopic water. The cover was then removed, the crucible inclined and heated to dull redness, tinally to bright redness, until the combustible mat- ter was entirely consumed. The loss was estimated as organic matter and the residue as ash. The following results were obtained: 470 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Pe»t. Fountains. I. 9. 3. 4. Hygroscopic water 13.04 10.99 20.64 16.75 Organic matter .•. 48.64 44.56 53.60 47.03 Ash 38.32 44.45 25.76 36.28 Analyses of the ashes yielded: Silica (SiO-.) 83.13 83.35 72.79 80.55 Carbon (C) 86 .03 .95 .75 Iron oxide(Fe2O3) and iron phosphate (Fe2PaO8) 7.99 5.29 9.46 10.23 Lime(CaO) 5.44 7.39 5.92 5.61 Magnesia (MgO) 1.75 .97 6.13 .76 Sulphuric acid (SO3) 78 2.57 trace 1.34 Undetermined 05 .40 6.25 .76" Of these specimens the first was taken from a bog at eighteen inches below the surface; the second, from the same bog at three feet below the surface; while the third and fourth are from another bog near, respectively at the same depths of eighteen inches and three feet. Their values for heating, compared with that of an equal weight of dry oak wood, called 100, were found to be in the foregoing order, 64.0, 58.6, 70.5, and 61.7. Artesian fountains. The remarkable flowing wells, or fountains, which are found at Wells, were discovered after the village had received this name in honor of a distinguished citizen. The section of the drift pene- trated here, and the character of the bed-rock found at the bottom of these wells, from which their water rises immediately 110 to 120 feet to the sur- face and five to fifteen feet higher, have been sufficiently treated of under the head of the geological structure of the county. Most of these wells have been bored two inches in diameter, and reduced to a half inch or less at the top. The pipe is often prolonged above the surface, conveying the water into tanks. About twenty of these wells have been obtained within a radius of one mile. Their supply is large, but not inexhaustible; for, when Hon. M. S. Wilkinson's well was bored, a half mile north of the vil- lage and on land ten or fifteen feet lower, its two-inch stream, very copi- ous, lowered the wells in the village so that their water no longer reached the surface. After this new well was reduced to a small flow, yet afford- ing an abundance for all the requirements of house and farm, the water of all the other wells rose very nearly as high as before. If, therefore, the proposition which was once suggested, to tap this stratum of water by a large well for water-power to a grist-mill, had been adopted, the flow would have been found inadequate, while the water of the small wells would have failed to rise to the surface. This water is of excellent quality, very clear and cool; it is somewhat chalybeate, so that it gives a slight coating of iron-rust to wooden gutters and troughs. FARIBAULT COUNTY 471 Fountain!. Mounds.] The ground upon which these artesian waters are gathered and whence they receive the pressure that causes them to rise here above the surface, is probably Freeboru county, which be- gins four miles east of Wells, and extends thirty miles to the east, with an average elevation about a hundred feet higher above the sea. From this station the railroad rises 108 feet in going nine miles southeast to Alden; while its summit, six miles farther east, is 170 feet, and the depot at Albert Lea is 68 feet above Wells. Other artesian fountains are obtained in this county from water-bearing beds of gravel and sand included in the glacial drift, at depths from thirty or forty to nearly a hundred feet. They are most frequent in Dunbar, Minnesota Lake and Lura, and especially near the Maple river through the second and third of these townships and through Mapleton and Sterling in Blue Earth county. Rarely artesian water is found farther to the south and southwest in Faribault county. The only instances learned of are Ole E. Johnson's well, about 90 feet deep, in the southeast part of Emerald, and two in Pilot Grove, one being on the farm that was owned by the late Dr. Cr. D. Winch, in section 8, about 60 feet in depth, which after overflowing four years ceased in the autumn of 1879, and the other bains; Mr. Wilson's, in the S. W. J of section 20, which was sunk in 1880, 70 feet deep, and at the time of this examination had been rnnning four months. All these artesian wells, as also the common w«lls of the county, already described in treating of the glacial drift, invariably have good water, and nearly always in ample amount within twenty-five to fifty feet from the surface. It is, however, hard water, holding the car- bonates of lime and magnesia in solution, and requires cleansing with ashes or otherwise before it can be satisfactorily used for washing with soap. ABORIGINAL MOUNDS. Numerous circular mounds, apparently artificial, one to one and a half feet high, and fif teen to twenty feet across, are seen near the road along a distance of three miles about half way between Freeborn and Wells; and a few similar mounds were seen in and beside the road two or three miles west of Wells. Two mounds, twenty feet in diameter and one and a half feat high, occur at the south side of the S. W. J of the S. W. } of section 13, Brush Creek, about a third of a mile east of the bridge over the East branch of the Blue Earth river. Again, in Kiester, two mounds of about the same size as the foregoing were noted near the middle of section 19. In Mansfield, the most southwest township of Freeborn county, lying next east of Kiester, two or three such mounds were observed in the N. W. i of section 13; also, at the south side of section 34 of this township, close to the state line, are two or more of these small mounds . Passing the last, a road extends south into Iowa, and about a mile beyond the state boundary a mound of this form but two feet high, being larger than any of the others here mentioned, was seen six rods east of this road, with a second of the smaller size near it. CHAPTER XV. THE GEOLOGY OF WATONWAN AND MARTIN COUNTIES. BY WARREN UPHAM. Situation and area. Watonwan and Martin counties lie in southern Minnesota, the former being directly north of the latter, which borders on Iowa. They are a little west of the central meridian of the state. The distance of Madelia in Watonwan county southwest from Minneapolis and St. Paul is 87 miles; and Fairmont in Martin county is 27| miles south, and two miles west of Madelia. From the east line of Martin county to the Mississippi at La Crosse is 150 miles; and from the west line of these counties to the line between Minnesota and Dakota is 80 miles. Both these counties are rectangles, the extent of Watonwan being twenty -four miles from east to west and eighteen from north to south; while Martin county reaches six miles farther east, and is thirty miles long from east to west, with a width of twenty-four miles. The area of Waton- wan county is 435.45 square miles, or 278,689.92 acres, of which 1,638 acres are covered by water. The area of Martin county is 723.89 square miles, or 463,288.40 acres, of which 12,267.35 acres are covered by water. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. Watonwan county is wholly drained by the river of the same name, which empties into the Blue Earth river about three miles below Garden City in Blue Earth county. The North and South forks of the Watonwan river, having their sources in Cottonwood county, traverse respectively the northern and southwestern parts of Watonwan county, each receiving several tributary creeks, and are united in one stream two miles west of Madelia, and about twenty miles, following the course of the BROWN I 'I. ATI-: 18 c o A/ r y '-A *D FT I A N - (,'!•; oi, on ic ,\r. AX I) °* ir.-il-ni ii-iT^, \>\ I XATt'KA! HISTORY f OI'1 MIN'.VKSOTA WATOXVVAN AND MARTIN I'l'ioi; x. "R 0 S EN D A I . '_Mo.*.imc Ttll.j / C EDA R I R D N A •ra R E--E ' ' ^-J**"^ i^~^ T E Nr b A S S E N ' H XXXIII \V R . xx vn -\v. .S' T A T R. x:xxj A\T O /?' B.. XXX W y O TF A K, xxrx: "vv7". .]nlnisBienSCo.lilh WATONWAN AND MARTIN COUNTIES. 473 Natural drainage.] river, above its mouth. Antrim, the most southeast township of this county, is drained by Perch creek, which has its source a few miles farther south in Martin county, and flows northeast to the Watonwan river. Among the lakes of Watonwan county the following are worthy of mention: Emerson lake, at the nortli side of Madelia, two miles long from east to west and one and a half miles wide, with about half its area in Linden, Brown county; five or six smaller lakes in Madelia, within a few miles to the southeast from Emerson lake; a dozer: smaller lakes, probably some of them dry in the summer, lying in Fielden and Antrim; thiee lakes in Saint James, the largest, a mile or more in length, close southwest of the town; Long lake, two and a half miles long from east to west and half a mile wide, and Kansas lake, of equal width and a mile in length, in Long Lake township; four unnamed lakes in Odin, the largest, in sections 5 and 6, being about a mile lone: and a half mile wide; and Wood lake in Adrian, two and a half miles long and from a quarter to a half of a mile wide. The greater part of Martin county is also included within the basin of the Blue Earth river, to which its waters are carried by Elm, Center and South creeks, all of which join the Blue Earth in Verona, Faribault county. Elm creek, the largest of these, and the only one which rises beyond the west line of this county, has been sometimes called Chain river; deriving its name from the remarkable chains of lakes which find their outlets by these creeks. The southeast corner of Martin county is tributary to the Blue Earth river by smaller creeks above the foregoing; and the north edge of the county sends its streams to the Watonwan river. An area of about a hundred and fifty square miles in the southwest part of Martin county lies in the basin of the Des Moines and is drained by the head-stream ot the East fork of this river, which has its farthest source nearly at the middle of the line between this and Jackson county and thence flows southeastward, passing through Tuttle's lake upon the state line. The lakes of this county, mostly lying in three distinct chains or series, present very inter- esting features, and seem to give important evidence respecting the history of the glacial period. On this account further notice of them is deferred to the later part of this chapter where the drift is described. Topography. Watonwan county descends toward the east and north- east, but in a broad view its slightly undulating expanse seems nearly level. Generally its surface is in very gentle slopes which soon conduct the sur- plus waters of rains and snow-melting into depressions, which merge into ravines and lead to small water-courses, and by them to the larger per- manent streams. Here and there, however, are depressions which have no such free drainage, and contain sloughs or lakes. 474 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA f Topography The general slope of Martin county sinks slight!}' toward the east, giving direction to its streams. To the traveler this descent is imper- ceptible, and it appears as a vast, moderately undulating, but approxi- mately level prairie. Erosion by the present creeks of this county has depressed them from ten to thirty or forty feet below the average hight of the land on each side, forming along considerable portions of their course distinct valleys, with irregularly sloping, narrow bottomlands, bordered by low but steep bluffs. In Watonwan county the South fork of the Watonwan river lies in a valley which it has cut forty feet below the gen- eral level along all its course from Mountain Lake to Madelia; and the North fork and its tributaries have similarly channeled their part of the drift-sheet. Below the junction of these branches the Watonwan valley increases to fifty or sixty feet in depth before leaving the county at the southeast corner of Madelia. The only place at which these valleys have cut through the drift is in Martin county, on Elm creek in section 6, Rut- land, where the bed-rock, probably sandstone, is found at a slight depth below the surface. Adrian, the most northwest township of Watonwan county, has the only outcrop of the bed-rock in these counties, this being the eastern extremity of a prominent ridge of the red Potsdam quartzyte. It is seen at the surface in the N. W. J of section 29. and gives to this and the con- tiguous sections 30 and 19 an elevation fifty to one hundred feet above the rest of this township; but this ridge here, and through its whole extent of nearly twenty-five miles westward, where it rises much higher, is mainly covered by a smooth sheet of till. Elevations, St. Paul & Sioux City division, Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railway. Copied from profiles in the office of T. P. Gere, superintendent, St. Paul. Miles from Feetabov* bit, Paul. the sea. Madelia 109.0 1021 Watonwan river, water 1 10.5 979 Lincoln 116.4 1042 Saint James 121.6 1073 Butterfleld 130.1 1184 Elevations, Southern Minnesota division, Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. From George B. AVoodworth. assistant engineer. La Crosse. Miles from Feet above La Crosse. the sea . Winnebago City (Faribault county) 166.3 1096 Fairmont 183.0 1176 Sherburne 197.5 1273 Junction of branch to Jackson depot (Jackson county) 209.1 1446 WATONWAN AND MARTIN COUNTIES. 475 Elevations. Soil.; The highest land of Watonwan county is either the east part of the quartzyte ridge in sections 19 and 30, Adrian, or the southwest corner of the county, both of which are nearly 1,300 feet above the sea. Its lowest land is where the Watonwan river passes out from this into Blue Earth county, at a hight of about 960 feet above the sea. The mean hights of the townships of this county are approximately as follows: Madelia, 1,025 feet above the sea; Fielden, 1,050; Antrim, 1,100; River Dale, 1,040; Rosendale, 1,060; South Branch, 1,120; Nelson, 1,075; Saint James, 1,120; Long Lake, 1,150; Adrian, 1,150; Butterfield, 1,200 ; and Odin, 1,240. From these esti- mates the mean elevation of Watonwan county is found to be 1,110 feet, very nearly, above the sea. In Martin county the greatest altitude is attained at the west side of Lake Fremont township, about 1,400 feet above the sea; and the lowest points of this county are at its east line where Elm, Center and South creeks are 1,050 to 1,075 feet in elevation. The townships of this county, with their mean hights approximately estimated, are: Nashville, 1,125 feet above the sea; Center Creek, 1,140; Pleasant Prairie, 1,200; East Chain, 1,240; Westtord, 1,150; Rutland, 1,175; Fairmont, 1,200 ; Silver Lake, 1,230 ; Waverly, 1,175; Frazer, 1,200; Rolling Green, 1,240; Tenhassen, 1,250; Ga- lena, 1,200; Fox Lake, 1,240; Manyaska, 1,260; Lake Belt, 1,275; Cedar, 1,260 : Elm Creek, 1,300 ; Jay, 1,325 ; and Lake Fremont, 1,350. The mean elevation of Martin county, deduced from these figures, is 1,225 feet. Soil and timber. The soil of Watonwan and Martin counties, like that of a vast region extending from them on all sides, is very fertile, easily worked, and well adapted for the cultivation of all the staple agricultural products of this latitude. A black, clayey, and slightly sandy and gravelly loam, from one to three feet thick, forms the surface, which is nearly every- where sufficiently undulating to carry away the waters of heavy rains and snow-melting. Boulders are scattered very sparingly over the entire area of these counties, but scarcely anywhere are objectionably numerous. This soil and the subsoil of yellowish gravelly clay are the till, or unmodified drift of the glacial period. They are somewhat porous on account of their considerable proportion of sand intermixed, causing them to absorb much moisture from rains and give it up readily to vegetation. The principal crop of Watonwan county, as generally northward through this state, is 476 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Timber. Potsdam quartzyte. wheat; but in Martin county corn, stock, and dairying also hold a promin- ent place, as commonly southward through Iowa. Both these counties are principally prairie, being natural grassland, without tree or shrub; excepting narrow skirts of timber, which generally surround the lakes and extend along the principal streams, sometimes widen- ing to form groves. Probably the aggregate ai'ea of these belts of timber is less than one hundredth part of either Watonwan or Martin county. The following species of trees, arranged in their estimated order of abund- ance, were noted as occurring on the South fork of the Watonwan river: American or white elm, white ash, box-elder, ironwood, cottonwood, bur oak, slippery or red elm, hackberry, bass, soft maple, black walnut, willows, the American aspen or poplar, and the wild plum. Common species of trees about Silver and Iowa lakes, in Martin county, are bur oak, bass, white ash, white and red elm, and black walnut; bitternut is somewhat frequent; and cottonwood, soft maple and butternut occur rarely. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. The only exposure of bed-rock in Watonwan county is found, as already stated, in the N. W. £ of section 29, Adrian. A smooth and flat surface of the very compact and hard, red Potsdam quartzyte is seen here along an extent of five rods from northwest to southeast, with a width varying from five to twenty feet. This is on an eastward slope, in a slight depression of drainage. The quartzyte does not project out of the drift, and cannot be seen at a distance. It is undoubtedly the bed-rock beneath all the south- west quarter of Adrian, but is elsewhere covered within the limits of this township and county by the smoothed sheet of glacial drift, which rises in a broadly rounded ridge because of the prominence of this underlying rock. Through the north half of section 30, Adrian, it lies at no great depth, and has been encountered in ploughing and digging at several places. This ridge, having here and there outcrops of the same red quartzyte, continues more than twenty miles to the west, in northern Cottonwood county. In Martin county a large mass of compact, gray sandstone, contained in the till, has been quarried at the south side of Elm creek in the west part of section 6, Rutland, on land of G. S. Livermore of Fairmont, yielding WATONWAN AND MARTIN COUNTIES. 477 Cretaceous sandstone.] about three cords of good building stone, besides one or two cords of infe- rior quality wasted. This lay at a hight of about five feet above the creek, being imbedded in the base of its bluff of till, which rises thirty feet. It was divided in beds one to two feet thick, with an inclination of about 30° eastward, and is said to have been entirely removed by quarrying. Some of these layers show oblique lamination. The color and texture of this stone, its rarely enclosing soft black particles, which are apparently lignite, and the oolitic structure that much of it exhibits, give it a very close resemblance to the sandstone, quite surely of Cretaceous age, found outcropping in Alta Vista, the most northeast township of Lincoln county, and in Eidsvold and Westerheim, lying next to the east in northwestern Lyon county. Mr. Livermore states that bed-rock exists near the surface, as learned by thrusting down an iron bar, along the marshy bottomland and beneath the channel of the creek, for a distance of six or eight rods from the point where this block occurred, being probably the same for- mation in place, but not rising into view. The only wells learned of ki these counties that have gone through the drift are the following, situated in Fairmont and Jay townships in Martin county. On land of A. L. Ward, in section 9, Fairmont, a well about 150 feet deep went through drift, 90 feet; hard rock, about 50 feet; and a softer layer 10 feet thick, from which water rose to sixty feet below the surface. On land of H. W. Sinclair, in section 29, Fairmont, rock was en- countered at a considerable depth and the well was abandoned. No f urther details were ascer- tained respecting the bed-rocks in these wells; consequently no opinion of their geological age can be given. The strike of the limestone and sandstone formations of the Lower Magnesian series, in their exposures along the valley of the Minnesota river and in Blue Earth county, indicates that their continuation underlies the greater part of Watonwan and Martin counties; but here they are doubtless covered in part and perhaps mainly, by Cretaceous strata. Deposits which seem referable to the Cretaceous age, were found in the lowest thirty feet or more of a well 180 feet deep, on the farm of Cargill. Van & Co., in the S. E. J of section 14, Jay. This was dug a hundred feet and bored below. Its section in the portion dug was soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 18 feet; and very hard blue till, much of it about as hard to excavate as rock, 80 feet. Some ten barrels of water come in daily from the lower two feet of the yellow till, but none was found in the blue till. The portion bored consisted of yellowish gray sand with little gravel, dry, and yielding gas in which lire could not burn, 50 feet ; then, shale, 10 feet ; and gray sand or soft sandstone, bored into 20 feet, and continuing below the bottom of the well. The last thirty feet were bored during the rainy season, when so much water (a hundred barrels or more per day-}, came in from the yellow till that it was not evident whether the last stratum yielded any water. This well was made in 1879 and the spring of 1880, and supplies all the water that is wanted from it. The strata here encountered below 150 feet probably belong to the Cretaceous age, and perhaps also the fifty feet of sand between these and the till. This thick bed of gas-bearing sand and gravel was struck at the bottom of a well 113 feet deep at Sher- burne station, two miles to the northeast, of which full notes are given in the list of wells illus- trating the drift. 478 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. ( Drift aad contoui Drift and contour. Glacial striae are very distinct on the quartzyte ledge exposed in sec- tion 29, Adrian, mostly bearing S. 30° E., referred to the true meridian, but in one place, on its southeast portion, bearing S. 20° E. The contour of Watonwan and Martin counties is like that which pre- vails generally in the basin of the Minnesota river, and is formed by a slightly undulating or in some portions moderately rolling sheet of till, with massive swells rising in long smooth slopes ten to twenty or thirty feet above the depressions. The gently undulating, smoothed surface of most of this region appears to mark areas over which the ice-sheet moved in a continuous current, and from which it disappeared by melting that was extended at the same time over a wide field. Compared with the thick- ness of the drift, its inequalities of contour in these counties are small, and in an extensive view it seems approximately flat. It is a part of the in- clined plain which rises by an imperceptible slope from the Minnesota river to the Coteau des Prairies. Its rate of ascent toward the southwest, or in- crease in average bight, varies from five to fifteen or twenty feet per mile. This gradual change in altitude is doubtless produced by increase in hight of the bdd-rocks upon which the drift lies as a sheet of somewhat uniform depth, probably varying in these counties from 50 to 150 feet; but the nu- merous small elevations and depressions of the surface appear to be due to the accumulation of different amounts of till by adjoining portions of the moving ice-sheet, without any corresponding unevenness of the underlying rocks. Third terminal moraine. The most rolling portion of the drift-sheet in these counties is at the southeast, entering East Chain township from Iowa, and reaching northwestward to Fairmont. It is the continuation of a belt of hilly till, which is connected with the inner or western one of the two terminal moraines that extend from north to south through northern Iowa, passing near Clear Lake and Forest City. This belt, three to six miles or more in width, reaches from the vicinity of Pilot mound in northeastern Hancock county northwestward about forty miles, by Forest City, through western Winnebago county and northeastern Kossuth county in Iowa, and into southeastern Martin county. It attains its greatest hight in the north part of township 98, range 85, Winnebago county, where it is 100 feet WATONWAN AND MARTIN COUNTIES. 479 Third terminal moraine.] above the general level. In northeastern Kossuth county this tract expands to a width of ten miles and reaches from Ramsey, at the east side of Union slough, north and northwest to the state line, lying on both sides of the head-stream of the Blue Earth river. Its northeast border is in the south edge of Elniore and Pilot Grove in southwestern Faribault county, where it consists of hillocks and short east-to-west ridges of till, 30 to 50 feet high. Thence these accumulations of till occur scatteringly in southeastern Mar- tin county to East Chain and less prominently to Fairmont. In these townships the contour is seldom rough, but rises in swells 25 to 50 feet above intervening depressions, with trends more frequently from north- west to southeast than in other directions; while nearly all the remainder of this county is more smoothly undulating, in longer slopes, with the highest parts only 10 to 2D feet above the lowest near. The belt of hilly and. rolling glacial drift thus traced from Iowa into Minnesota was probably accumulated as a terminal moraine at the end of the ice-lobe which extended southeastward from the Leaf hills and the Head of the Coteau des Prairies, as more fully explained on page 406; but at a late part of the epoch, after two distinct recessions of the ice had taken place in south- western Minnesota. When this lobe of the ice-sheet attained its greatest area it terminated on the south in the vicinity of Des Moines, and was bounded on its sides by the outermost belt of hilly and knolly drift deposits. On its east side only two morainic belts are found, but on its west side three are clearly distinguished in the west edge of this state and the east edge of Dakota.* At the time of accumulation of the second belt of morainic drift, the end of this ice-lobe had receded to Mineral ridge in the north part of Boone county, Iowa; and when the third belt was formed, its extremity appears to have been in Hancock county, Iowa. The length of this ice-lobe was thus diminished forty miles between the times of formation of its first or outer moraine and its second or inner moraine, and was still further shortened seven ty-tive miles before its third moraine was accumulated. Across the area from Fairmont northwest to Yellow Medicine county this third moraine was not noticed as a continuous formation. In the line where it would be looked for, we find the surface somewhat more prominently rolling than ordinary in Waverly, at the north side of Martin county; but only the usual low undulations were noted northwestward in Watonwan county. The nearest tract of typically morainic contour observed in this direction, which seems to be probably a part of this belt, is thirty miles from Waverly in the north part of Stately, the most southwestern township of Brown county .t For one or two miles southeast and south of Madelia, and for one mile southeast of Saint James, the surface has frequent swells twenty to thirty feet above the depressions, being more rolling than most other parts of Watonwan county, which is generally very gently undulating in smooth prolonged slopes, with occasional lakes and here and there sloughs ten to twenty feet below the highest portions of the adjoining country. Chains of lakes. It has been frequently noted that the lakes which abound upon areas overspread by the glacial drift, have their prevailing trend, or average direction of their longer axes, parallel with the course 480 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Chains of lakes. that was taken by the ice-sheet. The swells and undulations of the till have their greatest extent in this direction, and the lakes fill the hollows that are formed by its unequal accumulation. Among the hills of the terminal moraines, however, the longer axes of the lakes are apt to be transverse to the course in which the ice came, but parallel with its border. In each case, such lakes are due to variable glacial erosion and deposition; and the basins in which they lie are not more remarkable features of the contour than are its swells, hills, and areas of highland. The deepest lakes contained in depressions of the till in this state are from fifty to one hun- dred and fifty feet in depth, reaching as far below the average level of the drift-sheet as its most elevated portions rise higher; but a great majority of these lakes, especially upon regions of only slightly undulating surface with- out prominent elevations, are shallow, ranging from five to twenty-five feet in depth. They mainly have very gently ascending shores, but some- times on one or more sides are partially bounded by steep banks five to twenty or thirty feet high, formed by the wear of waves which have eaten away projecting portions of their margin of till, leaving its boulders, but strowing its finer detritus over the lake-bed. In regions of modified drift, consisting of stratified gravel and sand that were supplied from the dissolving ice-sheet, the lakes, from ten to fifty feet or more in depth, and often bordered by level or undulating tracts of modified drift, from twenty-five to one hundred feet or more above them, lie in depressions which at the time of the fluvial deposition of this drift were probably still occupied by unmelted masses of ice, prevent- ing sedimentation where they lay and consequently leaving hollows en- closed by steep and high banks, whose top is the margin of plateaus or plains of gravel and sand. No examples of lake basins thus surrounded by modified drift were found in Watonwan and Martin counties, neither of which have any noteworthy deposits of this class, nor any such rough morainic areas as to influence the distribution and trend of their lakes. Most of the lakes of Minnesota, and of all glaciated regions, present only such forms and arrangement as are readily explained thus by the modes of excavation and accumulation, and the diverse deposits of the ice- sheets. The first described and most common type of lakes found upon the surface of the drift, trending in parallelism with the course in which \VATOX\VAX AXI) MAKTIX COUNTIES. Chains of lakes. J the ice moved, finds illustration in Watonwan county by the lakes of Ma- delia, Fielden, Long Lake and Adrian. Here the glacial current passed southeastward, this region being near the axis of the great lobe of the con- tinental glacier which stretched from the Leaf hills and the Head ot the Coteau des Prairies southeast and then south to the center of Iowa. Martin count}' presents, however, in its three remarkable chains or series of lakes, a problem which the foregoing general explanations of the origin of lakes upon areas of glacial drift do not solve, though they are needed to prepare us for its consideration. These series are known as the East. Central and West chains of lakes.. South creek receives the outflow from the East chain of lakes, and connects them by a stream which descends toward the north. This chain extends from the Iowa line about twelve miles northerly in a somewhat irregular course, lying upon tiie line between East Chain and Sil- ver Lake townships, and continuing northward through the east part of Fairmont and the north- west corner of Pleasant Prairie. It includes two lakes in section 36, Silver Lake; two lakes at the west side of sections 19 and 18, East Chain, now united under the name of East Chain lake by a dam which has a fall or head of eight feet; two unnamed lakes in sections 7 and 6, East Chain; an- other, about a mile long, lying principally in section 36, Fairmont; Rose lake, a mile and a half long from south to north, at the west side of sections 25 and 24, Fairmont; lake Imogene, on the township line, about one and a half miles northeast from the last; and Lone Tree lake, lying a mile farther northeast and reaching about a mile in length from south to north, at the east side of section 6. Pleasant Prairie, and of section 31, Center Creek. These lakes are bordered by rolling areas of till, thirty to forty feet above them, to which elevation their shores ascend mostly by quite steep slopes. The east bank of East Chain lake, two miles in length, has been recently undermined along the greater part of the first mile from its north end. In width the lakes of this chain vary from one-fourth to two-thirds of a mile. The spaces between them are some- times marsh and as wide as the narrower parts of the lakes, but in some other portions is a con- tracted channel, such as might have been cut by the stream which outflows from them. Thus the series does not occupy depressions in any well-marked continuous valley. Another lake lies close beside this series in section 12, of Silver Lake township, but divided from it by a portion'of the till thirty to forty feet high, through which it has no outlet. The fall of South creek through this chain of lakes in the distance of about nine miles from the Iowa line to the mouth of Rose lake, whence it turns northeastward, is about flfteen feet, half of this being at the East Chain dam. The Central chain includes about twenty lakes, and extends twenty-two miles in almost perfectly straight due north course from Iowa lake, crossed by the state line, to Perch lake at the head of Perch creek, three miles south of the line of Watonwan county. This series of lakes lies three to six miles west of the East chain, being in the west part of Silver lake, Fairmont, Rut- land and Westford, which form range SO in this county. Their outlets are South, Center, Elm and Perch creeks. In their order from south to north, the lakes of this Central chain are Iowa lake, two and a half miles long from northwest to southeast, and from a quarter of a mile to one mile wide; Silver lake, close north of the last, one mile long and a half mile wide, lying at the east side of section 30 of the township to which it gives its name; Summit lake, beginning about an eighth of a mile north of the last, and extending a mileat the east side of section 19; Wilnmnt lake, a mile long and two-thirds of a mile wide, lying mostly in section 7; Bard well lake, begin- ning about three-fourths of a mile north of the last and reaching thence a mile to the north with a width of about a quarter of a mile, mostly in section 31, Fairmont; Mud lake, of small size; Amber lake, shorter but wider than Bardwell lake, in the east part of section 30; Hall's lake, mostly in sections 19 and 20, one and a quarter miles long from south to north and from a half to three-fourths of a mile wide; Budd's lake, extending about a half mile in both length and 31 482 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Chains of lakes. width, crossed by the line between sections 17 and 18; lake Sisseton, nearly a mile long, at the west side of the town of Fairmont; Lake George, three-quarters of a mile long, at the east side of section 6; Buffalo lake, at the east side of sections 31 and 30, liutland; the Twin lakes, about a mile farther north; lake Charlotte, in section 17, liutland; High lake, at the southeast corner of section 7; Martin lake, a mile long from south to north and a third of a mile wide, lying on the line between sections 5 and 6, Rutland; a lake, nearly a mile long, at the east side of sections 31 and 30, Westford; and Perch lake, in sections 19 and 18 of this township. The shores and the country on both sides of the Central chain of lakes, as of the East chain, consist of till, which soon rises to a moderately undulating expanse that has a bight thirty to forty or fifty feet above the lakes Though forming a very distinct, straight series, they do not occupy a well-marked continuous valley; but its width varies from one mile or more to less than an eighth of a mile, and it is in three places interrupted by water-divides at whose lowest points the slopes of till reach ten to fifteen feet above the adjoining lakes. Silver and Iowa lakes are the headwaters of South creek, and have their outlet by a stream that runs east nearly along the state line to the south end of the East chain. The middle part of the Central chain, reaching twelve miles from Summit lake to the Twin Jakes is tributary to Center creek; and its portion farther north, excepting Perch lake, is within the belt drained by Elm creek. Iowa and Silver lakes have the same level, which is nearly that of Summit lake. Mr. William H. Budd, of Fairmont, states that the descent from Summit lake to Wilmont lake is three feet; thence to Bardwell lake, probably ten feet; thence to Mud and Amber lakes, still water; thence to Hall's lake, about two feet; to Budd's lake, again about two feet; to lake Sisseton. oue foot; and to lake George, one and a half feet. Buffalo lake and the Twin lakes, lying north of Center creek, and lake Charlotte, tributary to Elm creek, are reported by Mr. Budd to be at about the same level with lake George, being some six feet higher than Center creek at a half mile farther east, and about twenty feet below Summit, Silver, and Iowa lakes at the southern end of this chain. From lake Charlotte to Martin lake, the fall is about two feet, and the remaining lakes of the series, north of Elm creek, have approximately the same hight. East Chain lake, though raised by its dam, has a depth of only fifteen feet, and probably none of the lakes of that chain are much deeper. The maximum depths of some of the lakes in the Central chain are reported as follows : Iowa lake, fifteen feet ; Silver lake, about fifty feet, being the deepest of this series, as none of its other lakes, and perhaps no other iu this county, exceeds half this depth ; Hall's lake, twenty or twenty-five feet; Budd's lake, sixteen feet ; and lake Sisseton, eight feet. The West chain of lakes is less distinctly connected than the East and Central series, from which it also differs in having the longer axes of some of its lakes transverse to the course of the chain, and in having shorter series of lakes joined with it as branches. Its south end is Tuttle's lake, which is crossed by the state line, about four miles west of Iowa lake, the south end of the Central chain. Thence the West chain reaches northwesterly twenty miles, then northerly nine miles, and then northwest and west eight miles, to Mountain lake in Cottonwood county, its whole extent being thirty-seven miles. From the middle of the south line of Martin county, it extends through the townships of Tenhassen, Lake Belt, Manyaska, Fox Lake, Elm Creek and Cedar, in this county, crossing its north line five miles from its northwest corner; through Odin, the most southwest township of Watonwan county; and into Mountain Lake township in Cotton wood county. It is tributary, in its successive portions from south to north, to the East fork of the Des Moines river, to Center and Elm creeks, and to the South fork of \Vatomvan river. This H'est chain comprises about twenty-five lakes, in the following order from south to north: Tuttle's lake, on the state line, about four miles long from northeast to southwest and averaging a mile in width, reaching in Martin county from the south side of section 31 to the north side of section 28, Ten- hassen; Alton lake, one and a half miles long and one-fourth to two-thirds of a mile wide, in sec- tions 20, 19 and 18, of this township; Button or Swan lake, Clear, Fish and Buffalo lakes, each nearly a mile long, and together stretching west-northwest four miles, from near the northeast corner of section 25 to the northwest corner of section 21, Lake Belt, which takes its name from these four lakes; Holmes lake, at the north side of sections '2 and 3, and Goose lake, lying mostly in section •1 of the same township, each about one and a half miles long, trending from east to west and southwest; Prairie lake, in sections 15, 22 and 21, and Mauyaska lake, in sections 20 and 19, WATONWAN AND MARTIN COUNTIES. 483 Chains of lakes, j Manyaska, similar to the last in their extent and trend; Hunger lake, in sections 17 and 8, about a mile long from south to north; Temperance lake, close north of the last, of similar length, but trending from southwest to northeast; Fox lake, three and a half miles long from east to west, and from a fourth to a half of a mile in width, lying at the south side of sections 31 , 32 and 33, of Fox Lake township; an unnamed lake, a mile long from east to west and half a mile w ide, mostly in section 31. north of the west end of Fox lake; the Big Twin lakes, together extending two and a half miles from southeast to northwest, in sections 13, 12.11 and 2, Elm Creek; Cedar lake, about three miles long from south to north, with an average width of a half mile, lying mainly in sections 36, 25 and 24, Cedar; three other lakes, each abouta mile long, in sections 13, 12 and 1, Cedar; three unnamed lakes, varying from a half to three-fourths of a mile in length, and all trending from southeast to northwest, situated in Odin, Watonwan county, the first being mainly in the north half of section 26, the second in the west part of section 15, and the third extending through the northwest corner of section 10; a lake, one mile long from east to west and a half mile wide, in sections 5 and 6; a small lake at the northwest corner of section 6, Odin; and Mountain lake, two miles long from northeast to southwest and nearly a mile wide, situated two miles southeast from Mountain Lake depot and village. The series of four lakes mentioned in Lake Belt township, lies somewhat west of the direct course of this chain of lakes, and may be regarded as a branch of it; and two miles east of this lake-belt, another series of lakes, very plainly a branch of the West chain, diverges from it, and reaches almost due north twelve miles from Tuttle's and Alton lakes. This series, connected at its south end with the West chain, includes in order from south to north. Clayton lake, a mile or more in extent, lying mostly in sections 21 and 16. Tenhassen; Babcock lake, about a mile long from southwest to northeast and more than half as wide, in sections 17, 8 and 9, and Eice lake, three-quarters of a mile long, at the west side of section 4 of the same township; Pierce lake, about a mile in diameter, in sections 27 and 28, and a long and narrow lake, reaching from section 10 to section 7, in Rolling Green; Swan lake, a half mile long, in section 31, Fraser: and Eagle lake, close northeast of the last, covering nearly all of section 29 and portions of the adjoining sections, two miles in length, with trend from northwest to southeast. To these, as a continuation of this branch, ought perhaps to be added four other lakes, which are situated four to nine miles farther north, varying from a half mile to one mile in length, and principally included in sections 36 and 25, Galena, and sections 18 and 7, Waverly. Besides the lakes thus enumerated as constituting the three chains of lakes and this branch series, which lies midway between the Central and West chains and is connected with the latter, Martin county has only three other lakes of noteworthy size, namely, Ash and Calkins lakes, each about one and a quarter miles long, in the south part of East Chain township; and another of similar extent, in sections 16, 9 and 8, Elm Creek. The West chain of lakes, like the East and Central chains, extends through a region of mod- erately undulating till, the direct deposit of the ice-sheet, with no noteworthy areas, nor unusually thick included layers, of water-deposited gravel and sand. The lakes of the south half of this western series, and of its branch from Tuttle's to Eagle lake, lie only ten to twenty feet below the average hight of the adjoining land, which rises in long, gentle slopes from their shores. North- ward, in Cedar, Odin and Mountain Lake townships, the contour is nearly like that along the East and Central chains, the lakes being bordered by bluffs of till, of moderate or often steep ascent, thirty to forty feet high, whose crest is at the general level of the slightly undulating drift- sheet. In Mountain lake an island, which has given this name, rises with steep shores and table- like top, about forty feet above the lake, having similar outlines with the surrounding bluffs and upland. Much of this lake is now filled with grass and reeds. It seems difficult to explain the origin of these remarkable lake-basins in the drift, for, so far as they extend, they have the aspect of eroded valleys, such as have been commonly formed by the rivers of this region, but they sometimes are separated by divides of till as high as the country around. Thus they no longer form continuous channels, which must have 484 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Chains of lakes. been their original condition, if they are parts, as thus indicated, of ancient water-courses. Nowhere else in my exploration of the glacial drift, have similar chains of lakes been found, bordered and occasionally divided by areas of till, without notable deposits of modified drift, and not occupying distinct valleys of former streams. Yet these plainly connected series of lakes, converging, and one of them receiving a tributary branch, in their course toward the south, are related to each other like confluent rivers. Their origin cannot be referred to the ordinary causes and conditions, already reviewed, which produced the irregularly scattered lakes of drift- covered areas: but, excepting this arrangement of its lakes. Martin county is not distinguishable from the surrounding region of drift. The explanation of these series of lakes, which seems most probable, is that they mark interglacial avenues of drainage, occupying portions of valleys that were excavated in the till after ice had long covered this region and had deposited most of the drift-sheet, but before the last glacial epoch, which again enveloped this area beneath a lobe of the continental glacier. partially filling these valleys, and leaving along their courses the present chains" of lakes. Fossiliferous beds are occasionally found in this and ad- oining states, and, significantly, at a few places within the basin of lake Agassiz, intercalated between thick deposits of till. Some of these inter- glacial beds, doubtless including those in the Red river valley, since cov- ered by lake Agassiz, were formed after an ice-sheet had extended to the extreme southern limit of the glacial drift. They prove that the long, very severely cold period in which ice-tields reached south to northeastern Kansas, St. Louis, and southern Illinois, was succeeded by a milder climate. under which the ice was melted from Minnesota and even as far northward as to Hudson bay, again permitting plants and animals to occupy the land. The terminal moraines of the Northwest, formed by a later ice-sheel, show that another great epoch of cold once more buried the north half of the continent under ice. which, however, did not extend so far south as before. This ice was divided at its border into vast lobes, one of which, about thru*; hundred miles long and one hundred miles wide, and probably from a tenth to a half of a mile thick, was accumulated upon the area that stretches from the head of the Minnesota river southward to central Iowa, including Watonwan and Martin counties, its width at this latitude being from \VATOS\VAX AND MARTIN' COUNTIES. 485 Chains o] lake-..] Albert Lea on the east to Worthington on the west. Before the glacial epoch in which the ice had its greatest extent, and probably also between that time and the date of the terminal moraines that cross Wisconsin. Minne- sota and Dakota, other glacial epochs spread ice-sheets upon this region ; but their moraines have been leveled and covered with additional deposits of till, and the interglacial soil and fossiliferous sediments of sloughs and lakes have been m6stly ploughed up and mixed in the drift, while their remnants have been similarly buried, by the more extended ice-sheets of these subsequent epochs. Such remnants of interglacial beds, containing leaves and shells, have been found in Center Creek and Silver Lake town- ships in Martin comity, as stated in the notes of wells on page 487. The chains of lakes in this county appear to show that interglacial rivers, be- tween the time of greatest extent of the ice and the date of the last glacial epoch, were here carried southward in four continent valleys to the East fork of the Des Moin.es river. The present drainage of Martin county is mostly transverse to this course and tributary to the Blue Earth river; but the watershed and slopes that now turn it away from the Des Moines are so slight that if the streams of this area had channels from north to south, such as were probably eroded along the lines of these chains of lakes while the margin of the ice-sheet that had reached to the farthest limit of the glacial drift was receding across these counties, they would continue to flow southward to the Des Moines. Probably all of this county, excepting per- haps its most northeast township, was during a long interglacial epoch included within the Des Moines basin, which still embraces a part of it at the southwest. The last ice-sheet doubtless added considerably to the drift, but did not entirely remold its topographic features; so that here even the interglacial water-courses cut in the drift remain in some portions with little change, still having steep bluffs and holding these series of lakes. This interpretation of their meaning is strongly confirmed by features of the valley of the Minnesota river, which seem to be explicable only by referring them to similar causes.* Boulders and gravel, though always present, are nowhere abundant in the till of Watonwan and Martin counties; and boulders larger than five feet in diameter are very rare. Tlie frequency of limestone fragments is nearly the same as is usual through all western Minnesota. This rock often makes one-third or one-half of the gravel in the till and on the beaches of lakes; but it supplies a much less proportion, perhaps not exceeding one twentieth, of the boulders larger than •Compare article on the Minnesota valley in Ihe ice ag«, Prnc. of Amer. Awot-,. fur 0 IV N n COUNTY o J N n o o v y a n 1'I.M'K 2O •/.MARTIN v. COUNTY'/. N n o o S3-79O N l: /, L 1 1 - L' U U 1 1 • i v, ii n v, r, r, - CHAPTER XVI. THE GEOLOGY OF COTTON WOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES. BY WAREEN UPHAM. Situation and area. The map of these counties forms plate-pages 19 and 20. Cottonwood is one of the second tier of counties north of the Iowa line, from which it is separated by Jackson county. From Saint Paul and Minneapolis southwest to Windom and Jackson is about 130 miles. From La Crosse and the Mississippi river west to the eastern boundary of these counties is ISO miles; they are 30 miles long from east to west; and from their west line onward to the east line of Dakota is 50 miles. Cottonwood county has a length of five townships, and a width from north to south of four; except that on the northeast two of the townships that would be included in this county if it were a complete rectangle, be- long to Brown county. With this reduction, Cottonwood county has eigh- teen townships, each six miles square. The only towns and villages of this county are in the southeast part, on the line of the Saint Paul & Sioux City railroad. These are Windom, the county seat, situated in Great Bend township, Bingham Lake, in Lakeside, and Mountain Lake. Cottonwood county has an area of 650.39 square miles, or 416,250 acres, of which 8,655.- 65 acres are covered by water. Jackson county is a rectangle, five townships in length from east to west and four in width from north to south. The important towns are Jackson, the county seat, in Des Moines township, and Heron Lake, in Weimer township. This county has an area of 722.66 square miles, or 462,501.20 acres, of which 16,434.75 acres are covered by water. THE GEOUKiY OF MIXNE8OTA. [Natural iu the west and southwest portions of Lakeside, one to three miles eastward from Windom, beautiful lakes of clear water, divided by irregular hilly or rolling areas of prai- rie, and skirted by narrow woods; Fish lake, nearly two miles long from northeast to southwest, and one-fourth to two-thirds of a mile wide, crossed by the south line of Lakeside and having about half its area in Jackson county; the Spring lakes, reaching two and a half miles from north to south, four miles west of Windom; the Three lakes, and Swan lake, each about one mile long, in Dale: Rat, Long, Eagle and Maiden lakes, from one-third to one mile long, in the south half of Carson; lake Augusta, about one and a half miles long and a half mile wide, in Amo; Hurri- cane lake, move than a mile long from north to south, lying in section 31, High water, and section 6. Storden; Double lake, of similar extent and trend, in sections 23 and 26. Westbrook; Berry and Twin lakes, with others, varying from a quarter of a mile to about one and a half miles in length, trending to the south or southeast, in Rose Hill : Oaks lake, one and a half miles long from north to south, but narrow, lying in section 32, Rose Hill, and sections 5 and 8, South Brook; and Talcott lake, in sections 19 and 30, South Brook, a mile long from north to south, with the Des Moines river flowing through its northern end. Jackson county is partly drained by Elm creek to the Blue Earth and Minnesota rivers ; partly by the Des Moines river, which crosses Iowa and enters the Mississippi at the southeast corner of that state ; and partly by the Little Sioux river, which joins the Missouri thirty-eight miles north of Omaha. About 90 square miles of northeastern Jackson county are tributary to the Minnesota river by Elm creek, which flows east through Martin county and enters the Blue Earth river after a course of forty miles. Its sources, in Belmont and Christiana, are only two to four miles east of the Des Moines river. About 420 square miles of this county lie within the basin of the Des Moines, which flows, after leaving Cottonwood county, in a south-southeast course. Its only important affluent in these counties is the outlet of Heron lake, which comes into it nine miles west of Windom. Some 210 square miles on the southwest are in the basin of the Mis- souri, being drained by the head-streams of the Little Sioux river. .Lakes ii< Jackson county. East of the Des Moines river the only notable lakes in Jackson county are Fish lake, about two miles in length, on the north line of Christiana, half of it being in Cottonwood county; lake Otto and Independence lake, each about a half mile long, respect- ively on the east and south boundaries of Christiana; and Lower's lake, of similar size, near the center of the township. West of the Des Moines, the largest body of water in this county and in all southern Minne- sota is Heron lake, eleven miles long, with a width of two and a half miles in its central part diminished to a half or a fourth of a mile at each end. giving it an area of about fourteen square miles. This lake, reported to be only from five to fifteen feet deep, is mainly clear, but has some portions that are reedy, with marshy shores, affording a paradise to ducks, herons and blackbirds. Other noteworthy lakes in this pan of Jackson county are lake Carroll, a half mile long from northeast to southwest, in northern Delalield: Minneseka lake, a mile long from east to west 494 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Topography. crossed by the west line of this township; Flaherty's lake, a mile or more in length from north to south, and a half mile wide, in sections 6 and 7, Heron Lake; Boot lake, a mile long from north to south in sections 30 and 31, Belmont; Clear lake, exceeding a mile in length from east to west and about three- fourths of a mile wide, at the west side of Des Moines; Loon lake, nearly two miles long from north to south, crossed by the east line of Minneota; the Little Clear lakes, in sections 22 and 23 of this township; Little Spirit lake, about a mile in diameter, lying mainly in section 35, Minneota, divided from Spirit lake in Iowa by only a narrow low ridge of gravel and sand, pushed up by ice during the recent period; Skunk lake, a mile long from east to west, lying mostly in the south half of section 22, Sioux Valley; Rush lake, also a mile long, but trending from north to south, in the southwest part of the same township; Hum Island lakes, a half mile and one mile long, near the middle of Round Lake township; Round lake, a little more than a mile n diameter, in the northwest part of this township; and State Line lake, a mile long from north to south, situated at the southwest corner of the county. Topography. In northern Cottonwood county a massive ridge of the red Potsdam quartzyte extends twenty-five miles from west to east through Storden, Amboy, Delton and Selma, terminating in the west edge of Adrian, the northwest township of Watonwan county. This highland is mostly covered by a smooth surface of till, but has frequent exposures of the rock. Its altitude increases from 100 feet at its east end to 300 feet westward, above the broad, slightly undulating sheet of till, which, excepting a mo- rainic tract in Stately, covers the region toward the north. The hight reached at the top of this quartzyte ridge, 1306 to 1500 feet above the sea, is a per- manent rise of the land, which to the south and southwest holds nearly this average elevation, with a general ascent westward. This ridge was probably considered by the early French explorers as the northeast border of the Coteau des Prairies, which name, meaning the Highland of the Prairies, they gave to an elevated tract, extending about two hundred miles from north-northwest to south-southeast in eastern Dakota and southwestern Minnesota. Of this highland in Cottonwood and Murray coun- ties, Nicollet says:* "Under the forty-fourth degree of latitude, the breadth of the Coteau is about forty miles, and its mean Elevation is here reduced to 1 ,450 feet above the sea. Within this space its two slopes are rather abrupt, crowned with verdure and scolloped by deep ravines thickly shaded with bushes, forming the beds of rivulets that water the subjacent plains." It is not continuously recognizable as a great topographic feature south of this quartzyte ridge. The Little Cottonwood river and the north branch of the North fork of Watonwan river flow northeasterly through gaps in the range of quartzyte, a hundred feet or more below its crest, the former finding its passage at the middle of the north half of Delton, and the latter about a mile west from the center of Selma. Excepting at these points, the ridge is unbroken and up- lifts a broad, smoothly rounded top, covered with till through which the quartzyte has occasional outcrops. It extends in a course a little to the north of west twelve miles from the north part of section 25. Selma, to the north part of sections 9, 8 and 7, Delton; and thence a little to the south of west ten miles to Highwater creek at the middle of Storden township. In its east half, through Selma and Delton, this ridge has a width that increases toward the west from a half mile to one or two miles, elevated 50 to 100 feet above the average of the land for the next live or six miles to the south, and twice this hight above the country which it overlooks northward to the horizon. Both slopes of the range have a gentle descent, that to the north occupying a width of one to two miles, and reaching from section 7, Delton, to the falls formed by this quartzyte on the head- streams of Mound creek, in the southwest corner of Brown county, and in the N. E. } of section 'Report on the upper Mitsissippi rivef, 1843, p. 10; consult also plate 7 and page 68 uf the present volume. COTTON WOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES. 495 Topography. } 36, Germantown. In the central and southwest part of Amboy and the east half of Storden, this highland, besides slowly increasing in elevation westward, expands to a greater width, and forms an approximately level plateau of till, one to three miles wide, with outcrops of the quartzyte only upon the slopes which descend from it. The most southern exposures of this rock in Cotton- wood county are in the west part of sections 6 and 7, Dale, and in section 12, Amo, on the west- ern descent from the most southern part of this plateau, which here in northwestern Dale is 75 or 100 feet above the remainder of this township and its Three lakes, and about 150 feet above lake Augusta on the west. This area of Potsdam quartzyte is the only part of Cottonwood county which has exposures of the bed-rocks, the remainder being moderately undulating or rolling and sometimes hilly gla- cial drift. The general slope, as already stated, rises from east to west, and at the west side of Amo and in Rose Hill this drift attains as great an altitude as the quartzyte range eight miles northeast in Amboy and Stordon. The townships of Westbrook, Ann, Highwater and Germantown, lying north of this hight of land in Eose Hill, Amo and the ridge of quartzyte, ha've mostly a smoothly rolling contour, with the crests of swells fifteen to thirty feet above the depressions. The creeks which drain this district northward to the Cottonwood river flow in valleys that they have eroded 20 to 40 feet beiow the average surface. The whole of Jackson county, like the northwest and south parts of Cottonwood county, is so deeply covered by the glacial drift that it has no outcrop of the underlying rocks. Southwest and south of the quartzyte ridge, these counties are crossed by a belt of knolly and hilly or promi- nently rolling morainic drift, two to seven miles wide, which reaches from Rose Hill southeast to the Blue mounds west of Windom, and thence south through the center of Jackson county to the west side of Spirit lake. From the vicinity of Windom a branch of this moraine extends ten miles north through the west part of Lakeside and Carson. The same knolly and bro- ken contour of the drift is found also in the south part of Sioux Valley and in Round Lake township, on the southwest border of Jackson county. Excepting these morainic tracts and the ridge, of quartzyte, these counties are a smoothly undulating, and in part almost flat, sheet of till, ascending with a very gentle slope from east to west, enclosing lakes here and there in its depressions, slightly channeled by creeks and deeply cut by the Des Moines river. Many further details respecting the contour of the drift are presented in a later part of this chapter. The valley of the Des Moines river in South Brook, the most southwest township of Cotton- wood county, is less distinct in its outlines, and its depth is less, than in any other part of its extent below lake Shetek. South Brook has mostly a rolling contour of massive swells, variable in their forms, trends, and extent, rising 20 to 50 feet above the Des Moines river, which flows among them in an irregular course, generally without any well-defined valley of bottomland and bluffs, but turned here and there by small undulations. In section 19 it passes through the north end of Talcott lake, which lies in a shallow basin of the drift-sheet, covering nearly a square mile, but only from five to eight feet deep. In Springfield where the Des Moines flows northeast, at right angles to its course both above and below, it again occupies a definite valley, channeled 50 to 75 feet below the average hight of .)()(; THK GbXDLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [ I-)cs Moines river. I lun^. the rolling surface on either side. At the northeast corner of this township is the great bend of the Des Moiues. Here it enters a valley transverse to its course through the last eight miles, and is carried in it thence to the southeast. This valley has a nearly flat alluvial bottomland, a third to a half of a mile wide, enclosed by bli.ffs 50 to 60 feet high. It continues two or three miles northerly from the great bend, with the same width and depth; and is less distinctly marked three or four miles farther, along the upper part of Harvey creek to lake Augusta. The excava- tion of this channel was probably effected by floods discharged from glacial melting, while the receding ice-sheet still covered these counties farther east. In the central part of Great Bend township the river is bordered on the west by morainic knolls and small ridges of rocky till, which rise successively one above another to the top of the Blue mounds, one to one and a half miles distant; and in the vicinity of Windom the ascent from the river eastward has a similar contour. Through Jackson county the valley of the Des Moines is 100 to 150 feet below the average hight on each side, and is from one-third to two-thirds of a mile wide between the tops of its bluffs, which in the north part of the county rise in knolly and irregular slopes of morainic drift. but at Jackson and southward have generally the nearly straight course and steep ascent charac- teristic of ordinary fluvial erosion. At Jackson the immediate river-bluffs are about 100 feet high, but there is a further rise of the moderately undulating expanse of till on each side, amount- ing to 50 or 75 feet within a mile or less from the top of the bluffs. This town is built on four terraces of modified drift, successively about 20, 30, 40 and 50 feet above the river, together occupying a width of one-fourth to one-third of a mile. They are mostly composed of sand and gravel for several feet next below the soil; but in some places the underlying till reaches quite to the surface. Distances along the Des Moines river, measured in direct lines between its principal bends, are as follows: from its source to the foot of lake Shetek (this portion being commonly called Beaver creek), 24 miles; to a point on the south line of Cottonwood county, two miles north of the north end of Heron lake, 48 miles; to its great bend, 56 miles; to Windom, 63 miles: to Jackson, 81 miles; to the state line, 91 miles; and to its mouth at Keokuk. about 385 miles. Thus a little less than one-fourth of its entire length lies in Minnesota. Elevations, Saint Paul & Sioux City division, Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis d- Omaha railway. From profiles in the office of T. P. Gere, superintendent, Saint Paul. .Miles from Feet above St. Paul. the sea. Mountain Lake, depot 137.0 1300 Bingham Lake, depot 143.2 1420 Summit, grade 144.1 143V Windom 147.8 1353 Des Moines river, water 148.1 1331 Bluff siding 149.7 1425 Wilder - .....154.0 1448 Heron lake, water. .."! 159.0-159.5 1403 Heron Lake, depot 160.3 1417 ' Elevations, Southern Minnesota division, Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul railti-u//. From George B. Woodworth, assistant engineer. La Crosse. Miles from Feet above La Croase. the sea. Top of bluff at junction of branch to Jackson depot 209.1 1446 Des Moines river, water 211.8 1288 Des Moines river, bridge 211.8 1353 Summit, grade 216.6 1517 Lakefleld 220.6 1463 Okabena 229.1 1410 Crossing Saint Paul & Sioux City railroad 232.2 1414 The highest portions of Cottonwood county, about 1500 feet above the sea, are in Rose Hill, township, in western Aino. and the plateau upon the COTTONWOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES. 497 Elevations.] west part of the quartzyte ridge in southeastern Storden and southwestern Amboy, and the tops of the Blue mounds, which are 1450 to 1525 feet above the sea. The lowest land of this county, nearly five hundred feet below these tracts, is where the Cottonwood river enters the northeast corner of Germantown, at a hight of about 1030 feet above the sea. The elevation of the Little Cottonwood river where it leaves the county is estimated to be 1150 feet; and of the most northern tributary to the Watonwan river, at the east line of Selma, 1100. The Des Moines river descends in this county approximately from 1400 to 1330 feet above the sea. Estimates of the average hight of the townships of Cottonwood county are as follows: Selma, 1225 feet above the sea; Mountain Lake, including two governmental townships, 1300; Delton, 1325; Carson, 1375; Lakeside, 1410; Germantown, 1200; Amboy, 1400; Dale, 1450; Great Bend, 1410; High- water, 1225; Storden, 1400; Amo, 1450; Springfield, 1430; Ann, 1300; West- brook, 1420; Rose Hill, 1450; and South Brook, 1425. The mean elevation of Cottonwood county, derived from these figures, is 1360 feet. In Jackson county the greatest altitudes are attained by the inner terminal moraine which extends from north to south through the center of the county, its crests being 1475 to 1550 feet above the sea; and by the outer terminal moraine, which has about the same elevation from Skunk and Rush lakes to Round and State Line lakes in the southwest corner of the county. The descent of the Des Moines river is estimated to be eighty feet, from 1330 at the north to 1250 feet, approximately, where it crosses the state line, at the lowest point in this county. Mean hights of the townships of Jackson county are estimated as follows : Kimball, 1350 ; Enterprise, 1375; Wisconsin, 1400; Petersburg, 1375; Christiana, 1400; Bel- mont, 1410 ; Des Moines, 1420 ; Micldletown, 1425 ; Delafield, 1440 ; Heron Lake, 1460; Hunter, 1475; Minneota, 1460; Weimer, 1415; West Heron Lake, 1420; Rust, 1440; Sioux Valley, 1460; La Crosse, 1425; Alba, 1450; Ewington, 1500; and Round Lake, 1520. The mean elevation thus obtained for the whole county is 1430 feet. Soil and timber. The soil of Cottonwood and Jackson counties has the same nearly uniform fertility that characterizes all southern and western Minnesota. A black, sandy clay, with some intermixture of gravel, and containing occasional boulders, forms the soil, which has been colored to a 32 498 TH£ GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Soil and timber. depth of about two feet below the surface by decaying vegetation. Un- modified glacial drift or till, the same as the soil, excepting that it is not enriched and blackened by organic decay, continues below, being yellowish gray to a depth of 10 or 20 feet, but darker and bluish beyond, as seen in wells. This deposit contains many fragments of magnesian limestone, red quartzyte, granites and crystalline schists; and its fine detritus is a mix- ture of these rocks pulverized, presenting in the most advantageous pro- portions the mineral elements needed by growing plants. Wheat has been the principal crop, but stock-raising has also received much attention in Jackson county during several years past. A large variety of crops is profitably cultivated throughout this region, including wheat, oats, corn, garden fruits and vegetables, potatoes, and hay. In general, Jackson and Martin counties have a somewhat more sandy soil than the districts adjoin- ing them on the east, north and west, and appear to be therefore slightly less adapted for wheat-raising. Besides this staple product, horses and cat- tle, pork and beef, butter and cheese, have become considerable exports. From 1873 to 1876 Cottonwood and Jackson counties, in company with all southwestern Minnesota, were distressed by the ravages of the Rocky Mountain locust. To many the work of plowing and sowing, and the wheat sown, were total losses during these years. In 1880 frequent groves were noticeable between Fairmont and Worthington, which had been set out to shield farm-houses from the wind, and still remained, though the buildings were gone and the farms deserted, telling where in this struggle the grasshoppers had conquered. Though the wheat was nearly everywhere eaten by them so that no harvest could be saved, the prairie grass suffered only slightly, and from this epoch herding has taken an important place in the agriculture of Jackson and Martin counties. The opinion prevails, and seems to rest upon a correct knowledge of facts, that the yield of wheat generally in the southern tier of counties of Minnesota during the past fifteen years or so, averaging ten to fifteen bushels per acre, has been only half or two-thirds as great as dur- ing the preceding ten or fifteen years. Much land remains that was never broken with the plow, and this contrast in productiveness is exhibited by newly broken ground in all respects similar to adjacent tracts that were first cultivated twenty or thirty years ago. It appears also that the early immigrants found wetter seasons, the sloughs more frequently impassable, and the lakes mostly standing at somewhat higher levels, than during the fifteen years next before 1880. To differences in rain-fall thus indicated, and differences in temperature and winds, and in their distribution through the year, making up the climate as a whole, we must attribute the diminu- tion in the wheat crop. Probably these general climatic changes will be found to be periodic; lessened precipitation of rain and snow, and reduced yields of wheat through several years, being succeeded by a term, perhaps of equal duration, bringing as great rainfall, and as plentiful har- vests, as have ever been recorded. The more wet years from 1880 to 1882 may mark the begin- ning of a period especially favorable for wheat-raising in southern Minnesota. These counties are natural prairie, affording rich pasturage, and ready for the plow. Less than a hundredth part of their area is wooded. This includes small groves and narrow skirts of timber and brushwood about COTTONWOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES. 499 Potsdam quartzytc.] the shores of lakes, along the large creeks, and especially along the whole extent of the Des Moines river. The following species of trees and shrubs are found at Talcott lake: American or white elm, bur oak/ white ash, box-elder, black walnut, willows, prickly ash, smooth sumach, frost grape, Virginia creeper, climbing bitter-sweet, wild plum, choke-cherry, black raspberry, rose, thorn, smooth wild gooseberry, and wolf berry, common; red or slippery elm, cottonwood, hackberry, waahoo, and black currant, less frequent. Basswood grows at Oaks lake, a few miles farther north. About Spirit lake, which lies in the north edge of Iowa and extends into the south part of section 36, Minneota, the timber consists principally of bur oak, white and red elm, white ash, basswood, sugar maple, box-elder, black walnut and cottonwood. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. Potsdam quartzyte. The only exposures of bed-rock in this district are the red quartzyte which forms a prominent ridge in the north part of Cotton- wood county, reaching into the edge of Watonwan and Brown counties. From the most eastern to the most western outcrop of this rock is a length of twenty-three miles; and the width upon which it is occasionally exposed increases from a half mile or less at the east to six miles at the west. The contour of this area has already been described as rising in a massive highland of rock, mostly covered by a smooth sheet of till, with gracefully rounded top and moderate slopes. The general character of this formation, and the loca- tion, extent, and special features of its outcropping ledges are to be noted here. In Courtland, two miles east of New Ulm and about thirty miles east-northeast from this ridge in northern Cottonwood county, and again in Pipestone and Bock counties, fifty miles west- southwest from this ridge, the same rock-formation has extensive exposures, and it continues westward in Dakota to Dell Rapids and Sioux Falls on the Big Sioux river, and to Kockport on the James rive?, seventy miles west of Minnesota, and about a hundred and eighty miles west- southwest from New Him. All these outcrops are mainly very hard, fine-grained quartzyte, dif- fering in color from pinkish gray to dark dull red, always having some red tint; and varying in the thickness of its beds from a few inches, or sometimes only a half inch or less, to one or two feet. It is usually perceptibly tilted, with considerable variability in the direction of its dips, which vary in amount from one or two to fifteen or twenty degrees, and rarely attain an inclina- tion of forty-five degrees. This quartzyte is a metamorphosed sandstone. At a few places it occurs in an imperfectly indurate! condition, being a more or less crumbling sandrock, composed of water-rounded grains. Sometimes, too, it is a conglomerate, enclosing abundant water-worn pebbles up to an inch in diameter, what was originally an ordinary fine gravel having become so cemented as to form a very compact and hard, tough rock; and by diminution in the number of pebbles scattered through it, the formation exhibits all grades between this pudding-stone and its 500 THE GEOLOGY OP MINNESOTA. [Potsdam quartiyte. typical condition as a quartzyte. Again, it occasionally contains layers, from less than an inch to several feet thick, of argillaceous rock, so fine-grained and even in its texture as to appear macro- scopically homogeneous, doubtless metamorphosed from deposits of fine silt or clay in the midst of beds of sand; commonly dull red, but often mottled with pale spots or striped by the same lighter tints in parallelism with its stratification; soft enough to be easily carved and polished, and in its best varieties entirely free from grit. This has been named catlinite, and its finest layer is that which has been worked by the Indians, to whom it is still reserved, at the celebrated RedPipestone quarry. The planes of bedding of this quartzyte frequently show very distinct and beautiful ripple marks, such as are made by waves upon the sandy shore and bottom of lakes or of the sea. No fossils have been detected in this formation, as here described in southwestern Minnesota and southeastern Dakota: and f ucoid impressions,'rarely observed, are the only remains of life yet found in the probably equivalent Cupriferous series of red quartzytes and sandstones interstratified with thick basaltic overflows and beds of tuff and tufaceous conglomerate, which is very extensively developed about lake Superior. The quartzyte from New Ulm to the James river is closely like the sandstone and quattzyte associated with trap rocks in northeastern Minnesota, in northern Wisconsin and northern Michigan; but its deposition was not similarly accompanied by outflows of igneous rock, nor has this formation in southern Minnesota been intersected by trap dikes. Foster and Whitney referred these rocks in the region of lake Superior to the Potsdam age, considering them the western equivalent and representative of the Potsdam sandstone in New York; and the explorations by this survey of their continuation into northeastern Minnesota sustain this conclu- sion,* while the observations of this quartzyte outcropping in the southwest part of the state and farther west indicate that it belongs to the same epoch. This formation underlies the Calciferous or Lower Magnesian series, which outcrops along the lower part of the Minnesota river from a point fourteen miles east-southeast of New Ulm, and along the Saint Croix and Mississippi rivers. In the N. E. J of section 25, Selma, this red quartzyte is exposed upon an eastward slope of till, with an area three rods long from northwest to southeast, and about a rod wide, rising some two feet above the general surface. In the S. E. J of section 23, Selma, this rock outcrops on a southward slope along a distance of about twenty-five rods from east to west, with a width of two or three rods and a hight of only one to two feet. It dips about ten degrees southward. Both these ledges have been slightly quarried. They are the ordinary, very hard quartzyte, intersected by systems of joints which give it a rhomboidal fracture. Other outcrops of the same stone, which have not been visited in this survey, occur northwestward at numerous places in this township and in the northeast part of Delton, upon the high ridge and in the hollow where the north branch of the North fork of Wat- onwan river crosses it. The quartzyte also has frequent exposures in Delton along nearly the whole extent of the Little Cottonwood river through this township, and in its tributary ravines. In the east part of the S. E. i of section 8, it has been much quarried in the banks and channel of this stream, sup- plying rough stone used for foundations, cellar walls, well curbing and culverts, or, by Russian immigrants, for chimneys, being sometimes teamed fifteen miles. It occurs in layers of all thick- nesses up to two and a half feet, the thinly bedded portions, as usually, being much divided by joints into rhomboidal fragments a foot or less in length. The bedding planes are often ripple- marked over several square rods together, in parallel undulations about a quarter of an inch high and two to four inches apart from crest to crest. The dip is about 5° S. 20° W. This is some twenty rods east of the Little Cottonwood falls, where the same rock in its upper portion forms layers three to six feet thick, dipping about six degrees to the south, but only a few feet lower, uear the level of the stream, is thin-bedded and somewhat contorted and irregular in strat- ification. Quartzyte outcropping in the north part of the S. W. J of section 18, Delton occurs in layers up to six inches thick, dipping about 3° S. 70° E. Twenty rods farther south it has a dip of the same amount but changed in direction to S. 40° E., all these bearings being referred to the true meridian. Its only exposures observed in the south half of this township are in the S. E. t of section 30, where it is visible at numerous places along an extent of about an eighth of a mile in •Consult Prof. Winchell's article on " Tha Potsdam sandstone," in the tenth annual report, pp. 123—136. COTTONWOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES. 5Q1 Potsdam quartzyte.] a ravine tributary to the Watonwan river. No other outcrops were learned of upon the head- streams of this river farther eastward in Delton. A ledge of this rock, very remarkably striated, as described on a following page,, and bear- ing rude Indian inscriptions, is found on the ridge about a mile north-northeast from the Little Cottonwood falls and quarry, being in the north part of the N. W. J of section 9, Delton. It has an area about twenty rods long from east to west, and four to eight rods wide. The dip of its stratification was not distinctly seen, but is believed to be about five degrees southward, which is the slope of the surface. Numerous figures are pecked on this rock, representing animals, ar- rows, etc., similar to those inscribed by the Indians on the quarlzyte beside the boulders called the Three Maidens, near the Pipestone quarry. From this ledge westward the same typical quartzyte frequently outcrops upon the higher part of this ridge and on its northern slope through the northwest part of Delton, northern Amboy and northeastern Storden. In the S. W. \ of section 2, Amboy, a ravine ten to fifteen feet deep extends east-northeast in a straight course about forty rods, varying from two to three rods in width, bordered by verti- cal walls, ten to fifteen feet high, of rough, thick-bedded quartzyte, of red or reddish gray color, nearly level in stratification, mostly much divided by joints. The eastern half of this ravine holds a long pool, ten to twenty feet wide, and five to eight feet deep. At the top of the wall of rock south of the west part of this pool, the much jointed, deep red, striated surface is in many places soft and like pipestone to the depth of an eighth of an inch; but within, these small jointed masses are gritty and hard, the pipestone being only a thin coating at the bedding-planes. At the western end of this ravine, on its north side, eight feet above the rivulet that flows east into the pool, this rock encloses a layer, nearly level, varying from four inches to a foot in thickness, somewhat like the pipestone of the famous quarry in Pipestone county, having nearly the same very fine texture and dark red color, but not so hard, and at this place, through its extent of twenty feet exposed to view, easily divisible into small flakes and fragments because of joints, and therefore not seen in any solid mass. The edge of this layer has been mostly removed by weathering to a depth of two to six feet into the wall of tough, reddish gray quartzyte, which overhangs and underlies it. The divisions of this very fine-grained bed from the coarse quartz- yte are not definite lines, but these unlike sediments are more or less blended and interstratified through one to six inches. Both above and below, the quartzyte in some portions contains peb- bles up to a third or half of an inch in diameter, and is quite variable in texture, but is nowhere finely laminated. At a few places the pipestone also is found to contain these small gravel stones; and a few fragments of pipestone up to three inches in diameter are seen enclosed in the quartzyte within one to two feet above the pipestone layer. Picturesque falls are produced by this formation in the N. E. \ of section 36, Germantown. The rock here is mostly a very coarse-grained, thick-bedded sandstone, slightly iron rusty or red- dish in color. Nearly all of it is somewhat friable, being thus unlike the other exposures of this formation in this county. In some portions, however, it is here very hard and compact, and then usually has a deeper red hue. Its dip is about 5° S. 10° E. Besides this general dip, the beds often show oblique lamination. This rock is in some places slightly conglomerate, holding peb- bles of white quartz, and less frequently of red felsyte, or possibly jasper, the largest seen being an inch long. These falls are about two miles northeast from the gorge last described, being on a lower part of the same stream, which is one of the sources of Mound creek. Along its intervening course and within short distances from it on each side this formation has frequent outcrops, notably for a quarter of a mile south and southwest from the falls. The stream descends thirty feet in a succession of little cascades, within a distance of twenty rods; next below which is a basin some six rods long and four rods wide, bordered by vertical or overhanging walls of rock, about thirty feet high. At its east end this basin is so contracted that for a distance of about twenty feet these walls of rock are only eight to fifteen feet apart. Below, for the next twenty-five rods, the gorge is four to six rods wide, bordered by vertical walls of reddish sandstone or quartzyte, which decline from thirty to twenty and ten feet in hight. The same rock is seen thence neaily all the way for a half mile east, mostly forming cliffs fifteen to twenty feet high at the south side of this creek, to the junction of another stream from the south in section 31, Stately, Brown county, which also has an interesting fall formed by the quartzyte. The most western exposure of this rock learned of in Cottonwood county is in the N. W. J of section 28, Storden, on land of C. P. Carlson. Typical quartzyte, very compsct and tough, varying in color from dull red to slightly reddish gray, is here exposed in the bed of a stream 502 THE GEOLOGY OP MINNESOTA. [Potsdam quartzytc, tributary to Highwater creek, along a distance of fifteen rods or more from north to south, with a width of two to four rods. Its dip is about five degrees to the southeast or S. 60° E. It is much divided by joints and is thereby somewhat fractured into rhomboidal pieces. Ripple-marks were seen in several places, the undulations being two to three inches wide. Fragments of red pipe- stone up to two inches in diameter occur rarely in this rock. Another outcrop is reported one mile northeast from the last, on the N. E. } of section 21, Storden, in a ravine; and others occur a half mile southeast of Carlson's, near the center of section 27, in the bed of small ponds through which the brook flows. The west part of the S.W. J of section 6, Dale, has considerable exposures of quartzyte, scarcely rising, however, above the general surface of the till, along a distance of twenty rods and more from north to south, on a westward slope, about a mile east from the east end of lake Augusta. These ledges are owned and have been slightly quarried by Peter Schmith. The stone varies in color from yellowish gray to a dull red, is much jointed, and has a dip at the quarry of about five degrees northeast. Laminae of pipestone from a fourth to a third of an inch thick, deep red, traversed by whitish veins, in their predominant red color and soft slaty texture closely like the pipestone of Pipestone quarry, were noted here upon the surface about fifteen feet east of the quarried excavations, occurring at bedding planes along an extent of about two rods. Here, also, fragments of this deep red pipestone, up to one or two inches in diameter, are enclosed in the quartzyte, which is mostly of a more grayish red color. Several other outcrops of this rock, similar in extent and character, occur within a distance of a mile to the south and southwest through section 7, Dale, and in the east edge of section 12, and perhaps also of section 1, Amo. These most southern exposures of this area of quartzyte were examined by Prof. Winchell in 1873, and have been described on pages 159 and 160 of the second annual report. The dip at one place near the east line of section 12, Amo, is recorded to be "4° or 5° N. 10° W. The stone is very hard, but banded with light and red beds, evident on the planed surface and on the fractured side." The observations of dip recorded in the foregoing pages indicate that these Potsdam strata in Selma, Delton, Stately and Germantown are mono- clinal, dipping generally about five degrees southward; and that probably farther west in Germantown, Amboy, Storden, Dale and Amo, where a greater width is exposed, they are synclinal, on the north dipping about five degrees toward the south, and on the southwest dipping an equal amount toward the northeast and north. From the Little Cottonwood falls in Delton along the distance of three miles northerly to the falls in section 36, Germantown, Prof. Winchell in a recent reconnoissance found numerous outcrops of the rock with a nearly uniform southward dip of about five degrees, from which he computes the thickness of the formation exposed between those points to be approximately 1380 feet. Stratigraph- ically, the lowest of the beds thus observed are at the falls on Mound creek in Germantown, where outcrops extending twelve hundred feet from north to south, with a dip of five degrees toward the south, give a thickness of 100 feet for the friable sandstone seen at that place. This forms the base of the strata measured, lying below beds of very hard and compact quartz- yte, which are almost a quarter of a mile thick.* *See an instructive paper, by Prof. R. D. Irving, on the nature of the induration of sandstones and quartzytes in Wisconsin, probably of the same kind with the induration of this quartzyte, American Journal oj Science, (3), vol. xxv, pp. 401-411, June, 1883'. COTTONWOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES. 503 Glacial striae.] Fifteen miles south-southwest from the rock outcrops of Dale and Amo, this Potsdam formation is reached in the railroad well at Heron Lake at a depth of 186 feet, its first 34 feet, to a total depth of 220, being a reddish quartzyte or sandstone, underlain by a whitish gray quartzyte. This is the only well in Jackson county which goes through the drift, and no wells were learned of in southenv-or western Cottonwood county that penetrate to the bed-rock. It does not seem certain that the Heron Lake well encounters anything but drift deposits above the Potsdam quartzyte; but its section from 115 to 186 feet may be through Cretaceous beds, which, however, were learned of in no other well in these counties. The order of deposits found was soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 13; blue till, 100; yellow clay, 10; dark, very hard and dry, fine silt, like dried mud, 16 feet; light gray clay, free from gravel, 24; and interstratified sand and fine gravel, 21 feet, being in total 186 feet, to the Potsdam rocks before described. Drift and contour. The surface of the Potsdam quartzyte in many places shows distinct glacial markings, notes of which are presented in the following table. These bearings are referred to the true meridian, from which the magnetic needle here has a variation of about ten degrees to the east. Courses of glacial striae, in Cottonwood county. • Selma, N. E. } of sec. 25 S. 20° E. Selma, S. E. \ of sec. 23 S. 20° E., and varying from this two or three degrees on each side. Delton, S. E. } of sec. 30 S. 15° E. Delton, S. W. } of sec. 18 S. 15° E. Delton, N. W. \ of sec. 18 S. 25° E. Delton, N. W. \ of sec. 9 mostly S. 25° to 40° E.; also all courses from S. to S. 80° E., intersecting upon the same surface. Amboy, south part of sec. 2, near (north of) a school house. . , mostly S. 40* E.; and, within a distance of one rod from striae of this course, also S. 45° and 55° E. Amboy, S. W. J of sec. 2, at the pipestone locality, about a quarter of a mile northwest from the last S. 35° to 50° E., and rarely deflected to S. 70° E. , all intersecting on the same surface. Germantown, N. E. J of sec. 36, about thirty rods southwest from the falls S. 30° E. and S. 70° E. (fig. 35) Five rods east from the last, stria? were noted at different spots within a space of about one rod square of nearly level rock, bearing S. 30°, 50° and 70° E. Generally here these marks have been effaced, and none could be found on the ledge described in the N. W. J of sec. 28, Storden. Dale, S. W. } of sec. 6 S. 20° to 25° E. Dale, south part of sec. 7 S. 34° E. Amo, east part of sec. 12 S. 30° to 32° E. Near the Little Cottonwood falls, in the S. E. J of section 8, Delton, and at points on the north side of the quartzyte ridge in the northwest part of this township, the ar.gles of projecting ledges of this rock were observed to be rounded off by glaciation. The most remarkable deflections and intercrossing of glacial striae ever seen by the writer, were found at the locality mentioned in the N. W. } of section 9, Delton. It is on the southern slope of the rid^e formed by this quartzyte, as already described. This ridge is elevated about 300 feet above the lowland, which, from its base two or three miles farther north, extends north- ward more than fifty miles, across the basin of the Minnesota river; but its bight above the aver- 504 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Glacial itria-. age surface to the south and southwest is slight, probably not exceeding 50 feet. Its length is about twenty-five miles, extending from east to west; and this locality is near the middle of its extent. Very distinct glacial markings occur here promiscuously crossing each other in all di- rections between north to south and S. 60" E., and, very rarely, S. 80° E.; but a great majority are between S. 25" E. and S. 40" E. Many are from ten to thirty feet or more in length, and from an eighth to a half of an inch deep; others are very delicate lilies. Curved strise were ob- served at one place; two or three parallel furrows (fig. 36), covering a width of several inches and extending about ten feet to the southeast, were gradually deflected nine inches southerly from their direct course in the last four feet. All the other very abundant intercrossed striae observed here are straight, or deviate only slightly from straight courses. The outcrop containing pipe- stone in section 2, Amboy, furnished the only similar instance seen in these counties. Here sev- eral parallel glacial scratches bend twenty or thirty degrees in a length of about eight inches (fig. 37). The curvature of these ice-marks, where no obstacle existed to cause deflection, indicate that they were engraved during the final melting and recession of the ice-sheet, when it had be- come thin, and that its margin at the date of this curved striation was near, perhaps within a few rods. In such a situation the unequal melting of the edge of the ice must produce changes, such as are thus recorded, in the direction of its motion.* The prominence of the quartzyte ridge doubtless gave unusual irregularity to the outlines of the retreating ice-border in northern Cot- tonwood county, which, by the resulting deflections of the glacial current, appears to have been the cause of the singularly varying and intercrossed striation of this region. During the greater part of the last glacial epoch the ice-fields here appear to have flowed in a nearly south-southeast course; but when they were being melted away, the direction of movement close to the ice-border would be often deflected because it must flow toward the nearest part of this irregular and changing boundary, which here and there became in- dented by bays of small or large extent. The intersecting striae on the ledge in section 9, Delton, record very changeable glacial currents, now deflected to a due south course, twenty degrees to the right from the direc- tion which they had previously held through this glacial epoch, but presently diverging as much or twice or three times as much to the left, attaining a southeast or even a nearly east course. The medial moraine directly south of this locality, in Carson and Lakeside, suggests that, when the ice retreated, probably two glacial currents converged here, pushing against each other, and that the striae bearing south were made by the current on the east, and those bearing S. 60° to 80° E. by the current on the west. Divergences to the east from the prevailing direction of glaciation were noted also four miles farther northwest, in Amboy and Germantown, upon the northern slope and at the north base of this massive ridge. In Germantown a surface about a yard square was observed, on half of which the striae bear uniformly S. 30° E., and on the other half S. 70° E., as shown in fig. 35, these portions meeting at a slightly beveled angle from which •Similar curved strise are recorded and figured by Desor ( Foster and Whitney's Report on the take Superior land district, part I., p. 206), and by Andrews (Am. Jour. Sc«.(.3), vol. xxvi, p. 100, Aug., 1883). COTTON WOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES. 5Q5 Glacial striae. Moraines.] each side slopes down two or three degrees.* The former of these courses of striation is probably that which prevailed till the departure of the ice-sheet, when the great quartzyte ridge and the irregularity of the glacial melting caused a deflection of forty degrees toward the east. The later ice-current was steadily maintained during a considerable time, sufficient for planing off a part of this surface of very hai'd quartzyte, but not touching the ad- joining part, which could only escape by having a thin covering of drift. FIG. 35. Fio. 36. FIG. 37. IS THE K. E. !i OF IN THE IT. W. % OF I» THE 8. W. J^ SEC. 36, GERMASTOWW. SEC. 9, DELTON. OF SEC. 2. AMBOY. SKETCHES OF GLACIAL STRLE ON THE QUARTZYTE IN COTTONWOOD COUNTY. The drift spread over Cottonwood and Jackson counties is principally till, in part morainic, being accumulated in knolls and hills, or with a prominently rolling surface in massive, smoothly sloping swells, but fpr the greater part it is only gently undulating in contour. Its thickness on the quartzyte ridge varies from nothing to probably fifty feet or more, and in other portions of these counties it probably varies from one hundred to two hundred feet in depth. The moraines to be described were formed at the west border of the ice-sheet of the last glacial epoch, the first when this ice covered its maximum area, and the second after it had receded considerably from its farthest limits, when its retreat was interrupted by a halt and perhaps even by some re-advance. First terminal moraine. The outer or western morainic belt of the Coteau des Prairies ex- tends into the south edge of this state along its course of twenty miles next west of Spirit lake, where the greater part of its width lies in Iowa. From the Little Sioux river at the west side of Minneota, through Sioux Valley and Round Lake townships, to Indian lake in southeastern Nobles county, the part of this formation in Minnesota is characterized by numerous small ridges, hillock?, and swells of till, and is from one and a half to five miles wide, reaching north to Skunk lake, to a half mile beyond Rush lake, to Plum Island and Round lakes, and to the north end of Indian lake. Its greatest extent north in this distance is at the north side of Round lake; but south of this a tract about two miles wide and three miles long to the east from State Line lake, is smooth and only slightly undulating, though enclosed by rolling or knolly morainic areas. Second terminal moraine. The inner or eastern of the two terminal moraines upon the Co- teau des Prairies extends from the west side of Spirit lake north through the central range of townships in Jackson county. The width of this belt is from three to six miles. Its surface is •Compare similar observations in Rock county, reported in chapter xviii. 506 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Moraines. prominently rolling, mostly in massive swells, 20 to 40 feet above the depressions, but at many places in small, steep knolls and hillocks of similar hight. The elevation of the range above the general level is from 40 to 75 feet. Its material is till, which here contains more gravel and boul- ders than on its smooth, slightly undulating areas which extend at each side beyond the limits of the county. In Minneota this morainic belt is about three miles wide, reaching from Little Spirit lake and Clear lakes west to the Little Sioux river. It here has many knolls and short ridges which continue into Hunter, and are crossed seven to ten miles west of Jackson by the road to Worthiugton. Farther to the north, the moraine forms a prominently rolling tract, about six miles wide, between the Des Moines and Heron lake, rising in smooth massive swells 50 to 75 feet above the general level at the top of the bluffs of the river, and 75 to 100 feet above the lake. In the southwest part of Cottonwood county, this belt of notably rolling and hilly drift occu- pies the west half of Great Bend, the north part of Springfield, northeastern South Brook, south- western Amo, and nearly all of Rose Hill. Its width in these townships varies from two to five miles. To the northwest from the offset of the Des Moines river which crosses this formation in Springfield, it lies a few miles northeast of this river and parallel with it, having within the limits of this county and especially in Rose Hill township a prominently rolling contour in smooth swells, 20 to 40 feet above the intervening hollows and frequent lakes. To the south from this offset and the great bend of the Des Moines, the second terminal moraine lies west of this river and approximately parallel with it, their distance apart being from one to ten or twelve miles, along an extent of a hundred and forty miles, through Jackson county and onward in a nearly south-southeast course to Pilot mound and Mineral ridge in northern Boone county near the cen- ter of Iowa. The most conspicuous portion and most roughly broken contour of this morainic belt in Cot- tonwood county are in the west part of Great Bend, where a group or range of hills, known as the Blue mounds, begins three miles west of Windom and thence extends three or four miles in a north- west course, with a width varying from a half mile to one and a half miles, lying between the Des Mojnes river on the northeast and Spring lakes on the southwest. These hills are composed of till with frequent boulders, and rise in very irregular slopes to hights 100 to 175 feet above the river and 25 to 75 feet above the general level at their west side. The most elevated of these mounds, in sections 17 and 20, are visible from the southeast part of Murray county, fifteen miles to the west; but from the east they can only be seen within a distance of six or eight miles. Medial moraine. Across the Des Moines river, the land ascending from it east of Windom, opposite to the Blue mounds, has similar but less prominent morainic features. It consists of irregular knolls, hillocks, and low ridges of till, with enclosed hollows and lakes, occupying a width of two or three miles, and gradually rising in this distance about 100 feet above the Des Moines river. This tract seems to be part of a medial moraine (so called because formed between opposing ice-currents), connected with the second terminal moraine as a branch from its northeast side, and extending north through the two western ranges of sections in Lakeside and Carson. Its most broken portion is found in sections 17, 8 and 5. Carson, which have many small hillsand ridges 40 to 75 feet high, mostly trending from north to south, composed of till with abundant boulders. Ten miles north from these hills in Carson is the morainic tract through which Mound creek flows in Stately, but the intervening area, across which the quartz jte ridge extends from east to west, is destitute of such knolly drift deposits. East of the second moraine, the country extending from it to the Des Moines river in southern Jackson county is till, nearly flat through the central part of Middletown for five or six miles northeast from Spirit lake; moderately undulating in the eastern third of Minneota; and in the west part of Des Moines township massively rolling, in parallel swells that trend nearly from north to south, sloping gently down on their east and west sides to the intervening depressions which are 30 to 50 feet lower, the distance between the tops of these undulations being from a half mile to one or two miles. The surface of the part of Jackson county east of the Des Moines river is a smooth, nearly flat, but everywhere more or less undulating sheet of till, sloping eastward ten to twenty feet per mile. Its descent on the line of the Southern Minnesota railroad is 173 feet in eleven and a half miles from the junction of the branch to Jackson, at the top of the eastern bluff of the Des Moines. Beyond the knolly and broken ascent east from the Des Moines river in the vicinity of Win- dom, the contour changes to a smooth and nearly flat expanse of till, which thence extends seventy- COTTONWOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES. 5Q7 Moraines. Interglacial drainage.] five miles eastward, descending with an imperceptible slope to the Blue Earth river, and beyond this rising in the same manner to the belts of drift hills at the sources of the Le Sueur and Cannon rivers, well named by Nicollet " the N. E. prong of the Coteau des Prairies," since they are of the same age with the moraines of these counties and a curved continuation from them (see page 406). The eastern two-thirds of Lakeside and Carson, and all of Mountain Lake township, in- cluded in the vast area of intra-morainic till, are slightly undulating and differ only five to ten feet in broad swells and depressions from being a perfect plain. This expanse, stretching on all sides to the horizon, would be commonly called level, but the survey of the Saint Paul & Sioux City railroad shows that its descent eastward is uniformly about twenty feet per mile through these townships, or some 200 feet in the ten miles from the railroad summit a mile west of Bing- ham Lake to the east line of this county. If the same slope were continued westward it would pass over the summit of the Blue mounds; hence they cannot be seen east of Bingham Lake. Mountain lake, which has given its name to a railroad station and township, is so called be- cause it contains an island that rises about 35 or 40 feet in steep bluffs, attaining the same hight with the bluffs that surround the lake, even with the average surface of its vicinity. The prob- able origin of this depression and of its steep enclosing bluffs, has been pointed out in treating of the chains of lakes in Martin county, the most western of which appears to have its beginning in this lake. West of the second moraine, the eastern shore of Heron lake mainly rises in gradual slopes of till, reaching the summits of the morainic belt at a distance of three or four miles; the south end of this lake, lying within the edge of the moraine, is enclosed by banks about forty feet high; but on the west and southwest is a very flat expanse of till, 10 to 20 feet above the lake, only undu- lating five to ten feet in slopes a mile long, stretching with slowly increasing hight as far as the view extends westward. On the Sioux City railroad in the ten miles southwest from Heron Lake to Hersey, the ascent is 68 feet; in eight miles on its branch from Heron Lake northwest to Dun- dee, 26 feet; and on the Southern Minnesota railroad in seven miles northwest from its intersec- tion with the Sioux City line to De Forest, is 32 feet. Trains approaching De Forest from the southeast come into sight near the south end of Heron lake, and are visible during forty minutes before their arrival. This smooth plain of till continues south through Rust and Ewington town- ships, having the same slight ascent to the west, and crossed from north to south or southeast by occasional water-courses and sloughs ten to twenty feet below the general level. Interglacial drainage. Heron lake lies in the continuation of the southeast course of the upper Des Moines river below lake Shetek. There seem to be good reasons for believing that lake Shetek, this part of the Des Moines, Heron lake, and Spirit and Okoboji lakes in Iowa, re- semble the chains of lakes of Martin county, in occupying portions of what was originally a con- tinuous valley excavated by interglacial drainage in the thick till of the earlier and severer gla- cial epoch, before the time of the last ice-sheet by which the terminal moraines in this and ad- joining states were formed. It is probable that the Des Moines river then continued southeast where Heron lake is now, and oi^vard in the same course through Hunter, where the rolling and hilly drift of the second terminal moraine now forms a watershed a hundred feet above Heron lake; thence southward at the east side of Minneota to Spirit lake and the Okoboji lakes; then, from West Okoboji lake south along the course of the Little Sioux river, which now re- ceives the outflow of these lakes, to its bend three miles east of Spencer; and thence eastward about twenty miles, by Trumbull, Palo Alto and Lost Island lakes, re-entering the present val- ley of the Des Moines river at Emmettsburg. Hights along this distance are approximately as follows: lake Shetek, about 1,475 feet above the sea; the Des Moines river at its point nearest to Heron lake, about 1,375; Heron lake, 1,403; railroad summit between Heron lake and Jackson, 1,517; Spirit lake, about 1,400; the Okoboji lakes, about four feet lower than Spirit lake; Little Sioux river at Spencer, about 1,300; lakes and lowest part of the divide between Spencer and Emmettsburg, about 1,350; and the Des Moines river at Emmettsburg, about 1,125. The re- markable depth of the south part of West Okoboji lake, exceeding one hundred feet, is thus very probably in an unfilled portion of an interglacial valley, elsewhere choked up with the drift of the later ice-sheet by which the morainic hills and swells, partly rough and partly smooth, ad- joining this lake and covering most of northern Dickinson county, in Iowa, were accumulated. 'At Emmettsburg this interglacial Des Moines river was joined by a large tributary from the north, formed by the union of the streams whose courses are marked by the chains of lakes in 508 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Glacial drainage , Martin county, and flowing southwestward across Emmett county at right angles to the present East fork of the Des Moines. Portions of its channel are preserved in Swan lake, six and a naif miles long from northeast to southwest, and from one-fourth to two-thirds of a mile wide, only ten to fifteen feet deep, but occupying a hollow twenty-five to fifty feet below the gently undu- lating expanse of till on both sides; and in the High lakes, nearly three miles long, lying one to three miles south of the soutwest end of Swan lake. This river probably coincided in its course with the present Des Moines southward from the north line of Palo Alto county. Medium lake, which readies four and a half miles northeast from Emmettsburg, varying from a quarter to a half of a mile in width, mostly ten to fifteen feet deep, with a bottom some forty feet below the average of this moderately undulating region, but at one point, a little north of its center, found to be more than fifty feet deep, its surface being about thirty feet above the Des Moines river, probably marks the position of another interglacial tributary of the Des Moines, joining it at nearly the same place with the branch from Martin county. Drainage during the last glacial epoch. Very significant changes in the drainage of this region have been produced by the lobe of the ice-sheet which covered these counties and a width of about a hundred miles eastward during the last glacial epoch. From the south end of Heron lake to Okoboji township in southern Dickinson county, Iowa, the interglacial channel of the Des Moines has been principally lost by being filled with the drift of terminal moraines, accumulated at the west border of the ice. The outer belt of these deposits extends in Iowa from Storm Lake in Buena Vista county northward through eastern Clay county to the Okoboji lakes, and thence westward to Ocheyedan mound in Osceola county. Thence passing into Minnesota, it reaches northwesterly through the central part of Nobles county, western Murray county, and the most northeast township of Pipestone county, forming there and farther northwest the highest part of the Coteau des Prairies. The present basin of the Des Moines river from central Iowa northwest- ward was entirely covered by this ice-sheet; but a small part of its interglacial valley, in southern Dickinson and northern Clay county, Iowa, and most of the basin of Ocheyedan creek, here trib- utary from the northwest, were outside the ice-lobe, by which they were dammed and their drain- age in the old course to the east and southeast was made impossible. A lake about a hundred and fifty feet deep and covering the greater part of Clay county, was thus formed at the west side of the ice-lobe, until its overflow cut the deep, trough-like valley or channel in which the Little Sioux river now flows along the south side of Clay county and in northeastern Cherokee county, 150 to 200 feet deep, and in some places only a quarter of a mile wide between the tops of its bluffs, which consist wholly of glacial drift.* This outlet was so deeply excavated while the ice-sheet lay as a barrier on the east that after its departure the stream continued to flow by this passage to the Missouri, through a broad area of till which has its surface 100 to 150 feet higher than the divide between the Little Sioux and Des Moines rivers east of Spencer. In northern Clay county, where the Little Sioux river takes the place of the interglacial Des Moines, the broad and deep valley eroded by that stream before the last glacial epoch has become nearly filled with modified drift, which forms an extensive plajp, ten miles long and two to four miles wide, bordering the Little Sioux river through Summit, Kiverton and Spencer, reaching west to Stony and Ocheyedan creeks. These fluvial beds of gravel and sand were deposited after the excavation of the channel of the Little Sioux river, by which the lake that previously existed here had been drained into the Missouri; and they are thus shown to have been supplied during the latter part of this epoch, while the ice-sheet, in which they had been held, was being melted away. The decline and departure of this ice was interrupted by a halt and probably by a re-advance, forming a second or inner line of terminal moraine, which reaches through Murray, Cottonwood and Jackson counties, from the east side of lake Shetek southeast to the Blue mounds west of Windom, and thence south to Spirit lake, and continues southeast in Iowa within a few miles west of the Des Moines river to Pilot mound and Mineral ridge. At this time the drainage from the head of the Des Moines basin, in Murray county, and the waters of Heron lake and its tribu- taries went southward through West Heron Lake, Bust and Sioux Valley townships, and were carried by the Little Sioux to the Missouri river, instead of going southeast as now to the Missis- sippi. Heron lake then stood about twenty feet higher than now, probably covering three times its present area. The shallow channel of its overflow has become partly filled by the silt of tribu- •White's Geology of Iowa, vol. ii., p. 205. COTTON WOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES.. 509 Glacial drainage. Boulders.] taries, and contains a succession of sloughs and small reedy lakelets, connected at time of high water by a stream, which is the head and most northern source of the Little Sioux river. Farther recession of the ice gave to the waters of Heron lake and the upper Des Moines river a lower outlet by the present course northeast across the second terminal moraine at the north side of the Blue mounds, and thence southeasterly along the east side of this moraine. This avenue of drainage became marked by a considerable valley eroded while the ice yet lay as a barrier upon the east part of Cottonwood and Jackson counties; for the top of the bluffs, and the general surface of the country, bordering the Des Moines in eastern Jackson county are slightly higher than the watershed between Heron lake and the Little Sioux river; and, furthermore, the natural slope in eastern Cottonwood and northeastern Jackson county is eastward, so that this river could not flow here to the south-southeast unless its valley had been thus formed before the ice-sheet was melted at its east^side, being excavated sufficiently deep to hold the stream after- ward in this course. An exception to the generally smooth contour of the drift-sheet north of the quartzyte ridge is found in a quite roughly hilly morainic area, apparently isolated, which lies mainly in the north half of Stately, the most southwest township of Brown county, and extends into Germantown to the west side of section 12. Its abrupt mounds and ridges of stony till are 25 to 75 feet high, having their greatest prominence in Stately along the lower part of Mound creek. This tract ap- pears to belong to a third terminal moraine.* Through the middle of Germantown a notable valley, having a flat bottom of stratified gravel and sand, enclosed by moderately steep slopes which rise about forty feet to the undulating surface of the till on each side, was observed, ex- tendii:g five or six miles in an east-southeast course from near Dry creek at the north side of section 17 in this township, to Mound creek at the east side of section 30, Stately. Another val- ley of similar character was noted three-fourths of a mile farther south, running parallel with the last through the north part of sections 25 and 26, Germantown. These deserted water-courses were probably formed during the departure of the last ice-sheet. Upon this region its border doubtless retreated to the north and northeast; and while it, still lay as a barrier upon the north part of Germantown and was accumulating the morainic hills that lie a few miles to the north- east in Stately, the drainage from its melting was carried by these valleys southeasterly. Farther northwest, the land for a considerable distance along the probable course of the ice-margin in this stage of its retreat is lower than where these valleys occur, and therefore would be occupied by a lake; and again southeastward, from the south part of Stately to Silver Lake in Martin county, a narrow glacial lake probably extended along the border of the ice- sheet, having a hight about 1200 feet above the sea, and overflowing south of Iowa lake to the East fork of the Des Moines river. Boulders and pebbles. The boulders of the drift in these counties are mainly granite and syenite, crystalline schists, quartzyte, and limestone. The quartzyte ridge in northern Cottonwood county has supplied from a tenth to a half of the large rock-fragments in the drift south of it. In traveling from Fairmont to Worthington, boulders and pebbles of quartz- yte are first seen abundantly in the vicinity of Jackson, and are plentiful thence westward. At the northwest side of Spirit lake this formation has supplied a ^ixth part of the larger stones and boulders, but its proportion in the beach-gravel is only a fifteenth or twentieth. Of a hundred and fifty small pebbles counted on a space one foot square of the beach at the west side of Spirit lake, half were magnesian limestone, probably derived from the formation that outcrops near Winnipeg; and the other half were •See page 479; also tlie report of Brown and Redwood counties. 510 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Wells granite and syenite, schists, white quartz, the red quartzyte, etc. One peb- ble, two inches long, of pipestone, one of conglomerate, and seven or eight of the ordinary quartzyte, doubtless all derived from the Potsdam forma- tion in Cottonwood county, were included in this number. Among the large boulders, over one foot in diameter, in these counties, it may be that a twentieth part are limestone. At Windom limestone containing Eeceptac- ulites was found in the drift by Mr. Savidge, in digging his cellar. Modified drift. The only noteworthy deposits of modified drift ob- served are the terraces in the Des Moines valley at Jackson, which have been already described on page 496. Wells in Cottonwood county. Kecords of the deposits of drift dug through for wells in Cottonwood county are as follows: . Selma. C. J. Gabrielson; sec. 10: well, 18 feet; soil, 2; yellow till,14; blue till, harder, but spaded, 2 feet; water seeps. Silas Blackmun; sec. 10: well, 22 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 16; harder blue til), 4; water rose two and a half feet, in very large supply, from a compact and hard gravelly layer at the, bottom. Mountain Lake. Eailroad well : dug 67 feet, and bored 5 feet more, stopped by a boulder ; obtaining a fair supply of water, but probably all from the upper part of the well. Lake hotel; Frank Shaubut, proprietor: well, 64 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 24; blue till, very hard and compact, 38 feet ; water rose from the bottom to stand eight feet below the top in • twelve hours. This water was good the first year, but afterward gradually became very.offen- sive to smell and taste, so that the well is no longer used. It has wooden curbing, the decay of which was probably the source of its contamination. Another well, four rods east from the last, found soil 2 feet, and yellow till, 24 feet, from which water seeps in good supply and of excellent quality. Most of the wells at Mountain Lake village are 15 to 35 feet deep. The yellow till varies in thickness from 15 to 30 feet, succeeded by blue till. A. L. Warren; sec. 34, about a mile east of the depot: well, 45 feet; soil 2 ; yellow till, 28; yellowish gray quicksand, 15 feet, not passed through; plenty of water. The only other well in this region that finds this quicksand is a neighbor's, some ten rods south. Delton. S. M. Beaty; N. W. J of sec. 18: well, 28 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 18; Pots- dam quartzyte, 8; water came in slowly, and holds through the year ten to fifteen feet deep. This township has two flowing wells, the only ones learned of in Cottonwood county: Joseph S. Naramore's, in sec. 12, 38 feet deep, which has overflowed six years ; and Richard Lahart's well, about 16 feet deep, in sec. 34. Carson. Arthur Minion; sec. 4: well, 22 feet; soil, 2 feet; yellow till, shaded, 10; blue till, much harder, picked, 10; water rose from sand and gravel fifteen feet in as many minutes Frag- ments of lignite are often found in the wells of this region. Lakeside. Lakeside mill (steam flouring mill), at Bingham Lake: well, 100 feet deep; dug 50 feet and bored below, all in till; has forty feet of water. Other wells at Bingham Lake are 15 to 20 feet deep, with plenty of good water. Stoned wells in this township iivariably have good water; but those curbed with wood all become poor because of its decay. Germantown. Colin Buchanan ; sec. 20: well, 23 feet; soil, 1 foot; yellow till, spaded. 20 feet, containing a sandy layer at ten feet, which was one and a half feet thick and dipped 45° to the north; gravel and sand, 2 feet, from which water rose six feet in three hours. Amboy. Henry Stubb; sec. 24: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 13 feet, its last five feet being most sandy and gravelly, but also the hardest; blue till, likewise spaded, 15 feet; water rose ten feet in one day from gravel and sand. Several pieces of lignite, up to six inches in length, were found in this well. All the wells in Amboy and Delton have good water. COTTON WOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES. 51 1 Wells.] Dale. J. Q. Picket ; sec. 2 : well, 20 feet; soil, 2 ; yellow till, spaded, 18 ; water rose five feet in one day. The majority of the wells in Dale have excellent water; but some, because of wooden curbing, become too offensive to be used. Windom. R. R. Jenness; well, 70 feet; soil, 2 feet; coarse gravel with many large boulders, 5 feet; till, yellow at top for a few feet, blue below, very hard, 62 feet; white sand, 1 foot, and ex- tending deeper, from which water rose forty feet in a quarter of an hour. S. S. Johnson; well, 60 feet; soil, 2; gravel, 4; till, as in Mr. Jenness' well, 54 feet; water rose from sand at the bottom fifty-seven feet in two hours, but afterward fell away by soaking into the ground, and now usually stands ten feet below the surface. At the top of the sand from which the water came, were branches of wood and gasteropocl shells, probably interglacial, in a thin layer of muck. The water at first was very dark and disagreeable to the taste, like that of a peat swamp (perhaps because of the decay of wooden curbing); but since the first two years it has been of good quality. Within fifteen rods from this well are others that get a large supply of water in gravel at 12 or 15 feet. Highwater. G. II. Beng; N. W. J of sec. 23 : well, 40 ; soil, 2; yellow till, becoming dark below, mostly picked, 38; water rose seven feet in a half day, from gravel and sand. This is on a rounded swell, twenty or thirty feet above the country all around for several miles. R. Hogenson ; sec. 30 : well, 21 feet ; soil, 2 ; yellow till, spaded, 9 ; much harder blue till, picked, 10 feet; the only water found seeps into the well at the base of the yellow till. This gla- cial drift at the depth of eighteen feet contained a piece of lignite, three feet long and nine inches thick, weighing about a hundred pounds. Another lump of lignite, nearly equal in size, has been found within about a mile to the southwest, in the bed of Dutch Charley's creek in section 36, Ann. C. Peterson; sec. 30: well, 35 feet; soil, 3; yellow till, picked, 17; dark, bluish and brownish till, with irony seams and small pieces of lignite, 15 feet; water rose eight feet in one day from sand and gravel at the bottom, not dug through but found to be at least two feet thick. Storden. Charles Swenson; sec. 22 : well, 20; soil, 2; yellow till, 15; blue till, very hard, 3 feet; water rose five feet from gravel and sand at the bottom. Charles H. Ripke; N. E. i of sec. 26: well, 16 feet; all yellow till, partly hard and picked; to a layer of gravel, about one foot thick, from which water rose six feet in a half day. All the wells upon this highland, underlain by the red quartzyte, have excellent water. Ann. Ilogen Anderson; S. E. J of sec. 24: well, 18 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, picked, 16 feet; the water seeps. Hose Hill. Jacob Tabert; sec. 20: well, 42 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 32; gravel and sand, 1 foot; blue till, harder than that above, 7 feet, and extending below ; water comes spar- ingly from the gravel and sand, failing in very dry seasons. Jacob Wall; S. W. i of sec. 28: well, 20; soil, 2; yellow till, 18; water rose eight feet in two hours from sand at the bottom. Wells in Jackson county. Wisconsin. John M. Utter; N. W. } of sec. 21: well, 72 feet, the deepest in this township; soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 15 feet; blue till, not harder than the yellow till, but worse to dig, because of its tenacity, 55 feet; water comes slowly from sandy streaks, a half inch to two inches thick, in the blue till, especially in the last twenty feet. JJes Moines. Joseph Thomas; S. E. } of sec. 24, about a mile east of Jackson: well, 33 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 10; harder blue till, picked, 21; water rose to ten feet below the top in one day. Wells in this vicinity, on the upland above the Des Moines valley, are 15 to 30, and rarely 50 feet deep, all in till. Jackson. G. C. Chamberlin: well, 130 feet deep, situated about 30 feet above the Des Moines river, below which it thus goes 100 feet, this, added to the depth of this valley, being about 200 feet below the original surface of the drift-sheet ; this well, below its 2 feet of soil, was all till, yellowish above, but mainly bluish, enclosing dark sandy streaks, but no considerable layers of sand or gravel and no water, and having throughout some intermixture of stones and gravel, one boulder weighing about fifty pounds being found at the depth of a hundred feet. Sticks of wood and small gasteropod shells were obtained at about the same depth. This well became filled with surface water, but was not used, and has been filled up. At a point twenty feet from the foregoing, another well has been dug 26 feet deep, in till, mostly yellow but blue below, yield- ing a plenty of water. 512 THE GEOLOGY OP MINNESOTA. [Wells. Water analysis. Most of the wells at Jackson find an ample supply of excellent water at depths from 20 to 30 feet. Delafield. M. A. Foss; sec. 18: well, 22 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 10; much harder blue till, 10; water rose six feet in three hours, from a vein of sand three inches thick. Heron Lake. M. A. Foss; at Lakefleld, in the S. VV. J- of sec. 33: well, 21 feet; soil, 2 feet, yellow till, picked, 16; quicksand, 3 feet; water is five feet deep. Hunter. Railroad well, 68 feet deep; in the N. \V. J of sec. 3, one mile east of Lakeiield : soil, 2 feet; yellow till, about 20; harder blue till, 18; gray quicksand, 4 feet; blue till, 24 feet, and extending deeper; water came in sandy steaks in the last three feet, and rose in three days to be forty feet deep. Minneota. William Austin; S. W. J of sec. 25: well, 27 feet; soil, 3; yellow till, spaded, 24; water seeps, filling the well usually to a depth of nine feet. Weimer. The deep railroad well at Heron Lake, penetrating to the Potsdam sandstone, has been described on page 503. The common wells of Heron Lake are 10 to 20 feet deep, finding 2 to 4 feet of soil, and yellow till, which is spaded, for all below. The water is naturally good, but by the decay of wooden curbing is often made objectionable to both taste and smell. Sioux Valley. A. McCulla; sec. 34: well, 36 feet; soil, 3; yellow till, picked, 17; sand and gravel, 4 feet; blue till, much harder than the upper till, 12 feet; water rose ten feet in two days from springs in the blue till. La Crosse. E. Nelson; sec. 13: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 11; yellow "hardpan, almost as hard as rock," 17 feet; water rose five feet from sand at the bottom, but the well is sometimes filled to the top with surface-water. Eieington. Nelson Jordan; N. W. t of sec. 30: well, 30 feet; soil, 3; yellow till, spaded, 12; darker and harder gray till, picked, 15; water seeps from the lower part of the yellow till, filling the well to a depth of fifteen feet. Mound Lake. J. Walker; sec. 14: well, 19 feet; soil, 2; sand, 4 feet; yellow till, spaded, 8 feet; blue till, very tenaceous, but not harder than the yellow till, 5 feet; water comes in the lower part of the yellow till, usually standing ten feet deep. The drift contains a considerable proportion of the carbonates of lime and magnesia, giving a very productive soil, and making the water of springs and wells hard ; but it supplies no noticeable admixture of the bitter and alkaline ingredients which are found abundantly in the water of some dis- tricts farther west. Analysis of the water of Heron lake. A sample of the water of Heron lake, collected in June, 1882, was analyzed by Mr. W. A. Noyes. with the following result:* Chemical series, No. 128. Composition of residue from evaporation. Parts per 1,OUO,UOO. Silica 7.1 Alumina and oxide of iron 1.7 Carbonate of lime 102.7 Sulphate of lime 47.9 Nitrate of lime 5.0 Carbonate of magnesia 76.3 Carbonate of lithia traces. Sulphate of potash 8.0 Nitrite of potash traces. Sulphate of soda 18.5 Chloride of sodium : 5.1 Total.. 272.3 Percentage. 2.6 Graina per gallon. 0.41414 0.6 0.09916 37.7 5.99049 17.6 2.79241 1.8 0.29165 28.0 4.45058 3.0 6.8 1.9 0.46664 1.07911 0.29748 100.00 15.88166 * Eleventh annual report. COTTONWOOB AND JACKSON COUNTIES. 513 Material resources. ; Iodine, bromine and phosphoric acid, absent Test with potassium permanganate showed 2.6 parts oxygen consumed by organic matter per 1,000,000 water. Hardness, 22 degrees. The water is notable for excessive hardness, due to sulphate of lime and carbonates of lime and magnesia, Travertine. Small deposits of travertine, or calcareous tufa, made by springs that issue from the drift, often called "petrified moss" from its having incrusted moss and leaves, thereby preserving their forms, occur in Jackson county on the east side of the ravine of a creek near the center of section 26, Petersburg; and on the southeast side of a creek near the center of section 15, Des Moines, about two miles northwest from Jackson and some 50 feet above the Des Moines river. MATERIAL RESOURCES. Agriculture must be the chief industry and source of wealth to Cotton- wood and Jackson counties. Their soil, their narrow belts of timber beside rivers and lakes, the natural pasturage and plough-land of their broad ex- panse of prairie, have been treated of on a former page of this report. Items to be noticed here are water-powers, building stone, lime, bricks, and peat. Water-powers. The only water-power used in Cottonwood county is that of the Windom mills, on the Des Moines river, owned by Collins & Drake; head, nine feet; three run of stone; a large flouring mill. Another excellent water-power is available on this river a mile below Talcott lake, where a dam may be built which would make this lake a res- ervoir, raising it three or four feet. In Jackson county the Des Moines river supplies three powers, all used by flouring mills. These are the Brown brothers' mill, in section 28, Bel- mont, having a head of about nine feet; the Des Moines Valley mills, owned by E. P. Skinner, in section 10, Des Moines, three miles northwest from Jackson, with a head of about eight feet; and the Jackson mills, at Jack- son, owned by J. W. Hunter, with head of nine feet and three run of stone. Building stone. The Potsdam quartzyte of northern Cottonwood county has been somewhat quarried, as already mentioned, in sections 23 and 25, Selma, in section 8, Delton, and in section 6, Dale. Owing to the very hard and gritty nature of this rock and its tendency to rhomboidal fracture, it supplies only rough blocks, seldom of large dimensions, yet quite suitable for common foundations and walls, and for the masonry of culverts and small bridges. Lime. Boulders of magnesian limestone, gathered from the drift, are burned for lime by Lars Rasmusson, in section 11, Des Moines, about two 33 514" THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Lime. Bricks. Peat. miles north of Jackson. These yield white lime, of which he usually burns two kilns, each containing about a hundred bushels, yearly. It is sold at forty to fifty cents per bushel. Other lime-burners of Jackson county are Andrew Monson, in Belmont, and Ole Solem, in Christiana. No lime is made in other parts of this county nor in Cottonwood county, not because of scarcity of limestone boulders, which are plentiful, but because this re- gion has little timber, fuel being consequently too expensive for this use. On the southwest side of Spirit lake, white lime is burned from bould- ers by A. Kingman, who sells it at seventy-five cents per bushel, oak wood being worth $5 per cord. Bricks. The only brick-making that has been done in these counties is by Major H. F. Bailey, at the west side of the Des Moines river about a quarter of a mile south of Jackson. A kiln of bricks was made here about ten years ago, but none afterward till 1879, when another kiln of 100.000 was burned. These are red bricks of good quality, and are sold for $8 per M. No sand is mixed with the clay, which is dug a few rods northeast from the kiln, at a hight of six to twelve feet above the river. The soil at the surface is removed to a depth of two or three feet, and the next five or six feet are yellow clay, free from gravel, and levelly stratified. Peat. An exploration of the peat of southern Minnesota was made in 1873 by Prof. Winchell, whose descriptions, in the second annual report of this survey, embrace the following notes pertaining to Cottonwood county. Mountain Lake. " Near Mountain Lake station, on land of A. A. Soule, a coarse turf-peat covers the surface of a dry slough to the depth of ten to eighteen inches. Near a spring, along the side of this slough, which is tributary to Mountain lake, the surface quakes and the peat is thickest." "Around Mountain lake the land is low. and is flooded in the wet season. This low land contains considerable peat for some distance out toward the lake. The surface shakes under the tread. It is covered in the summer with a tall grass, which much resembles the wild rice, yet the softest places, where the peat occurs purest, are furnished with a short grass. Peat here is two or more feet thick. The land examined is owned by A. A. Soule." This peat, taken two feet below the surface, analyzed by Prof. 8. F. Peckham, was found to contain, when air-dried, 8.69 per cent, of hygrometric water, 31.90 of organic matter, and 59.41 of ash (No. 1).* He esti- mated a hundred pounds of it to be equivalent to forty-two pounds of oak wood. Lakeside. ''Sec. 24; land of 8. O. Taggart. In a dry slough, covering many acres, the sur- face consists of a turf-peat, to the depth of about a foot, passing into black mud and sand. The very top is fibrous and even spongy." The analysis of this, by Prof. Peckham, gave 10.80 per cent, of hygrometric water, 16.33 of organic matter, and 72.87 of ash (No. 2); a hundred pounds being equivalent to twenty-one pounds of oak wood. Peat is again found farther west in the same township, also on "land of S. O. Taggart, 5 miles east of Windom. In a narrow spring ravine, where water stands or slowly runs throughout *Number« refer to the table of analyses of these peat ashes, by Prof. Peckham on page 516. COTTONWOOD AND JACKSON COUNTIES. 5^5 Peat.] the year, and near its head, a thickness of a foot or more of turf-peat may be taken out over a space of a few rods square. It is thicker and better near the head of the ravine than at any other point, owing to the more constant protection of the grass and roots from the prairie fires." "Other similar peaty ravines occur on land of Miss Ellen Imus, near that of Mr. Taggart." Great Bend. "N. E. } of sec. 38; land of A. J. Hall. In a turfed ravine, where water stands or slowly oozes through the turf, sloping gently toward the Des Moines river, a turf-peat may be taken out to the depth of a foot or twenty inches. The belt containing peat is from ten to twenty feet wide, and similar in its situation to that of Mr. S. O. Taggart, but more extensive. It shakes under the feet for three or four feet about, but a horse can walk safely over it in most places in the dry season. Indeed, it is mown for hay every year. An irony scum lies on the ground and on the grass stalks. The peat itself is a turf, but contains shells and some grit. "Another similar ravine is on the same claim. Numerous others might be located along the ravines that cross the Des Moines bluffs." "N. E. J of sec. 30; land of Arthur Johnson. Turf-peat occurs in a ravine, twenty feet over, where fuel can be taken out." Amo. "Sec. 13. A slough that shakes is in the valley that forms the prolongation of the Des Moines valley northwestward above the great bend a few miles above Windom, and has a spongy peat about two feet in thickness, with black mud below. It covers six or ten acres." This peat, taken two feet below the surface, was found by Prof. Peckham to contain, when air- dried, 9.85 per cent, of water, 42.63 of organic matter, and 47.52 of ash (No. 3); a hundred pounds of it being equivalent to fifty-six pounds of oak wood. " In the same prolongation of the Des Moines valley, on K. K. Peck's land, two miles above the bend of the Des Moines, is a thickness of two or three feet of peat. This valley seems to hold about two feet of peat along a considerable area through the middle, and would supply a great quantity. It is not of a superior quality, but might be very useful to the settlers." Professor Peckham's analysis of peat taken here two feet below the surface gave 13.58 per cent, of hygro- metric water, 53.28 of organic matter, and 33.14 of ash (No. 4); a hundred pounds of this air-dried peat being considered equal in value to seventy pounds of oak wood. Peat from this place three feet below the surface yielded 11.03 per cent, of water, 41.67 of organic matter, and 47.30 of ash (No. 5); a hundred pounds of it being about equivalent to fifty-five pounds of oak wood. Springfield. " The land of George C. Bush, sec. 6, holds a peaty turf, in a dry slough near the mouth of a ravine, in considerable abundance." South Brook. "Sec. 2. Side-hill peat occurs on a gentle slope over the space of a few rods, having a thickness of a foot and a half or two feet. Such peaty patches appear also on the op- posite side of the main valley, arising from the issuing of springs that keep the surface moist, while the lower land in the same slough is dry and hard. This peat is not free from sand. It also smells strongly of sulphuretted hydrogen." "Peat exists, according to Mr. John Crapsey, three miles north of Talcott lake." Four localities of peat are reported by Prof. Winchell in Jackson coun- ty, as follows: Delafield. "S. W. J of sec. 4; land of Eev. Edward Savage. A good moss peat occurs here in a slough, having an average thickness of two feet, over an area of ten acres or more. The slough is confined between bluffs that appear to be entirely composed of drift, and has a feeble drainage into a small lake. The surface is mostly covered with a short grass, but also with chair- bottom rushes. Some patches also of Typha latifolia are seen. No horsetail rush appears. In passing over the surface of this marsh it quakes five or six feet around, and the auger hole is im- mediately filled with water to the top. Below eighteen inches (even sparingly in ten or twelve inches) shells begin to be rather common, and the auger next brings up a black mud with many shells. The most of this peat is made up of the peat moss, though at a depth of a foot or eight- een inches it contains grass roots and other fiber." This peat from eighteen inches below the surface, by Prof. Peckham's analysis, contains, when air-dried, 10.22 per cent, of hygrometric water, 64.48 of organic matter, and 25.30 of ash (No. 6); a hundred pounds of it being worth as much for heating as eighty-five pounds of oak wood. 516 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Peat, Mounds. Weimer. "Sec. 31. A thin deposit of about six inches of peat covers about half an acre. mostly under water. This is the only pea1 that can be found in the vicinity of Heron Lake." Wisconsin. "On the S. E. J of sec. 27, Mr. W. V. King correctly deScribes a peat marsh." Round Lake. "Sec. 20; land of Everett \V. Scovill. Peat here covers four or five acres. and is associated with a deposit of bog iron ore." Analyses of peat ashes. The ashes of the specimens of peat mentioned as analyzed by Prof. Peckham, were also sub- jected to analysis by him, and their composition was found to be as follows: 1. 3. 3. 4. 5. «. Silica 64.27 88.28 81.99 72.64 64.37 68.06 Carbon 2.80 1.32 1.14 0.75 0.10 1.34 Iron oxide and iron phosphate .. 9.75 6.34 9.39 15.46 21.41 8.82 Lime 15.75 0.84 4.84 5.87 6.26 5.03 Magnesia 1.77 0.51 0.60 trace 1.54 4.81 Sulphuric acid 3.69 trace 1.12 5.73 7.58 6.53 Undetermined... . 1.97 2.71 0.92 5.41 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.45 101.32 100.00 Traces of phosphoric acid were found in all; and of alkalies in Nos. 2 and 3. Carbonic acid was present in considerable amount in Nos. 1 and 6, and in very small amount in No. 2. ABORIGINAL EARTHWORKS. Though artificial mounds probably exist in these counties, none were observed during their examination. In the north part of section 17, Spirit Lake, about a mile south of the state line, an inter- esting group of six or eight mounds, of the usual round form and two to four feet high, was seen beside the road, at the northwest side of Spirit lake and a short distance south of Little Spirit lake, on land fifteen to twenty-five feet above them. 1'I.ATK •>! . ROCK COUNT r Q - I _>M '-- -•r to xX" — t ^ — — " I ' : r = r A/ O 3 o s- r PLATE 22. PIPE STONE C O U N T Y J. A/ O 3 ?• i ^ F £5 ^ -^ 2 Z z — : HJ s > bd r - Ul I CHAPTER XVII. THE GEOLOGT OF MURRAY AND NOBLES COUNTIES. BY WARREN UPHAM. Situation and area. Murray and Nobles counties (plate-pages 21 and 22) lie in the southwest part of Minnesota, the former being in the second tier of counties north of the Iowa line, from which it is separated by the latter. The east boundary of these counties is 210 miles west from the Mississippi river at La Crosse; their extent from east to west is 30 miles; and from their west boundary to the line between Minnesota and Dakota is 20 miles, this width being occupied by Pipestone and Rock counties. The distance from Minneapolis and Saint Paul southwest to Currie in Mur- ray county, measured in a straight line, is about 140 miles; and to Worth - ington in Nobles county, about 155 miles. The most important towns and villages of Murray county are Currie, on the Des Moines river near the foot of Lake Shetek, in Murray* township; Avoca in Lime Lake township, and Hadley in Leeds township, on the Black Hills branch of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railway; and Fulda in Bondin township, on the Southern Minnesota division of the Chi- cago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. The county seat and largest town of Nobles county is Worthington, on the Saint Paul & Sioux City (C., St. P., M. & 0.) railway. Hersey and Bigelow are small villages on this line of railroad; and Rushmore and Adrian are considerable towns on its Sioux Falls branch. Each of these counties is a rectangle thirty miles long from east to west and twenty-four miles wide; so that together their extent from north 518 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Natural drainage! to south is forty-eight miles. Murray county has an area of 721.56 square miles, or 461,801.20 acres, of which 16,909.93 acres are covered by water. The area of Nobles county is 727.66 square miles, or 465,704.16 acres, of which 10,827.04 acres are covered by water. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. The Des Moines river rises at the west side of Mur- ray county, and flows east and southeast across this county. Springs and two or three lakelets on the east side of the highest ridge of the Coteau des Prairies, partly lying beyond the west line of Murray county in the east edge of Mkna, and Rock townships in Pipestone county, are the heads of the Des Moines river. The greater part of Murray county is drained by this stream. Its most important tributary in this county is the outlet of lake Shetek, which unites with it about a mile west of Currie. The Des Moines river above this affluent is commonly known as Oksida or Beaver creek. About a mile east of Currie, nearly at the center of Murray township, the Des Moines turns southeast, and holds this course to the east line of the county. Its length in Murray county, not including small bends, is forty miles. The portions of Murray county which lie outside the Des Moines basin, are in its northwest, northeast and southwest corners. At the northwest, the head-stream of Redwood river, rising in .<33tna, the northeast township of Pipestone county, flows to the east and north through Ellsbo- rough, receiving the drainage of some thirty square miles in this township. The northwest part of Skandia, the township next to the east, sends its waters into the head-stream of the Cotton- wood river. Holly, the most northeast township of this county, and the northeast half of Shetek town- ship on the west, and of Dovray on the south, and the northeast corner of Des Moines River town- ship, are tributary to the Cottonwood river by Plum creek, and in small part by Dutch Charley's and Highwater creeks. Southwest of the Des Moines basin, Moulton, nearly all of Chanararr.bie, and portions of the townships east of these, are drained by the head-streams of Chanarambie and Champepadan creeks, sending their waters into the Rock river, and by that to the Big Sioux and Missouri. The areas of Murray county thus belonging to four river basins are approximately as follows: within the basin of the Des Moines river, 520 square miles; of the Redwood river, 30 square miles; of the Cottonwood river, 80 square miles; and of the Rock river, 90 square miles. The most noteworthy lakes in Murray county are the following: lake Shetek, the largest, about seven miles long from north to south, and varying from a quarter of a mile to one and a half miles in width, quite irregular in outline with numerous bays and headlands, and containing islands (accidentally omitted from plate 22), its northwestern part being an arm or bay nearly three miles long and an eighth to a third of a mile wide, known as the Inlet; lake Sarah, two miles long from northwest to southeast and about a mile wide, at the center of Lake Sarah town- ship, about two miles west of the Inlet of lake Shetek; lake Maria, extending northwest from lake Sarah, two miles long and a half mile wide; the group of the Bear lakes, four in number, from one mile to two and a half miles in length, lying in the north part of Lowvilleand the south edge MURRAY AND NOBLES COUNTIES. 519 Natural drainage.] of Skandia, the most southern of the group being recently called Tibbett's lake; Lime lake, in the township of this name, extending two miles west from Avoca; and Buffalo, Duck and Star lakes and lake Eliza, which with others form a northwest to southeast series, three to four miles north- east from the Des Moiues river and approximately parallel with it. Nobles county is divided to the basins of the Des Moines, Little Sioux and Rock rivers. At the northeast an area of about 240 square miles is ' drained eastward by Jack and Okabena creeks into Heron lake and the Des Moines river. Elk creek, rising in Elk township, flows east across the south part of Hersey, and joins Okabena creek a short distance after cross- ing the east line of Nobles county. The portion tributary to the Little Sioux river and thus to the Mis- souri, is principally drained by Ocheyedan or Ocheeda creek, and embraces about 90 square miles. The remainder of this county, including about 390 square miles or slightly more than half its area, is tributary to the Rock river, by Cham- pepadan, Elk and Kanaranzi creeks and the Little Rock river ; making, with the tract in the Little Sioux basin, 480 square miles, approximately, drained to the Missouri river. Lakes in Nobles caunty. In the western third of Nobles county and thence westward, there are no lakes, or they are very rare and of small area. This region lies on the southwest side of the outer moraine of the last glacial epoch, at which time it lay beyond the boundaries of the ice- fields, though in an earlier cold epoch it was deeply covered by ice and is overspread with its un- modified drift or till. Farther past, this county has frequent lakes. The West and East Graham lakes, respectively two and three miles long, both trendii g southwesterly, give name to Graham Lakes township ; and another township is named from Indian lake, in its sections 27 and 34, about a mile long from north to south, with a maximum depth of fifteen feet. West Okabena lake, nearly two miles long and about a half mile wide, lies at the west side of the town of Worth- ington. Tliis and the next are not tributary to Okabena creek, from which, however, the West Okabena lake is separated by only a low, marshy tract of small width, and an ice-heaped ridge of gravel and sand along which a road is built; but at its stage of high water in spring this lake has its outlet into the East Okabena lake, of nearly as great area, close east of Worthington, which at such time overflows southward into lake Ocheeda, and through this into Ocheyedan creek. Lake Ocheeda is about six miles long, trending from northeast to southwest, reaching from sec- tion 32, Lorain, to the center of Bigelow, with a width that varies from an eighth of a mile or less to a half or two-thirds of a mile. Mr. A. Miner, civil engineer, of Worthington, reports the maximum depth of West Okabena lake to be twenty-five feet ; of the East Okabena lake, fifteen feet; and of Lake Ocheeda, in its northeast part, twenty feet. West Okabena lake is estimated to be twelve feet below the railroad at Worthington station, or 1,570 feet above the sea, and this is one foot above East Okabena lake. Lake Ocheeda is estimated by Mr. Miner to be four or five feet lower, being thus 1,565 feet, very nearly, above the sea. Topography. The Coteau des Prairies in Murray and Nobles counties declines in hight from northwest to southeast. In Nobles county the most elevated portion of this highland reaches from the south and southwest part of Indian Lake township and the east part of Bigelow, north-north- 520 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Topography westerly through the northeast edge of Ransom, southwestern Worthing- ton, the northeast half of Dewald, the southwestern part of Summit Lake, the northeast part of township IO3, range 48, and through the middle of Willmont. This crest of the Coteau des Prairies is a belt from three to five miles in width, composed of massive swells and smoothly rounded, moderately sloping hills of till, : 0 to 50 and rarely 75 to 100 feet above the intervening hollows. Their trends are more frequently from north to south or southeast than in other directions; but this approach to uniformity in trend is seldom very noticeable, and their order of arrangement and the form and connected outlines of this range of highland show much variety of contour. At a distance of several miles it generally presents the usual aspect of any moderately rolling prairie, appearing to be of about uniform hight; and upon nearer approach, and in crossing this belt, it is seen to consist only of broad and smooth undula- tions and swells, mire or less sculptured, especially on the southwest side, by streams. A branch one to two miles in width, extends from this belt northward through the east part of Sum- mit Lake township, including within its area the lake of this name. Here, and northerly into Murray county, this most prominently rolling and highest part of the Coteau des Prairies in this latitude forms the watershed between the basins of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Its con- nection with the roughly hilly and knolly outer terminal moraine, traced from central Iowa north- ward to Spirit Lake and thence westerly to Oclieyedan mound, south of this county, and still more prominently exhibited along the crest of the Coteau des Prairies in western Murray county and thence northwesterly to the Head of the Coteau, shows that the border of the ice in the last glacial epoch extended to this belt of massively rolling till ; but though it thus represents the outer moraine of that epoch, it nowhere in Nobles county has such roughly broken knolls, and small, short and steep ridges, as are common along nearly all the rest of this morainic line. Fartlier westward, the surface of Nobles county is in swells of till, which trend mostly from north to south, more massive and smoother than those which form the outer terminal moraine, and of about the same elevation; or in nearly level, equally high plateaus of till, as at Rushmore, ten miles west of Worthington. and in the southwest part of Little Hock. Mortheast from the morainic belt, there is a descent of 50 to 75 feet within one or two miles, and thence a smooth, slightly undulating area of till extends with an imperceptibly descending slope northeastward twenty miles to the inner moraine beyond Heron lake and the upper part of the Des Moines river. The valleys cut by the creeks which cross this expanse are only 10 to '20 feet deep, and the lakes, sloughs and lowest depressions are about the same amount below the highest land of their vicinity to which the ascent from the lake-shores is usually in prolonged, gentle slopes. On the Saint Paul & Sioux City railroad the slope of this broad, approximately flat area of eastern Nobles county is about 100 feet in the eight miles between Worthington and Hersey, thus averaging a descent to the northeast of twelve feet per mile. In western Murray county the outer or first terminal moraine rises in a conspicuous series of hills, knolls and ridges of till, roughly broken and irregularly grouped, separately of small size and hight, but together form- ing an elevated belt from 50 to 100 feet or more above the smooth area of till on each side. It includes the west edge of township 105. range 42, being here only from one-fourth of a mile to one mile wide; the south two- thirds of Leeds ; the northeast two-thirds of Chanarambie, its most con- spicuous portion in this county being Buffalo ridge, 100 to 150 feet high, trending from southeast to northwest, in sections 21 and 16 of this township; the west half of Cameron; and the southwest corner of Ellsborough. Its MURRAY AND NOBLES COUNTIES. 521 Topography.] area in Leeds, extending six miles east from the main course of the series, and surrounded on the south, east and north by a lower expanse of smooth, slightly undulating till, may be a medial branch. The material of this roughly hilly belt is till, but it differs from that of the gently undulating region through which it lies in containing, and being overstrown with, abundant boulders and pebbles, principally of granite, syenite, gneiss and schists, but also including many of limestone. Many of the hollows en- closed among these knolls and ridges are bowl-shaped or of irregular form, without outlet, and occasionally contain sloughs and lakelets. Moulton, the most southwest township of Murray county, and the west edge of Chanaram- bie, lie on the west side of this moraine, and have the smooth, massively rolling surface which prevails in the west part of Nobles county, the higher portions of this tract being 50 or 75 feet above the water-courses and twice this amount below Buffalo ridge. Eight miles northeast from the outer morainic belt, in sections 8 and 5, Mason, is a remarka- ble plateau of till, with its top nearly level and covering one and a half square miles, from which there is a descent of about 200 ft-et in three miles east to Lake Shetek, and about 1 00 feet in the same distance west to Bear lakes. Smooth, prolonged slopes descend from this highland on all sides; and, with the exception of this area, a gently undulating and often nearly flat belt of till, increasing from ten to twenty miles in width, extends from northwest to southeast through the central part of Murray county. Beaver creek crosses this area in a channel usually 20 to 40 feet below the general surface, and the frequent lakes and sloughs lie 15 to 25 feet below the average hight of their vicinity. Avoca and Fulda are situated upon this slightly undulating, approxi- mately flat expanse, with no hills nr notable elevations within view, excepting the morainic hills in Leeds, distant ten to fifteen miles westward. Though this region appears to be level, its sur- face has a somewhat uniformly descending slope of eight or ten feet to the mile from west to east, as shown by railroad surveys. In the distance of about twelve miles from Avoca southeast to Dundee, the descent is 90 feet ; and in nine and a half miles easterly from lona to Fulda the descent is 100 feet, the latter town being 62 feet above De Forest, and 105 feet above the surface of Heron lake, situated respectively six and a half and fifteen miles farther southeast. The Des Moines river, flowing along the east side of this area, has excavated a valley about 75 feet deep, and from a quarter of a mile to one mile wide, to which the descent is mostly by moderate slopes. In northeastern Murray county the second morainic belt, two to four miles wide, constituting the northeastern border of the Coteau des Prairies extends from lake Eliza northwest by Star, Duck and Buffalo lakes and the northeast side of lake Shetek, occupying the northeast part of Des Moines River township, southwestern Dovray, northeastern Murray, the southwest half of Shetek, and the northeast part of Lake Sarah. It is distinguished from the slightly undulating areas of till at each side by its more frequent boulders and its more rolling and occasionally hilly contour; but it scarcely anywhere exhibits the rough surface which characterizes the greater part of this series of drift accumulations. The summits of its swells are 30 to 40 feet above the intervening depressions, sloughs and lakes; nearly the 522 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevationi. same above the general level on each side; and from 75 to 100 feet above the Des Moines river, and 40 to 50 feet above lake Shetek. The only part of the second moraine in this county which rises in mounds that are conspic- uously seen at a distance of several miles, is in the northeast corner of Murray township, upon an area from a half mile to one mile wide, extending two miles northwesterly from Buffalo lake; but its hills here are only 30 to 50 feet above the average hight of the range. Along the northeast side of the northwest arm of lake Shetek, commonly called the Inlet, are frequent small patches where boulders nearly cover the ground, mostly forming knolls from three to five or ten feet high, and occurring from the lake shore to twenty-five feet above it. The portion of Murray county northeast of this second moraine is drained into the Cotton- wood river. It consists of till, with a smoothly undulating or moderately rolling surface, the highest parts being generally 10 to 30 feet above the lowest. The only considerable stream in this northeast corner of the county is Plum creek, which has eroded a remarkable valley, 40 to 50 feet deep bordered by steep bluffs, sloping from 30° to 45°, along a distance of five miles, from the east side of section 18, Holly, to the black walnut grove which borders this stream in the south edge of Eedwood county. This valley receives numerous short tributary ravines. Elevations, St. Paul & Sioux City division, Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railway. From profiles in the office of T. P. Gere, superintendent, St. Paul. o. Main line. Miles from Feet above Si. Paul. the sea. Hersey (Brewster) 170.0 1485 Elk creek, water 171.5 1473 Summit, grade 178.2 1588 Worthington 178.4 1582 East Okabena lake, water 178.5 1569 Junction of Sioux Falls branch 181.8 1633 Summit, grade 182.3 1654 Summit, grade, highest point on line from St. Paul to Sioux City. . . 184.6 1656 Bigelow 187.8 1631 State line 188.3 1643 6. Black Hills division ( Woodstock branch). Dundee 168.4 1443 Avoca 180.1 1533 Summit, grade 201.1 1850 Summit, grade 201.9 1849 Murray and Pipestone county line, grade 202.5 1839 c. Sioux Falls branch. Junction 181 .8 1633 Summit, grade 184.5 1691 Little Rock river, water 187.4 1629 Little Rock river, bridge 187.4 1649 Rushmore 190.1 1665 Adrian 196.9 1538 Kanaranzi creek, water 198.0 1499 Kanaranzi creek, bridge 198.0 1511 Summit, grade 199.5 1569 Elevations, Southern Minnesota division, Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. Miles from Feet above La Crosse. the sea. De Forest 239.5 1446 Fulda 246.1 1508 lona 255.6 1608 Summit 259.4 1705 Entering Chanarambie valley 264.0 1634 MURRAY AND NOBLES COUNTIES. 523 Elevations. Soil.) The highest land in Murray county is Buffalo ridge, in Chanarambie township, the top of which is about 1950 feet above the sea. Other portions of the outer terminal moraine, in this and Cameron townships, are from 1800 to 1900 feet in altitude, and it is crossed by the rail- road to Woodstock at a hight of 1850 feet. At the northeast corner of Moulton this range is intersected by Chanarambie creek, which is here more than 300 feet below Buffalo ridge. The next six miles of this moraine southward are a comparatively narrow and inconspicuous belt of gravelly and rocky knolls and small ridges of drift, 1700 to 1750 feet above the sea, or 75 to 125 feet above the Chanarambie valley. Des Moines river has its sources at an elevation of 1800 to 1900 feet above the sea. Lake Shetek, and this river at its outlet, are about 1475; and its point of exit from Murray county is estimated to be about 1400 feet above the sea. The lowest land of Murray county is the northeast part of Holly, 1250 to 1300 feet above the sea, making the extremes of hight in this county differ by seven hundred feet. The highest portions of Nobles county, lying in Willmont, in township 1O3, range 43, and in Summit Lake and the north part of Dewald, are 1700 to 1725 feet above the sea. Cham- pepadan and Kanaranzi creeks cross the west line of this county at about 1475 and 1450 feet above the sea. Little Rock river has an elevation of about 1475 feet, and Ocheyedan creek is about 1550 feet above the sea, at the Iowa line. The lowest land in Nobles county is where Jack creek crosses its eastern boundary, at a hight of about 1420 feet above the sea, some three hun- dred feet below the crests of the morainic belt. Estimates of the average bights of the townships of Murray county are as follows: Holly, 1400 feet above the sea; Dovray, 1480; Des Moines River, also 1480; Belfast, 1460; Shetek, 1490; Murray, 1525; Lime, 1525; Bondin, 1530; Lake Sarah, 1540; Mason, 1575; Center, 1590; lona, 1610; Skandia, 1600; Lowville, 1640; Leeds, 1700; T. 105, E. 4»,1700; Ellsborough, 1725; Cameron, 1775; Chanarambie, 1800; and Moulton, 1660. From these figures the mean elevation of this county is found to be 1590 feet, very nearly, above the sea. The townships of Nobles county, with estimates of their average hight, are as follows: Graham Lakes, 1460; Hersey, 1500; Lorain, 1560; Indian Lake, 1580; Seward, 1530; Elk, 1575; Worthington, 1625; Bigelow, 1625; Bloom, 1625; Summit Lake, 1660; Dewald, 1660; Ransom, 1600; Willmont, 1700; T. 103, R, 42, 1650; Olney, 1580; Little Rock, 1540; Leota, 1640; Lismore, 1600; West Side, 1550; and Grand Prairie, 1500. The mean elevation of Nobles county above the sea, derived from these estimates, is 1588 feet, being almost identical with that similarly obtained for Murray county. Soil. These counties have nearly the same character as to soil and agricultural value with all southwestern Minnesota, being very fertile and well drained, yielding bountiful harvests of wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, and the small garden fruits, and capable of producing every crop that belongs in this latitude. Stock-raising and dairying are also beginning to be an important part in the resources of the farmers through all this region. 524 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Soil. Timber and prairie. At the surface is a black soil, from one to three feet deep, being usually about two feet, thus colored by vegetable decay, and consequently enriched for the nourishment of the new vegetation of successive years. Otherwise this soil is like the yellow subsoil, both being glacial drift. Everywhere a sufficient proportion of the carbonates of lime and magnesia are present to supply the best conditions for the cultivation of grain, and also to make the water of wells and springs hard; but the sulphate of magnesia, which occasionally appears as a white efflorescence where sloughs have dried up, is yet only a comparatively small ingredient of the soil and very rarely gives any parceptible taste to the water of wells.* The only areas unsuitable for cultivation are frequent sloughs, valu- able for their marsh hay; the steep banks and bluffs of creeks and rivers; and some portions of the morainic belts, which are so knolly and strown with boulders as to forbid ploughing, but are well adapted for pasturage. Timber and prairie. Neither of these counties has any extensive tracts of timber, which occurs only on the borders of lakes and along the larger streams. In such situations it is wholly or partly protected from the annual prairie fires, and is supplied with sufficient moisture to enable it to maintain an existence. With double the rainfall that this region has, it would probably become covered with timber notwithstanding the par- tial checks which its spread must sustain from these fires; and with the climate continuing as now, if fires were prevented, a forest would similarly extend itself outward from the lakes and rivers over the whole of this dis- trict and of this state. In Murray county the principal tracts of timber, consisting of elm. bass, bur oak, ash, poplar, cottonwood, wild plum, and other species, are in the space, nearly a mile square, enclosed by the Bear lakes; on the shores of lakes Sarah and Shetek, especially on the northeast side of the latter, in the vicinity of Fremont lake; and along Beaver creek and the Des Moines river. A grove of twenty or thirty acres, now wholly cut for fuel, was found bv the first immigrants on the Chanarambie creek, in section 2, Moulton, and was named the "lost timber," because it was the only considerable patch of woodland in that region, the nearest to it being at Bear lakes, ten miles to the north. Nicollet says of his trip through this county :f "I pitched my tents, during three da\ s, about toe group of Shetek or Pelican lakes, ihat occupy a portion of the space forming the Coteau des Prairies. This name belongs to the language of the Chippewas, and lias been given to them by the voyageurs. The Sioux call this group of lakes the Rabcchy, meaning the place where the peli- cans nestle. Their waters are, in a great measure, supplied by a fork from the sources of the Des *An analysis by Prof. Dodge (Tenth annual report, p. 202)of an "alkali" efflorescence from section 14. lona, Murray nunty. showed it to be a hydious sulphate ot magnesia, with slight traces of soda, potash and lime. The proportions " ilphur trioxide and magnesia were the same as in e*""""if~ 'U"-.o«»> "«i»t K..* f* i...*i i~-o ii..*~ u«if »t, * — :r of cryslallization required by epsomite. tEeport on the upiter Mississippi, river, 1843 ; p. 13. of sulphur trioxide and magnesia were the same as in epsomite (Epsom salt), but it had less than half the percentage of water of cryslallization required by epsomite. MURRAY AND NOBLES COUNTIES. 525 Timber and prairie.] Moines river. They contain an abundance of fish, and their shores are amply supplied with wood to admit the location of enviable farms. Hence we proceeded to the spot which I have desig- nated on my map as the Great Oasis, and c tiled by ttie Sioux Ich^n-ptaye-tanka, translated by the voyageurs la grande lisiere de hois — the great skirt of wood" [at Hear lakes]. "This spot is a forest of limited extent, composed of lime trees, swamp ash, prickly ash, white birch, beaver- wood, white oak, etc., and surrounded by large lakes garnished wiih aquatic plants, swarming with muskrats, covered at certain ssasons with wild fowl, ati'l ofifjrin? a safe protection against the annual firing of the prairies. The usual depth of these lakes is from 7 to 12 feet; and the soil of the borders is found well adapted to the cultivation of the potato, and the growth of culinary vegetables.'' Mr. John H. Low enumerates the following species of trees and shrubs found in the woods of Bear lakes: bass, the most abundant tree, 40 to 60 feet high, American or white elm, also 40 to 60 feet high, and sometimes- four or five feet in diameter, slippery or red elm, bur oak, white ash, wild plum, willows, climbing bitter-sweet, black raspberry, choke-cherry, prickly ash, black currant, and smooth gooseberry, common; the American aspen, box-elder, cottonwood, hackberry, frost grape, smooth sumach, wolf-berry, red raspberry, thorn, rose and sweet viburnum or sheep-berry, less com- mon. Nobles county has less timber than Murray, its principal localities being only narrow groves on the edge of the Graham lakes, of the Okabena lakes, of lake Ocheeda, and of Indian and State Line lakes. Excepting these scanty tracts of wood, both Murray and Nobles counties are altogether prairie, without tree or shrub, none sometimes being within view all around for several miles, but universally covered by a beautiful mat of grass. This is ready for pasturage about the first or the middle of May, and in summer would supply from a half to one ton of hay per acre. Most of the hay gathered by the farmers, however, is from sloughs, which are wet in spring but in summer are usually so hard that horses can be driven over them. Their growth of grass is more than twice as heavy as that of the uplands, but of inferior quality, yielding from two to three tons per acre. Owing to the scarcity of timber, and the difficulty in the present sparsely settled condition of the country to provide either wood from the Big Woods of central Minnesota or coal from Iowa, a large portion of the immigrants of these counties, probably half of all in southern Murray county, and three-fourths of all in Nobles county, burn hay for their only fuel throughout the year. A few have stoves to which the hay is supplied in a compressed mass, enclosed in a re- movable fire-box; but mostly it is burned in common coal or wood stoves. The hay used is the most rank growth of the sloughs, three to six feet long, consisting almost wholly of the fresh- water cord-grass ( Spartina cynosuroides). Large* wisps of this are twisted, doubled and tied by band, being thus brought into compact and convenient form for putting into the stove. One or two of these twisted bunches are supplied every five or ten minutes, and they maintain a hot fire, as serviceable as that of wood or coal. The amount of hay thus used in a year for heating an ordinary room is from eight to twelve tons. An hour's time is sufficient for twisting up a winter day's supply of this f^uel. With the more full settlement of this region, some systematic plan may be adopted for securing wood or coal by freight in large amounts and therefore at much lower cost than now, so that their expense will no longer prevent their general use. It also seems quite practicable for farmers to raise all the fire-wood they need by setting out and culti- vating ten acres, more or less, of timber. The white willow, cottonwood, soft maple and box- elder are rapid-growing species which thrive well here when protected from the prairie fires. Species should be selected which spring up, like the willows, by new shoots from the stump and roots, when once cut down, so that the tract cut for one year's fuel may grow again and within a few years yield as much more. Allowing an acre of willows for each year, apparently an ample 526 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Grasses. Drift. provision, it seems quite certain that ten acres will be sufficient for the needs of an ordinary household, thus leaving each acre of willows ten years to grow before cutting, in which time they attain a diameter of six to eight inches and a bight of twenty to thirty feet. The surface of these counties, having for the greater part a smooth, gently undulating or rolling contour, with few or no boulders, presents a vast, fertile expanse, waiting only to be ploughed and sown to yield fifteen to thirty bushels of wheat per acre. Till thus changed into cultivated farms, it annually produces its thin growth of prairie grasses, one to two feet high, which are excellent for pasturage till the first severe frosts, about the middle of September; by which they are whitened and killed to the roots, not continuing green after frosts like the culti- vated grasses. Then, after a few days of drying, it is ready to be swept by prairie-fires at any time when they come, until it is covered by the snow of winter; and, should it escape through the autumn, it is again in danger of fires during a month or more in spring, from the departure of the snow until the green grass shoots up anew. The most abundant species of grass found upon the prairies of this part of Minnesota are as follows: beard-grass (Andropogon furcatus, Muhl.), com- monly here called "blue-joint," Indian grass (Cnrysopogon nutans, Benth.), muskit grass (Bouteloua racemosa, Lagasca), and porcupine grass (Stipa spartea, Trin.), common on land neither very dry nor very moist ; another species of beard-grass (Andropogon scoparius, Michx.), and a second muskit-grass (Bouteloua hirsuta, Lagasca), common on dry swells; the fresh-water cord- grass (Spartina cynosuroides, Willd.), in sloughs, making the principal mass of their hay ; and rice cut-grass (Leersia oryzoides, Swartz), with the last. The prairies also bear a great variety of flowers, including numerous spe- cies of aster, golden-rod, sunflower, and blazing-star or button snakeroot, and the rose, lily, harebell, phlox, fringed gentian, and many others. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. Glacial and modified drift. The bed-rocks of Murray and Nobles county have no outcrops, nor are they reached by any wells, so far as learned of in this survey. Drift forms the surface, consisting almost wholly of the unmodified deposit of the ice- sheet, which is called till, boulder-clay, or hardpan. Clay is the principal ingredient, containing always more or less of grit, gravel, and large stones, but boulders exceeding a foot in diameter are usually very rare, so that perhaps in some cases none would be found in ploughing a quarter-section. Though the soil to the depth of a foot or more appears to contain less gravel than the earth excavated in cellars and wells, some intermixture of gravel may nearly everywhere be noticed upon ploughed land; and the true loess, which thinly covers much of Rock county, does not extend east into the counties here described. Under the black soil, the till has a yel- MUREAY AND NOBLES COUNTIES. 59? Drift.] lowish color to a depth that varies from ten to twenty-five or thirty feet, below which it is dark bluish. Important differences in its hardness are also noted in the sections of deep wells. How thick this drift-sheet is can only be conjectured, since it has not been passed through in these counties; but from what is known of its depth upon other parts of southern and western Minnesota, it is believed to vary from 100 to 200 feet or more in thickness. Here and there this sheet of till encloses layers of sand and gravel, from which comes the large inflow of water often met with in well- digging. Creeks and rivers have excavated valleys in the drift, the deepest being those of Chanarambie, Champepadan and Kanaranzi creeks, and of the Des Moines river. These eroded valleys are 50 to 75 feet deep and generally a half or three-fourths of a mile wide, bordered by bluffs of moderately steep or sometimes quite abrupt slope. Their bottoms are partly till, like the enclosing bluffs ; but much of the lowland adjoining the streams consists of deposits of gravel and sand or fine silt, being part of the alluvium formed during the process of erosion. Its lowest tracts still remain within reach of the high water which is produced by snow-melting in spring or by the largest rains, and these areas of flood-plain are annually increasing in depth by the deposits made during such inundations. Modified drift, or beds of gravel, sand and clay, whose formation must be referred to glacial conditions, was not observed in these valleys. The only noteworthy deposit of this kind is that found in Grand Prairie, the most southwest township of Nobles county. Here a plain composed of stratified gravel and sand, but covered by a fertile soil, reaches six miles east from Kanaranzi creek, with a width of about four miles, including the southern two-thirds of this township. This nearly level tract is 20 to 40 feet above Kanaranzi creek, to which it supplies a small tributary that has cut a channel of similar depth. The bordering areas of till rise in massive, smooth swells, 40 to 75 feet above this plain. Terminal moraines. Foregoing descriptions of the surface features of these counties have called attention to the most important distinction in their deposits of glacial drift or till, namely, the existence of two specially rolling and hilly belts, in part very rough and knolly, with an increased proportion, and sometimes an astonishing abundance, of boulders. The 528 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Terminal moraines. Wells, extreme limit reached by the ice in the last glacial epoch is marked by the western of these terminal moraines, which forms the summit of the Coteau des Prairies. This morainic belt is intersected in southern Nobles county by lake Ocheeda and Ocheyedan creek, and in southwestern Murray county by Chanarambie creek. A smooth expanse of till, from ten to twenty-five miles wide, intervenes between this and the eastern moraine, which has a course approximately parallel with the preceding. The second moraine marks the limit of the ice during a pause in its recession, the genial climate before which it had retreated being changed to one of severe cold again, when the ice-border, probably after some re-advance, was maintained steadily at this line during a long time. In an earlier part of the glacial period a more extensive ice-sheet had overspread all this region, and reached far to the south into Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, and its thick deposit of till continues beyond the farthest boundary attained by the last ice-sheet. The depth of the drift in the west part of Nobles county and farther westward, outside of these moraines, and certain features of the region included by them, as the remarkable chains of lakes in Martin county, prove that the greater part of the drift in this state was deposited by the ice of this earlier epoch. Wells in Murray county. Sections of the drift deposits of Murray county have been observed in well-digging as follows: Holly. Daniel E. Way; S. W. J- of sec. 10: well, 20 feet; soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 17 feet, spaded, except its last five feet which were picked; much harder blue till, 1 foot, and extending lower; water filled the well six feet deep in one day, from a thin gravelly vein at the depth of 14 feet. Des Moines River. A. H. Twiss; N. E. J of sec. 10: well, 42 feet, dug 32 feet and then bored 10 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, all of it so hard that it had to be picked, containing many small pebbles, but none larger than six inches in diameter, 39 feet; blue till, very tenaceous, but not harder than the yellow till, 1 foot and more. Water rose to six feet below the surface in a half day, and stands there permanently. No layer of gravel or sand was found, and the well continued dry about one day after the boring was finished; then water broke into the well and rose rapidly as stated. This is the greatest thickness of yellow till learned of in Murray county. Shetek. D. C. Greenman; sec. 20: well, 35 feet; soil, 3 feet; yellowish till, 25 feet: yellowish and darker gray till, interbedded, moister and softer than above, and including sandy streaks, 7 feet; from this lower part of the well water rose ten feet in one day. D. J. Turner; sec. 26: well, 41 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 37; harder blue till, 2 feet and reach- ing lower; water rose nine feet in two hours, and thirty feet, to its permanent level, in the first day, from sandy streaks in the last ten feet. Murray. F. H. Barrows; sec. 29: well, 18 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 16 feet; water comes from sandy streaks, mostly at 12 feet. At Currie and in its vicinity the wells are from 10 to 20 feet deep, in till. No wood nor shells have been found in well-digging in this region; but small fragments of lignite occur frequently. Lime Lake. At Avoca the Lincoln hotel has a well 96 feet deep, which was soil, 2 feet; MURRAY AND NOBLES COUNTIES. 529 Wells. 1 yellow till, 7 feet; bine till, 85 feet: and gravel, 2 feet, from which water rose to a depth of fifty feet. Most of the wells in this town and its vicinity are only 15 to 20 feet deep, in till like the foregoing, and ha.ve a plenty of good water through the whole year. Bondin. The Fulda town-well, at the center of the village, has a depth of 147 feet. Its section was soil, 3 feet; yellow till, spaded. 32; much harder bine till, picked, 97 feet, containing more stones and gravel than the upper till; then again yellow till at 132 feet and thence 15 feet to the bottom, not apparently distinguishable in composition, color and degree of compactness from the ordinary yellow till of the surface, while its proportion of gravel and pebbles, the largest of which are three or four inches in diameter, appears to be greater; it vas underlain by gravel, which yields a very large supply of water, as if from a running stream, as it rises only seven feet. A small piece of wood, seven inches long, resembling red cedar, was found in the blue till at a depth of 67 feet; and a few pieces of lignite, up to two inches in length, occurred at the top of the lower yellow till; but no other fossil remains were found. The railroad-well at Fulda, about thirty rods southeast from the foregoing, is described by the station-agent to be 115 feet deep, in till, its last 3 feet being a very hard layer, below which the auger dropped nearly a foot; and from this vein water rose seventy feet. This well, however, became so frequently filled with quicksand that it was abandoned ; and water is at present pumped for the railroad tank from the north one of the Seven Mile lakes. Lake Sarah. T. J. Ward; S. E. } of sec. 12: well, 33 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, about 25; blue till, moister and very tenacious, 6 feet; the well was bored, and at this depth was stopped by a boulder; but it is supplied with water which seeps from the yellow till. Mason. J. M. Denison; N. W. } of sec. 8: well, 20 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 18 feet, enclos- ing occasional layers of sand and gravel up to six or eight inches in thickness; water seeps in moderate amount. This is on the south part of a nearly level plateau, much higher than the surrounding country. lona. T. Evenson; sec. 14: well, 25 feet; soil, 2; yellowish gray till, 23 feet, spaded; water seeps, usually three to five feet deep. Lowville. John H. Low; sec. 8 : well, 16 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, with occasional streaks of sand, 14 feet, to very hard blue till below; water seeps, plentiful and good. Leeds. L. Lukkason; Had ley: well, 40 feet; soil, and yellow till, 15 feet; blue till, 25: both were picked; the only sand found was a thin layer, four to six inches thick, at the depth of 28 feet; water seeps slowly from this, and fills the well to that hight, twelve feet. T. 105, B. 42. Darms & Fenton; N. W. J of sec. 30: well, 14 feet; soil, 2 feet, containing scarcely any gravel; yellow till, picked, quite pebbly, 8 feet; stratified gravel and sand, caving in, 4 feet; the water, of excellent quality, is usually four feet deep, but sometimes fails. A well dug for the Southern Minnesota railroad on sec. 4 of this township is reported to have gone through till about 220 feet, finding no water ; but another well dug near by for this railroad on sec. 5, found at the depth of 15 feet a very large supply of water, enough to fill the railroad tank by rapid pumping without lowering the well. Cameron. E. Conner; N. W. } of sec. 22: well, 24 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 12; blue till, picked, 10; water rose four feet from sand at the bottom. This is at the northeast border of the western moraine. MouHon. N. M. AVilliams; sec. 28: well, 16; soil, 2; yellow till, 8; blue till, 6; water seeps, being usually three to six feet deep, of excellent quality, as are all the wells of this region. Fragments of lignite are rarely found. Wells in Nobles county. Ornham Lakes. Nils Dahl; De Forest, in the west part of sec. 11 : well, 25 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 18; much harder blue till, picked, 4 feet; water seeps. J. H. Anscomb; sec. 14: well, 16 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 14, spaded through its first ten feet, but much harder and picked below; water rose four feet from a gravelly vein at the bottom. Indian Lake. Charles L. Peterson; 8. E. } of sec. 4 : well, 22 feet, all till, finding a good supply of water. Prank Peterson; S. E. } of sec. 16 : well, 14 feet; soil, 2; a sandy layer, 1 foot ; yellow till, spaded, 11 feet; water seeps, mainly from the sandy layer at the top. Isaac Horton; sec. 34: well, 35 feet deep; soil, 4 feet; yellow till, spaded, 8 feet; darker, gray 34 530 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Wells. till, marly, very hard, •' two to four times as hard to dig as the yellow till," all picked, 23 feet ; water rose fifteen feet in three days, from springs in this till at the bottom. Seward. Frank II. Radant; sec. 4: well, 22 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 15 feet; much harder blue till, 5 feet, and reaching deeper; water seeps, abundant and good. Worthington. Peter Tompson ; in the town : well, 52 feet ; soil, 4 ; gray till, 8 feet ; blue till, 40; water rose suddenly from sand at the bottom to a permanent level twenty feet below the surface. Most of the wells here get an abundant supply of good water at 10 to 20 feet. Wilson Ager; sec. 30: well, 24 feet; soil, 2; gray till, 18; gray sand, 4 feet; water plentiful, but not rising above the top of the sand. Bigelow. E. S. Mills ; sec. 31, near the village : well, dug 30 feet and bored below to 72 in all; soil, 2 feet; yellowish gray till, 10; blue till thence to the bottom. Several pieces of wood, from two or three inches to one foot long, apparently tamarack, were found in this well, at a depth of 26 feet, in the compact blue till; but no shells, nor other fossils, were learned of in this region. The railroad well at Bigelow station, 52 feet deep, passing through blue till, is filled with water to twelve feet below the surface. Bloom. Levi H. Baxter; sec. 24: well, 15 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, but very hard, 13 feet; water seeps, abundant and of good quality. Wells in this township vary from 10 to 20 feet in depth. Fragments of lignite are rarely found. Summit Lake. A. Hovey ; sec. 8: well, 20; soil, 2; yellow till, 18; water seeps, usually plentiful, but none in very dry seasons. On Samuel Allen's farm, three-fourths of a mile northwest from the last, a well was dug and bored about 100 feet; finding plenty of water at first, but becoming filled with quicksand. Dewald. Wells at Rushmore, in the south part of sec. 19, are 12 to 20 feet deep, finding plenty of good water. S. M. Rushmore here has a well 20 feet deep, which was soil, 2 feet, and then yellowish gray till, 18 feet, with water rising from gravel at the bottom and standing about eight feet deep. A boring close by this, at the southeast corner of his store, 60 feet deep, went into blue till at the depth of about 20 feet, and was all blue till below. A. Roland; S. E. J of sec. 22 : well, 16 feet; soil, 2; yellow till for all below ; water seeps, scanty. The well at his barn, 24 feet deep, all in yellow till, finds a large supply of water. .Ransom. S. G. Ferrin; S. E. J of sec. 20: well, 22 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, picked, 20 feet; at the depth of ten feet this till contained a layer of water-deposited sand, four inches thick at one side of the well, but thinning out to nothing at the other side ; water seeps, and is scanty in a dry season. Olney. H. M. Ludlow; sec. 22 : well, 22 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 20; water seeps from the lower ten feet, and also comes from a spring in the till at the bottom, standing five to ten feet deep. In Adrian, at the west side of this township, the Coleman hotel has a well 40 feet deep, the section of which was soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 14 ; blue till, 24 ; water rose twenty-seven feet in twelve hours from gravel at the bottom. This is the deepest well at Adrian ; others find plenty of water at 15 to 25 feet. Little Rock. William Wigham ; sec. 18 : well, 32 feet ; soil, 3 feet; yellow till, spaded, but hard, 29; water seeps, mostly from the lower part of the well, abundant and of excellent quality. W. W. Mallory; S. TV. t of sec. 34: well, 33 feet; soil, 3; yellow till, spaded, but hard, 15; much harder blue till, 15 feet and extending lower; water seeps, usually about six feet deep. Leota. John Loy: sec. 28: well, 26 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 18 feet; very much harder blue till, 4; sand and gravel, 2 feet, from which water rose six feet. Lismore. Michael Brown; N. E. J of sec. 21: well, 33 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 28 feet; ex- ceedingly hard blue till, 3 feet and extending lower; water rose ten feet in four hours, from sandy streaks at the base of the yellow till. George W. Legros; N. W. } of this sec. 21 : well, 23 feet; soil, 2; sandy yellow till, 14 feet; quicksand, 3 feet ; very hard blue till, 4 feet and deeper ; water, three feet deep. Limy concre- tions were found in the yellow till. West Side. Thomas Grace; near the center of this township: well, 62 feet; soil, 2; sand, 12; till, mostly yellow, 48 feet ; water seeps, coming in considerable amount at the depth of 54 feet. This is at the top of the west bluff of Kanaranzi creek. MURRAY AND NOBLES COUNTIES. 53} Material resources.] Grand Prairie. Benjamin Midbos; sec 14: well, 18 feet deep; soil, 2; gravel and sand, 16; water abundant and good. This is on the northeast part of a plain which occupies the southern two-thirds of Grand Prairie, having a subsoil of gravel and sand, in which wells go from 12 to 20 feet in depth . MATERIAL RESOURCES. The agricultural capabilities of Murray and Nobles counties have been noticed sufficiently on page 523. No water-power is used in Nobles county; and the only one used in Murray county is on the Des Moines river at Currie, where the Lake She- tek mill, employed in the manufacture of flour, and owned by Currie & Growl, has a head of eight feet. The dam here holds the stream above it level to lake Shetek; and a second dam, situated nearly a mile above this, close below the junction of Bear creek and the outlet of lake Shetek, raises the surface of this lake and creek four feet above the Currie dam, for which it thus forms a reservoir. The only stone for masonry obtainable from these counties is supplied by the boulders of granite, gneiss, limestone, and other kinds, which are contained in the drift. In some localities, as along the bluffs bordering the east branch of Kanaranzi creek four miles northwesterly from Rush- more, in the moraine-Jike hillocks within a mile west of Adrian, and among the rough drift hills of Leeds and Chanarambie townships in western Mur- ray county, these boulders are abundant up to five feet, and less frequent to ten feet in diameter. Lime has been burned for the local demand, from drift boulders, in Bigelow and Dewald, Nobles county. The largest limestone block found in this region was on section 25, Dewald, measuring about 20 by 20 by 12 feet in dimensions. It was used for underpinning three houses, besides walling two cellars and three wells. Most of the boulders, whether of limestone, or of the granite and schists, are less than five feet in diameter, and larger ones are rare. Only a twentieth, or less, of the large boulders, but nearly half of the small stones and gravel in the drift, are limestone. In Murray county, lime is burned by John Swenson, in section 34, Lake Sarah, usually only one kiln yearly. Brick-making is not undertaken in these counties, because of the high cost of fuel. Peat. Only scanty deposits of peat are found in this part of the state, and it is very rarely used. Prof. Winchell's report upon the peat of southern Minnesota, from explorations in 1873, mentions four localities in Nobles county, as follows :* *Sccond annual report. 532 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Peat. Springs. Mounds. DewalA. "Land of B. S. Langdon, sec. 4. Here a turf-peat occurs, about 14 inches in thickness, lying on a side-lull or gentle slope, having a springy character when trod on. It is underlain by a black mud, which has been mistaken for non-fibrous peat. Of the turf several cords (perhaps a hundred) have been taken off, preparatoiy to excavating the rich(?) peat below, when it was discovered that it would not burn, but when placed in the fire turned out hard and heavy like burned clay. The turf itself will make a fuel that will compare well with any turf- peat discovered." Bigelow. "Peat, eight or ten inches thick, exists on the railroad land, sec. 27, of a turfy character, but good quality. It lies over an acre or two, but may be taken out, probably in other places along the different creeks that unite here." •'At Bigelow, there is a considerable thickness, perhaps two feet, of half-carbonized, pulpy, vegetable silt, lying entirely below the water of a lake, made up of decaying sedges and grasses and their roots. It is torn in pieces by the waves in the lake, and gathers about the shores and under the bog-turf, driven most abundantly to the side that faces the prevailing winds. It is often intermixed with fine mud and shells, especially near the bottom. It will probably furnish, if dry, a combustible material that would answer well for fuel, if it should prove obtainable in sufficient quantities, and especially if it were to be pressed and molded. It has not the necessary origin nor nature to be styled peat." Indian Lake. " John Haggard takes out turf in a low patch on sec. 4. It occurs partly on state swamp land, partly on railroad land, and partly on the claim of Charles Peterson. It is in nature and position similar to the turf on B. S. Langdon's land, northwest of Worthington. Mr. Haggard takes it out with a spade, about a foot in depth, in large blocks. Then drawing it to the house he cuts it into convenient smaller blocks, and spreads and piles it for drying. After drying about five or six weeks it is fit for burning. It burns quickly but leaves considerable ash." This peat, according to an analysis by Prof. S. F. Peckham, contains when air-dried 11.93 per cent, of hygroscopic water; 33.48 of organic matter; and 54.59 of ash. A hundred pounds of it are estimated to be equal in value to forty-four pounds of oak wood. Springs of excellent, cool water issue at many places from the lower part of the bluffs of the Des Moines river, and of Chanarambie, Champep- adan and Kanaranzi creeks. On the narrow bottomland of Plum creek, in the N. W. J of section 15, and the N. E. | of section 16, Holly, the most northeast township of Murray county, are several chalybeate springs, which have formed mounds of ochery mud, one or two feet high, and ten or twenty feet in diameter. Other interesting mineral springs, supposed to be impregnated with both iron and sulphur, occur on the N. E. ^ of section 12, of this township, three miles south of Walnut Grove. ABORIGINAL EAETHWOKKS. An artificial mound, of the usual rounded form, about fifty feet across and three feet high, lies on the farm of L. Aldrich, close southwest of his house, in the north part of section 7, Mur- ray, at a distance of about forty rods from the southeast shore of lake Shetek. Also, in the south part of the S. W. } of section 8, several similar mounds occur, two to three or four feet high; and there are two others in the S. E. ^ of the X. E. J of section 18, all these being in Murray town- ship, within two miles northwest from Currie. North of lake Shetek, two or three of these aboriginal mounds, two to four feet high, were seen upon the top of swells, which rise 30 to 40 feet in night, east of lake Fremont, and one upon a similar rounded hill west of this lake, these being in the west part of Shetek township. In Nobles county, such circular mounds, from one and a half to three feet high, are found in the N. W. J of section 18, Hansom; and also in the south part of Little Hock. PLATS: z3AKi> 2-t. L INC O L N COUNT Y , i \-s . _ l^L.^Pj L L I D E - |-Ng>^r%-' -4- J fttfi^.fl' T vT S P R I N Q- j R.XLVIW. Q n.xi.vw. \\- GEOLOGICAL AND XATURAL HISTOKi' SURVEY OF MINNESOTA . PIPES TONE ANC ROCK COUNTIES. BY N. H. Wl NCHELL . PLATE 24 VICINITY OF THE RED PIPESTONE QUARflY 1 Loess ; Modified Drift 1 Quaternary )?M, smooth and imAtitttmc/ \ ) - - — J Cam brian (Potsdam Qnccrt^ Conl our Lines are cfrntm approxrmatel) -fir each 5O/ect cm r~ rtbove. the sea. . CHAPTER XVIII. THE GEOLOGY OF PIPESTONE AND ROCK COUNTIES. BY N. H. WINCHELL.* Situation and area. These counties are in the extreme southwest cor- ner of the state, Pipestone county lying north of Rock. They are named from the appearance of the Potsdam quartzyte, the former containing the famed region of the "red pipestone quarry," and the latter an extensive area in which the same quartzyte appears at the surface, and constitutes its most marked topographic feature, in "the mound" near Luverne. Rock county contains 308,910.15 acres, of which 1,174.04 are covered by water ; and Pipestone has 296,493.51 acres-, including 611.76 covered by water. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. With, the exception of a small area in the north- eastern corner of Pipestone county, on the east slope of the Coteau, mostly drained by the Redwood river, in which also is found the ultimate source of the Des Moines river, the whole of these two counties and portions of Nobles and Jackson are drained by streams that reach the Missouri river, these being the only waters in the state that take that course to the sea. The Rock river is the main stream, and runs from north to south through both counties, receiving several tributaries from the east, but none of importance from the west. Several streams, rising not far west of the valley of Rock river, flow westward and southwestward and finally reach the Missouri by way of the Big Sioux river, near Sioux City, in Iowa. These are the Flandreau, Pipestone, Split Rock, Beaver and Mud creeks. These streams are all small, and in the summer some of them are rather valleys, with occasional pools of standing water, than living streams. They furnish 'Including copious notes by Mr. Upham. Compare, also the sixth annual report. 534 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Topography. but few powers that have been improved; though without doubt other parts of Rock river have sufficient fall for mill purposes. The falls of Pipestone creek near the Leaping Rock, are represented by figure 38. Water-power mills are found at two points in the Rock river valley, viz.: The Luverne mills, a quarter of a mile southeast of Luverne, owned by Allen & Webber. The fall here amounts to ten feet, and the mill has two run of stone. It is a grist and merchant mill. Tlie Ash Grove mills are in the southeast part of Clinton, about a mile north of the state line, owned by Mrs. Deborah Estey and son; fall seven feet; grist mill. PIPES TONE FALLS HO. 38. Topography. The contour of the immediate surface is caused by the disposition of the drift, but the average elevation, throughout some broad areas, is dependent on the underlying rock-strata. Pipestone county is diversified in its eastern townships by long and broad swells running about north and south, corresponding to the low water-sheds. The central part of this county is a flat and monotonous prairie. The broad valley of Flan- dreau creek with an elevation of about sixteen hundred feet crosses it diag- onally in the northwestern corner, and the elevated crest of the Coteau des Prairies cuts off diagonally its northeastern corner. The greatest uneven- ness of surface, as well as the greatest elevation in these counties, is found on this Coteau, the latter being somewhat over nineteen hundred feet PIPESTONE AND ROCK COUKTIES. 535 Topography.) above the ocean. Where Rock river leaves Pipestone county its water surface is fifteen hundred feet above the ocean, and where it leaves the state it is about 1,350 feet. This valley is about fifty feet below the gen- eral level in Burke township, but its bluffs increase in hight toward the south, reaching seventy-five and eighty feet in Osborne, the surrounding country being about twenty-five feet still higher. Chanarambie creek is likewise deeply channeled in the drift. There are here also a great many sharp ravines, like the ravines in the Bad Lands of Montana, that suggest the existence of some of the friable strata of the Cretaceous. The Rock river valley, farther south, is cut from seventy-five to one hundred feet below the general level of the country, and in Rock county receives a number of small tributaries from the east, each of which flows in a deeply cut valley from fifty to a hundred feet below the general level. This valley, which is furnished with a fertile bottomland from a half mile to one mile wide, is enclosed by bluifs in the southern part of Rock county that do not have the usual steepness, as if recently undermined by the current of the river, but which rise by moderate slopes to the general level of the undulating upland. The same feature is observable in the bluffs of Beaver creek, which, like the Kanaranzi, Champepadan, Elk and Split Rock creeks, have cut their valleys from forty to sixty feet below the general surface. Rock county in general has a surface that is broadly undulating, the swells sometimes showing a trending to a north-south direction. These are emphatically and characteristically prairie counties, and are nearly level in some portions. They are more undulating in their eastern portions. The west-facing bluffs are usually more precipitous than the east-facing. They are also more stony with foreign boulders, a cir- cumstance, however, that may be owing to the action of the prevailing western winds, combined with the drying effect of the southwestern sun in summer, which would uncover and keep bare the coarser materials of the surface by blowing away the sand and clay during the dry windy months of the year, while the bluffs on the west side would not only not receive such winds, but would serve to collect all particles flying toward the east from the prairie above. The range of high land running northwestward from Mound in Rock county, is a conspicuous object in the horizon from the north and east. 536 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. ^Elevations. Its highest point is where it breaks off squarely to the valley of Rock river, about three miles north of Luverne, where it is known distinctively as the mound, 1650 feet above the ocean. It here has an elevation of about 175 feet above the river, the uppermost forty to sixty feet consisting of rock. This range of high land extends northward into Pipestone county, and reaches there an elevation of over seventeen hundred feet, the same rock causing it throughout. Elevations. By means of the railroad surveys that have crossed these counties there are someMefinite data respecting their bight above the ocean, and from these and estimates based upon them the contour-lines of the accompanying plate (No. 23) have been drawn. Southern Minnesota division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul railway. Miles from Feet above La Crosse. the sea. Chanarambie creek, water at the last crossing 274.5 1521 Edgerton 276.0 1550 Bock river 279.0 1552 Hatfleld 283.0 1662 Highest point on the road 285.5 1744 Pipestone City '. 289.0 1693 Pipestone creek, water 293.0 1577 Clausen 295.5 1629 Flandreau 303.6 1550 Woodstock branch of the Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railway. Mites from Feet above St. Paul. the sea. Murray and Pipestone county line, grade 202.5 Woodstock 204.3 1822 Rock river, water 208.3 1645 Summit 211 .5 1785 Pipestone City 215.4 1715 Big Sioux river at Flandreau 230.8 1501 Sioux Falls branch of the Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railway . Summit, thre? miles east of the county line 199.5 1569 Drake 203.7 1516 Elk slough, grade 206.2 1469 Summit, grade 207.1 1515 Rock river, water 210.3 1423 Luverne ... 211.1 1451 Summit, grade 216.1 1543 Beaver Creek depot - 219.3 1443 Beaver creek, water 219.8 State line 224.4 1383 Valley Springs 225.2 1392 Sioux Falls 1394 Big Sioux river, Sioux Falls, low and high water. 240.4 1381-1385 Branch from Luverne to Doon, Iowa. Luverne 211.1 1451 Ash Creek depot 218.7 State line : 221.6 1374 Doon 238.9 1282 PIPESTONE AND ROCK COUNTIES. 537 Elevations, Quartzyte.J Mean elevation. The following figures express the estimated mean elevation of the town- ships of Pipestone and Rock counties: Pipestone county. ./Etna, 1,825 feet above the sea; Rock, 1.800; Burke, 1,700; Osborne, 1,625; Fountain Prairie, 1,810; Grange, 1,775; Gray, 1,740; Elmer, 1,650; Altona, 1,700; Troy, 1,660; Sweet, 1,660; Eden, 1,650. The average of these figures is 1,715 feet. Bock county. Battle Plain, 1,550 feet above the sea; Vienna, 1,520; Magnolia, 1,490; Kan- aranzi, 1,175; Denver, 1,620; Mound, 1,575; Luverne, 1,480; Clinton, 1,440; Rose Dell, 1,600; Spring Water, 1,525; Beaver Creek, 1,450; and Martin, 1,440. The average for Rock county is 1,510 feet above the sea. Soil. But a very small portion of these counties is unsuited to farm tillage. The soil is generally composed of the till, or boulder-clay which is so stony as to interfere with plowing only in the rolling tract of the Coteau, in small areas, in the northeastern corner of Pipestone county. And even there the stony knolls. are interspersed with fertile valleys and slopes thi»t af- ford good pasturage. In central Rock county, extending from the mound north westward, and in eluding some parts of Denver and Rose Dell, the surface is rocky, and the soil thin. With these exceptions, these counties are among the best in the state for all farming. In the most of Pipe- stone county, and in the northern part of Rock county occasional stones are found in the soil, but these become less frequent toward the south, and in the southern part of Rock county no stones at all appear on the surface, the soil being the same as the loam soils of the southeastern part of the state, consisting of a fine clay that varies in thickness, sometimes reaching ten or twenty feet. Timber and fuel. From the vicinity of Luverne to the state line and farther south, timber is nearly continuous in a narrow belt along the Rock river. Its most abundant species are cot- tonwood, soft maple, white elm and white ash; box-elder and bur oak occur less frequently; and bass is absent. Wild plums, grapes and gooseberries are plentiful. Many beautifully spreading elms, fully 60 feet in hight, grow beside this river near Luverne. Farther to the north timber is found sparingly and in occasional groves along the Rock river. On the tributaries of this stream • in Rock county, and on Split Rock and Beaver creeks, timber is absent or very scanty. Mr. J. F. Shoemaker states that the following species of trees and shrubs have been ob- served by him in this county: White elm, white ash, cottonwood, willows, soft maple, box-elder, hackberry, bur oak, prickly ash, smooth sumach, frost grape, Virginia creeper, climbing bitter- sweet, wild plum, choke-cherry, black raspberry (common on the Mound), wild rose, thorn, June berry, prickly wild gooseberry, black currant, wolf-berry and elder. Owing to the scarcity of wood, nearly all the immigrants, especially in Pipestone county, excepting in or near the villages and stations of the railroads, burn hay for their only fuel, which is best when cut before frost, or at the same time as for feeding. The cost of cutting and stack- ing this hay is $1 to $1.50 per ton. THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. Bed quartzyte. The only known bedded rock in these counties is a red quartzyte, probably the equivalent of the New York Potsdam sandstone, but which Dr. C. A. White, of the Iowa survey, has designated the Sioux quartz- yte, as it is seen to outcrop in the extreme northwestern corner of Iowa. Of this the largest exposures are in Rock county, but the best known is at the famous "pipestone quarry," near the center of Pipestone county. As this locality has become somewhat famous on account of the ex- tensive use made of the red pipestone by the Indians, and the difference of opinion expressed by scientists as to its origin and age, the following re- sume will be of interest: 588 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. ^ [Quartzyte. Historical resume. Historical resumt. The first written account of the quarry was by George Catlin, in 1837*, found in the 38th volume of the first series of the American Journal of Science and Arts, p. 138, in a letter ad- dressed to Dr. 0. T. Jackson, to whom he also sent a sample of the pipestone for analysis. The journey was made on horseback from the falls of St. Anthony, in the summer of 1836, in com- pany with "a young gentleman from England, of fine taste and education," and a single Indian guide. Mr. Catlin describes the quarry as -'on the very top" of the Coteau des Prairies, which rises above the country about it with graceful and almost imperceptible swells. The quartzyte he regards "a secondary or sedimentary deposit," but no further defines its supposed age. Jean N. Nicollet visited the quarry in July, 1838, as is plainly shown by his own name and date of that year, together with the initials of his companions, boldly and artistically cut on the quartzyte at the top of the ledge, near the "leaping rock," and a little north of where the creek passed over the brow of the escarpment.** Prof. James Hall, next in chronological order, read a paper before the American Philosoph- ical Society in June, 1866, in which, among notes on the geology of some of the western portions of Minnesota, he classes the red quartzyte as Huronian. He imagines the Coteau des Prairies caused by a vast synclinal in the rocks of this age.f He did not see the pipestone quarry itself, having gone only to lake Shetek. Dr. F. V. Hayden visited and examined the locality in October, 1866, and his account is in the American Journal of Science and Arts for January, 1867, p. 15. After examining rock of the same kind on the James and Vermilion rivers in Dakota, and at Sioux Falls on the Big Sioux river, he gives an interesting detailed description of the quarry, and inclines to the opinion that the quartzyte is "supra-carboniferous, Triassic, perhaps, or an extension downward of Cretaceous No. 14 Dr. C. A. White has given a description of a "Trip to the great red pipestone quarry" in the American Naturalist for 1868-9, but he does not there state anything concerning the age of these rocks, though elsewhere he has ranked them as pre-Silurian, and named the formation the "Sioux quartzyte."|| The known area of this rock in Pipestone and Rock counties is ap- proximately marked out on the accompanying map, but there is much probability of its being much greater and perhaps it includes the greater portion of both counties. The Cretaceous formation, no doubt, also occurs in the northern part of Pipestone county, and overlies unconformably the quartzyte in other places, but it has not been seen. Dr. Hayden has men- tioned such facts in his account of the geology of southeastern Dakota, oc- curring at or near the mouth of Firesteel creek, on the James river, where he has identified the Fort Benton and Niobrara groups. The pipestone quarry. At the red pipestone quarry (plate 24) there is a ledge of rock which runs north and south nearly three miles. This ledge of rock consists of layers of red quartzyte that have a low dip to- •Compare page 62. "See paare 69. This inscription is about nine rods northwest of the waterfall (fig. 38) of Pipestone creek, and only two or three rods north of Leaping rock. The pillar of quartzyte, divided from the cliff by erosion, appears as in the adjoin- ing figure.— LPHAM. KJG. 39. LEAPING ROCK. tCompare page 98. JDr. Hayden misapprehends Prof. James Hall, in quoting his description. The "wall of red quartzyte" described by Hall Is situated at Kedstone, in Nicollet county, and not at take .Sh.-tek . lltieology of Iowa. 1870. The reader is further referred to the first, second and tenth annual reports for reasons for believing these quartzytes are of the age of the Potsdam sandstone of New York. See also the reports on geology of Blue Earth, Cottonwood and Nicollet counties. PIPESTONE AND ROCK COUNTIES. 539 Quartzyte. Pipestone quarry.] ward the east fifteen degrees south, so that the rock soon disappears under the prairie in that direction, but presents a nearly perpendicular escarp- ment toward the west, formed by the broken oft' heavy layers of the rock; though its greatest hight, which is not more than 25 feet, is a little north of the present pipestone quarry. It also gradually disappears under the prairie both toward the north and toward the south, the lower ground on the west of the escarpment slowly rising in these directions like the sides of a basin, and coalescing with that on the east of the ledge. A small stream, dry some parts of the year, known as Pipestone creek, works north- westwardly and passes over the ledge from the upper prairie to the lower with a perpendicular fall of about 18 feet. In the vicinity of this fall, and also at one or two places farther south, are dwarfed bur oaks and shrubs, but the country in all directions for many miles is a prairie, which has a great monotony of surface. It is not on the top of the Coteau des Prairies, as supposed by Catlin, that range of hills being 10 or 12 miles farther northeast. Mr. Catlin seems to have correctly described the eastern as- cent of the Coteau as rising with almost imperceptible swells above the prairie farther east, but failed to observe when he passed down the west- ein slopes, that the real Coteau dies out still more insensibly in the prairies on the western side. The little stream which crosses the rock at the pipestone quarry (fig- ure 33) widens out into a lake just before passing the ledge, making Pipe- stone lake, and again, after passing it, it forms Crooked, Duck and White- head lakes in the same way. In these lakes water stands constantly. The rock itself in general is exceedingly hard, in heavy layei*s of one foot, or of two or three feet, and is separated by jointage planes into huge blocks of angular shape that lie often somewhat displaced or even thrown over entirely by the action of the frost through many winters. Thus there is a rough talus along the foot of the escarpment where grow a few bushes and small oaks, protected from the prairie fires by surrounding masses of fallen quartzyte. The rock is sometimes pinkish and massive; when blood- red it is more apt to be thin-bedded. The real " pipestone quarry" is situated about a quarter of a mile west of this ledge and in the low land of the lower prairie. Earlier diggings seem to have been opened in the superficial outcropping of the pipestone 540 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Pipes tone quarry. Quar!zyte. layer, and to have followed along its strike north and south nearly a mile, without penetrating very deeply into the rock. The layer which furnishes the pipestone is about eighteen inches thick, and is embi'aced between heavy layers of the same rock as the ledge already described, and they all dip together toward the east, and of course run under the main escarpment. The present quarrying is a little east of the line of old diggings, but follows along the strike of the formation the same as the other, the only difference being in having greater depth (the pipestone layer is about six feet under the ground here) arid in the difficulties encountered in removing about five feet of very firm pinkish quartzyte in heavy beds. Southward from the region of the pipestone quarry the land continues high, and in some instances there are ridges, or long knolls, of drift, that are broad and evenly rounded over by a thin loam. The first exposure of the rock, in the vicinity of the road to Luverne, is on section 13, Eden, along the outside of the valley that crosses westwardly near the center of the section. It extends about a mile east and west. It here is seen to form an undulating floor on which the loam is thinly spread. It is hard, massive, pinkish-colored and superficially vitrified, in some places also showing two directions of glacial striae, one being by the true meridian S. 10° W., and the other 8.42° E. The same line of rocky outcrop extends westwardly to the Split Rock creek, and along that creek and its eastern tributaiies as far as it continues in the state. It seems to have a changeable dip, but nowhere presents perpendicular bluffs. On the N. E. } of section 36, Eden, is another exposure of this quartzyte. It is along a shallow ravine that makes westward. It is seen again on the high prairie about half a mile farther south. At a point about ten miles north of Luverne this rock becomes frequently exposed both in the valleys and on the hills, and continues so to the mound near Luverne, where it suddenly breaks off, along the west side of Rock river, and is not known to the south of that place. Throughout this distance it forms a high plateau three or four miles wide and about a hundred feet higher than the prairies east or west, but the surface, though frequently rocky, is not rough. It is undulating; and the plateau sinks gradually down to the level of the rest of the country on either side. This plateau terminates abruptly in a rocky and precipitous bluff facing southeast- ward, three miles north of Luverne, in what is known as "the mound." There is a very large rocky outcrop in sections 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, Mound. There are frequent exposures in Mound and Spring Water townships. The Split Rock creek which crosses the northwest corner of Rock county has frequent exposures both in Rock and Pipestone; but in Pipestone the rock range veers toward the east, into the east part of Eden township, and disappears till reaching the region of the pipestone quarry. In the northwest part of Mound township the rock dips northwest with a throw, or twist, which, by slightly changing it, brings it soon below the surface. Indeed there seems to be a succession of ridges, or swells, with low, changeable dip, though the most observ- able is to the northwest. These ridges are not covered with gravel or sand like some ridges east of the Coteau, under the operation of glacial forces (ice and water), but while they occupy the grand divide of the county, they are nearly bare on their tops and along their slopes, or are thinly covered with a gravelly loam, while the drift, even the stony clay that has been attributed to ice, occupies the valleys between to the thickness of at least 30 or 40 feet. All over these ridges, which vary from a quarter of a mile to three or four miles in length, and are for the most part thinly covered with soil and tuif, there are little nests of large blocks of quartzyte piled so together that they seem to have been thrust up from below by some force. The edges of these blocks are squarely broken off, and slope toward each other, i. e., toward the center of the pile, while the blocks themselves lie so that their upper surfaces slope in all directions away PIPESTONE AND ROCK COUNTIES. 541 Quartzytc. Conglomerate. Pipestone. ] from the center. Similar upheaved spots occur on the red quartzyte outcrops near New Ulm.* These upheaved spots vary from five to fifteen feet in diameter, or perhaps more. They may have been caused by ice, i. e., alternate freezing and thawing with the change of seasons, aided by the force of vegetation and a little soil gradually getting into the openings. Bottomland r>" i it .;:c* rivsr. FIG. 40. SECTION ACROSS THE ROCK RIVER VALLEY AT THE MOUSD. Figures designate feet above the rivi-r. At "the mound,'' where this high land terminates abruptly, and faces the valley of Rock river, the elevation is about 175 feet above the river. The perpendicular bluff of rock is from 40 to GO feet in its highest part; but owing to a dip of about 10° from the horizon, nearly west, or partly northwest, and to the breaking off of the upper layers, causing a gradual slope from the brow of the hill backward through several rods, the actual thickness of beds visible may be 150 feet. The rock here,also appears to be almost entirely a reddish or pink, heavy-bedded quartz- yte. If wrought there might be some softer and thinner layers discovered in the angles of the talus, but the refractory nature of the great mass of it will causj it to be used but sparingly for building. Tin nviin bluff curves westwardly at both ends, and by reason of the dip and ravines that enter the valley from the west, its exposed layers gradually disappear under the soil in that direction, and the rock is lost in the prairie. From the base of the perpendicular wall of rock, which is about a hundred feet above the Rock river, a talus of blocks and fragments of quartzyte, mingled with glacial drift, curves gracefully down to the bottomland. At points in this slope the quartzyte beds are seen in place, and exhibit the general shape of glaciation but show no striae, the surface indicating rather the action of water. t FIG. 41. Conglomerate. On the tops of some of the ridges in the northwest part of Mound township, apparently near the top of this formation, the rock is con- glomeritic. This occurs in large superficial areas, planed and smoothed down (rarely glaciated), arid the colors of the pebbles, usually not larger than beans, give these spots a blotched and variegated mottling. The pebbles are mainly white, but some are jasper red and some purple. According to Mr. Upham, the quartzyte becomes conglomeritic about four miles southwest from Pipestone City. It may be seen by the side of the road to Dell Rapids, exposed along a depression for about fifteen rods, dipping at the rate of one foot in six or eight feet, or about eight degrees south, thirty degrees east. It is in layers from one to two feet thick and contains a multitude of pebbles of white quartz and red jasper, of sizes up to an inch in diameter. The edges of the layers, exposed toward the northwest, are polished, doubtless by the dust particles swept by winds. The surface in some placas is as smoothly polished as can be done artificially by the utmost skill and patience. An outcrop of a similar conglomerate, exposing about an acre of smooth rock, is reported in the west edge of Sweet township, on the southeast side of Pipestone ereek, but little east of the state line. The pipestone, or catlinite, of the pipestone quarry, is a h'ne clay varying in color from blood-red to pale red or pinkish, or even to a pale yellowish red. The lighter colors fade into the darker, but sometimes the light appears in the red as round spots, on a polished surface, but the red is not thus distributed through the lighter shades. It has of course suffered all the metamorphic influences that the quartzyte itself has. but it has not lost *Sec the first annual report, p. 76. tit appear.-* that the Indians son •by killing them Whim Mr Shoe __, found a buffalo's skeleton wedded among the huge blocks of quartzyte at its base. tit appear.-* that the Indians sometimes drove bnrtaloes over the rockv precipice with which the mound ends, thereby killing them When Mr Sliojin ckor, who lives at the east aidi of this lonjf line of cliff, flrst explored it, he 542 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Pipestonc. its distinctive bedded structure, which may be seen when examined micro- scopically in polished thin sections. Indeed it seems to have a laminated structure; and the different shades of color appear sometimes to be due to openings and fissures produced in the red clay becoming filled with sedi- ment of a lighter color. The following analyses* have been made of this substance. It is not truly a mineral but an indurated clay, and its chemi- cal composition varies in consequence. Analysis No. 1 shows the results obtained by Dr. C. T. Jackson from the sample procured by George Catlin in 1837. Nos. 2 and 3 were obtained by the writer in 1877, and were ana- lyzed by S. F. Peckham, the former being of a red color and the latter of a pinkish color. No. 4 was obtained by Mr. Upham from "the palisades" in Minnehaha county, Dakota. It is of a very light color, and is known as "chalk rock." Its color seems to have been derived accidentally, in situ, as it is in the line of extension of a bed seven feet thick of a mottled variety of pipestone. No. 5 was obtained by Prof. R. D. Irving at Devil's lake, Wisconsin, and is of a lilac-brown color, analyzed by Prof. W. W. Daniells. 1. 8. 3. 4. 5. Water 8.40 7.44 6.48 9.60 2.50 Silica 48.20 57.43 58.25 50.40 62.16 Alumina 28.20 25.94 35.90 33.30 29.67 Magnesia 6.00 .... 0.17 Peroxide of iron 5.00 8.70 2.80 4.17 Peroxide of manganese. . 0.60 — Lime 2.60 .... 0.60 0.16 Alkalies... 4.10 99.00 99.51 100.63 100.97 99.36 This substance is found at various places in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Indeed it seems to graduate into red shale, and becomes in that form an important constituent of the formation in which it is found.f It seems to be only when this formation is greatly indurated that the inclosed shale beds are hardened to the condition of pipestone. In cases of greater meta- morphism its heaviest deposits have been converted apparently into red felsite or quartz porphyries. Although this substance has usually a red color, like that which pre- *See page 62; also Am. Jour. Sci. (1). xxxv. 318; Dana's System of Mineralogy, fifth edition, p. 796; sixth annual report, p. 101; tenth annual report, p. 203 ; Geology of Wisconsin, vol. II p. 510 The analysis by T. Thomson, given on page 796 of the fifth edition of Dana's System of Mineralogy, is of a pipe- stone obtained fn>m the Indians on the northwest coast of North America. It was of a "lisrht grayish blue color, not much h -rder than gypsum, and did not fuse per se before the blowpipe. Excluding the iron, the composition approaches thnt of an oligoclase. It has no relation to the catlinite."— [J. it. Dunain a letter to the writer], AnnalsN. Y. Lyc.HI., 9, 1827; Thomson's Mineralogy, I., 2S7, 1836; Dana's Mineralogy, second edition, 1844. p. 591; Id., third ediiion. tSee the reports on Blue Earth, Scott, and Hennepin counties, records of deep wells; also Geology of Wisconsin, vol. IV. p. 578; also tenth annual report, pp. 30—34. PIPESTONE AND ROCK COUNTIES. 543 Pipestone. Drift.] vails in the formation to which it pertains, it should be added that this redness suffers all the variations that it does in the quartzyte. It passes nearly to white, through pink; it is intensified to a brown, and in small patches it is deepened to lilac or lavender-brown, becoming reddish purple. It is only with a loose application of the term that it can be styled "gray," a color which is derived from a mixture of black and white, and which is applicable to the schists and quartzytes of the northern part of the state pertaining to a lower geological horizon. Mr. Upham notes that Mr. McDermott found numerous pieces of pipestone about seven feet below the surface near the base of "the mound" near Luverne, in excavating to improve a spring near his house. This was partly light-colored, and partly of a deep red color, and was thought to be from a layer in place, near the base of "the mound." Mr. Upham also reports pipestone from section 20, Rose Dell, where it appears upon a little ridge about a quarter of a mile long from northwest'to southeast, having the usual colors and character. This is on the authority of D. E. Runals, of Edgerton. Further statements respecting the uses of this pipestone, will be found under archceology, at the close of this chapter. The drift. Till. These counties lie mainly outside of the great moraine that crosses the southwestern portion of the state, and their drift features present some peculiarities. They are still, in general, till-covered, that de- posit exhibiting a thickness, and a general uniformity in its features equal to, if not greater than, many of the counties that lie within the morainic belt. That is to say, its composition does not change so frequently to gravel and sand, and its upper surface is not so frequently broken by hil- locks, or depressed by short valleys. Yet toward the south it exhibits features that seem to indicate its greater age. Its gravel stones, particu- larly those of limestone, are rotted. Its boulders become less conspicuous and apparently less numerous, at least superficially, and it assumes a peb- bly rather than a stony composition. Within it appear those limy concre- tions that have frequently been mentioned in describing the loam of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys. These concretions accompany this peb- bly composition, until by the gradual withdrawal of the pebbles, there is found a fine, clayey loam which cannot be distinguished from the loess- loam of the Missouri valley. This transition does not involve the whole thickness of the till, but pertains to its upper portions.* At a few feet below the surface the till, even in the southern part of Rock county, is stony. •Compare the report ou Kilhuore county, pp. 311-317. 544 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Terminal moraine. Loess Terminal moraine. The outer'terminal moraine, formed at the border of the ice-sheet of the last glacial epoch, when it reached its maximum ex- tent, lies in the northeast part of Pipestone county, which it enters from the southeast in sections 12 and 13, Rock, thence running northwest and passing into Lincoln county at the north side of sections 1 and 2, Fountain Prairie. The moraine here varies from one to two miles in width, and forms the crest of the broad area of highland called the Coteau des Prairies. In northeastern Rock, and from section 35 to section 28, JEtna, it consists of very roughly and prominently hilly till, diversified by many knolls and short ridges, of no well-marked uniformity in trend, much in contrast with the smooth surface of till, in long, gentle slopes and swells, lying 100 to 150 feet below this moraine upon each side. The till or boulder-clay constitut- ing the moraine seems to differ from the same deposit in the smooth tracts only in containing a very much larger proportion of boulders and pebbles, which on the morainic hills and ridges are commonly at least twenty times and often evidently more than a hundred times as plentiful as they aver- age upon the ordinary moderately undulating areas of till. Many of the knolls and hillocks of this moraine in ^Etna are very stony with rock-frag- ments of all sizes up to five or six feet in diameter, mostly, however, not exceeding half this size. The water-courses on the flanks of this massive, knolly ridge are deep, steep-sided ravines; and sloughs and lakelets are rare. From the south part of section 20, J^ina, the next three miles of this moraine northwesterly are less knolly than usual; but farther to the northwest it is as irregularly broken as in southern ^Etna and northeast- ern Rock. — UPHAM. Loam-clay. The plate (No. 23) which represents these counties is so colored as to indicate an extension of the loess-loam of the Missouri valley over a small area in the southwestern part of Rock county; but it should also be added that this extension is limited rather by an ideal than an act- ual boundary, and is designed to include only that area which shows an unequivocal aqueous action in the form of more or less stratified clay. A gravelly clay, which, as already stated, seems to graduate on the one hand into the loam, and on the other into the common till, is found on the sur- face some miles farther north, but it is here colored as if a part of the till.* •The sixth annual report, p. 1W. PIPESTOKE AND ROCK COUNTIES. 545 Kame-like deposits.] This finer till, or pebbly clay, seems to have the age of the till on which it lies, rather than of that accumulated by the last glacial epoch, and seems to require the presence and action of a lake of standing water at the mo- ment of deposition.* The water in such case would not only produce such plasticity in the till as to allow the heavier and coarser components to seek the bottom of the mass, but perhaps to cause their dislodgment from the ice, and their deposition somewhat earlier than the great mass, the smaller stones and pebbles being retained and more thoroughly mingled with the clay. Kame-like deposits. In the south part of Spring Water the surface is principally till, but knolls or swells are found occasionally to consist of gravel and sand ten to twenty feet deep. These deposits of modified drift seem to be of kame-like origin, and to be of the date of the earlier glacial epoch, due to the rapid action of rivers on the drift at the time of its dep- osition. Such water was probably confined within gorges in the ice, and had ample facility for washing the till as fast as brought forward by the ice, carrying away the clayey constituents and leaving only the coarser. Other localities of similar deposits, consisting partly of till and partly ot sand, are seen in the S. W. \ sec. 20, Denver. Here a few knolls and short, rough ridges, with abundant boulders up to two feet in diameter, rise from twenty-five to forty feet above the general level. Again, in the west part of section 8, Eden, Pipestone county, are other kame-like accu- mulations, largely consisting of till with many boulders, sometimes five feet in diameter, but mostly smaller. These rise from twenty to thirty feet above the surrounding country. Similar, but perhaps somewhat higher hills and swells are seen in the east edge of this township (probably section 13), and the adjoining part of Elmer. The level terrace of gravel and sand, underlain by till, on which Ed- gerton is built, is about two-thirds of a mile in extent from west to east with a hight thirty to forty feet above the Rock river. Boulders. The "three maidens" and the three others (smaller) that make up the cluster of six lying just outside the Indian reservation at the pipestone quarry, fig. 42, rest on the surface of the red quartzyte about sixty rods southeast of the quarry and at the foot of the long ledge or es- •Compare Geology of Ohio, vol. i, p. 606: vol. ii, p. 232; Proo. Am. Assoc. Adv. Soi., 1872, vol. xxi., p. 182. 35 546 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Boulders. carpment that passes north and south. They evidently once constituted one immense boulder and have become six from the falling apart, under the influence of frost, of the granite along its natural seams or joints. Such a separation of large boulders sometimes is seen on the prairies in Minnesota under circumstances which demonstrate their former entirety. The largest three pieces, each about twenty feet long and twelve feet high, are the Three Maidens, so called. Another piece is about twenty feet long and eight feet high. Two other pieces, nine and twelve feet long, are four or five feet high. There is also a seventh fragment about five feet in length. Together they must have constituted, as remarked by Mr. Up- ham, the largest ice-transported block known in Minnesota, making a mass from fifty to sixty feet in diameter. The pieces are all alike, and no other boulders of any kind are seen in the vicinity. They consist of red, coarse-grained granite, similar to that seen in outcrop near New Ulm, a short distance west of the outcrop of conglomerate on the north side of the river. Other large boulders of red granite are found in Eock county, and, taken in connection with their size, they all indicate the close prox- imity of their source. It is probable that the rock that underlies the Pots- dam in these counties consists of this red granite.* ' FIG. 42. THE THREE MAIDENS. •See Catlin's speculations, page 64; also compare the report on Nicollet county. The name three maidens is applied to these boulders from the tradition that after the destruction of all the tribes in war, the present Indians sprang; from three maidens who fled to these rocks for refuge. PIPESTONE AND KOCK COUNTIES. 547 Boulders. Glacier-marks.] In traveling over the plateau of quartzyte, about on section 16, Mound, a large, solitary granite boulder may be seen. It lies directly on the quartzyte. It is rough and granulated, and there is a circular excavation or concavity in the soil in which it lies. It is about ten feet long and five feet high, and has a groove horizontally circumscribing it about a foot in width and three or four inches deep. Taken altogether it immediately reminds the beholder, not less by its gen- eral shape than by this groove, of the artificial stone hammers sometimes found. Its size precludes its being one, but its shape is very like them. The groove may have been formed by the action of ice and water on its sides, as the rock has the appearance of lying, in ordinary seasons, in a little lake of water, which at the time of this examination was entirely dried up. This boulder, like the "three maidens," at the pipestone quarry, must be referred to the date of the earlier boulder- clay. On the south slope of one of the drift hills mentioned in the vicinity of the line between Eden and Elmer, about two rods east of the road as it is now traveled, is a boulder of reddish granite, ten feet long and six feet wide. The earth all around this boulder, to a distance of ten or twelve feet, is hollowed out one to one and a half feet below the general level. This is an unusually large block, its hight now projecting being five feet. Smaller boulders, three to six feet in diameter, are seen quite frequently upon the vast prairie of southwestern Minnesota, similarly surrounded by a hollow. These depressions may have been started by the pawing and tramping of buffaloes, the pulverized earth having been then blown away by the winds. The ruts of roads on the prairies seem often to be deepened in a similar way by the winds blowing dust from them; and in winter the wind maintains similar circular depressions about solitary trees, when the sur- rounding country may be covered with two or three feet of snow. It has already been mentioned that there are but few boulders in Eock county. They are generally confined to the creek bluffs and valleys. Even on the plateau caused by the red quartzyte running from near Luverne northwestward they are not seen, or are so rare as to be noteworthy for their absence. This is an anomaly, and can be accounted for by the great lateral extent of the quartzyte plateau, so that not many fissures were produced by it in the ice-sheet, where running water could find passage. There would be no place, ordinarily, where foreign boulders would be found, in a drift-covered country, more thickly than on such rocky elevations. Glacier-marks. There is evidence of glacier-action, or what has been recognized as evidence of glacier-action, in Kock county south of the Coteau. The quartzyte is polished, striated and sculptured superficially on the tops of the ridges in the central part of the county as only glacier-ice is known to do. At the pipestone quarry (near "the three maidens"), such marks ran 32° W. of S. (true meridian). On the strike of the ledge at the same place they run N. and S., varying to 30° W. of S.* On section 13, Eden, they run in two directions, one direction being about S. 10° W., and the other S. 42° E., within the valley of a little stream. On the rock near the top of the southern side of this valley, which is a shallow depression, glacial marks run S. 32° W. This is but a few rods from the last observa- tion above. At another point, about ten miles north of Luverne, glacial marks were observed running S. 10° W. On the rock at "the mound" they run 25° to 30° and 35° W. In many places they are conspicuous and abundant, and perfectly preserved, covering considerable areas. *Allowing ten degrees for the variation of the needle to (he east of the true north. Mr. Upham records glacial marks at the three maidens, and on the N. and S. ledge, both 25° W. of S. 548 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Glacier-marks. It seems almost impossible that in so level and open a country, and on the same rocks, without apparent cause, the glacier which must have been hundreds of miles wide,lf it existed here at all, could have taken such diverse directions in so short distances. It cannot be doubted, however, that this marking was done by a force that exerted a great pressure at the same time that the marks were made. This pressure is evinced not only in the marking itself, which is on the hardest formation found in the state, but in the minute cross-fractures that cover the surface where this rasping has taken place, and yet leave it in the main a smoothed and moutonned surface. These cross-fractures run curvingly downward at varying angles with the surface, and to all depths less than an inch, but usually less than one-sixteenth of an inch, and indicate perhaps an incipient crushing to the depth of at least an inch. They show in what manner the rasp- ing reduced the original projecting knobs. Where the natural seams or planes of jointage cross the rock, causing the quartzyte to chip off sooner and deeper with a curving and conchoidal fracture, these little checks are larger. Their prevailing direction is transverse to the rasping force, so that the rock, along some grooves, has a short conchoidally fractured structure transverse to the grooves, penetrating it to the depth of a quarter to half an inch, exhibited now in a series of little curving furrows where the laminae broke off successively, the convexities of the laminae being to- ward the north.* NORTH. SOUTH FIG. 43. GLACIAL MARKINGS ON THE BED QUARTZYTE. This marking is represented in fig. 43, but the figure does not show a great many fine checks with which the surface of the rock is nearly cov- ered. It shows correctly the prevailing direction of the curvature, and its relation to the moving force. This manner of glaciated marking is visible "Compare the sixth annual report, p 107. Dr. E. Andrews has recently described a similar cross- fracture strintion seen on the northeast shore of lake Huron on a aimi'ar rock; his observation makes the convexities of the lamina- turned toward the moving force. Bulletin of the Chicayo Acad. of Set., vol. i, No. 1. Am. Jour. Sci., (3), xxvi, 101. PIPESTONE AND ROCK COUNTIES. 549 Glacier-marks. J on section 18, Eden, and also on "the mound," near Luverne; also at Sioux Falls in Dakota. It can be compared to a cross-drained planed board, where the plane has been drawn against the grain, except that the cut edges are curved so as to present their convexity toward the cutting or planing force. Thickness of the i/lacier in Rock county. This incipient crushing of the red quartzyte under the ice may be taken as a datum on which to com- pute the thickness of the ice at the time of its production. According to the table of the qualities of the building stones of Minnesota, already given (page 195), the red quartzyte from Pipestone City has a crushing resistance equal to 27,000 pounds per square inch. The specific gravity of ice is 0.92. Hence a column of ice nearly eleven miles in hight would be required to produce the pressure of 27.000 pounds. This calculation is subject to cor- rection for the following sources of error: 1st. The ice may have carried a large amount of drift, rendering the comparative weight much greater, and requiring less perpendicular hight. 2d. The crushing produced is su- perficial, and is not the same as the breaking down of a cube of stone placed between steel plates. 3d. The fractures were formed by a rasping or scratching force and would be more easily produced than a total crush- ing down of the strata. 4th. The stones which were agents in the grasp of the ice in thus marking the quartzyte, presented only their tangential points, but must have supported a column of ice equal to the area of their horizontal periphery. 5th. The strength of the quartzyte may be over- stated.* The import of this calculation therefore cannot be much more than to warrant the statement that the ice was very thick, perhaps several miles. Mr. Upliam gives the following further observations on glacial striae in Rock county: "Very interesting glacial striae were seen on the quartzyte, one rod east of the road about a mile north of where the east road from Luverne to Pipestone City rises upon the quartzyte of the Mound, probably in the southwest quarter of section 23, Mound. At its west edge a width of two feet, as shown in the FIG 44 annexed sketch (fig. 44 >, is striated from north to south, while the rest is striated striated surface in S. 35° W. The line dividing these areas, marks a definite change of plane in the rock surface, which is inclined downward at the west four or five degrees, and at the east about half as much; making a beveled angle of 5° or perhaps T . It seems to me that these striae were probably engraved at different dates by one ice-sheet which had con- stantly covered this district. When the ice attained its maximum area, the current of this por- tion would be nearly from north to south; but during the final melting, as its retreating western border came nearer and nearer to this place, the current must have been deflected south west ward, *Compjirative strength of Minnesota and New England granites, Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement ol1 Science, Minneapolis meeting, 1RH1 Jiiincs I'roll has estimated the presei t thickness ol the ice on ihe anlarclic continent ut twelve miles, with :i tu| ei final slope > °n anclent rulns of southwestern Colorado. Col. Charles Whittlesey has described rock inscriptions ^Similar inscriptions are found on the red qnartzyte in Cottonwood county. See p. 501. 556 THE GEOLOGY OF MINXESOTA. PLATE I. "NT IN nr^\ » I # if J ? -j | I ! I I I EOCK INSCRIPTIONS AT THE PJPEfeTONE QUARRY. PIPESTONE AND ROCK COUNTIES. 557 PLATE J. **« 14 if 17 18 20 22 23 ROCK INSCRIPTIONS AT THE P1PESTONE QUARRY 558 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. P1TATE K. ROCK INSCRIPTIONS AT THE PIPESTONE QUARRY. PIPESTONE AND ROCK COUNTIES. 559 iPLATE i. ROCK INSCRIPTIONS AT THE PIPESTONEIQUARRY. 560 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Inscriptions. Pipes. slight, generally not exceeding a sixteenth of an inch, and sometimes only enough to leave a tracing of the designed form. The hardness of the rock was a barrier to deep sculpturing with the imperfect instruments of the aborigines; but it has effectually preserved the rude forms that were made. The fine glacial scratches that are abundantly scattered over this quartzyte, indicate the tenacity with which it retains all such impressions, and will warrant the assignment of any date to these inscriptions that may be called for within the human period. Yet it is probable that they date back to no very great antiquity. They pertain at least to the dynasty of the present Indian tribes. The totems of the turtle and the bear, which are known to have been powerful among the clans of the native races in America at the time of the earliest European knowledge of them, and which exist to this day, are the most frequent objects represented. The "crane's foot," or "turkey-foot," or "bird-track," terms which refer perhaps to the same totem- sign, the snipe, is not only common on these rocks but is seen among the rock inscriptions of Ohio,* and was one of the totems of the Iroquois of New York.** The illustrations seen on plates I, J, K, L, are approximately one-fourth the size of the inscriptions. They show the most conspicuous and important of the inscriptions. There are others that are very indistinct, and some that are unintelligible from imperfect or designless cat- ting. Figure 17 is deeply cut, and was partly hid by overgrowing turf. Figure 24, having its diametral lines agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass, may be intended to express the line of the horizon, and the points north, south, east and west: and it may be so recent as to have been suggested by the modern compass. Figure 31 was interpreted, according to Mr. Sweet, by a Sioux Indian from Flandrean, with these words, " Indian kill elk, three miles, "pointing toward the south. Figure 36, which interferes with figure 37, is the earlier of the two, as indicated by the difference in cutting. The pipestone, which has long been used by the Indians for their cal- umets, or peace pipes,! has been described in its physical and chemical characters, under the head of geological structure. It seems that many pipes were made by the mound-builders, of a "red porphyritic stone."f f These were exhumed in Ohio by Messrs. Squier and Davis; and others of red catlinite have been found in Iowa,:}: in each case associated with implements of, copper and other objects characteristic of the mound-builders. Pipes of this material are comparatively rare in the mounds, even in the vicinity of the pipestone quarry. One found in Martin *Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 1871. p. 405. **Morgan; Contributions to North American Ethnology. Vol. iv, p. 7. f'arver; page 24. ttAmient monuments of the Mississippi valley. ^Proceedings of the Uavenport Academy of Natural Science, vol. i, p. 108 and p. 135. PIPESTONE AND ROCK COUNTIES. 561 Pipes. ] county, taken from a mound, has been described on page 490, composed of a dark gray stone not at all resembling catlinite. A great majority of the stone pipes found in America are made of other varieties of stone, some- times of steatite, or of serpentine, or "slate," or some very much harder material, even of granite.* A pipestone found on the international boun- • dary, in Minnesota, is of greenish, chloritic rock, which becomes darker and harder in some places, and is properly described as gray. The Indians of the Northwest have resorted to this place ever since their acquaintance with Europeans, for the purpose of getting this material for their pipes. If there be" not a direct connection, genealogically, be- tween the mound-builders and the Indians, there is at least an identity of practice in the quarrying and manufacture of pipes from this material, no less than in the mining and use of copper.f At the present time the remnant of the Sioux Indians living at Flan- dreau, Dak., extract the catlinite from the same locality, in the rudest methods, and derive a substantial revenue from the sale of pipes, hatchets and various other articles made from it. In this manufacture the whites have begun to compete successfully with the Indians, and many orna- mental as well as useful objects made of catlinite can be purchased in the open markets of Flandreau and Pipestone City. •Squier and Davis, Ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley, p. 228. tPop. Serf. Month., vol. xix, p. 601; Lewis H. Morgan, Contribution* to North American Ethnology vol. iv, p 199 36 CHAPTER XIX. THE GEOLOGY OF BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. BY WARREN UPHAM. Situation and area. Brown and Redwood counties (plate-pages 25 and 26) are situated in the central part of southern Minnesota, within the basin of the Minnesota river, which is their boundary on the north. New Ulm, the largest town and county seat of Brown county, is 36 miles east-south- east from Redwood Falls, which is the largest town and county seat of Redwood county. From New Ulm northeast to Minneapolis and Saint Paul is a distance, in straight course, of about 75 miles. Two tiers of counties intervene between these and the south line of the state; and two counties on the west divide Redwood county from Dakota. The area of Brown county is 616.75 square miles, or 394,720.82 acres, of which 6,937.52 acres are covered by water; and the area of Redwood county is 893.83 square miles, or 572.052.87 acres, of which 14,930.13 acres are covered by water. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. The Minnesota river, at the north side of these coun- ties, receives from them two large tributaries: the Redwood river, which flows east across the north part of Redwood county and enters the Minne- sota about two miles northeast of Redwood Falls; and the Cottonwood (called by the Sioux the Waraju) river, which also runs easterly, crossing southern Redwood county, and dividing Brown county into nearly equal parts on its north and south sides, uniting with the Minnesota about one and a half miles southeast of New Ulm. Kl KJ I IN YELLOW MEDICINE: c o. S H E R I D A N D W 0 0 D P ANX T 0 N - *** • G IS 14 liB REE L A K E S U N D O : * NORTH HER o ! LAM B T< xxxvTTT COTTON WOOD C O U N T Y MURRAY CO -> STATE I-:. \.\XV \f. C 0 T T O N 1'I.ATI-: i't GEOLOGICAL AND XATrRAI, HISTORY SI'KYKY 01' MINNESOTA BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES BY WARREN UPHAM WAT ON WAN /, LuitaisBK.-aWo.Iilh BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 563 Natural drainage.] Besides these, the Minnesota river receives from these counties several small creeks, from one to five miles in length, the longest being Crow creek, five miles east of Redwood Falls, and Wabashaw creek, in Sherman, the most northeast township of Redwood county. The most important of the small creeks that empty into the Redwood river in the county of this name is Ramsey creek, five miles long, in the south part of Delhi, the outlet of Ramsey lake. Its junction with the Redwood is about a half mile north of Redwood Falls. Numerous creeks of considerable size join the Cottonwood river from the south in southern Redwood county, including Plum creek, which flows by Walnut Grove; Pell creek, in the west part of Lamberton; Dutch Charley's creek, which flows within a mile south of Lamberton, and after receiving Highwater creek, a large tributary, unites with the Cottonwood about two miles east of this station; and Dry creek, which joins this river in the southeast corner of Charlestown. Through this distance of twenty-five miles, the Cottonwood river has no affluent from the north. In Brown county the Cottonwood receives only one noteworthy tributary from the south, namely, Mound creek, which has first a northeast and then a northwest course, the latter extend- ing about four miles among inorainic hills to its mouth, two miles east of the west line of this county. Sleepy Eye creek, the largest branch of this river, comes into it from its north side, in the east part of Leavenworth. This flows easterly, approximately paral'el with the Cottonwood river, and three to ten miles from it, through a total length of about thirty miles, the first twenty- five of which are in Redwood county. On the south side of the Big Cottonwood river, another companion stream, the Little Cotton- wood river, also flows in a nearly parallel course easterly through the south part of Brown county, being from two to seven miles distant from the Big Cottonwood along its extent of more than thirty miles. It joins the Minnesota river two miles beyond the east line of this county. It receives no tributary of considerable size in its whole course. Lakes. Both these counties have frequent lakes, and also sloughs, or marshy tracts, many of which are covered by water during the wet portions of the year. In Redwood county the most notable lakes are Ramsey lake, one mile long from west to east, in Delhi; Goose and Swan lakes, at the northwest side of Underwood township, each about a mile long; two lakes, three-quarters and half a mile in length, in Kintire; Horseshoe lake, curved, more than a mile long, in West- line; Hall lake, a mile in length from northwest to southeast, in Gales; Willow and Rush lakes, each a half mile or more in length, in Willow Lake township; the Three lakes, which give this name to the township in which they are situated; and Hackberry lake, three-fourths of a mile long, in the north part of Brookville. Among the lakes of Brown county are Lone Tree lake, a half mile long, in section 9, Eden; Sleepy Eye, Cross and Mud lakes, respectively one and a half miles, one mile and a half mile in extent, in Home township; Boy's lake, a mile long from northwest to southeast, in the northeast part of Burnstown; a lake of similar size and trend in section 6, Bashaw; Rice lake, a mile long from north to south, in the southwest part of Stark; Bachelor lake, of smaller size in the same township three miles farther northeast; lake Hummel or Clear lake, a mile long from north to south, in the northeast part of Sigel; lake Hanska, seven miles long from northwest to southeast, and from an eighth to two-thirds of a mile wide, in Albin and Lake Hanska townships; lake Armstrong and Broom lake, farther northeast in Lake Hanska township, each about a mile long and trending southwesterly; lake Linden and another lake situated in sections 11 and 14, Lin- den, each exceeding a mile in length, with north to south trend, and lake Emerson, two miles long from west to east, crossed by the south line of this township. These lakes occupy hollows in the drift-sheet and many of them have neither outlet nor inlet. Topography. These counties have almost universally a smooth, gently or moderately undulating surface of unmodified glacial drift or till. Some portions are nearly flat, and the whole country has this appearance when overlooked in any broad, far-reaching view; but mostly the contour is in broad swells of various extent, hight and direction, generally without any uniformity in trend, and sometimes oval or nearly round. THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Topography. The highest portions of adjoining undulations vary from a few rods to a half mile or more apart ; and their elevation is sometimes -5 to 15 feet, and again 20 to 30 feet, or rarely more, above the depressions, to which the descent is usually by very gentle slopes. These hollows have a form that is like that of the swells inverted, being mostly wide, and either in long and often crooked courses of unequal length, variously branched and connected one with another, or in basins from one to one hundred acres or more in extent, which have no outlet but are sur- rounded by land 5 feet or perhaps 10, 20 or 30 feet higher upon all sides. The small swamps which often fill the depressions are called sloughs or marshes, the former name being the most common in this prairie region, while the latter is applied to them in wooded parts of the state. Many others of these depressions contain bodies of water, which vary from a few rods or a hundred feet to five or ten miles in length. All these are called lakes, and the term pond, which would be applied to them in the northeastern United States, is here restricted to reservoirs made by dams. The lakes of these counties usually lie in shallow basins, bounded by gently ascending shores, which, however, are here and there steep to the hight of 10 or 15, and rarely 20 to 25 feet. These higher banks are mostly at projecting points of the shore, and they have been formed by the undermining action of the waves. The foot of such banks is plentifully strown with boulders that had been contained in the till, all the fine parts of which have been thus washed away. Other parts of the lake shore, adjoining tracts of lowland or marsh, are frequently bordered by a flat- tened ridge of gravel and sand, often with intermixed boulders, heaped up by the action of ice in winters, in its ordinary freezing, thawing, and drifting, when broken up, before the wind. These ice-formed lake-ridges rise only from three to six feet above the line of high water of the lake, and are from two or three to five or six rods wide. They occur most frequently in situations where they separate the lake from a bordering marsh, whose area evidently was at first a part of the lake. The most notable features of the topography of this region are the valleys or channels that have been eroded in its broadly smoothed and approximately flat expanse by creeks and rivers. The smaller streams generally flow 15 to 30 feet below the general level, with valleys from a few rods to a quarter of a mile wide. The valley of the Redwood river is of small depth, 25 to 50 feet, along all its course above Redwood Falls. At and below this town, within a distance of one mile this river descends a hundred feet in a succession of picturesque cascades and rapids, over granite and gneiss, decomposing portions of which form towering cliffs, 100 to 150 feet high, on each side, from an eighth to a quarter of a mile apart. This gorge, extending one and a half miles before it opens into the broader bottomland of the Minnesota river, is quite unique in its grand and beautiful scenery, with dense woods along its bottom through which the river flows, but crowned above by the verge of prairies whose vast expanse, slightly undulating but almost level in this extensive view, stretches away farther than the eye can reach. In Redwood county the Cottonwood river lies in a depression from a third to a half of a mile wide, composed of level alluvial bottomland. 40 feet below the average surface. Through North Star and Burnstown, in western Brown county, this river flows about 50 feet below the average hight of the region, with a bottomland usually from a fourth to a third of a mile wide, of sand or gravel, or in part of fine silt, elevated 10 to 15 feet above the river at low water but overflowed by its highest floods. At Iberia, near the center of Brown county, four miles south of Sleepy Eye, the Cottonwood valley is 75 to 100 feet deep, and from a half to two-thirds of a mile wide, con- taining, on the northwest side of the river, terraces of gravel and sand, covered by a fertile soil, similar to that of the upland prairies. These terraces occupy a width of two-thirds of a mile, and form three or four successive levels or steps, 15 to 50 feet above the river. The bluffs that enclose this valley here and below are usually very steep, varying in slope from 30° to 45°. They have been formed, like the higher bluffs of the Minnesota valley, by the undermining action of the river, flowing along their base and wearing them away in its process of excavation. Mostly these slopes are wooded and lie at considerable distance from the river; but the stream may, in its gradual change of channel again impinge upon them, as it is now doing on its southeast side one and a half miles northeast from Iberia, exposing there a freshly undermined section of drift, 75 to 100 feet in hight, composed of yellow till for its upper 20 or 25 feet, and of dark bluish till below. East- ward the valley of the Cottonwood river, before uniting with that of the Minnesota, gradually increases in depth to 175 feet, with a width varying from a third of a mile to one mile. BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 565 Topography.] The Little Cottonwood river through Bashaw, in southwestern Brown county, flows in a valley 25 feet below the general level, with an alluvial bottom an eighth to a fourth of a mile wide, not bordered by steep bluffs but by gentle slopes. Thence through the central part of the county this valley retains nearly the same features, and it is only in Cottonwood township, within a half dozen miles above its mouth, that its depth increases to coincide with that of the Minnesota river, to which it is tributary. Lake Hanska, seven miles long but somewhat river-like in its narrowness and its rather crooked east-southeast course, bordered by moderately or gently sloping shores of till that rise 10 to 20 feet above it, may indicate an avenue of interglacial drainage, now in large degree filled and obscured by the till of the last glacial epoch. The valley of the Minnesota river on the north side of these counties is from 165 to 180 and in some portions 200 feet deep, having a bottomland of alluvium 5 to 20 feet above low water and from three-fourths of a mile to one and a half miles wide, bordered by steep bluffs which rise to the general level of the country. Within this valley at numerous places are jutting knobs and small ridges of gneiss and granite, exposures of Cretaceous strata, and terraces of modified drift, which are described farther on in treating of geological structure. From the top of the bluffs the vast prairie stretches away beyond the horizon, having a smoothly undulating surface of till, which appears to be in general approximately level, though a considerable ascent, varying in amount from 75 to 150 feet, is made imperceptibly in a distance of twenty to twenty-five miles southwestward across these counties. Here and there this sheet of unmodified glacial drift or boulder-clay, the direct deposit of the ice-sheet, is sprinkled with knolls, small and short ridges, or mounds, of gravel and sand, which rise sometimes by steep, but again by moderate or gentle slopes, 10 to 15 or 20 feet above the gen- eral level. The distribution and origin of these kame-lik'e deposits of modified drift are more fully noticed on a following page. In the southwest corner of each of these counties, their even contour, which to this distance from IJie Minnesota river may be called in general a vast plain, is changed; and a gradual rise of 200 or 300 feet takes place within a distance of a few miles, along a massive terrace which extends from northwest to southeast and east-southeast. This line of highland forms the northeastern border and first prominent ascent of the Coteau des Prairies, which farther west rises gradually and at length steeply again, to the much higher watershed between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. The south part of Stately, the most southwest township of Brown county, lies upon the foot of the sloping border of the Coteau, which here is formed by the massive, mostly drift- covered ridge of red quartzyte that extends in a nearly east to west direction in northern Cotton- wood couiity, its crest being one to two miles south of the south line of Stately. In northwestern Redwood county a gradual rise begins a few miles south from the Cottonwood river, and in six or eight miles southwestward to the corner of this county amounts to about 250 feet, beyond which a slower rate of ascent continues in the same direction to the belt of swelling and somewhat hilly till at the northeast side of lakes Shetek and Sarah, in Murray county. On the Winona & Saint Peter railroad, which makes this rise obliquely, running from east to west, the ascent from Lam- bertou to Walnut Grove, in ten miles, is 79 feet; and in its next eight miles, to Tracy, is 180 feet. The only tract in these counties that exhibits a conspicuously morainic contour is in Stately, and reaches from the elbow of Mound creek six miles west into the edge of Germantown in Cot- tonwood county, with a width of three or four miles, bounded on the north by the Cottonwood river. It is crossed by the lower part of Mound creek, so named because of its mounds, ridges and hills, which are 25 to 75 or 100 feet high, abrupt and strown with boulders and pebbles, Elevations, Winona & St. Peter division, Chicago & Northwestern railway. From John E. Blunt, engineer, Winona. Miles from Feet above Winona. the sea. Minnesota river, bridge 162.50 821 Minnesota river, high water 162.50 807 New Ulm 165.31 837 Siding 169.00 994 Sleepy Eye 179.72 1034 Redwood Falls . 205.00 1028 566 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevation*. Miles from Feet above \\ inona. the .•* 'ti. Springfield 193.18 1025 Sanborn 201.56 1089 Lamberton 208.77 1144 Walnut Grove 218.98 1223 The elevation of the Minnesota river along the north side of these counties, at its ordinary stage of water, 20 to 25 feet below its high floods, is approximately as follows: Minnesota river, low water. Feet above the sea. At the northwest corner of lied wood county 845 Below Patterson's rapids, at the east side of Swede's Forest 820 At the mouth of the Redwood river 810 At the Hue between Redwood and Brown counties 798 At Fort Ridgely 793 At New Ulm 784 At the mouth of the Big Cottonwood river 782 At the east line of Brown county 778 The Redwood river enters Redwood county at a hight of nearly 1,100 feet above the sea, and its descent in twenty-four miles to Redwood Falls is some 150 feet. Thence to its mouth, in three miles, it falls about 140 feet, the greater part of this descent being in less than a half mile at Redwood Falls. At the west line of Redwood county the Cottonwood river is about 1,120 feet above the sea, and it leaves this county and enters Brown county at an elevation of about 1,030 feet. Its hight at Iberia is estimated to be 900 feet, and at its mouth, as already stated, approximately 782 feet. The Little Cottonwood crosses the south line of Stately, entering Brown county, at a hight of about 1,150 feet above the sea. In the central part of this county, two miles south of Jberia, its hight is estimated to be 960 feet; at the east line of Sigel, 900 feet; and at the east line of the county, 825 feet. Brown county has its highest land upon the northern slope of the ridge of red quartzyte at the south side of sections 31, 32 and 33, of Stately, its most southwestern township, which reach to 1,200 or 1,250 feet above the sea, 200 feet higher than the Cottonwood river at the north side of this township, but 100 feet or more below the top of this ridge, a mile farther south. The lowest land of this county is where the Minnesota river leaves it, about 778 feet above the sea. The average hight above the sea-level of the townships of Brown county is estimated as follows: New Ulm city, 875 feet; Cottonwood, 950 ; Linden, 1,020; Milford, 950; Sigel, 990; Lake Hanska, 1,030; Home, 1,000; Stark, 1,000; Albin, 1,040; Eden, 990; Prairie- ville, 1,040; Leavenworth, 1,020; Mulligan, 1,060; Burnstown, 1,040; Bashaw, 1,090; North Star, 1,060; Stately, 1,150. From these estimates the mean elevation of this county is found to be approximately 1,025 feet. The highest land of Redwood county is the southwest part of Spring- dale, its most southwestern township, about 1,400 feet above the sea, being some 300 feet above the Cottonwood river ten miles distant to the north, and about 600 feet above the lowest land of this county, the shore of the BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 567 Soil and timber. Minnesota river at its northeast corner. Estimates of the mean elevation of its townships are as follows: Sherman, 990 feet; Morgan, 1,030; Brook- ville, 1,040 ; Honner, 900 ; Paxton, 1,025 ; Three Lakes, 1,060 ; Sundown, 1,070; Delhi, 1,000; Redwood Falls, 1,050; New Avon, 1,080; Willow Lake, 1,100; Charlestown, 1,120; Swede's Forest, 940 ; Kintire, 1,050; Sheridan, 1,070; Vail, 1,100; Waterbury, 1,125; Lamberton, 1,140; Vesta, 1,080; T. Ill, R. 38, 1,120 ; Johnsonville, 1,125 ; North Hero, 1,175 ; Underwood, 1,120 ; Westline, 1,150; Gales, 1,175; Springdale, 1,275. The mean elevation of Redwood county, derived from these figures, is 1,090 feet above the sea. Soil and timber. These counties have throughout their whole extent an excellent soil, well suited for the production of all the common cereals, garden vegetables and small fruits of this latitude. The principal crops cultivated are wheat and oats, corn and potatoes, sorghum for the manufacture of syrup, and flax for linseed oil. Stock-raising and dairying also receive consider- able attention. A black soil, everywhere from one to two feet thick, and often reaching to a depth of three or four feet in the depressions, forms the surf ace, being glacial drift or till, colored by a small proportion of humic acid derived from decaying vegetation. This drift is principally clay, with which is an intermixture of sand and gravel, with occasional but not frequent boul- ders. Its composition makes it quite unfit for brick-making, but gives it a porous character, so that rains and the waters of snow-melting are soon absorbed by it, excepting the large part which is drained away by the gentle slopes and the numerous water-courses. Below the soil cellars and wells find a continuation of this till, yellow in color and commonly soft enough to be dug with a spade, to a depth of 10 to 20 feet or sometimes more, and then dark bluish and usually harder to a great depth beyond, which is seldom passed through. The valley of the Minnesota river, 160 to 200 feet deep, has cut through this mantle of till. Along this valley, and in the last two miles of the Redwood valley before it joins the Minnesota, irregular knobs and ridges of gneiss and granite are exposed to view; and in some places these occupy nearly the whole width between the bluffs of the Minnesota river. Generally, however, the bottomland of the Minnesota river, as also of its large tributaries, are flat tracts of very fer- tile fine alluvium, or interbedded sand and gravel covered by a rich soil of fine silt. These bot- toms, which would be called intervals in New England, are elevated 5 to 15 feet above the streams, being thus mostly within the reach of their highest floods in spring, but they are very rarely overflowed during the season of growing crops. Both Brown and Redwood counties are mainly prairie, or natural grass-land, without tree or shrub, but one continuous green sward, often reaching in gentle undulations and swells, 5 to 20 feet high, as far as the view extends. Yet these counties have considerable timber skirting all their larger streams and lakes. A nearly continuous, though often very narrow strip of timber is found immediately bordering the Minnesota river through almost its entire course; but gener- ally much of the bottomland is treeless. The bluffs on the northeast side of this river have for the most part only thin and scanty groves. The southwestern bluffs, on the contrary, are gen- erally heavily wooded, excepting two miles next northwest from New Ulm. Next above this for about fifteen miles, through Milford, Home and part of Eden townships, both the bottomland and the southwestern bluff are densely timbered to a distance from the river varying from a quar- ter of a mile to one mile. The greater abundance of timber on the southern bluffs of this and other rivers in these regions of prairie appears to be due to their being less exposed to the sun, and therefore more moist, than the bluffs on the opposite side. Along the Redwood river, and the Cottonwood river through Redwood county and in west- ern Brown county, and along the upper part of the Little Cottonwood river, the width of wood- land, excepting occasional interruptions, usually varies from a few rods to an eighth of a mile; but along the last twenty miles of the Cottonwood river, and the last eight miles of the Little Cottonwood, the timber generally fills their valleys, from a fourth of a mile to one mile wide. 568 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Trees and shrubs. Geological structure. The lakes of Redwood county and of western Brown county have only narrow margins of timber; but in central and eastern Brown county groves of considerable extent border Sleepy Eye lake, the southeast part of lake Ilanska, and lakes Armstrong and Linden, and reach a mile southeast from the last, to Emerson lake. At Sleepy Eye lake the principal species of trees are bur oak, bass, white and red or slippery elm, white ash, box-elder, cottonwood, poplar, hackberry, the Kentucky coffee-tree and the wild plum. Wood here is worth from $2.50 to $5 per cord, according to quality. in northwestern Redwood county, Mr. Malcolm McNiven enumerates the following species of trees and shrubs occurring at Swan lake, on the west line of Underwood: white elm, white ash, box- elder, cottonwood, wild plum, willows, Virginia creeper, climbing -bitter-sweet, frost grape, prickly ash, choke-cherry, black currant, and prickly and smooth wild gooseberries, common; and bur oak, hackberry, poplar or aspen, wolf berry, black and red raspberries, thorn, and wild rose, less frequent. Species not found at Swan lake, but common or frequent on the Redwood river, are bass, red or slippery elm, iron- wood and sugar maple. Red cedars grow on the cliffs of this river at Redwood Falls, and from them appears to have come the name of this river and thence of the county. The Cottonwood river is said to have its name, which also has been given to a county, from a very large, lone cottonwood beside this stream in the south part of Redwood county, about seven miles northwest of Lamberton; but this tree has also a luxuriant growth throughout the timbered bottomlands of this river. The northern limit of the black walnut appears to be at the walnut grove, of about a hun- dred acres, from which comes the name of the neighboring station and village on the railroad, the grove itself being on Plum creek in sections 25 and 36, Springdale, close to the south line of Redwood county, and one to two miles southwest from Walnut Grove village. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. The foundation of Brown and Redwood counties, northwest from New Ulm, consists of metamorphic gneiss and granite, belonging to the great series denominated Eozoic or Archaean, which embraces the most ancient rocks known to geology. This is overlain by various shales, sandstones, limestones and clays, the latter sometimes holding beds of lignite, which are regarded together as of Cretaceous age. Exposures of these Creta- ceous rocks continue in the Minnesota valley southeast from New Ulm, but there and through southern Brown county they probably lie upon red Potsdam quartzyte, which outcrops on each side. Upon the east this quartzyte is seen in Courtland, N icollet county, two miles southeast from New Ulm. It is not exposed in this part of Brown county. Upon the west it makes a massive ridge, as described in the report of Cottonwood county. The north base of this ridge reaches into Stately, making falls in section 31 on one of the head-streams of Mound creek. Cretaceous strata, including lignite, outcrop in the bluffs of the Redwood river close north of Redwood Falls; in the southwest bluff of the Minnesota river a few miles farther east, near Crow creek; in the bluffs of Fort creek near Fort Ridgely, in the west extremity of Nicollet county and close to the BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 569 Gneiss and granite.] Minnesota valley, about sixteen miles below the last; and on the Cotton- wood river in western Brown county. Fossiliferous and sometimes lignitic clays of Cretaceous age are occasionally encountered in the wells through- out this region, especially at Walnut Grove and northward in western Red- wood county, and in Lyon county, adjoining this on the west. The sheet of drift which forms the surface is thus often separated by unconsolidated Cretaceous beds from the underlying floor of crystalline rocks. Within the area here reported this gneissic and granitic floor outcrops, away from the valley of the Minnesota river, at only one or two points, which are in T. ill, R. 38, Redwood county. These formations will be described in the order of their age, beginning with the oldest. Gneiss and granite. These rocks have the same composition, being made up of quartz, feldspar and mica. Gneiss differs from granite in hav- ing these minerals laminated, or arranged more or "less distinctly in layers. Nearly all the metamorphic rocks to be described here are varieties of gneiss, with which masses of granite, syenite and mica and hornblende schists occur rarely. In the N. E. J of section 12, T. Ill, R 38, an exposure of rock extends ten rods in length from northwest to southeast, with half as great a width, rising 5 to 10 feet above the surface of the undulating prairie. It is light gray gneiss, much contorted, with its strike and dip obscure; intersected by few joints, which in some portions are absent across an extent of three or four rods; enclosing at the southeast two or three masses of nearly black mica schist, each two or three feet long. About five miles farther west, the N. E. \ of the S. E. \ of section 6, in the same township, is said to have an exposure of similar rock, about three rods in extent, with a larger space around it where the rock lies only a few feet beneath the surface. The depth of .these rocks in this region is generally from 100 to 200 feet or more, so that they are not reached by wells nor by the channels of most of the rivers. Their only other out- crops in Redwood and Brown counties are within the Minnesota valley, and in the gorge of the Redwood river at and below Redwood Falls. The Minnesota valley in the northwest corner of Swede's Forest, and in the edge of Tel- low Medicine county, contains abundant ledges for two miles, reaching 40 to 75 feet above the river. A lone school house is situated among them, about a mile east of the county line. Half a mile west from this school house, the rock is reddish gray gneiss, dipping 15° N. K. W. A third of a mile west from the school house are massive granite cliffs, probably rising 75 feet above the river, divided by joints into nearly square blocks ten to fifteen feet in dimension. This rock may be found valuable for quarrying. An eighth of a mile east from the last, it is obscurely laminated gneiss, much intersected by joints, the principal system of which dips 15° S. At the east side of the school house, it is also gneiss, somewhat water-worn, dipping about 5° S. Within the next few miles in following down the river, similar ledges are seen on its north- east side, in the N. E. } of section 16, in Sacred Heart, Renville county, rising about 50 feet above the river; in the southeast part of section 17, Swede's Forest, rising at several points 25 to 40 feet; at south side of Big Spring creek, in section 20 and the west edge of section21, Swede's Forest, about 50 feet above the river; and near the north line of section 27, small in area, and only about 20 feet high. 570 THE GEOLOGY OP MINNESOTA. [Gneiss and granite. Kaolin From the small creek a mile farther east in section 26, Swede's Forest, ledges of gneiss and granite abound in this valley through a distance of twelve miles, to the mouths of Redwood river and Beaver creek. They often quite fill the bottomland, occuring on each side of the river, and rising 50 to 125 feet above it. Between lledwood river and Beaver creek, frequent small ledges rise along the bottom of the Minnesota valley, in knobs 40 to 60 feet above the river, but yet leave much open, tillable land. Between Beaver and Birch Cooley creeks the outcrops are main- ly on the north side of the river, rising 100 feet in their highest portions. Below the mouth of Birch Cooley they are mostly on the south side, occurring in great abundance for two miles above and three miles below the mouth of Wabashaw creek. The highest of these are a mile above this creek, rising 75 to 125 or perhaps 140 feet above the river. It will be remembered that the bluffs along all this part of the valley are about 175 feet high, so that none of these ledges were visible until the surface of the drift-sheet had been considerably channeled. On the Redwood river where it enters the Minnesota valley, at Birum's mill, one and a half miles northeast from Eedwood Falls, the rock is greenish, being apparently a "talcose quartz- yte," or protogine gneiss, dipping 25° S. E. It forms cliffs 50 to 75 feet high, which are continu- ous on the west side of the river a quarter of a mile or more. The picturesque gorge of the Red- wood river, at and below Redwood Falls, is principally cut through a similar gneiss, partly de- composed, and sometimes almost completely kaolinized, overlain by Cretaceous strata, which in turn are capped with glacial drift. The largest cascade, having a fall of about 25 feet, is over a ledge of this protogine gneiss, much contorted and jointed, often obscure in its lamination. The dip of the principal system of joints, which appears to coincide nearly with the lamination, is 20° to 30° N. At a cut which has-been made through the rock two rods east of this cascade, it con- tains a nearly vertical trap dike, seen along an extent of some thirty or forty feet, bearing N. 40° E., about two feet wide, composed of dark and greenish, compact rock, which weathers to a red- dish color, much jointed in planes parallel with its walls. Ten feet above the bottom of this cut, and higher, the cliff of gneiss is much decayed and changed to impure kaolin. In Brown county no exposures of the Eozoic rocks have been examined, but their character has been learned from their outcrops along the northeast side of the Minnesota river, in Ren- ville and Nicollet counties, under which they are fully described. Their outcrops in Brown county are of small extent, including only a few localities on the bottomland of the Minnesota valley along the northern boundary of Eden and Home townships. Their extent southeastward is to "Little rock," about five miles below Fort Ridgely, beyond which the only outcrop of these rocks in the Minnesota valley is a small area of granite opposite the southeast part of New Ulm. Decomposed gneiss and granite. Very remarkable chemical changes have taken place in the upper portions of many of the exposures of gneiss and granite near Redwood Falls. The rock is transformed to a soft, earthy or clayey mass, resembling kaolin. It has a blue or greenish color, when freshly exposed; but when weathered, assumes a yellowish ash color, and finally becomes white and glistening. Laminae of quartz are generally con- tained in this material, and have the same arrangement as in gneiss, so that the dip can be distinctly seen. Veins of quartz or feldspar, the latter com- pletely decomposed, and the lines of joints, are also noticeable, just as in granite or gneiss; making it evident that this substance is the result of a decay of the rocks in their original place. Because of the enclosed quartz- ose laminas, grains, and particles, of more or less gritty character, through- out these kaolin-like rocks, they appear to be unsuited for the manufacture of porcelain or any kind of ware. So far as can be judged from stream BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 571 Kaolin.} • channels and other exposures, this decomposition reaches in some places to a depth of 20 or 30 feet, perhaps more. All grades of change may be found, from ledges where only here and there a few spots have been attacked and slightly decomposed, to portions where nearly every indication of the origi- nal structure has been obliterated. Of these decomposed rocks on the Redwood river, Prof. Winchell wrote in the second annual report of this survey: "At Redwood Falls the granite is overlain by the kaolin, which has been mentioned, presenting, in connection with this substance, a very interesting series of ex- posures, and suggesting very interesting questions both economical and scientific. About a mile below the village, on the left bank of the river, is a conspicuous white bluff (probably that seen by Keating, and pronounced white sandstone), composed of white kaolin clay. Near the top of this bluff, where the rains wash it, it is silvery white, and that color is spread over much of the lower portions, though the mass of the lower part is more stained with iron, having also a dull greenish tinge. The white glossy coating which appears like the result of washings by rains, is spread over the perpendicular sides. On breaking off this glossy coating, which is sometimes half an inch thick, the mass appears indistinctly bedded horizontally, but contains hard lumps and irony deposits. Further down, the iron becomes more frequent, and gritty particles like quartz impede the edge of a knife. The bedding is also lost, and the closest inspection reveals no bedding. Yet there is, even then, a sloping striation or arrangement of lines visible in some places on the fresh surface, that corresponds in direction with the direction of the principal cleavage plane of the talcose and quartzitic slate already described. In other places this arrangement is not seen, but the mass crumbles out in angular pieces which are superficially stained with iron. The profile of the bluff here presents a singular isolated knob or buttress that rises boldly from the very river, connected with the main bank by a narrow edge along which a man cannot walk with safety. On either side of this bold promontory are retreating angles in the bluff along which a descent can be made. A careful inspection of these ravines and of the adjoining bluffs affords indubitable proof that this material, white and impalpable as it is, results from a change in the underlying granitic rocks. "Just above this point is another exposure. It here supplies what is locally known as the 'paint rock', from an enterprise started several years ago in the manufacture of mineral paint from this material. The decomposed granite here has very much the same appearance as the kaolin at Birch Cooley, but contains more quartz, and is more stained with iron. It has a greenish color but within might be blue. It passes upward into the greenish, and then white, kaolin clay already described, but it stands out in a crumbling, rusty buttress, exposed to the weather, and has quartzitic grains and concretions, iron-coated, and often an impure iron ore in considerable quan- tities. It shows silvery or shining talcose flakes, the same as seen in the so-called building rock, a short distance below the mill of Birum brothers. "A short distance above this, nearly opposite Redwood Falls, is situated the rock which was quarried for the manufacture of paint. This has in every respect the same character and compo- sition as that last described. It consists of a perpendicular bluff or point, standing out from a lower fcilus that rises about 75 feet above the river, to the hight of 75 feet more. On the top of this is the drift-clay hardpan, covered by four or five feet of sand and gravel, the whole bluff being about 150 feet above the river. This bold bluff, or promontory, stands between re-entrant angles its face falling down sheer thirty or forty feet. There is here visible an irregular slaty or cleav- age structure in the rock, that at a distance has the appearance of dip toward the S. E. 30°. This also contains quartz veins and deposits, accompanied by iron, in some places too abundantly to allow of being cut with a knife, though very much of it can be easily shaped with a knife. It shows 'slickensides,' or surfaces that seem to have been rubbed violently against each other, caus- ing a scratched and smoothed appearance, even within the body of the bluff. These surfaces are concave or curving, like putty hardened after being pressed through a crevice." Before the extensive denudation of the glacial period, it is probable that all the granite and gneiss of this region were covered by a similarly decayed surface. Upon the areas where de- composed rocks still exist, the glacial plowing was shallower than elsewhere. These kaolinized 572 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Potsdam quartzyte. « strata are exposed in a ravine north of the Minnesota river, opposite to Minnesota Falls; in the gorge of the Kedwood river, below Redwood Falls; in many of the ledges of the Minnesota valley for several miles next below, especially in excavations made by roads at the foot of the bluffs; in the valley of Birch Cooley near its mouth; and occasionally for eight or ten miles farther south- east. They have been found also in well-digging at considerable distance from the Minnesota valley. Potsdam quartzyte. The red quartzyte of southwestern Minnesota is destitute of fossils, but from its stratigraphic relations it appears to belong to the Potsdam age. Its outcrop two to three miles southeast from New Ulm lies in Nicollet county, to the report of which the reader is referred for its particular description. The only outcrop of this formation within the district here reported is in Brown county, less than a mile from its southwest corner, being in section 31, Stately. This is the north edge of a large area upon which this rock forms a massive ridge, in north- ern Cotton wood county, 200 to 300 feet high, and reaching about twenty-five miles from east to west, mostly overspread by smooth glacial drift. In the north part of section 31, Stately, this red quartzyte, or metamorphic sandstone, occurs in its typical character, being very hard, vary- ing in color from reddish gray to dark dull red, and much divided by joints into rhomboidal masses, mostly only one to two or three feet long. It is exposed upon a tract of four or five acres, forming a picturesque little water-fall on a southern branch of Mound creek, and reaching thence thirty rods or more to the east and south. The dip is about 5° S. In some places the layers are obliquely laminated, this false bedding being partly steeper to the south, and partly, in other places, level or slightly inclined northward. Over this rock the streamlet falls about thirty feet, its descent for the last twenty feet being vertical, into a pool some four rods in diameter. Two rods east of this water-fall is a little gorge or canyon, cut in the quartzyte 6 to 10 feet wide and 20 feet deep, with vertical walls, extend- ing about forty rods southeasterly in the solid rock, marking the place of an older water-fall, now diverted. About ten rods west of the principal fall is another interesting gorge perhaps twenty rods long, reaching from north to south. This rock also forms conspicuous ledges be- side Mound creek an eighth and a fourth of a mile north of this water-fall; and less than a mile to the west, in the N. E. J of section 36, Germantown, in Cottonwood county, it makes a still more interesting cascade and canyon on another of the head-streams of this creek. Cretaceous beds. In western Redwood county wells occasionally have gone through the drift and passed into clay or shale below, apparently of Cretaceous age, and sometimes proved so by the enclosed fossils. Such sections are reported at Walnut Grove in North Hero township, and in T. 111, R. 38, as described on a following page, in the list of wells illus- trating the glacial drift. Cretaceous strata doubtless lie next below the drift upon the greater part of this district; but their only outcrops, excepting within the Minne- sota valley and the gorge of the Redwood river, occur on the Cottonwood river in Brown county. The first discovery of lignite, or brown coal, on the Cottonwood river was made in 1861 by John F. and Daniel Burns, of Burnstown, in its north bank, near the northeast corner of section BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 573 Cretaceous beds. ] 34 North Star. The upper part of this bank, which is about 20 feet high, consists of alluvial sand and gravel, a few feet thick. The section of the Cretaceous beds below, as recorded by Eames, in the report of his survey as state geologist in 1866, is, first, iron ore, much broken; then, marly shale, 3 feet; impure lignite, 2J feet; and dark shale to the bed of the river, 10 feet. The third of these beds is a black, lignitic shale, enclosing a thickness of about four inches of quite clear lignite. A quarter of a mile south from this outcrop, a shaft was sunk to explore for coal, a year or two before the date of Mr. Eames' report. lie described the section below the drift as follows: "1. Bands of ironstone, and crystals of selenite enclosed in shale, with a seam of imperfect coal 13 feet. 2. Yellow sandstone 3 feet. 3. Dark colored clay (siliceous), containing iron pyrites, argillaceous iron and sandstone alternating 64 feet.'' "The clay in this formation is well adapted for refractory brick and the manufacture of pottery ware." Later exploration for coal was made in 1875 and again in 1878, by shafts 40 or 50 feet deep, on the north side of the river near the point where the lignite is found in the river-bank, as before described. These encountered a layer of lignite, a few inches thick, at about the same level with its outcrop beside the river. About two miles below this locality, and nearly a mile southwest from Springfield station, the north bank of the Cottonwood river in the N. E. } of section 25, North Star, contains the fol- lowing beds, according to Eames: " 1. Shaly marl 3 feet. 2. Impure coal 2 feet. 3. Sandstone, to bed of river, partially covered by talus 5 feet." This sandstone, some portions of which are richly fossiliferous, is exposed along a distance of four or five rods, and has been somewhat quarried. A specimen of it, showing very distinct impressions of leaves, and another containing numerous easts of shells, have been presented to the survey by Mr. John F. Burns. A complete leaf is shown, 5 inches long and | inch wide, lanceo- late, entire, tapering into a short petiole. This has been identifk d by Dr. Leo Lesquereux as Lauras Nebrascensis, Lesq. He also reports with this Salix proteaifolia, Lesq., and a new species of Ficus. Three miles farther down the stream, its north bank in section 16, Burnstown, has a similar exposure of rock, described by Eames as "buff and gray sandstone, thinly laminated, ten feet in thickness, descending to the bed of the river; it contains stems and leaves of plants, but t o much broken to decide either character or class." The next localities where outcrops of Cretaceous beds are known to occur on the Cott6n- wood river, are in Sigel and Milford, about eight miles, and again about five miles, west from New Ulm. Sandstone of yellowish, iron-rusty color, nearly level in stratification, partly friable, but containing hard layers up to one foot in thickness, exposed along a distance of several rods and rising 5 to 10 feet above the river, is reported at two points in the south bank, about sixty rods apart, in the N. E. J of section 6, Sigel. Above the rock-outcrops the wooded bluffs, probably consisting of till, rise about 100 feet. In the N. W. \ of section 3, at the south side of Milford, the north bank of the Cottonwood river has a bight of 60 or 70 feet, and exhibits the following section: yellow till, about 15 feet; gray sandstone, containing lignitic particles, only one foot in thickness exposed; and dark, bluish clay, free from gravel or grit, but in some parts enclosing specks and small lumps of iron p}rrites, which render it unfit for the manufacture of pottery, having a thickness of 25 feet clearly exposed; below which the remaining 25 feet of the bluff is concealed by the talus. Prom the wooded south bluff, in Sigel, a sixth of a mile farther southeast, but probably within the same quarter-section, clay nearly like the foregoing has been much excavated for use by the potters at New Ulm and formerly at Mankato. This clay is very fine and uniform in character, containing neither grit nor pyrites. It is dug between 40 and 60 feet above the river. These beds seem to have no fossils. About a mile farther east, near the middle of section 35, Milford, the northern bank of the Cottonwood river shows very fine, nearly white, crumbling sandstone, alternating with shale, 574 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Cretaceous beds. reaching in some places 30 to 40 feet above the river. The bedding is lenticular and inconstant. A layer of yellowish brown, ferruginous and more firm sandstone, with a dip of 3° or 4° toward the west, exposed here about ten feet above the river, contains plentiful impressions of dicoty- ledonous leaves of numerous species. A considerable collection of these has recently been made by Prof. Winchell, and determined by Dr. Leo Lesquereux, who states in correspondence that his observations of fossil leaves in 1856* were at this locality or in its immediate vicinity. The list is as follows: Magnolia altemans, Heer, Andromeda Parlalorii, Heer, Cinnamomum Scheuchzeri, Heer, Platanus prim&va, Lesq., Salix protecefolia, Lesq., Populus cydophylla, Lesq., P. elegans, Lesq., P. Lancasti-iensis, Lesq. (probably the same with P. cordifolia, Newberry), P. litigiosa, Heer, Populites cyclophyllns, Lesq., Protophyllum crednerioides, Lesq., Cissus sp. nov., Laurus sp. nov., Pinus sp. nov., and fragments referred doubtfully to Persea and Ficus. Nine of these species, according to Dr. Lesquereux, have been recognized in the Dakota group, the lowest of the Cretaceous series, in Nebraska and Kansas, and two in the same group in Colorado. Clay and an underlying more sandy deposit, which have been used together for the manufac- ture of fire-bricks, occur in the base of the north bluff of the Cottonwood river south of New Ulm. The entire section of this bluff is given by Prof. Winchell in the second annual report. Section on the Cottonwood river south of New Ulm. "1. Hardpan drift, made up of clay and stones, seen about 30 feet. 2. White sand, the age of which is uncertain, containing irony concretions and deposits. It is somswhat indistinctly stratified obliquely, like drift sand, and has some coarse grains. Its position in reference to the overlying hard- pan drift, together with its thickness and purely white color, indicates its age to be Cretaceous 100 feet. 3. Blue clay, containing some siliceo-calcareous, irony lumps; said by Mr. Dauf- fenbach to hold some coal; mixed with No. 4 for making fire-brick 4 feet. 4. Fine, somewhat gritty clay, largely aluminous. This is white, and when long submerged, soft and fluid-like, but when dry has to be quarried by blasting. This mixed at the rate of two-thirds with one-third of No. 3 makes a fine, white fire-brick—seen 12 feet. Total hight of bluffs '146 feet." "The above section varies in short intervals. . . . About half a mile further up the river a sandstone outcrop was encountered. It rises in a bluff immediately from the water, on the op- posite side of the river. In this sandstone, which here appears firm and massive, and which is probably the equivalent of No. 2, of the foregoing section, are many irony mud balls, or concre- tions, having a fancied resemblance to plums or bananas. They vary in shape and size. They have been gathered as fossil 'fruits,' and sent east as rare curiosities." The valley of the Minnesota river was explored by Prof. Winchell in 1873, and the greater part of the descriptions of the Cretaceous strata, as here presented, are from his report for that year. Some additional obser- vations and information were gathered by the writer in 1879 and 1880. In Cottonwood township, Brown county, near its east line, a bluff on the south side of the Minnesota river, situated on the land of John Gruebel, four miles below New Ulm, is described by Prof. Winchell, as follows: Section in sec. 2, Cottonwood. " 1. Black alluvium 2 ft. Passing below into — 2. Clayey alluvium, of a light-brown color 4J ft. 3. Bed clay, containing some sandstone in masses; stratified 2} ft. 4. Belt of greenish sandy clay 1 ft •U. S. geol. survey of the territories: vol. vi, The Cretaceous Flora, p. 6. BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 575 Cretaceous beds.] Passing into — o. Sandy clay, of a light umber color 1 J ft. 6. Bedded sandy clay, of an earth color, (same as No. 2) 2 ft. 7. Greenish sand, the color coming from the mixture of green shale with the sand, the grains of sand being white quartz 2 inches. 8. White sandstone in one bed, or weathering into beds of two inches 1 ft. 9. Green bedded shale, or clay, with some fine sand grains, and some lamina- tions or thick beds that are all white sand, but generally maintaining a green color, seen 18 ft. 10. Slope and talus 10 ft. " The bedding seen in the foregoing section is horizontal, and shows no fossils. Although there is no opportunity at this place to determine whether this series of shales lies above or below the sandstone at Fritz's [four miles southeast, on the north side of the Minnesota river], by an observation made in the bank of the road.at the crossing of the Waraju [Cottonwood river], it is believed to overlie that sandstone, but to underlie a series of calcareous beds that appear in the right bank of the river, about a mile below the mouth of the Waraju. The colors near the top of the foregoing section exchange places a little, in following the bluff along, drift boulders and gravel occupying the place of clay in No. 3. In some places the red irony stain passes down lower. It is likely that the red, brown and ochery colors are due to ferriferous waters, since the deposit of the Cretaceous, and to oxygen in the air. Hence it is not certain that the drift extends through the whole of No. 3, although drift boulders are mixed with it, or replace it, in some places. When evenly bedded and free from boulders, it undoubtedly belongs to the Cretaceous, the drift stopping with No. 2. When it is replaced by boulders, the Cretaceous is only so much the more worn away, the color pervading them, or passing down to lower beds." Professor Winchell continues: " From the mouth of the Waraju [Cottonwood river] going down the right bank of the Minnesota, a regular terrace [35 to 50 feet above the river] is seen to rise several feet above the flood-plain. About a mile down, this terrace shows its origin and composition, in the banks of a ravine which cuts it. Before reaching that point, however, an outcrop of "gray concretionary limestone' is seen on the top of the terrace plateau. This limestone here is overlain by a couple of feet of water-washed limestone, gravel and cobble-stones, mixed toward the top with the usual black alluvium. The appearance of the quarried stone is like drift pieces, and the bed from which it is taken is intersected variously with divisional planes, cutting the mass into irregular fragments, which, on being taken out, appear weathered. Yet there are crystal-lined cavities, some parts of it being mostly made up of calc spar. Since the formation of the crystals, calcareous water has again deposited lime on the edges of the crystals, which, having first been of the thin (axe-shaped) variety, have now the appearance of separate but crowded cock's combs, the little beaded accretions of lime being arranged on their edges. There is also a consid- erable quantity of uncrystallized lime on other surfaces. The interior of the stone is of a light gray or drab color, and when compact and free from crystals is very fine grained. It is said to make a white, strong quicklime, of which there can be no doubt. This limestone outcrop, which shows only about 16 inches, is within a mile of the red quartzyte outcrop near New Ulm, the bare, bald surfaces of which are visible from this point, on the other side of the Minnesota. " A little below the last described exposure, is Mr. Wm. Winkelmann's limekiln and quarry. The stone here burned is in the same horizon, and comes from the banks of a ravine that here enters the Minnesota. The limestone is much mixed, confusedly, with shale, but the following general section can be made out, in which no fossils were seen: Section at Wm. Winkelmann's, sec. 2, Cottonwood. 1. Alluvium and boulders 2 ft. 2. Green shale, interstratified with belts and irregular nodules or masses of gray limestone 15 ft. 3. Green shale 1 ft. 4. White sand, varying to green shale 1 J ft. 5. Green clay 2 ft. 6. Calcareous shale, or marl, with some argillaceous matter 5 ft. 7. Green shale, or clay, with blotches of red, seen 1 ft. Total 25ift. 576 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Cretaceous bads. " The same kind of greenish marl is exposed up the Waraju, the immediate bluffs being somewhat wrought in it, to a point just back of New Ulm, where the bank is opened by Mr. Win- kelmann for laying pipes to supply his machinery and brick-yard. The trench which he has dug passes through it just before reaching the bank of the Waraju river." In a later examination of the strata at Mr. Winkelmann's, Prof. Winchell has noted about 40 feet of the green shale, with thin layers of concretionary limestone; underlain by red shale, of which a thickness of about 5 feet was seen, but it may extend below the river-level, which is some five feet lower than the base of the section exposed. Occasional layers of red shale were seen somewhat above its general mass, separated from it by green shale. There seems to be a very slight dip toward the south. Prof. James Hall, in the paper referred to on page 98, mentions ferruginous sandstone, con- taining plant remains, interbedded with red marls, lying below the green shale and concretionary limestone in the vicinity of Mr. Winkelmaim's limekiln. Four species of fossil leaves, collected in these beds by Hall, and found also in other states on the west and south, are described by Lesque- reux, who regards them as proof that the formation belongs to the Dakota group at the base of the Cretaceous series.* The green shale and nodular limestone may belong to a later formation, and Prof. Winchell refers them provisionally to the Niobrara group. The highest divisons of the Cretaceous series seem also to be represented in these counties, at least by fossils derived from them, found in the drift as noted in the description of wells in Milford and Stately. Of the Cretaceous strata seen at New Ulm Prof. Winchell writes: "The flat on which New Ulm stands seems to be made up by a terrace wrought in the Cretaceous. The surface of this flat is strewn with boulders The general section of the Cretaceous at New Ulm is as follows: 1. Drift, gravel and boulders, with a surface-loam in some places, or large- ly made up of sand 10 to 20 ft. 2. Fine clay, blue, bedded, weathering white, used for pottery or brick — 4 to 10 ft. 3. Sand or fine gravel, not cemented, readily crumbling, containing mag- nesian balls, or rounded lumps made up of a fine white powder — seen 20 to 30 ft. "The conspicuous Cretaceous terrace that occurs along the Minnesota at New Ulm, is due to this fine sand, overlain by a more tenacious clay or shale. The varying composition of the Cretaceous makes it difficult to establish the horizontality of different outcrops, but there cannot be much doubt that No. 3 above is the equivalent of No. 2 of the section on the Waraju." The section here referred to has been presented on page 574, its No. 2 being white sand, 100 feet thick, overlying the deposits that are dug for making fire-bricks. The terrace at New Ulm thus formed of Cretaceous beds, overlain by drift, is more than a mile long, parallel with the river, and varies in width from twenty-five to fifty rods or more. Minnesota street, the principal business avenue, is on this terrace, sections of which, agreeing well with that just quoted, are exposed, especially near its south end, by ravines and gullies at its margin. Its night is about 90 feet above the bottomland and river, and 40 feet above the depot, which is on an intermediate terrace. The west part of New Ulm, including State street, several churches and the county buildings, occupies a higher terrace or plateau of modified drift, which is elevated some 25 to 35 feet above Minnesota street, or 115 to 125 feet, approximately, above the river (see fig. 47, page 582). Further details respecting the topography and geology of the Min- nesota valley in this vicinity will be brought out in treating of the glacial and modified drift. FIG. 46. SECTION ON THIKD NORTH STREET, NEW ULM. In the north part of New Ulm the grading of Third North street close northeast of the rail- road, exposes Cretaceous clays. This cut (fig. 46) is 14 feet deep and 200 feet long, with its top about 45 feet above the river. Its upper 4 feet are soil and drift, containing and overspread with *U. S. geol. survey of the territories; vol. vi, The Crelacioun Flora, pp. 6. 68, 76, 90 and 93. These species are Ficus (f) HaUiana, Lesq., Laurophyllwn reticulatum, Lesq., Bumelia Marcouana, Ijean^Leguminosites J/arcouanus, Heer) and Lirioaendron Meekii, Heer. The last two are figured in Dana's Manual. BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 577 Cretaceous beds.] » boulders of granite, gneiss and schists, up to six feet in diameter. The remaining 10 feet are curved, contorted, and irregularly interstratificd. red, yellow, green and gray clays. They are free from gravel, but contain flat, limy concretions, in some portions abundant up to one inch in diameter, and elsewhere joined in sheets a foot or less in length and a half inch or less in thick- ness, conforming with the stratification. These strata are eroded and covered unconformably by the drift. In Sherman, Redwood county, Prof. Winchell records an exposure of Cretaceous beds of sandy marl, hoiizontally stratified, seen in the road that descends from the Lower Sioux Agency to the ferry. At this place in 1860 Prof. A. W. Williamson found in a cut for the road about 30 feet above the Minnesota river a large coiled shell, since lost, which agreed nearly with the figure of Ammonites monilis seen in an English text-book of geology. About four miles farther northwest, or half way from the Lower Sioux Agency to Redwood Falls, a Cretaceous outcrop, including a thin layer of lignite, occurs in the south bluff of the Minnesota valley, above Tiger lake, being in the southwest corner of section 35, Ilonner, some three-quarters of a mile west from the mouth of Crow creek. Mining for the exploration of the lignite, which is an imperfectly formed coal, of inferior quality, yet valuable for fuel, was under- taken here, on land of George Johnson, in 1871, by William II. Grant and others, a horizontal drift, or adit, being excavated into the bluff to a distance of about 260 feet from its face south- ward. This followed the seam of lignite, which, or at least a black lignitic shale, was found con- tinuous along all this distance, being level in the direction of the adit, but dipping to the west about three degrees, or five feet in a hundred. The adit is about a third of the way up from the foot to the top of the bluff, or some 60 feet above the river. Several tons of coal, sometimes quite clear for a thickness of six to nine inches, were obtained from the mine, and were used as fuel. The cost of the work, however, was about $2000, without discovering any portion of the bed that could be profitably mined. Professor Winchell describes the formation here explored, and the similar lignite layer in the bluffs of the Redwood river, a-t follows: " Tliis coal is from one of those layers in the Cretaceous that are usually known as lignites. It is earthy, passing sometimes into a good cannel coal, or into a bituminous clay. The compact cannel coal is in detached lumps, and occurs throughout a band of about four feet in thickness. This lignitic baud was followed in drifting into the bank at Crow creek, and was found to divide by interstratification with black clay, showing some leafy impressions and pieces of charcoal. " The 'coal' here is said to overlie a bed of lumpy concretionary marl In some of the concretions are small shining balls of pyrites Over the 'coal' is a blue clay, requiring a timbered roof in the tunnel. This clay is likewise Cretaceous. The underlying lumpy or concretionary white marl becomes siliceous, or even arenaceous, the concretions appear- ing more like cheit. Some of it is also pebbly, showing the action of water currents. "The same lignite coal occurs near Mr. Johnson's, on the land of Hugh Curry, Wm. II. Cornell, E. O. King and Mr. Hiker, in the little ravines that enter the Minnesota, the exposures being kept fresh by the freshet waters. More or less exploring and drilling, besides that done by Mr. Grant, has been engaged in, in this vicinity, but never with any better success. "Near Redwood Falls, on land of Mr. Birney Flynn, is another outcrop of carbonaceous de- posit in the Cretaceous. This is seen in the left bank of the Redwood river. It is in the form of a black bedded clay or shale, five or six feet thick, more or less mingled with charcoal and ashes, the whole passing below into charcoal fragments mixed with the same ash-like substance. In the latter are sometimes large pieces of fine, black, very compact coal, the same as that already spoken of at Crow creek, as cannel coal. These masses show sometimes what appears to the eye to be fine woody fiber, as if they, too, were simply charred wood. Further examination will be needed to determine their origin and nature. They constitute the only really valuable portions of the bed, the light charcoal, which everywhere shows the distinct woody fiber, being generally mixed with the light ashy substance, and in a state of fine subdivision. "A short distance above Mr. Flynn's land is that of George Iloughton, where the Redwood Falls coal mine was opened. This mine consists of a drift into the bluff, forty feet, following a lignite, or charcoal bed in the Cretaceous. The bed here is seven feet thick, the greater part of it being made up of black, bedded shale or clay, though Mr. Flyim is authority for the statement 37 578 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Cretaceous lignite. that it showed a great deal more of the real charcoal than any other point discovered. Some fragments that lay near the opening, contained about nine parts of light charcoal to one of ash, the whole very slightly cemented, and so frail as to hardly endure transportation. In this drift were also numerous pieces of what is described by the owners both here and at Crow creek, as 'stone coal.' It is the same as that mentioned as probably a cannel coal, occuring at Crow creek. It is these harder lumps that are found scattered in the drift thioughout the southwestern part of the state." This mining was done in 1868 or 1869, on the northwest or left side of the Redwood river, about one and a quarter miles north from Redwood Falls, on the south part of the S. W. J of section 30, Ilonner, the hight of the drift being some 75 feet above the river, and about the same amount below the top of the bluff and general surface of the country. The lignitic bed is reported to dip slightly toward the southwest, and to be overlain conformably by shale, above which the upper part of the bluff is till. Next below the black coaly bijer, is said to have been a marl, varying from reddish to white, six inches to two feet in thickness, underlain by yellow and blue clay. No exposure of gneiss or granite is visible at this locality. Specimens from the lignite and lignitic deposits thus mined near Crow creek and Redwood Falls, and another from an outcrop of lignite west of Bismarck, in Dakota, were analyzed by Prof. S. F. Peckham. In the list of samples submitted for analysis, these are numbered and de- scribed as follows: "No. 11. Cretaceous coal, cannel, from Crow creek, near Redwood Falls, Minn." "No. 12. Coal, from the surface, near Bismarck, D. T., having the same external charac- ters as the last." "No. 13. Earthy coal, from Crow creek, near Redwood Falls, Minn." "No. 14. A mixture of charcoal and ash, apparently, from the lignite beds of the Creta- ceous, at Redwood Falls, Minn." Professor Peckham writes:* "The specific gravity was first determined by sifting the dust from the finely granulated coal and weighing in a sp. gr. llask, after standing under water at least 12 hours. One gramme was then weighed in a platinum crucible and dried at a tempera- ture of 215°-220° Fahr. until it ceased to lose weight. The loss is water. "The residue was then heated over a Bunsen's burner for 3.5 minutes, and then over a blast lamp for the same length of time, and weighed. The loss was considered to be volatile com- bustible matter. The residue was burned to an ash and the ash weighed. The loss from com- bustion was considered to be non-volatile combustible material, or fixed carbon. "The coals are quite unlike. Nos. 11 and 12 are semi-cannel coals. No. 13 consists of a mass of clay containing carbonaceous matter. No. 14 consists of an earthy mass, chiefly silica, containing fragments of mineral charcoal. "No. 11 is homogeneous and brittle, of a dull black color, and cracks in a dry atmosphere. When heated it is non-caking, the pieces retaining their form and size, and in this respect it re- sembles some of the Cretaceous coals of the Pacific coast. The results of analysis are as follows: Specific gravity, 1.441. Water 13.53 per cent. Volatile combustible matter 54.1 1 " " Fixed carbon 29.49 " " Ash 2.87 " " 100.00 " " The total amount of combustible matter in this coal is 83.60 per cent. "No. 12 in some respects resembled No. 11. It is a semi-canuel in appearance, very friable in dry air, and non-caking. The results of analysis are as follows: Specific gravity, 1.425. Water 12.70 per cent. Volatile combustible matter 38.32 " " Fixed carbon 45.61 " " Ash 3.37 " " 100.00 The total amount of combustible matter in this coal is 83.93 per cent. *Fifth annual report, p. 57. BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 579 C'retaceous lignite.] "No. 13 is a specimen of dark colored clay containing an unusual amount of organic com- bustible matter, not enough, however, to give it any value as fuel. It burns to a very light-col- ored ash consisting largely of alumina, and would therefore in all probability make very good brick if sufficient sand were mixed with it. The results of analysis were as follows: Specific gravity, 1.968. Water ] Volatile combustible matter j.29.55 percent. Fixed carbon J Ash, consisting of clay 70.45 " " 100.00 " " The ash contained — Insoluble portion, consisting of insoluble alumina and silicic acid. . 92.751 per cent. Soluble silicic acid 490 " ' " Sulphuric acid -. 282 ' Ferric oxide and alumina 2.894 " " Lime 1.076 " " Magnesia 348 " " Undetermined matters 1.159 " " 100.000 " " "No. 14 consisted of a soft, siliceous rock, containing small fragments, grains and specks of mineral charcoal. The results of analysis are as follows: Specific gravity, 2.141. Water and combustible matter 26.54 per cent. Ash 73.46 " " 100.00 " " The ash contained— Insoluble matter, chiefly silicic acid 96.549 per cent. Soluble silicic acid 0.836 " " Sulphuric acid 0.178 " " Ferric oxide and alumina 0.257 " " Lime 1.023 " " Magnesia 0.4^2 " " Undetermined matters 0.695 " " 100.000 " " " It appears nearly certain that no workable deposits of coal exist in this region. Professor Winchell summarizes his observations and conclusions, upon this subject, as follows: "1st. The rocks that have been explored for coal, on the Cotton wood and Redwood rivers, belong to the Cretaceous system, and do not promise to be productive of coal in valuable quan- tities. "2d. The coal there taken out is of an inferior grade, though varying from cannel coal to charcoal." The charcoal, "while it is the more abundant, is of less value for use as fuel. It is light, and quickly ignites It lies in irregular sheets, generally not more than half an inch thick when pure, but may be disseminated through a thickness of six or eight feet. It is very fragile, hardly bearing transportation." The cannel coal "is black, or brown black, lustrous, compact, rather hard, and presents every aspect of a valuable coal. It occurs in isolated lumps or pockets, in the same beds as the charcoal, but less abundantly. It readily burns, making a hot fire. In the air, when it has become dry, it cracks and crumbles something like quicklime, but not to a powder." "3d. As the rocks of the Cretaceous period are believed to have existed throughout the most of the state, the only probable exception being in the southeastern portion, including half a dozen counties, such coal is likely to occur at a great many places. "4th. The 'float' coal which has so often attracted the attention of the people, is derived, so far as yet known, from the disruption of the Cretaceous rocks by the glaciers of the ice'period. It is scattered through tlie drift, and is met with in wells and other excavations, and may be often picked up along the beds of streams." 580 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Strise. Till. Glacial epochs. Glacial and modified drift. Glacial striae are plainly seen on the south- west part of the outcrop of quartzyte that forms the water-fall in section 31, Stately, having a course S. 50° to 55° E., with reference to the true meridi- an; and upon the ledge of gneiss in section 12, T. ill, R. 38, bearing S. 50° to 60° E. The surface of Brown and Redwood counties is principally till, or the mixture of clay with smaller proportions of sand and gravel and occasional enclosed boulders, which was thus deposited in a mingled unstratified mass by the ice-sheets of the glacial period. Its thickness in these counties is generally from 100 to 200 feet. Within the till are found occasional layers of sand or gravel, which often yield large supplies of water in wells. Many of these veins of modified drift were probably formed by small glacial streams, and they cannot be regarded as marking important divisions of the ice age. It is shown, however, by shells, remains of vegetation and trees, found evi- dently in the place where they were living, underlain and overlain by till, that this very cold period was not one unbroken reign of ice, but that this retreated and re-advanced, or possibly at some times was nearly all melted and then accumulated anew. Two principal glacial epochs can be distinguished:* in the first of which all of Minnesota except its southeast corner was deeply covered by the continental ice-sheet, and its border was several hundred miles south of this district, in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and southern Illinois; whereas in the later very severely cold epoch, the ice-fields were of less extent, and terminated from 50 to 300 miles within their earlier limit, covering all the basin of the Minnesota river, but not enveloping a large tract in the southwest corner of Minnesota and leaving uncovered a much larger area than before in the southeast part of the state. Between these glacial epochs the ice- sheet was melted away within the basins of the Minnesota and Red rivers, and probably from the entire state. The greater part of the till appears to have been deposited by this earlier ice-sheet; and during the retreat of the ice this till was overspread in some places, especially along the ave- nues of drainage, by beds of modified drift, or stratified gravel, sand, and clay, washed from the material that had been contained in the ice and now became exposed upon its surface to the mul- titude of rills, rivulets and rivers that were formed by its melting. In the ensuing interglacial epoch, this drift-sheet was channeled by water-courses till its valleys were apparently as numerous and deep as those of our present streams. The interglacial drainage sometimes went in a different direction from that now taken by the creeks and rivers; and the valleys then excavated in the drift, though partly refilled with till during the last glacial epoch, are still, in some instances, clearly marked by series of lakes, as described in the report of Martin county (pages 479 to 485). More commonly the interglacial water-courses must have occu- pied nearly the same place with the valleys of the present time; and there seems to be conclusive proof that this was true of the valley of the Minnesota river. A long period intervened between the great glacial epochs; the earlier ice-sheet gradually retreated northward; a lake was formed in the Red river valley by the receding ice-barrier on the north; the outflow from tin's lake, and the drainage of the Minnesota basin itself, appear to have excavated the valley of the Minnesota river nearly as it now is; and the further recession of the ice-sheet probably even allowed the drainage •Compare the first annual report , p. 61; the fifth, p. 177; and the reports of Martin and Dakota counties. BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 581 Terminal moraines.] of the Red river basin to take its course northward, as now, to Hudson bay, this being indicated by fossiliferous beds enclosed between deposits of till within the area that had been covered by this interglacial lake and was afterward occupied by lake Agassiz at the close of the last glacial epoch. Again a severely cold climate prevailed , accumulating a vast sheet of ice upon Bi itish America and the greater part of Minnesota. By this glacial sheet the valley of the Minnesota river was partly refilled with till, but it evidently remained an important feature in the contour of the land surface. During the final melting of this ice-sheet, its waters, discharged in this channel, quickly removed whatever obstructing deposits of drift it had received, and undermined its bluffs, giving them again the steep slopes produced by fluvial erosion. This partial re excavation and sculpture were then followed immediately, during the retreat of the ice-sheet, by the deposition of the strati- fied gravel, sand and clay, 75 to 150 feet deep, remnants of which occur as terraces on the sides of this valley, from its mouth to New Ulm, and less distinctly beyond. Had not the great valley existed nearly in its present form through the last glacial epoch, it could not have become filled with this modified drift, which must belong to the era of melting of the last ice-sheet. After the departure of the ice, the supply of both water and sediment was so diminished that the river could no longer overspread the former flood- plain of modified drift and add to its depth, but has been occupied mainly in slow excavation and removal of these deposits, leaving remnants of them as elevated plains or terraces.* Terminal moraines. The morainic tract in Stately (page 565) is probably a portion of the third terminal moraine, formed at the boundary of the ice of the last glacial epoch during a pause in its recession. This moraine is well exhibited in Martin county and thence to Forest City and Pilot mound in Hancock county, Iowa, as described on page 478. In Redwood county it is not prominent, and its course, which is believed to coincide approximately with that of the Cottonwood river, has not been traced. Close south of the valley of this river in the N. W. J of section 14, Gales, numerous small hillocks and ridges, 10 to 20 feet high, rough with abundant boulders, were observed to occupy a width from a few rods to an eighth of a mile, reaching a half mile or more in length from east to west; and from a bridge in section 10, Gales, a noteworthy hill, perhaps 60 feet high, is seen in the view westward, situated not far from where the Cottonwood river crosses the county line. Farther northwest, this morainic belt is clearly traced across Yellow Medicine and Lac qui Parle counties, its most conspicuous accumulations being the Antelope hills. During later stages in the recession of this ice-sheet, when the fourth and fifth terminal moraines of its Minnesota lobe were formed, its southern extremity was successively at Kiester in Faribault county and at Elysian in Le Sueur county, and its southwest boundary doubtless crossed Brown and Redwood counties, but the marginal accumulations of drift belonging to these stages have not been traced here. A shallow lake extended along the edge of the ice-sheet across these counties (page 461), and acted to partially level down and smooth the morainic deposits. It seems likely, however, that they are still recognizable, and by careful observation might be mapped approximately. At the time of the fourth or Kiester moraine, the ice-margin probably extended through the central part of Brown and Redwood counties; and the kame-like deposits (page 582) near Sleepy Eye, and in T. Ill, R. 38, and the northwest part of Vesta, may in part represent this moraine. The fifth or Elysian moraine is probably indicated similarly in section 33, Swede's Forest. The valley of Mound creek, across the morainic area in Stately, has a level bottom from 500 to 1000 feet wide, and appears as if in some former time, which was doubtless the epoch of melting of the last ice-sheet, it had been the water-course of floods pouring southeastward from the upper part of the basin of the Big Cottonwood river into the Little Cottonwood valley. Modified drift of the earlier glacial epoch. Thick deposits of stratified sand and gravel, found enclosed in the till near New Ulm, and occurring below a considerable depth of till ten miles far- ther southeast in Courtland, Nicollet county, are believed to be portions of the modified drift which was deposited at the close of the earlier glacial i-eriod, as explained in the foregoing brief history of the ice age. The locality first mentioned is on the extension of Center street a half mile west of New Ulm, where it rises to the top of the bluff, 180 feet above the river, but only some 100 feet above its old channel which lies between New Ulm and this bluff (fig. 47). The hight here •See pages 44o, 576 and 583; also, compare arlicle on the Minnesota valley in the ice aite. Proc. of Amer Auoc for Adv. of Science, 1W3, and Am. Jour. Sci. (3), xxvii, is<*4. 582 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Interglacial modified drift. reached is the general level of the vast prairie of gently undulating till, through which the Min- nesota valley is excavated. The grade cuts to a depth of about 40 feet at the edge of the bluff and thence ascends, with decreasing depth of cut, along a distance of some twenty-five rods, to the surface of the drift-sheet. This section exhibits two beds of true till, separated by modified drift which is probably an interglacial formation, supplied, as already stated, at the time of final melting of the earlier ice-sheet and spread beyond its receding margin upon the unchanneled sur. face of the till that had been formed during that earlier part of the ice age. The upper bed of till, apparently representing the total thickness of the drift deposited here in the last glacial epoch, is 16 to 18 feet thick, and is an entirely unstratified yellowish gravelly clay, containing occasional rock-fragments up to six or eight inches in diameter, but showing only two or three of larger size, these being two or three feet in diameter. Portions of this till, within six to eight or ten feet below the top, are gray, with limy concretions and limy layers that have been gathered by percolating waters. The bottom of this upper till, seen clearly exposed along a distance of about 250 feet, is an almost exactly level line. Next below is the earlier modified drift. Its thick- ness is also 16 to 18 feet, levelly stratified throughout, but having the horizontal layers often obliquely laminated. The dip of this lamination, which marks the direction of the current of water that brought this sediment, is to the east or northeast, toward the Minnesota river, and varies in amount from two or three to fifteen or twenty degrees. Floods produced by glacial melting, and carrying gravel, sand and clay that had been contained in the ice-sheet, appear to have taken their course along the central depression of the Minnesota basin, coming from ice- fields which still covered its upper portion, with their retreating border probably only a few miles distant at the time when this stratum was deposited. Its largest pebbles are six to eight inches in diameter. The underlying till was seen along an extent of 100 feet, the greatest depth cut into it being about eight feet. Its upper line, separating it from the modified drift is ap- proximately level but undulating, with its highest points two or three feet above the lowest. This till, like the upper bed, bears no marks of stratification; and neither shows any interbed- ding or transition, but both are bounded by definite lines, at their junction with the intervening gravel and sand. The lower bed of till is dark bluish, excepting for about twenty feet from the face of the bluff inward, where weathering has changed it to the same yellow color that charac- terizes the modified drift and upper till. FIG. 47. SECTION OF THE MINNESOTA VALLEY, SOUTHWEST FROM THE RIVEK, AT NEW ULM. The modified drift below till, mentioned in Courtland, ten miles southeast from this local- ity, is made known by a well that was bored to a depth of 100 feet at the house of Carl llichert, in the S. W. J of section 11, upon the upland or general level, even in hight with the top of the bluffs of the Minnesota valley, from which its distance is about an eighth of a mile. Its section was soil, 2 feet; yellow and gray till, 30 feet; sand, mainly yellow, but in considerable part white near the bottom, 54 feet; and yellowish gravel, 14 feet and extending lower. No water was obtained, and the well was given up. Modified drift of tlie last glacial epocli. Upon the sheet of till which covers these counties are frequently noticed mounds and knolls or short ridges of gravel and sand, 10 to 20 feet, or rarely 30 feet or more, in hight, which in any excavation are seen to be irregularly interstratified and obliquely bedded. These deposits appear to have been formed by streams that llowed from the drift-strown surface of the departing ice-fields of the last glacial epoch; having a similar origin with the eskers or kames, which form prolonged ridges, or series of interlocking ridges and mounds, in Ireland and Scotland, in Sweden, and in New England. Conspicuous kame-like de- posits of modified drift in Redwood county were observed in the N. E. } of section 33, Swede's Forest, where a mound of this class rises some 30 feet above the general level; in the northwest part of Vesta, which has numerous hillocks and short ridges of gravel and sand, 10 to 40 feet in hight, trending from north to south more commonly than in other directions; and in T. 11 1, B. 38, and thence southwestward to the Cottonwood river. In Brown county a notable series of kames, or short ridges and knolls of gravel and sand, 25 to 40 feet high, occurs about a mile east BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 533 Modified drift. Alluvium.] and southeast of Sleepy Eye, extending from north to south through the S. W. J of section 28, and in the W. J of section 33, in the south part of Home. The modified drift which was deposited in the Minnesota valley, as shown on page 581, is represented at New Ulm by the plateau of gravel and sand, a mile long and about an eighth of a mile wide, on which the west and highest part of the city is built (fig. 47). A hollow, about forty feet lower and a quarter of a mile wide, lying between this plateau and the bluff, was formerly a channel of the river, since which time the valley has been cut eighty feet below it. Other re- mains of the valley drift are seen on the southwest side of the river for two or three miles north- west from New Ulm; and on the northeast side it forms long and wide terraces in Courtland, about 150 feet above the river, and a narrow terrace, nearly as high, generally discernible along the bluffs through West Newton township. Below the modified drift, New Ulm is underlain by Cretaceous beds which have been al- ready described. These differ in hardness and ability to wii hstand the river's erosion in cutting its valley, which characters have been elements in determining the position and outlines of the lower terraces of this city, as that of Minnesota street, about 90 feet above the river, and that of the depot and brick yard, 50 to 40 feet above the river, and of the continuation of the latter, about 40 feet in hight. along the valley some three miles below New Ulm, reaching beyond the Cotton- wood river, as also of a terrace at nearly the same elevation on the opposite side of the Minnesota river. A considerable thickness of modified drift forms the surface of these terraces, including the clay at Aufderheide's brick-yard; but their lower portions are Cretaceous beds, from which pottery clay has been taken near the southeast end of Minnesota street, while the terraces about 40 feet high, at each side of the Minnesota river contain beds of nodular gray limestone, much of which has been burned for lime, interstratified with green and red clay and shale. The cut in Cretaceous clays upon Third North street in New Ulm (fig. 46, page 576) is at nearly the same horizon, but in that vicinity it forms no well marked terrace. Alluvium. The bottomland at New Ulm and generally along the Minnesota valley at the north side of these counties, is from a half mile to a mile wide. It is composed of recent alluvium, mostly sand and fine silt, having a hight from 5 to 15 feet, and sometimes more, above the river, which meanders through this lowland, here and there sweeping quite to its border. The highest floods, formed by snow-melting in spring or by heavy rains, cover the greater part of this bottom or flood-plain, and at each inundation add slightly to it by their sediment. Water-worn boulders. Very remarkable water- worn boulders occur in the Minnesota valley within two miles east from the west line of Redwood county, in sections 17, 18 and 7, Swede's Forest. The river road here winds among outcrops of gneiss and granite, before described, and along their whole extent of one and a half miles in Swede's Forest, detached blocks or boulders of the same formation are seen frequently beside the road and at a distance from it, of all sizes up to fifteen feet in diameter. A large proportion of these boulders, probably a quarter part of all, are very noticeably water-worn, in shallow pot-holes, grooves and indentations, so that some of them, to compare great things with small, have forms like those stamped upon balls of dough or clay by finger-impressions. One of these water-worn boulders, fifteen feet in diameter, lies close beside the road three-quarters of a mile west of the school house which was mentioned on page 569. Again, several large water-worn blocks are seen near together, about twenty-five rods southeast from this school house; one of them, twelve feet long and nine feet high, having its east side remarkably sculptured, like the channel of a water-fall. Boulders water-worn in this peculiar manner are unknown in the ordinary glacial drift, and it appears that these blocks, if not thus worn where they now lie, which seems improbable, were formerly united in a ledge over which the river flowed at some point not far distant to the northwest, probably near the present county line. Wells in Brown county. Examples of the sections made in the drift by wells in Brown county, are as follows: Linden. M. O. Breste; sec. 31 : well, 16 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 14 feet; water comes from sandy streaks in the till. Milford. William Skinner; sec. 33, at south side of the township: well at house, 30 feet; all yellow till; water seeps, filling the well twelve feet. About eight rods northwest from this, a well 50 feet deep was in yellow till for its upper 25 feet, with blue till for all below; scarcely any 584 THE GEOLOGY OF (Wells. water; the bark of wood and fragments of Baeulites, in a sandy layer one or two inches thick, were found in this til! 31 feet bslow the surface; and several pieces of lignite were found in the till of each of these wells, derived, like the Baeulites fragments, from Cretaceous beds. Sigel. Joseph Flor; sec. 24: well, 14; soil, 4 feet; gravel and sand, 10 feet. John Kratscli; sec. 36: well, 20: soil, 3; yellow till, 17; water rose four feet ill an hour, from gravel and sand at the bottom. Lake llanska. Christian Ahlness; sec. 13: well, 14; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 12; water seeps. E. G. Pahl; sec. 26: well, 20; dug 17 feet, and bored two inches in diameter for the remain- ing three feet; all yellow till, hard and picked, with occasional sandy and gravelly streaks; water rose from gravel or sand at the bottom, with such force that it could not be plugged, and came to a permanent level ten feet below the surface. Homi. Horatio Werrinj; sec. H: well, 40 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 10; harder blue till, 24; cemented layer, 6 inches; blue till, H feet; coarse sand, 2 feet, containing water, which did not rise above this stratum of modified drift. The wells at Golden Gate in this township are 12 to 20 feet deep, in till. Sleepy Eye, in Home township. P. Randall; weli, 23 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 16: harder blue till, with yellowish gravelly streaks, 5 feet. A piece of wood, sixteen inches long, appearing like a splintered limb of elm, was found in the lower part of this well. Joseph Troutman; well, 71; soil, 2; yellow till, 18; harder blue till, 15; changing to soft blue till, 16 fetet; then, hard, dark bluish sand, free from gravel stones, 20 feet, remaining stable when bordd, but caving when the water cama, which rose seven or eight feet in the first day, from gravel at the bottom, and within a few days became forty feet deep, thought to be all from the bottom. Other wells equally deep near find only gravelly clay or till. The blue till in this vicinity Is usually harder than the overlying yellow till; the lowest one or two feet of each are specially hard; at the base of the blue till, next overlying the water-bear- ing gravel and sand, is often a layer firmly cemented with iron or lime. Water is commonly found 50 to 60 feet below the surface, and rises in most wells 10 to 20 feet above the stratum in which it is found. Lignite frequently occurs, in fragments up to six inches in diameter. A well was bored 195 feet deep at Sleepy Eye for the railroad company, apparently not pass- ing through the glacial drift, which was yellowish till for about 25 feet, and dark buish till be- low, probably to the bottom, where a log of wood, resembling elm, was encountered, stopping the work. Water filled this well to twenty-five feet below the top, and was a large supply; but the well is not now used. Stark. William Kuehn ; Iberia village : well, 26 feet; soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 17 ; sand, 2 feet ; blue till, 5 feet and deeper; water comes from the sand ; these tills are about equally hard, both needing to be picked. Eden. F. Ilartwick; Lone Tree Lake post-office, sec. 5: well, 20 feet; soil., 2; gravel, 2; sand, finest at the bottom, 16 ; unfailing water. This is on a kame-like swell, and most of the land all around is till. Leavenworth. John Youngmann ; sec. 2 : well, 32 feet ; soil, 2 ; yellow till, 18 ; blue till, easier to bore, 12; water rose twelve feet in four hours from sand at the bottom. Burnstown. John F. Burns ; sec. 19: well, 22 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, containing sandy streaks, 15; much harder blue till, picked, 4; sand, 1; water rose six feet in one day. Wells in this township are 15 to 30 feet deep; no fossils found, excepting lignite in pieces up to six inches iii diameter. Bashaw. C. L. Thor; sec. 26: well, 24 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 10; blue till, moist and softer, 12; water rose twelve feet in six hours from gravel. Stately. John Wood; sec. 14: well, 28 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 12; harder blue till, 14; water rose five feet in a half day from gravel and sand at the bottom ; numerous fragments of lignite were found. A. B. Dickerson; S. W. } of sec. 30: well, 33 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, picked, 31; enclosing, but only at one side of the well, a narrow vein of coarse gravel, one foot thick, 15 feet below the top; in the lower part inteibedded vith layers of darker bluish till, which was the material at the bottom; water seeps, three to six feet deep. BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 585 Wells.l D. H. Semans' well in sec. 31, close north of the Little Cottonwood river, found in its lower part, about 30 feet below the surface, f raiments of Baculites and a cast of an Inoceramus, resem- bling /. umbonatus. M. & II.; a piece of wood, perhaps red cedar, some nine inches long and three inches wide, at 25 feet; and several pieces of lignite. These were probably in glacial drift, a large part of which was derived from Cretaceous beds. Wells in Redwood county. Sherman. J. M. Little; sec. 6: well, 33; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 28; gravel, 3 feet, and extending lower; water rose seven feet in a half day. Delhi. Thomas II. King; sec. 31: well, 20; soil, 2; yellow till, picked, 6; blue till, somewhat easier to dig, 12; water burst up from sand at the bottom, rising twelve feet in fifteen minutes. Redwood F"lls. Town well, 70 feet deep: soil, 2; yellow till, 18; blue till, harder to bore, 50 feet, and extending lower; the only water found in this well seeps from the yellow till. Swede's Forest. Nels Hanson; sec. 35: well, 55 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 28 feet; harder blue till, picked, 25 feet, and below; no sand found, and no water. Vail. Chauncy Bundy; sec. 6: well, 36 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 16: sand and gravel, i inch, with some water; softer blue till, 16 feet, yielding several small pieces of lignite, and a piece of wood (peihaps willow) about a foot long, the last being in the lowest foot of this till; an interglacial bed of vegetable mould, 1} inches thick, containing many willow leaves and the leaves and stems of rushes, "looking like a lake-shore drift," extending over the whole area of the well, six feet in diameter; bluish, clayey quicksand, 2 feet and below; water rose eight feet in a half day. David Weaver; N. E. | of sec. 28: well, 28 feet deep; soil, 3 feet; yellow till, spaded, 12 feet; blue till, also spaded, 12 feel; very hard, compacted gravel, 1 foot and deeper; water rose from the gravel eight feet in one day. Waterbury. Hans Hanson; N. E. J of sec. 34: well, 18; soil, 2; yellow till, picked, 10; harder blue till, 5; gravel, 1 foot and deeper; water rose four feet in a half day, a large supply, of excel- lent quality. Several pieces of lignite, up to six inches in diameter, and nodules of pyrite, were found in this well. Lamberton. Praxel & Schandera; Lamberton village: well, 50 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 3; blue till, with occasional layers of dry sand up to six inches thick, 45 ; water rose six feet in a half day. A few pieces of lignite were found. Arnold C. Ells; sec. 10: well, 40 feet deep; soil, 2; yellow till, picked, 23; harder blue till, 15; water rose from gravel and sand at the bottom twenty-two feet in two days, rising the first ten feet in three hours. Pieces of lignite and Cretaceous shells were found in this till. T. Ill, E. 38. Absalom Ames; sec. 8: well, 24 feet; soil, 2; yellow till 12; yellowish, and darker, bluish till, interbedded, 6; blue clay, soft and moist, considerably filled with fragments of Cretaceous shells, 4; water came in a small and narrow vein of fine gravel, about six inches in diameter, enclosed in this blue fossiliferous clay, and rose six feet in one day. Walnut Grove, in North Hero township. Most of the wells here are from 12 to 30 feet deep, their material being yellow and blue till, containing occasionally small pieces of lignite, and rarely of wood. W, J. Masters in 1878 bored with a hope of finding coal (lignite), to a depth of 76 feet in the southwest part of this corporation, the section being soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 14; harder blue till, containing few pebbles, 60; no coal; water rose to the surface. A second boring for coal, near the foregoing, went only 27 feet, because of rinding a large amount of water in quick- sand. Its order of materials was soil, 2 feet; yellow till, 5; blue till, 20; with quicksand below, from which water rises to the top and eight feet above the surface. This fountain has been run- ning since 1878, and is the only such flow of water found in this region. The railroad well here is about 80 feet deep, finding the yellow and blue till, of ordinary character, to a depth of 60 feet; below which was a very hard and compact clay or shale, free from gravel, adapted for making pottery, probably of Cretaceous age, bored into about 20 feet, but found so hard that the work was stopped in this deposit, without obtaining water. Underwood. Malcolm McNiven; sec. 6: well, 34 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 15; blue till, much harder, 17; water rose suddenly eight feet from gravel at the bottom. Fragments of lignite were found. 586 THE GEOLOGY OF MINKESOTA. [Springs. Water-powers. Westline. Garrett Murray; sec. 14: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 13; harder blue till, 14; gravel, 1 foot and below, with water rising from it five or six feet. Gates. S. S. Gale; sec. 10: well, 27 feet; soil. 2; gravel and sand. 4; yellow till, picked, 6; blue till, also picked, but softer, moister, and less gravelly, and containing occasional pockets up to six inches in diameter, of fine gray sand, 15 feet, and extending lower; at this depth of 27 feet, the compact till contained many fragments of wood. Another well, fifteen rods south of the last and on ground about ten feet lower, was 15 feet deep, finding soil and gravel and sand, 3 feet; with very compact till, which was picked, for all below, containing, close to the bottom of the well, a prostrate trunk of a tree, six inches in diameter, reaching five feet across the well, at each side of which it was chopped off. Both these wells thus encounter an interglacial forest-bed. MATERIAL RESOURCES. The excellence of these counties for agriculture, and their areas of woodland and prairie, the latter far exceeding the former, have been no- ticed in treating of their soil and timber. Besides the fertility of the land, this region possesses an invigorating, healthful climate, and almost invari- ably good water in its wells and springs. The material resources which remain to be mentioned are water-powers, building stone, lime, bricks, pot- tery, and mineral paint. Explorations made for coal, its mode of occur- • rence, and the improbability that it exists here in any valuable amount, have been spoken of in the account of the Cretaceous strata. No ores of any practical importance have been found. The principal resources of this part of the state are the products of its rich soil, and the water-powers afforded by many of its streams. Springs of water, often impregnated with iron, occur along the ravines and valleys of many of the creeks and rivers in these counties, one worthy of mention being Mound creek in its course through sections 28, 21 and 22, Stately. A "big spring," well known by this name, moderately irony, supplying nearly all the water that is used in the dry season for running a grist-mill a mile farther east, is in the N. E. J of the S. W. } of section 19, three-quarters of a mile north- west from Golden Gate, in Home township. Both these localities are in Brown county. At the southwest side of the Minnesota valley in the north part of section 30, Swede's Forest, near the west line ot Redwood county, is a "boiling spring," also irony; from which a stream three or four feet wide, and six to twelve inches deep, flows away. This is at the northwest side of a rivulet, in a ravine some 50 feet below the general level. These springs issue from the drift, and show that large water-courses exist in sand and gravel veins or strata, enclosed in the till. Such sub- terranean streams are often struck in wells, with the water sometimes flowing constantly through them at the bottom; but more frequently, when the outlet of the spring is distant, the water soon rises to fill the well permanently, 10, 20, or 30 feet in depth. Water-powers. The water-powers used in Brown county, all employed by flouring mills, are as follows: Leavenworth mills: F. Schieltz; in the east part of sec. 14, Leaven worth; head, about ten feet. Iberia mills: Schwerdtfeger & Platb; in the west part of sec. 16, Stark; head, ten feet: canal about forty rods long. . Francke Brothers' mill; in the S. E. J of sec. 36, Home; head, eleven feet. Cottonwood mills: Frank & Bentzin; at the northeast corner of sec. 4, Cottonwood, one and a half miles south from New Ulm; head, nine feet; two run of stone; a custom grist-mill. The foregoing are on the Cottonwood river. Only one other utilized water-power was learned BROWN AND REDWOOD COUNTIES. 537 Stone. Lime. Bricks.] of in Brown county, this being at the Golden Gate mill, a custom grist-mill, owned by J. Heimer- dinger & Sons, on Big Spring creek, in sec. 20, in the north part of Home township; head, about twenty feet. The only water-powers used in Redwood county are on the river of this name at and below Redwood Falls. These, in descending order, are as follows: Delhi mills, owned by A. A. Cook & Co., with a head of twenty feet; Redwood mills, owned by Worden & Ruter, with a head of eighteen feet; E. Cuff's mill, with a head of thirteen feet; and E. Biruui's mill, with a head of fourteen feet. Between the second and third is the cascade called "Redwood falls," which de- scends twenty-five feet; and between the third and fourth about ten feet of fall is unused. The foot of Birum's dam is 30 or 40 feet above the Minnesota river; and the top of Cook & Co.'s dam is 140 feet, approximately, above the Minnesota river, being some 75 feet below the general level of the prairie and town. The beauty of this deep, rock-walled gorge, about one and a half miles long, with its cascades and rapids and meandering river, can scarcely be over-stated. Its geo- logical formations are equally interesting, by reason of their variety and uncommon character. Less than a half mile northwest from this gorge, Ramsey creek, a tributary of the Red- wood, has a perpendicular fall of 30 feet, over the same granitic rock which forms the Redwood falls. The Minnesota river at the north side of Swede's Forest, Redwood county, has a consider- able descent, probably amounting in all to 25 feet, in a succession of rapids, which alternate with intervals of slow current, along a distance of about seven miles, known as Patterson's rapids. Building stone. New Ulm obtains considerable supplies of stone for common masonry from the red quartzyte which outcrops two miles farther east on the north side of the Minnesota river, in Nicollet county. Drift bculders may also be collected, and are used, in most parts of this county, in the amount needed for stone-work on common farms, as for foundations, cellar-walls, and wells. The only quarrying for these purposes in Brown county is of small amount, in an outcrop of Cretaceous sandstone, at the north side of the Cottonwood river in section 25, North Star, about a mile southwest from Springfield station. The recent calcareous deposit generally known as "petrified moss," occurring in the bed of a small rivulet tributary to the Minnesota river near the east line of Home township, has been somewhat used as a building material. The gneiss and granite of the Minnesota valley at the north side of Redwood county have not yet been quarried to any considerable extent. The only stone worked for masonry in this county, excepting boulders, is the gneiss, somewhat decomposing, at the bottom of the gorge of the Redwood river, about an eighth of a mile north of Redwood Falls. Lime. Three miles southeast from New Ulm, beside the Minnesota river in section 2, Cot- tonwood, William Winkelmann's kiln has burned lime during the past ten years or more, from the nodular limestone of the low Cretaceous terrace before described. The yearly product is about 3,000 barrels of lime, which is sold at $1 per barrel. This lime is gray, and slacks to a pure white. One to two hundred barrels of lime are burned yearly from drift boulders by Hanson Fisk, in Swede's Forest, Redwood county. Bricks. The brick-yard at New Ulm, situated close southeast of the city, on a terrace about 40 feet above the river, formerly owned by William Winkelmann, was purchased in 1879 by Fritz Aufderheide, who made about 1,000,000 bricks here in 1880, selling them at $6.50 per thousand. These are red bricks, of fair quality. No sand is required for tempering. The clay used is modified drift, probably overlying Cretaceous beds. It is dug near the brick yard, on the same terrace, showing a section of about two feet of fine, silly, black soil, in which, and scattered over the surface, are occasional boulders up to four feet in diameter; underlain by yellow clay, finely laminated, nearly horizontal, but slightly undulating and irregular in stratification, con^ taining a few layers, up to one or two inches in thickness, of ferruginous sand, having a vertical exposure in this excavation of seven feet and extending lower. Before his work here, Mr. Aufderheide had made bricks five years in the N. W. J of section 12, Milford, three miles northwest from New Ulm, using a similar stratified, yellow clay. He made 700,000 to 800,000 there yearly; but the business at that locality is now discontinued. At Sleepy Eye, a kiln of bricks was made several years ago from the pebbly clay of the till, failing because of limestone particles, by which the bricks were cracked after burning. Bohn & Lamberton, at Redwood Falls, in 1878, made two kilns of red bricks, amounting to about 200,000, which were sold at 48 per thousand. The clay and sand used are a deposit of 588 TH15 GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Fire-bricks. Poltcry. Paint. modified drift, situated near the top of the bluff of Redwood river, on its west side, about thirty rods north of Cook & Co.'s mill, and nearly 50 feet above their mill-pond. The section here is black soil, 2 feet, gradually becoming yellow in the next 2 or 3 feet; whence, compact yellow clay extends to 9 feet below the surface, divided by darker partings into layers from four inches to eight inches or a foot in thickness, which dip 2° or 3° E. These layers are distinctly continuous along the whole extent of the excavation, about four rods. They are probably the depositions of successive years; the finer, dark partings being the sediments of the season of low water; while the great mass of each layer was made by high floods, with stronger currents and bearing more abundant detritus, supplied from the melting ice-sheet during the warm portion of the year. Below the depth of 8 or 9 feet the clay changes to yellowish sand, obliquely bedded in layers from a quarter of an inch to one inch thick, separated by harder films of iron rust. Too much sand was mixed with the clay in this brick-making, so that the bricks were somewhat deficient in hardness and durability; but the clay seems to be excellent for this use. Fire-bricks. From Cretaceous beds on the Cottonwood river, good fire-bricks have been made by Christian Dauffenbach, by William Winkelmann, and by John Stoeckert, at New Ulm. The characters of the deposits used, and in what proportion, have been stated already in the description of the section in which they occur (page 574). Pottery. Cretaceous clay, also obtained from the bluffs of the Cottonwood river, a few miles farther west, as described on page 573, has been used in New Ulm by the same Messrs. Dauffen- bach, Wiukelmann, and Stoeekert, potters. In 1879 and 1880, the two former had given up the manufacture both of fire-bricks and pottery; but these lines of business are still carried on by Mr. Stoeekert, his products being some $2000 worth yearly. Mineral paint. -A good and durable paint was manufactured in 1868 or 1869 from ferrugi- nous portions of the kaolinized gneiss and granite mentioned in the vicinity of Redwood Falls. The material thus used was obtained from the northwest or left bank of the Redwood river in its gorge, about a mile north of Redwood Falls, in the N. J of the N. E. J of section 36, Delhi. Of this business Prof. Winchell wrote in his second annual report: "At Redwood Falls the kaolin which has resulted from the decomposition of the granitic rock, has become stained with iron, and has a brownish or greenish-brown color. It contains, generally, some silica. From this stained kaolin a good mineral paint has been manufactured. Messrs. Grant and Brusseau commenced the enterprise, and carried it far enough to demonstrate the quality of the product. The manufac- tured article is said to have been equal to that of Brandon, Vt.. but the cost was so great that, after transportation to St. Paul, it could not be offered in the market so cheaply as the Brandon paint. Their process was very simple. The raw material was obtained from the banks of the Redwood river, and was of a rusty-brown color, having also a greenish tinge. It was broken or crushed to the fineness of corn or wheat. It was then dried in a large pan placed over a fire, and ground by water-power, between two burr-stones. In that condition it was ready for use by simply mixing with boiled or raw linseed oil The color produced was a reddish umber. By making some selections various lighter shades, of the same general character, were produced. It had a heavy sediment, consisting probably of iron and silica. The quality of the paint is said to have been superior to that from Ohio, and fully equal to that from Brandon, Vt. The surface of the wood painted becomes hardened and glazed, but remains smooth." ABORIGINAL EARTHWORKS. The only aboriginal mound observed or learned of by inquiries in Brown and Redwood counties, is situated a little more than a mile northeast from Redwood Falls, being on the high prairie, about ten rods northwest from the road and twenty-five rods south from the edge of the southwest bluff of the Minnesota valley. It has the usual circular, dome-like form, and is six feet high. l'l..\TK 27. Z./JC Q U I P A R L E C C GEOLOGICAL AM) NATURAL IIISTOHY srKVL'Y OF MINNESOTA YELLOW MEDICINE LYONAN1J LINCOLN * COUNTIES BY WARREN U PHAM Explanation. UilUtyoW^fri>?, GravtL arid Jand . 1 SmttaOily nndiiietting OT- rolling . "S I i^lforf prominently Tolling. \\ \ffo,t7/y and, h&iy , Terminal Afor Ill Crttet-Cfffua Son fistone. . BB Gneiss, •SchiAte.dTtuiitf and •S Contour Lines are shoivn cipproarimfitc/v ! tafK-So itft above thf .yea.. K. XL.V] W B. XL\' \\' R XLJV \v PIPESTONE COUNTY i ., e IB 17 1S£: 1.5 14 T. „„ I I S E l:t li*i LM 22 23 IJ1JA > W * »f _.l JL L.J-.J R XXXVUL .. Map of the regio jienum, shiwkahm and H 604 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Channels through the outer moraine. a few inches to one or two feet above the water. Lake Shaokatan is about three miles long, and from an eighth to three-fourths of a mile wide, its maximum width being near the middle. Its highest stage is some four feet above the lowest. The southwest end of this lake is at the north- east edge of the morainic belt. Lake Hendricks is three and a half miles long, and its width varies from one-fourth to three-fourths of a mile, being greatest near its northeast end. The maximum depth of each of these lakes is reported to be about 15 feet; and they are bordered on all sides excepting the west by smoothly undulating till, which varies from 10 to 30 feet, or rarely 50 feet, above them. Thus the hollows in which they lie sink about 40 feet below the general level of the drift-sheet at the east side of the morainic range, and 25 or 30 feet below the highest part of these channels which are continuations from them through the moraine and the thick sheet of till at its west side. Nowhere else for at least fifty miles next to the northwest from Murray county is this mass- ive ridge intersected by any similar channel, and its altitude throughout this distance is from 100 to 200 feet above these lakes,. Its highest portion, forming a belt about two miles wide, marked by many hillocBs and hollows, appears to have been pushed out at the margin of an ice-sheet that lay upon its northeast side. The excavation of these channels took place at the same time with the accumulation of this moraine, or more probably at the close of this part of the last glacial epoch, when the ice was being rapidly melted, but before it had receded to its inner line of mo- raine; for the thick mass of the ice-sheet, rising high above its terminal deposits, is the only bar- rier that we can suppose to have existed to turn the course of drainage across this highland, which is now the water-shed between the much lower basins of the Minnesota and Big Sioux rivers, and after this was withdrawn to its later limits at its inner moraine, extending from Spirit lake to lake Shetek and Gary, a lower avenue was opened southward to the Little Sioux river. Without reference to this barrier, it is evident that the course of the waters that eroded these valleys was southwest, because of their extent and fall in this direction. The channel that reaches south from lake Hendricks and then southwest, descends from the summit, one and a half miles south of the lake, with a very gradual slope which probably amounts to 75 or 100 feet in the next ten miles, its width continuing nearly the same as where it intersects the moraine. Another proof that the course of drainage was southwest is the confluence in this direction of the three valleys that cross this range at lake Shaokatou, three miles farther northwest, and at lake Hendricks. On the other side of the moraine no well marked valleys extend northeastward from these lakes; and their outlets, which run only at unusually wet seasons, are turned in a meandering course by slight undulations of the surface. There seems to be no indication that the channels through the moraine have been partially filled since their excavation, raising them to their summits, ten to fifteen feet above lakes Benton, Shaokatan, and Hendricks; while yet the position and form of these lakes demonstrate that the portions of the drift-sheet which would have filled their depressions, were carried away by the rivers that cut these gaps. Now it is clear that the overflow from a lake lying between the ice- sheet and its moraine could not excavate a hollow several miles long below a summit which it afterward crossed. Respecting the possible action of subglacial rivers we have little knowledge, but it appears improbable that they could erode such hollows, carrying the material forward through higher channels. It is, however, nearly certain that this removal of the drift belonging upon the areas occupied by these lakes took place while the ice-sheet still covered these areas and reached to its terminal moraine; but near the end of this time, when a warmer climate was rapidly melt- ing its surface every summer, pouring down large rivers to its margin. By such melting the drift which had been gathered into the ice-mass would become exposed upon its surface, and in and near its principal avenues of drainage would be washed away. Only in this manner could the material of the drift-sheet corresponding to the depressions of these lakes be removed by the usual agency, that is, by the current of descending streams. If this be the true explanation, it involves a very important conclusion respecting the amount of drift contained in the ice-sheet and finally exposed by the melting of its surface. Modified drift and kames, as also certain features of the till and of the terminal moraines, prove that the ice of the glacial period became considerably filled with the material of the drift, gathered up into its mass from the land over which it moved. This explanation of the origin of these lake basins indicates that the ice-held drift here amounted to a sheet at least forty feet thick; but much of it may have been in the lower two hundred feet of the ice, below the top of its terminal moraine. YELLOW MEDICINE, LYON AND LINCOLN COUNTIES. 605 Second and third moraines.] The second terminal moraine of the last ice-sheet, which is the eastern or inner belt of knolly and hilly drift upon the Coteau des Prairies, extends northwesterly in a nearly straight course from the Blue mounds near Windom, in southern Cottonwood county, to Gary in the edge of Dakota. In Lyon county its northeast boundary passes through the center of Custer, Lyon and Island Lake townships, and follows approximately the line between this and Lincoln county for the next six miles, at the west side of Nordland. It crosses northeastern Lincoln county from the southeast corner of Alta Vista to section 3, Marble, six miles south of Canby; and in Yellow Medicine county its course is from section 33, Norman, to section 7, Florida. The most rough and hilly part of this moraine is from a half mile to one and a half miles wide at its northeast side, where it usually has many irregular knolls, short ridges, and hills, which rise from 25 to 50 feet, and occa- sionally 75 to 100 feet above the intervening depressions. Their conspicuous appearance, as seen from the northeast, is due to the ascent westward of the country upon which they lie. From the specially hilly northeast margin of this morainic belt its width reaches five to fifteen miles south- westward with a rolling and in some places knolly or hilly surface, including the greater part of the distance to the parallel outer range of drift hills, but leaving next to that a smooth, slightly undulating tract, three to five miles wide. In Marslifield and Lake Stay this smooth contour extends eight miles north from Cottonwood lake and the east end of lake Benton, its limit being here twelve miles from the outer moraine. All these areas are till, with abundant boulders upon the portions which are most broken by knolls, hills, and hollows. A third terminal moraine, consisting of knolls, hills, and short ridges of till, 15 to 50 and rarely 75 or 100 feet high, with many large and small rock-fragments, is found in Yellow Medicine and Lac qui Parle counties, lying eight to twelve miles northeast from the inner morainic belt of the Coteau, and extending north-northwest forty miles within the limits of this state, beyond which it continues with the same course in Dakota. The width of this morainic series in Minne- sota is usually from a quarter to a half of a mile, being less than that of the specially knolly belts upon the Coteau des Prairies. It appears like them to have been accumulated at the margin of the ice-sheet of the last glacial epoch; but its location shows that it belongs to a later time in this epoch, after two distinct recessions of the ice. From sections 32, 29 and 19, of Burton, this forma- tion continues through sections 13, 11 and3, of VVergeland, with similar outlying hillocks and ridges in sections 9, 15, 16, 21, 22 and 23, of this township; and for the next six miles northward it lies in the southwest edge of Oshkosh and the northeast edge of Hammer. In the south part of Lac qui Parle county it forms the two conspicuous clusters of the Antelope hills, in sections 27 and 16, Freeland, elevated 40 to 100 feet above the smoothly undulating till of that region. The southeastern continuation of this third moraine may be represented by the rocky drift knolls, 10 to 20 feet high, which occur about the north end and at the northeast side of lake Mar- shall, in a region which has mainly a very smooth contour. Again, twelve miles farther to the east-southeast, a belt of typically morainic knolls, about twenty rods in width, and a half mile or more in length, was noted close south of the Cottonwood river, in sections 14 and 15, Gales, in Kedwood county. It is probable that a connection southeastward may be found, along some line of more or less knolly and hilly drift, including these two localities and the morainic tract in Stately, Brown county, to the belt of morainic deposits that extends from Fairmont in Martin county southeast to Pilot mound in the northeast corner of Hancock county, Iowa. This view was suggested to me by Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, state geologist of Wisconsin, who first pointed out the continental extent of these terminal deposits of the ice-sheet. Professor Chamberlin has also suggested* that these first, second and third terminal mo- raines may be named respectively the Altamont, Gary and Antelope moraines (see fig. 48, page 601). The Antelope valley. Between the third or Antelope moraine and the foot of the Coteau des Prairies on the west is the Antelope valley, so named by the Sioux. This is a broad shallow depression, or rather a part of an inclined plane (page 593), with a slightly undulating surface of till, being three to ten miles wide, and reputed to extend a hundred and twenty-five miles, from Minneota, in the most northwest township of Lyon county, to the south bend of the Sheyenne river in Dakota. The moraine of the Antelope hills and the smooth area of till on its east side average 25 to 50 feet higher than the adjoining eastern border of the Antelope valley, but have some lower portions, allowing streams to cross both the valley and the moraine in their northeast- ward course from the Coteau to the Minnesota river. *Third annual report of the U. S. geological survey, 1883. 606 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Later moraines. Modified drift Ancient water-courses. Definite channels, which appear to have been formed by drainage during the final melting of the last ice-sheet, are found extending from northwest to southeast at three places in Yellow Medicine county. One of these, lying about a half mile from the Minne- sota valley west of Granite Falls, and another at the outcrops of rock in section 17, Omro, have been described on pages 592 and 598. The third, situated in Wergeland and Burton, has been traced farther than either of the others, but its full extent in either direction remains to be explored. It reaches from the East branch of Lac qui Parle river in section 5, Wergeland, south- easterly through sections 9, 15, the south part of 14, and the north part of 24, in this township; and thence in a nearly east-southeast course, through sections 19, the south edge of 20, the north- east part of 29, and through 28, 27 and 35, in Burton, to the south half of section 1, Eidsvold, in Lyon county. In section 28, Burton, and for the next two miles southeastward this depression is followed by Mud creek, and in section 1, Eidsvold, it is crossed by the North branch of Yellow Medicine river, and lies on its south side. This ancient river-course, now dry or occupied by insignificant streams, has along this explored extent of twelve miles a width that varies from a quarter to a half of a mile, consisting of a nearly flat bottomland whose subsoil is gravel and sand, bordered by areas of moderately rolling or morainic till, which average 30 to 40 feet higher. A large river is believed to have flowed southeastward here during the departure of the ice-sheet after the formation of its third moraine, which seems to cross this channel at the southeast cor- ner of section 19, Burton. The receding ice-fields on the northeast prevented drainage from taking its present courses, and their melting supplied unusual floods. Beyond this water-course the ice-margin southeastward to Faribault county was bordered by a long and shallow lake, which overflowed by the way of Union slough in Iowa (page 461). Similar water-courses were afterward channeled, alongside the west border of the melting ice-fields at successive stages of their reces- sion, in Omro, and near Granite Falls, respectively seven and twenty-three miles farther northeast. The fourth, fifth and sixth terminal moraines of the last ice-sheet,* formed at successive stages in its recession, clearly exhibited farther east in the vicinity of Kiester, Elysian and Waco- nia, seem to be represented in this district by the morainic knolls and mounds of drift, with more than the ordinary proportion of boulders, which are found associated with the water-courses men- tioned in Omro and near Granite Falls. A morainic belt, apparently reaching a considerable distance from northwest to southeast, was crossed in section 30, Tyro, a few miles east of the Omro valley; and another, described on page 592, probably representing the fifth and sixth mo- raines, lies at the west side of the eastern channel, and consists of prominent smooth swells, occupying a width of two or three miles from three to six miles west of Granite Falls, and expanding farther south in Wood Lake, Sioux Agency and Echo, to a width of six miles. Modified drift. No extensive areas of modified drift were observed in this district. In a few places, however, small deposits of gravel and sand, partly kame-like, form the surface. A noteworthy cut in such beds was seen near Balaton, in southern Lyon county. A sixth of a mile southeast from this station, close southwest of the railroad, in a rounded hillock, an excavation has been made for ballast to a distance into the hillock of a hundred and fifty feet, the section exposed being twenty rods or more in length and about 20 feet high in its highest part. It con- sists of gravel, yellowish and in many portions ferruginous, mostly very coarse and containing abundant pebbles up to six or eight inches in diameter, nearly all of them plainly water-worn or rounded. At 4 to 7 feet below the top. for a length of a hundred feet or so at the highest part, the material is fine, sandy gravel, obliquely bedded in slopes of 5° to 25° eastward. At the east end of this a portion 10 to 15 feet below the top and 20 feet long is represented in fig. 50. The central mass here is sand while the enclosing strata are gravel, mostly with pebbles less than three inches in diameter, but in some places holding pebbles up to five or eight inches in diameter. The lenticular mass of sand occurring here shows two small faults at its center, each of three or four inches, the lower side being at the east. The stratification of this deposit is conformable with the slope of Fig 60. Section in modified drift, near Baiuton. its surface, showing that it remains nearly or quite in the same form as it was left by the glacial floods. Only two fragments of rock that exceeded a foot in diameter, were seen in this excavation. These were one and a half and three feet long. About one-third of the pebbles here, both large and small, are limestone; nearly all the rest are granite and crystalline schists; only a few pebbles, 'Compare pages 461, 463 and 581; and chapters xxi and xxn. YELLOW MEDICINE, LYON AND LINCOLN COUNTIES. (JQ7 Boulders. Wells.] as of shale, which could be certainly referred to the Cretaceous, were seen; and no quartzyte nor . conglomerate. Many of the limestone fragments are obscurely fossiliferous. The top of this cut is about 30 feet above lake Yankton, and perhaps five feet below the top of the mound in which it is made. Similar gravel forms the subsoil, and extends to a depth of 30 feet in wells at Balaton station, and reaches thence a half mile to the northwest beside the lake, and two or three miles easterly along the railroad. Terrace-like outlines, noticed at a few places, as near the mouth of Stony run, upon the bluffs bordering the Minnesota river in Yellow Medicine county, appear to have been wrought in the till of the general drift-sheet during the excavation of this great valley. A terrace of modified drift on the opposite side of the river in Chippewa county , indicates that this part of the valley has been filled with gravel and sand to a depth of 30 or 40 feet above the present river. Boulders. Very abundant boulders occur upon the bluff of the Minnesota river along an extent of two miles between one and three miles southeast from the mouth of the Yellow Medicine river, in sections 34, 3, 2, 11 and 12, Sioux Agency. Tlie bluff here is knolly and in many places thickly covered with large and small rock-fragments from the bottom to a hight 100 to 125 feet above the river; but the till which forms the upper 50 feet of the bluff and the prairie at its top, has only the usual small proportion of boulders. This feature was not noticed elsewhere upon the bluffs in Yellow Medicine county, but is remarkably displayed in many places through the next fifty miles in ascending the Minnesota river. It appears to be due to the occurrence in the drift- sheet of a stratum of till thickly filled with boulders; and its origin is probably from a terminal moraine accumulated in the early part of the ice age, and afterward covered by the more extended ice-sheet of the later epoch, by which its mounds and hills of coarsely rocky drift were spread in a nearly level layer and buried under an additional thickness of ordinary drift contain- ing few boulders. Some portions of the ledgy bottomland two to five miles up the valley from Granite Falls are very plentifully strown with boulders, which were probably derived from this layer of the drift-sheet. They are especially noticeable in section 24, Stony Run, where, along an extent of about a quarter of a mile, rock-fragments of all sizes up to six or eight feet in diameter form almost the greater part of numerous drift-ridges that extend twenty to forty rods from northwest to southeast, and rise some 20 feet above the general level of the valley. Wells in Yellow Medicine county. Examples of sections of the drift found by common wells in Yellow Medicine county are as follows: Echo. Frederick Mecklanbuvg; sec. 8: well, 52 feet, bored two feet in diameter; soil, 2; yellow till, 17; blue till, much harder, "like stone," 33; sand, 8 inches, with blue till below; water rose eighteen feet in a half hour. Otis. R. W. Crandle;. sec. 31: well, 52 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 15; very hard, dark blue till, 35; this well was given up as a failure at the depth of 50 feet; but Mr. Crandle decided to bore down the length of a carpenter's auger, when, at two feet lower, water was struck and spouted up six feet, rising in a short time thirty feet. This is on the high prairie, about 150 feet above the Minnesota river. Granite Falls. C. P. Griswold; well, 55 feet; soil, 2; very coarse gravel, containing rounded stones up to a foot in diameter, becoming below less coarse, and gradually changing to ordinary gravel, 10 feet, containing a small supply of water in its lower part; hard yellow till, 5 feet; tena- cious, sticky, hard, dark bluish till, 38 feet; some gray streaks were found in this lower till, but no sandy layers and no water. Wood Lake. B. G. Hall; sec. 23: well 26 feet: soil, 2; sandy till, easy to dig, 6; yellow till, picked, in the lower part mixed with bluish and ferruginous streaks, 14 feet, containing pulver- ulent and soluble, white particles, in appearance like coarse sand; then, a bed of sand, 2 feet, from which water slowly seeps, bitterish; underlain by blue till, much harder than the upper till, 2 feet and reaching lower. Another well, on lower land, fifteen rods distant, gets good water at 12 feet. Through all this region the blue till extends to a great depth, and is much harder than the overlying yellow till. The wells of this township are mostly in till, and vary from 10 to 40 feet in depth, the shallow wells having generally the best water. John Besmern; sec. 26: well, 16 feet; all caving gravel and sand; situated on the southeast slope of a kame-like knoll, fifteen feet above the general level. The top of this knoll, partly ex- 60S THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Wells. cavated for a cellar, is found to be sand, but its surface bears occasional boulders up to four or five feet in diameter. In the central part of Yellow Medicine county most of the wells are shallow, being from 10 to 30 feet deep, in till, which is yellowish near the surface, but dark bluish and harder below. Burton. P. G. Wells; sec. 6: well, 18 feet; soil, 3; yellow till, spaded, 12; much harder blue till, 3 feet and extending lower; water seeps. P. C. Bayard; sec. 22: well, 54 feet; soil and yellow till, 20; blue till, 34; this was bored three feet in diameter to the depth of 48 feet, and two inches in diameter for the remaining 6 feet; water rose from sand and gravel at the bottom so rapidly that in half an hour it reached its permanent level, 22 feet below the surface, filling 26 feet of the portion bored three feet in diam- eter. Victor A. Anderson; N. E. J of sec. 30: well, 34 feet; soil. 2; yellow till, 12; blue till, easier to bore, 20; water rose from sand at the bottom nine feet in twenty minutes. Several fragments of lignite up to two or three inches in length were found in this well. Oshkosh. Mr. R. M. Strong, well-borer, reports the following section of a well, 27 feet deep in sec. 28: black soil, 1J feet; yellow clayey loam, 3 feet; gravel, 2 inches; yellow clay, with rusty lumps and concretions, but thought to contain no stones, 17 feet; blue clay, 5 feet; both the last are said to be in layers; next was quicksand, containing water, which was impregnated with iron and soon became offensive to taste, though not contaminated with wooden curbing, none of any kind being used in the lower fourteen feet. Norman. A. G. Gulmoti; sec. 32: well, 72 feet; yellow and blue till, 56; sand, 16; water came in a large supply, but is only one or two feet deep at the bottom of the well. Canby. Wells at Canby, in the S. W. J of sec. 3, Norman, are from 15 to 22 feet deep, passing through yellow till, to quicksand and coarse gravel at the bottom, from which water rises only one or two feet. Several wells here are said to have found bivalve shells in this water-bear- ing layer. Gary. Wells at this town, in the edge of Dakota, near the west line of Yellow Medicine county, are in till and 15 to 30 feet deep. Wells in Lyon county. Stanley. N. F. Frary; sec. 34: well, 33 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 15; blue till, 16; water rose fifteen feet from sand at the bottom. This well is curbed with wood, and in some parts of the year has a bad taste. George Bissett; sec. 26: well, 26J feet; soil, 2; yellow till, picked, 22, containing no fossils; sand and gravel, 2} feet, enclosing numerous gasteropod and bivalve shells; water, not rising, plenty and good. Another well, twelve rods farther south, on land three feet lower, found black soil, 3 feet; yellow sand and gravel, 3 feet, with water, a flowing spring, at the bottom of this layer; below was 20 feet of blue till, containing no water; gasteropod shells, derived from Creta- ceous strata, were found in this blue till. Amiret. The town-well, 27 feet deep, is all yellow till; water rose ten feet from sand at the bottom. IVocj/, in the east part of see. 23. Monroe. Wells are in till, mostly only 12 to 20 feet deep, finding plenty of water. The railroad well at this place, dug under the superintendence of Mr. John McAllister, of Winona, is reported by him as follows: depth, 119 feet; dark soil, 2 feet; yellow clay [till], 15 feet; tough, blue clay, mixed with pebbles [till], 80 feet; hardpan [a harder layer of till], 16 feet; [in this hardpan was found a fragment of Eaculites, five inches long and three-fourths of an inch in diameter;] quicksand, 3 feet; underlain by blue clay, which was bored into 3 feet; the water then rose so fast, probably from the quicksand, that the work could not be continued; it gradually rose during thirty hours, attaining a depth of sixty-five feet. This sup- ply, however, partially failed after a month, and is insufficient for the needs of the railroad en- gines. The water in many of the wells about Tracy, Marshall and Canby, is offensive to taste and smell. Most of these wells apparently become so because curbed with wood and left stagnant. Nearly all the wells in this district which are curbed with stone or iron pipe or cement pipe, especially when frequently drawn from, have good water. Lake Marshall. Wells at Marshall and in its vicinity are mostly between 10 and 30 feet YELLOW MEDICINE, LYON AND LINCOLN COUNTIES. gQ9 Wells.] • deep. They generally find the yellow till 8 to 12 feet deep. Then the majority of these wells go through a black, mucky clay, free from gravel, 3 inches to 2 feet in thickness, almost always con- taining small gasteropod and bivalve shells, described as " like those of the present lakes," and frequently pieces of wood thought to be willow, and also, occasionally, small concretions of iron pyrites. Below this, there is commonly found a foot or two of gravel and sand; next to which, or, where this bed is wanting, directly beneath the fossiliferous mud, is dark bluish till, more gravelly, but containing fewer large boulders than the upper till. This bluish till, not harder than the yellow till above, but very tenacious, extends 5 to 50 feet before coming to a water-bearing vein or layer of gravel and sand, from which the water usually rises considerably. C. H. Whitney; sec. 4: well, 42 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 15; dry sand, 2 inches; blue till, 23; water was found in sand and very coarse gravel, holding rounded boulders up to a hundred pounds in weight, at the bottom, dug into 1J feet, yielding for the first two months a depth of about two feet of water of excellent quality; but one morning this well was found filled to a depth of twenty feet with water too disagreeable in smell and taste to be used, and having an oily scum lloating on its top. During the process of digging, a current of water had been heard at one side of the well, running in the ground about twenty feet below the surface, and it is supposed that this had broken through. Grandview. A. A. Farmer; sec. 20: well, 4-5 feet; soil. 2; yellow till, spaded, 8; blue till, easier to bore, 35; water, of good quality, rose from gravel and sand at the bottom thirty-five feet in five minutes. Lynd. O. C. Gregg; sec. 30: well, 33 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 23; blue till, harder to excavate because it is so tenacious, but not harder to drive a spade or pick into, becoming very hard and compact in drying, 8 feet; abundance of good water seeps from the till, from the depth of 20 feet to the bottom of the well. A flowing well, about 20 feet deep, was dug in the northwest part of Lynd, situated on land nearly as high above neighboring depressions as the depth of the well. After digging here in till about 20 feet, this well was left for the night with the tools in it that had been used; and the next morning water, which had broken into the well and filled it, was found running over the top. 7t. O. Titus; S. W. I of sec. 26: well, 40 feet; soil, 4; yellow till, hard, but spaded, 36 feet and extending below, in its lower part showing some intermixture of blue till; water came from a thin vein or crevice in the till at the depth of 16 feet. Another well, twenty rods farther north and on land some eight feet lower, is 11 feet deep, finding soil and yellow till to the depth of 10 feet, the last foot being in blue till; water comes at 9 feet in the yellow till. Lyons. J. M. Millard; sec. 14: well, 23 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 17; sand, 1 foot; blue till, 3 feet and extending lower; water from the sand soon rose and usually fills the well sixteen feet deep. Balaton, in the N. W. \ of sec. 23, Bock Lake. Moore & Weberg's well, 30 feet deep; soil, H; all below is caring gravel, with occasional layers of sand up to one foot in thickness. Eidsvold. Most of the wells in this township are 10 to 30 feet deep, in yellow and blue till. The thickness of the yellow color of the till is 10 to 20 feet on the swells, but only 5 to 10 feet in hollows. The yellow till is usually easily dug with a spade; the lower, bluish till is more com- pact, harder to drive a spade into, more moist and sticky, and less stony. Minneota. In this village, situated in the southeast part of Eidsvold, the shallow wells are 10 to 16 feet deep; in soil, 2; dark till, 5; and sand and gravel, 5 to 10; finding good water, in sufficient supply for ordinary use. Deeper wells go below this 10 to 15 feet in blue till; at 25 or 30 feet these strike water in bluish quicksand, from which it rises to about ten feet below the surface. The water is good at first, but most of the deep wells are bored and curbed with pine, and these become offensive when not abundantly used. The shallow wells are not curbed. Shelburne. E. F. Dickson; sec. 24: well, 21 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, hard, mostly picked, 16; harder blue till, 3 feet and reaching lower; water seeps. Wells in Lincoln county. Marshjield. G. W. Cutler; sec. 29: well, 30 feet, in yellow and blue till; water seeps. Tyler, in sec. 3, Hope. Railroad well at the station, 94 feet deep; soil, 2; yellow till, 10; blue till, f-'O; fine white sand, 2, from which water rose thirty-six feet in one night; it is not re- garded, however, as a sufficient supply for a tank to be used from by engines. At the section- 39 610 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Wells. Travertine. Springs • house, thirty rods west of the station, the well, 9 feet deep, was all the way in yellow till to sand at the bottom from which water rose six feet, and proves to be an ample and permanent supply. Lake View House: well, 78 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 16; blue till, 60; water seeps, sometimes filling the well to five feet below the top. Ltiamond Lake. G. II. Bradley; sec. 28: well, 24 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, partly spaded, 10; harder blue till, all picked, 12, and reaching below; water seeps from sandy streaks in the blue till, and stands twelve feet deep. Lake Benton. A. W. Morse, in the town, sec. 8: well, about 40 feet; yellow till, 15 ; blue till, 25; water seeps from sandy streaks in the yellow till, filling the well to the top of the blue till. Hendricks. Wells in this township are 10 to 35 feet deep, in yellow and dark bluish till. Sliaokatan. Samuel D. Pumpelly; sec. 14 : well, 14 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 12; water, abundant and of excellent quality, rose three feet from sand and gravel which was dug into six inches. A. J. Crane; sec. 23: well, 27 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, spaded, 25; water seeps, filling the well four feet deep, but it is too poor to be used. Travertine. The water of wells is generally good throughout this district, but its dissolved carbonates of lime and magnesia, derived from the drift, render it hard and cause it to deposit scale rapidly when it is used in the boilers of engines. Sometimes this mineral matter is de- posited by springs, as a porous stone, a kind of travertine, preserving the form of leaves, sticks, and moss, which it has encrusted, so that it is commonly called "petrified moss." Fine speci- mens of this are obtained in several little ravines near Camden mills, in section 32, Lynd, the best locality being about thirty rods southeast from the mill. At Gary, in the edge of Dakota, an extensive deposit of it is found near Capt. Herrick's, and has been considerably burned for lime. It is on one of the small, irregular mounds or hillocks of till, belonging to the second terminal moraine, where its origin seems difficult to be explained, except by referring it to de- position from waters that trickled down from the melting, drift-laden surface of the ice-sheet, probably flowing thus in greater amount or more constantly, and during a longer time, than at most other points on the ice-border.* Springs. Large chalybeate springs occur on the south branch of the Cottonwood river in the northeast part of Custer, a few miles southwest from Amiret station. The springs on the shores of lake Benton have been before mentioned. Near Mr. J. G. Bryan's house, at the west end of this lake, are two springs, only a few feet apart, which differ much, one being pure, cold, excel- lent water; while the other seems warmer, and is much impregnated with mineral matter that makes an iron-rusty deposit, the water not being adapted for drinking and cooking. The amount of alkaline matter, or sulphates of magnesia, soda and lime, contained in the drift of this district, is seldom so great as to perceptibly affect the water of wells and springs; but it appears to hasten the decay of wood when this is used as curbing, soon causing the water to be- come offensive, unless the well is so plentifully drawn from that it is being constantly supplied with fresh water. It is, of course, much preferable to use stone curbing or iron or cement pipe. The grayish white alkaline efflorescence that is occasionally seen in this district in shallow de- pressions from which pools of water have dried up, forming a crust resembling frost, sometimes a fourth or a third of an inch thick, made up of flakes and columnar spicules, has been concen- trated from the inflowing and evaporating waters of a long period. These lands may be re*- claimed by being drained, and sown with wheat, which uses much of the alkaline ingredients of the soil; and after several years in wheat, with deep plowing, they can usually be planted suc- cessfully to other crops. MATERIAL RESOURCES. The soil, the timber and prairie, and the grand agricultural capabili- ties of this district, which are its chief resource, have been treated of in earlier parts of this chapter. Items remaining to be mentioned here are water-powers, building stone, and the manufacture of lime and bricks. *See the second annual report, pp. 195-6. YELLOW MEDICINE, LYON AND LINCOLN COUNTIES. Water-powers. Stone. Lime.] Water-powers. The utilized water-powers of this district are all employed for flouring mills. Four powers are used on the Minnesota river, as follows: Hixson Brothers; one mile west of Granite Falls; head, about eight feet. Banner mills; Stoddard & Libbey ; in the north part of Granite Falls; head, ten and a half feet. Granite Falls mills; W. W. Pinney; head, twelve feet. It is estimated that there is a fall of eight feet within a third of a mile below this mill. Minnesota Falls mills; Austin & Worden; head, ten feet, but it may be increased to fifteen feet. The Minnesota river at Granite Falls is about 150 feet wide. It usually has sufficient water for running the mills during the driest part of the year. On the Yellow Medicine river one power is used, about five miles from its mouth, by E. II. Sorlien & Brother, in section 35, Minnesota Falls. This is at the neck of a long loop of the river, across which a canal twelve rods long carries the water to the mill, the head or fall being about twenty feet. The Kedwood river in Lyon county has three utilized powers, as follows, in descending order: Camdeu mills; V. M. Smith; in the S. E. } of section 32, Lynd; head, twenty-one feet. H. R. Marcyes' mill; in section 23, Lynd; head, twelve feet. Marshall mills; J. A. Rea; in the west edge of Marshall; head, about nine feet. No water-powers are used in Lincoln county, and none on the Lac qui Parle and Cottonwood rivers in this district. Building stone. No quarrying of any importance has been yet undertaken in the gneiss granite and syenite of the Minnesota valley, nor in their other outcrops lying farther west in Yel-' low Medicine county. It is probable, however, that some portions of these exposures will furnish good stone for ordinary masonry, and perhaps even of sufficiently fine quality for ornamental work. The only quarry in this district is George B. Mason's, in section 12, Alta Vista, Lincoln county, in the Cretaceous sandstone, which has already been fully described on page 599. Boulders of gneiss, granite and limestone, usually are sufficiently abundant for the ordinary masonry needed by farmers, in cellar walls and foundations of buildings, in curbing wells, and making culverts for roads. These boulders are especially plentiful upon the morainic belts of the Coteau des Prairies, being mostly of smaller size than five feet, but sometimes ten or fifteen feet or more in diameter. Lime. In the northeast part of Sioux Agency, the most eastern township bordering the Minnesota river in Yellow Medicine county, lime has been burned from boulders by Ole Swenson and Iver Olson. It is white, strong lime. At Minnesota Falls, Simon Christiansen and William C. Darby burn lime from boulders, each making some 300 ban-els yearly, and selling at $1.50 per barrel. It is white, and of excel- lent quality. Several farmers burn lime from boulders within ten miles to the north and west of Canby. At Gary lime is burned by David Bradley, who leases Capt. H. H. Herrick's kiln. Boul- ders, collected from the neighboring morainic hills, yield white lime; and the deposits of traver- tine, or calcareous tufa, mentioned on page 610, situated at and near the kiln, supply a dark, but equally strong lime. The former is sold for $1.25 per barrel, and the latter for $1, the yearly product of both together being 400 or 500 barrels. Soft wood, brought on the cars, costs $ 3 to $4 per cord. In western Lyon county, Tobias Trana, living in the S. W. J of section 30, Nordland, burns lime from boulders, gathered mostly on morainic hills within one or two miles westerly in Lime- stone township, Lincoln county; yearly product, about 200 barrels, sold at $1.25 per barrel. Abundant limestone boulders, sometimes ten to fifteen feet long, occur in northern Lincoln county, and have given names to Limestone and Marble townships. One mile farther south, a fine drift-gravel, cemented by carbonate of lime, occurs in the S. W. J of section 31, Nordland, on the west side of the South branch of Yellow Medicine river, the exposure being about 40 feet in length, and 4 to 6 feet in vertical thickness, at 35 to 40 feet above the creek. It is underlain by sand and gravel, and ten or fifteen feet below this cemented stratum a large spring of very irony water issues, and is still forming a calcareous deposit, work- ing in nearly the same way as the waters by whose agency the cementation of this gravel was ef- 612 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Lime. Bricks. Mounds, f ectecl. For fifteen or twenty rods thence to the south, at a hight of 10 to 20 feet above the creek, masses of calcareous tufa, free from gravel, but holding impressions of sticks and moss, are found and have been burned by Mr. Trana, yielding a dark lime. At Island Lake post-office, also in western Lyou county, J. R. King has burned lime from boulders eight years, averaging 200 barrels yearly, selling it at $1.25 to $2 per barrel. The greater part of this is white lime, but about one piece in twenty is yellowish. The largest slab of lime- stone found by Mr. King was about ten feet square and four feet thick. In the south edge of this county, A. W. Bean burns lime from boulders in the southeast part of Kock Lake township. In Lake Benton; Lincoln county, Ira Scott and John Snyder burn lime from boulders, white and of excellent quality, selling at $1.50 per ban-el. A few others burn lime in small amount elsewhere in this county. Bricks. Before the Indian outbreak in 1862, but not since that time, bricks were made at the old town of Yellow Medicine, on the bottomland of the Yellow Medicine river, in the south- west corner of section 29, Sioux Agency. At Minnesota Falls two small kilns of bricks, amounting to about 100,000, were made in 1879 by Simon Christianson, about twenty-five rods south from the mill, partially failing because of small limy concretions in the clay and limestone particles in the sand used for tempering, which cause the bricks to crack after burning. He intended to continue this business, expecting, after these experiments, to produce bricks of good quality. The bricks are cream-colored or light reddish, sold for $8 per thousand. They are made of recent alluvium, some 20 feet above the river. About a foot at the surface is removed; then the next four to six feet of dark alluvial clayey silt is used for this brick-making, mixed with considerable sand. Brick-making was undertaken at Granite Falls in 1876 and 1878, first a half mile southwest from the bridge, and later near Stoddard & Libbey's mill, failing as at Minnesota Falls because of the presence of limy concretions. Two miles northeast from Canby, a small kiln of bricks, containing about 10,000, of fail- quality, dull gray in color, were made in 1878, beside Canby creek, from clay that is free of gravel, tempered by a considerable intermixture of sand. In section 28, of Eidsvold, the most northwestern township of Lyon county, Anon Olson in 1880 began brick-making, using clay and sand in the proportions of three and one. These are red bricks, sold in Minneota, three miles distant, at $10 per thousand. At Marshall the business is carried on by W. A. Crocker, in the northeast edge of the town, and by James M. Lockey, in its southwest edge, on the road to Lynd, both having begun in 1878. Mr. Crooker made 500,000 bricks in 1880. They are cream-colored, but vary to pinkish, are of good and durable quality, and command $7 to $8 per thousand. The material used is the allu- vium of the Redwood river, lying about ten feet above this stream, but not overflowed at its ordinary high water. It contains no gravel nor limy concretions, and no sand is mixed with it. Mr. Lockey makes about 300,000 yearly, of similar color and quality, using the alluvium of an old lake-bottom, which was covered by water in 1875. He mixes sand with it in the proportion of one to three. In section 22, Verdi, the most southwest township of Lincoln county, John Enke began brick-making in 1880. This is about five miles southwest from Lake Benton. ABORIGINAL EARTHWORKS. The only artificial mounds observed during the examination of these counties are near Lake Benton station. About three-quarters of a mile northwest from this town, and within sight from it, upon the top of the bluff 175 feet in hight, which forms the northwestern side of the "Hole in the Mountain," are three mounds near together, of the usual circular form and about five feet high. They are in the S. W. J of section 5, Lake Benton, on the crest of the Coteau des Prairies, and are visible from the lower land on the northeast at a distance of many miles. One of these mounds, excavated by Mr. C. M. Morse, contained several skeletons of men whose stature was fully six feet. Another mound, also about five feet high, is situated on a high swell a half mile east of Lake Benton station, in the center of the cemetery. CHAPTER XXI. THE GEOLOGY OF BIG STONE AND LAC QUI PARLE COUNTIES. BY WARREN UPHAM. Situation and area. Big Stone and Lac qui Parle counties (plate 29) are in western Minnesota, adjoining Dakota. They lie on opposite sides of the Minnesota river, which forms the boundary between them. Both these counties and also Lac qui Parle river, township and village, derive their names from those of long lakes through which the Minnesota river flows. The name of Big Stone lake alludes to the conspicuous outcrop of granite found in the Minnesota valley one to three miles below the foot of the lake; and the French name Lac qui Parle, meaning the Lake that Talks, is a translation of its aboriginal title, applied to it because of echoes thrown back by its bordering bluffs, or, as some say, on account of the loud sound of waves dashing on rocky portions of its shore. Lac qui Parle village, which is the county seat, two miles south from the foot of the lake, is 130 miles, in a direct line, west from Minneapolis, and 140 miles from St. Paul. Ortonville, the county seat and largest town of Big Stone county, situated at the outlet of Big Stone lake, is 34 miles northwest of Lac qui Parle, and about 160 and 170 miles distant, respectively, from Minneapolis and Saint Paul; aTnd its distance north from the southwest corner of the state is 125 miles. The area of Big Stone county is 536.31 square miles, or 343,234.75 acres, of which 26,737.33 acres are covered by water, including Marsh lake and half the width of Big Stone lake; and the area of Lac qui Parle county is 771.93 square miles, or 494,037.40 acres, of which 1,227.57 acres are covered by water, not including the lakes on its northeast boundary. 614 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Natural drainage. SURFACE FEATURES. Natural drainage. Lac qui Parle county lies wholly within the basin of the Minnesota river, which also includes nearly all of Big Stone county. The only exception is an area equal to about one township at the north side of this county, including the north part of Graceville, about the To- kua lakes, and the adjoining northeast part of Tokua and northwest part of T. 124, K. 45, which have a slight descent northward, sending their sur- plus waters into lake Traverse and thence to Hudson bay by the Red river of the North. The creeks of Big Stone county are small, and include four or five, varying from two to four miles in length, tributary to Big Stone lake; Stony run, having an extent of about ten miles, flowing southward and uniting with the Minnesota river some six miles below this lake; and Five Mile creek in the southeast edge of the county, about two miles east from Correll station, flow- ing into the east part of Marsh lake. Besides Big Stone and Marsh lakes on its boundary, this county has numerous others, the largest of which is Artichoke lake, about five miles long and a half mile to one mile wide, in the east part of Artichoke township. A narrower lake, about three miles long, lies in the same township a mile farther west. More than fifty smaller lakes, ranging in size from a quarter of a mile to one or two miles, appear on the map; these have not yet re- ceived names, excepting the group of Tokua lakes, close southwest of Graceville, and the Tokua Brothers lakes, six miles farther west. The Minnesota river receives three important tributaries in Lac qui Parle county, namely, Whetstone, Yellow Bank and Lac qui Parle rivers. The first of these drains a considerable area in Dakota, and joins the Minnesota river about a mile below Big Stone lake. Yellow Bank river, so named from the color of its newly undermined banks of till, has the greater part of its basin in Dakota, whence its north and south forks flow into Minnesota, and meet about five miles east of the state line in Yellow Bank township, some seven or eight miles by the course of the river from its mouth, which is ten miles below Big Stone lake. Lac qui Parle river joins the Minne- sota about a mile below Lac qui Parle. Its basin reaches beyond this county west into Dakota, and south across Yellow Medicine county and the northwest part of Lincoln, its remotest source being a stream that flows into the west end of lake Hendricks, fifty miles southwest from its mouth. The only noteworthy tributary to the Minnesota in this county below Lac qui Parle river, is a creek three miles long, the outlet of a little lake, which, both lake and creek, are in the township of Camp Belease. Ten Mile lake, which gives its name to the township next southwest, is the only other lake that lies wholly in Lac qui Parle county. Salt lake, or lake Rosabel, a beautiful expanse of clear but brackish water, some three miles long from east to west and about a third of a mile wide, lies mostly in northwestern Mehurin, but its west part is crossed by the state line. In a subsequent part of this chapter, relating to the glacial drift and the history qfr the ice age, will be found descriptions of the Minnesota river, its remarkable valley and its lakes, Big Stone, Marsh and Lac qui Parle. Topography. Both these counties have, through most of their extent, a moderately undulating or rolling surface of unmodified glacial drift or till. Any extensive view shows that the contour, as a whole, is approxi- mately level; but it differs from a flat expanse in having everywhere small and large swells or elevations, disposed without order or system, and rising I'l.ATE 29. j l»>U>r,ICAL AMI XATVRAL HISTORY I 7 • 8 9 10 II a\ S1.-KVKVUI MINNESOTA. M -]TBIG STONE C E V I L L E IM LAC Ql'I PARLE as fw 35 3sh COUNTIES .M 3J 36 p -_i"i , -, r°™* \ j *'3^\Rll,*rto COUNT _.^-.S!l!l A K. R Q\f IT !l21 € G U..S.TJU. Sfc M L 1 N TEN MILE apprwantaXtfy for ecu*, SO A. N F R ED. . . F^E.E S Am BIG STOKE AND LAC QUI PARLE COUNTIES. Topography.] in prolonged, smooth slopes to bights 10 to 20 or 30 feet above the similarly irregular depressions. In these hollows lie the lakes and sloughs of this region, from 5 to 25 feet below the average hight of their vicinity. The lake shores are often gentle slopes, but in many places have been eroded by the action of waves, until they form a steep bank 5 to 15 feet high, bordered at its foot by boulders and coarse shingle that have been left while the finer portions of the till have been washed away and strown upon the lake-bed and along other parts of the shore. The absence of lakes in most of Lac qui Parle county, as also of Yellow Medicine county on the south, seems quite remarkable in contrast with their frequent occurrence in Big Stone and other adjoining counties, and indicates that different conditions attended the deposition of the till upon these districts. A shallow glacial lake (page 461) seems to have bordered the ice-sheet in its recession across Lac qui Parle county, somewhat level- ing and evening up the surface of the drift, thus filling many hollows which would otherwise be occupied by lakes. The most interesting feature in the topography of this region is the deep channel or valley that was excavated by the river Warren, the outlet of lake Agassiz, and is now occupied by lakes Traverse and Big Stone and the Minnesota river. Its description, and its origin and history, and notice of the series of drift hills and knolls forming the third terminal moraine, which crosses western Lac qui Parle county, are presented farther on, in treating of the glacial drift. Channels have also been eroded in the drift-sheet by the tributaries of this main valley. These increase in depth and width from their sources to their mouths. Indenting their bluffs, as well as those of the great valley, are frequent ravines, cut by rivulets, some of which are fed by perennial springs, while others are dry through most of the year. The branches of the Yellow Bank and Lac qui Parle rivers have excavated channels 25 to 50 feet below the general level; and from their junctions to the Minnesota valley, these rivers are bordered by bluffs 50 to 75 feet high. Elevations, Hastings & Dakota division, Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. From profiles in the office of George H. White, engineer, Minneapolis. M iles from Feet above Hustings. the sea. At the east line of Big Stone county 184.1 987 Correll 186.9 980 Odessa 194.3 963 Stony run, track 195.1 965 Stony run, water 195.1 958 Summit, grade 199.0 1002 Ortonville 200.9 990 Big Stone lake 202.0 962.5 gig THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevations. Elevations, Brown's Valley branch, St. Po.ul, Minneapolis & Manitoba railway. From profiles in the office of C. A. F. Morris, engineer, St. Paul. Miles from Eeet above St. Paul. the sea. Johnson 177.6 1127 Graceville 184.6 1107 Hilo 190.5 1105 Beardsley 177.8 1096 Top of the bluff east of Brown's Valley, grade 201.4 1096 Depression at foot of this bluff, surface 204.3 973 Brown's Valley 204.7 978 Minnesota river, water 204.7 970.5 Lake Traverse, one mile north 970 The hight of the Minnesota river at ordinary low water, along the boundary of Big Stone and Lac qui Parle counties, is approximately as follows: Feet above the sea. At the village of Brown's Valley, about a half mile north of the northwest cor- ner of Big Stone county 970.5 Big Stone Lake 962.5 At the mouth of Pomme de Terre river 934 Lac qui Parle 926 At the mouth of Chippewa river, close below the east line of Lac qui Parle county 913 Big Stone county, excepting the valley of Big Stone lake and the Min- nesota river, is mostly about 1,100 feet above the sea. Its highest land ap- pears to be a rolling tract, 1,125 to 1,175 feet in elevation, crossed by its north line four to seven miles east from Brown's Valley. The most prom- inent swells along a belt that extends thence southeastward, crossing the central part of the county to the vicinity of Artichoke lake, have nearly the same altitude. Odessa and Akron have considerable land less than 1,100 feet in hight, their southern portion, next to the Minnesota valley, being about 1,050. Making the reduction required by this valley, which is 125 feet lower than the general level, the mean elevation of Big Stone county above the sea is estimated to be very nearly 1,090 feet. The highest land in Lac qui Parle county, about 1,400 feet above the sea, is at its southwest corner, on the foot-slope of the Coteau des Prairies, nearly 500 feet above its lowest land, on the shores of Lac qui Parle and the Minnesota river. From the top of the bluffs bordering the Minnesota valley there is a gradual ascent of about 250 feet in the distance of twenty- five miles southwest to the foot of the Coteau. These bluffs rise 100 to 1 25 feet above the river, being highest northwestward, and their elevation above the sea is from 1,075 or 1,100 to 1,025 feet, descending to the south- east with nearly the same slope as the valley. The base of the Coteau is about 1,300 feet, and the east side of the Antelope valley 1,200 to 1,225 feet BIG STONE AND LAC QUI FABLE COUNTIES. 617 Elevations. Soil and timber.] above the sea. Next on the east, the hight of the third terminal moraine is mostly about 1,250 feet, and of its highest points, the Antelope hills, ap- proximately 1,300 feet. Estimates of the mean hights of the townships of Lac qui Parle coun- ty are as follows: Camp Release, 1,025 feet above the sea; Lac qui Parle, 1,020 ; Baxter, 1,050 ; Ten Mile Lake, 1,100 ; Hantho, 1,030 ; Cerro Gordo, # 1,060; Riverside, 1,080; Maxwell, 1,120; Lake Shore, 1,050; Madison, 1,100; Hamlin, 1,125; Providence, 1,160; Yellow Bank, 1,080; Perry, 1,100; Arena, 1,150; Garfield, 1,175; Freeland, 1,240; T. 119, R. 46, 1,160; Augusta, 1,225; Mehurin, 1,250; and Manfred, 1,300. These figures give 1,120 feet as the estimated mean elevation of this county. Soil and timber. The soil generally throughout these counties is the glacial drift or till, made up principally of clay, but containing a noticeable intermixture of sand and gravel and frequent small stones, with here and there boulders, seldom exceeding two or three feet in diameter. These rock-fragments are very rarely so abundant as to be a hindrance to cultivation. At the surface the till has been enriched by the decaying vegetation of centuries, and forms a very fertile, black soil, commonly from one to two feet deep, but often having a depth of three or four feet in de- pressions. Much of the rain-fall is absorbed by this soil, and the surplus of heavy rains and snow- melting is soon drained off by the gentle slopes and finds its way into creeks and rivers or into the permanent sloughs and lakes. Wheat, oats, corn and potatoes are the staple products, the first being the chief crop for export, with an average yield of fifteen to twenty bushels per acre. Dai- rying and stock-raising, and the ordinary vegetables and small fruits of the garden, are also im- portant resources in the agriculture of this region. Prairie, naturally bearing a luxuriant growth of nutritious grasses and many beautiful flowers, as the prairie-clovers, blazing-stars, golden-rods and asters, but having no trees nor shrubs, extends over almost the whole of Big Stone and Lac qui Parle counties. Timber occurs only along the rivers and on the borders of lakes. All the townships of Big Stone county, with its many lakes, have patches of woods; but they are less frequent, owing to the fewness of the lakes, in Lac qui Parle county, timber being there confined to the stream-courses. The bluffs of this part of the Minnesota valley are mostly treeless, or have only scattered small trees and thin groves; and the thick woodland is restricted to a narrow belt beside the river, and to tributary valleys and ravines. About Big Stone lake, timber generally fringes the shore; occurs of larger growth in the ravines of its bluffs; and covers its islands, situated within five miles above its mouth. The species of trees observed by Prof. Winchell near the foot of this lake on its north- east side, are the following in their order of abundance: white ash, bur-oak, bass, white elm, box- elder, cottonwood, hackberry, ironwood, soft maple, wild plum, slippery elm, and willow. The shrubs recorded in the same locality are grape, prickly and smooth gooseberries, wolfberry, black currant, prickly ash, red and black raspberries, elder, sweet viburnum, red-osier dogwood, climb- ing bitter-sweet, choke-cherry, red and white rose, Virginia creeper, waahoo, and smooth sumach. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. Granite and gneiss. The only outcrops of the bed-rocks in Big Stone and Lac qui Parle counties consist of granite and gneiss, and are found in the Minnesota valley, where the thick mantle of drift was cut through by the outflow from lake Agassiz. No rocks older than drift, excepting a bed 618 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Granite and gneiss. of Cretaceous shale, exposed in the edge of Dakota, as described on a follow- ing page, are seen along Traverse and Big Stone lakes, or between them. One mile below Big Stone lake, a coarse reddish granite begins and thence occupies nearly the whole valley for three miles, lying in Ortonville and the northwest part of Yellow Bank, its highest portions rising 50 to 75 feet above the Minnesota river. It again appears in low outcrops two and three miles easterly from the foregoing, in sections 30 and 32, T. 121, R. 45, the first of these being in Odessa, on the north side of the river a little west of Stony run, and the second in Yellow Bank, at Mr. Frederick Frankhaus1, south of the Minnesota and a half mile west from its ford. At the last named locality this rock has few joints, their distance apart being sometimes ten feet or more. Two to six miles farther southeast, in T. 13O, R. 45, which extends from the mouth of Yellow Bank river to Marsh lake, similar granite forms abundant outcrops, mainly on the south- west side of the Minnesota river, in Yellow Bank township, rising 50 to 75 feet in their highest portions. Professor Winchell describes the formation here as follows: " The crystals of feldspar are large and flesh-colored, or red. Yet the granite also varies to a lighter color, in which the feldspar is nearly white. It shows, in the latter case, a perpendicular jointing, the planes being one or two or three inches apart. The whole exposure consists of bare, massive, rounded knobs, cut into angular rhomboidal blocks, by jointing planes, but in no place showing the dip seen lower down the Minnesota river." North of the last, two ledges of this rock, small in extent and rising only a few feet from the surface of the drift, but lying at hights 40 or 50 feet above the river, were noted about a mile apart, half way between Odessa and Correll stations, the west one being a little south of the railroad, while the east one is crossed by it. All the foregoing exposures are granite, very hard and durable, but mostly too coarse and variable in grain or texture and too much jointed to promise well for quarrying. From the color of its predominant ingredient, the feldspar, this granite takes its prevailing reddish tint. It is variously intersected by joints, but does not ex- hibit the gneissic lamination which is generally noticeable in the southeastward continuation of these rocks. For fifteen miles from the upper part of Marsh lake to the middle of Lac qui Parle we have no observations of ledges. In section 32, T. 1 19, R. 42, an island of rock occurs in Lac qui Parle, and two ledges outcrop on its southwest side. About two miles southeast, or one and a half miles above the foot of the lake, are several small and low exposures of rock, occuring at each side and also as islands. On the northeast side this is gneiss, mostly with N. E. to S. W. strike. The following description of this vicinity, by Prof. Winchell, who examined the Minnesota val- ley in 1873, is taken from the second annual report of this survey. "Near the lower end of Lac qTii Parle lake, granite appears on both sides of the lake. It is usually inaccessible from the prevalence of water; but in the dry months of the year it can be reached on the northeast side without any trouble, except from tall grass and bushes. There are three or four small bare spots on the southwest shore that can be seen, and three or four others that rise up in the midst of the lake. Two of these spots of bare rock also occur on the northeast side, near the foot of the lake. This rock, so far as can be seen on the northeast side, shows very much the same composition as farther down the river. It contains quartz, mica and flesh-colored feldspar, with patches and veins of quartz, some of which are mingled with porphyritic feldspar. The exposed surfaces are annually submerged, or nearly so, and do not exhibit very plainly such markings as indicate sedi- mentation or dip. There seems to be an indistinct arrangement of the mica scales, so as to give the rock a schistose structure, but this, although generally running N. E. and S. W., does not have that direction invariably, and does not at all represent the lamination or bedding seen be- low" [farther southeast along the Minnesota river]. ''In only one small area can there be seen what looks like the same bedding, and there it is but six inches in thickness, the beds being one or two or three inches, with a dip of 75° toward the S. E. Jointing planes divide the whole mass into blocks and rhombs, four or five or six feet in thickness. There is considerable low land about the lake, much of which is flooded at the wet season of the year, but it is stony and bushy, and has the appearance of rock in a great many places near the surface. Such appearances are seen the whole length of the lake, and especially on the northeast side. About three miles above the BIG STOKE AND LAC QUI FABLE COUNTIES. 619 Cretaceous shale.] foot of the lake, rock can be seen on the southwest side at two points, rising plainly above the general level of the bottoms, and ascending in the slope from the prairie.'' Below Lac qui Parle no outcrops of rock were observed in this county. Its next exposures found within the Minnesota valley are nine to twelve miles southeastward, where gneiss occurs in small ledges one mile west of Montevideo and close south of this town, and in extensive out- crops one to two miles farther southeast. All these are in Chippewa county, on the northeast side of the Minnesota river, opposite to the east end of Camp Release, the next eastern township of Lac qui Parle county. Cretaceous shale. The granite and gneiss of this district are probably in many places overlain by Cretaceous beds, but no exposures of them have been discovered within the limits of these counties. A layer of shale of this age that outcrops on the Dakota side of the Minnesota river, very nearly opposite to the northwest corner of Big Stone county, is described by Prof. Winchell, as follows:* "About a half mile, a little west of south from the stage station at the head of Big Stone lake, in Dakota, an exposure of Cretaceous occurs in the right bank of the upper Minnesota. It shows superficially only a weathered, sliding talus of shale, which is black and somewhat slaty, but which on digging becomes moister and soft and somewhat flexible, yet parting into small chips. Over the surface of the ground, where this shale outcrops, the turf is prevented from growing, and two conspicuous objects, weathered out from the shale, are seen. 1st. Little angular crystals of pure gypsum, the largest seen weighing not over half a pound. 2d. Little angular bits of yellowish red ochre, that are hard and thin, but can be cut with a knife. There is also an occasional piece of brecciated, clayey, or at least aluminous rock, the cracks and sur- faces of which are filled and coated with crystals of cale-spar. When broken by the hammer, these part along the numerous planes that on either side are lined by this calc-spar, and each fragment is entire, appearing itself a mass of calcite. It is only by several attempts that a view of the interior, on which these coatings are formed, can be obtained. The thickness of this shale bed cannot be ascertained. The angular bits of ochre are most numerous near the top, where the drift supervenes, but the gypsum crystals are scattered over the whole outcrop. The indications are that the gypsum and ochre are embraced within the shale, and become superficial by weathering. The whole may be twenty-five feet thick. "This shale bed is the cause of a terrace in the descent from the high prairie, and of numer- ous springs that issue below the drift, about sixty feet below the prairie level. These springs ex- cavate narrow ravines and 'gulches' in the shale, the whole being smoothly turfed over, except at the point above described. These alternating gulches, and the intervening short pieces of the remaining terrace, make the bluff in general appear hilly, in its ascent from the bottomland. These ravines, in the wet season of the year, are very soft, and since they appear practicable for a horse, are the cause of many misfortunes to the traveler. Many such treacherous, springy places are described as occuring along the shores of lake Traverse, at some elevation above the waters of the lake. The same rolling ascent from the bottomland to the high prairie can be seen also at the head of Big Stone lake, on the Minnesota side, and it is there doubtless due to the same cause." Glacial and modified drift. The ledges of granite near the foot of Big Stone lake are quite remark- ably glaciated, having been planed, rounded and worn smooth by ice which moved from northwest to southeast, as shown by the direction of large grooves and hollows on the rock-surface and by its being most noticeably 'Second annual report, p. 190, 620 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Glacial drift. sculptured on the northwest side of projecting knobs. "The whole rock," as Prof. Winchell writes, " including the upper surface and the sides of the mounds, is planed off. The best exhibition of these markings is seen on the northwestern slopes, in which direction there is a system of jointing planes, dividing the granite into blocks that have at first sight a strong semblance of dip, the masses breaking off more nearly at right angles on the southeast side." Again, at Mr. Frankhaus' in Yellow Bank, glaciation from northwest to southeast has rounded the projections of the rock, and marked it with large furrows; but the fine striae both there and near Big Stone lake have been effaced by weathering. The sheet of drift which overspreads these counties probably averages a hundred feet or more in thickness. It is principally till, or unmodified gla- cial drift. Its material was gathered by the ice from a large region on the north and northwest, being quite certainly derived in large part from beds of Cretaceous clay and shale. Most of its boulders are granite, gneiss and schists, similar to the bed-rocks of this district and of northern Minnesota. About half of the gravel contained in the till, and a small proportion, per- haps averaging one in twenty, of its boulders larger than one foot in diam- eter, are fossiliferous magnesian limestone, whose nearest exposures, in the direction from which the ice-sheet moved, are in the vicinity of Winni- peg, in Manitoba. This rock, pulverized and in masses as pebbles and boulders, is thus a considerable ingredient of the drift, whence it is dis- solved by infiltrating waters. Soft rain-water, soaking through the drift, is changed to hard water before it finds its way into wells or issues in springs. The carbonates of lime and magnesia which it has taken up form a scale on the inside of tea-kettles and the boilers of engines; and are occasionally deposited by springs as an incrustation of moss, leaves, or other objects, or as a porous bed upon the surface of springy ground. Interesting springs of this kind occur at the foot of the bluffs on the south- west side of Big Stone lake, two and a half miles from its mouth. Their calcareous deposit is commonly called "petrified moss," from the fact that it becomes covered with growing moss, the lower part of which is being slowly encrusted and its form preserved by this accumulation. It is a light gray, very porous mass, one to two feet thick. Other deposits of similar character oc- cur near by, where no springs now exist, on the dry bluff-side, some 75 feet above the lake. From the Cretaceous strata the drift obtains a small admixture of the sulphates of lime, magnesia and soda, which are also held in solution by the waters of wells, springs, lakes and streams; but their amount is seldom sufficient to impart a perceptibly alkaline taste. Salt lake, crossed by the west boundary of Lac qui Parle county, is an exceptional case, being rendered so bitter that horses and cattle refuse to drink of it. Where shallow pools have dried up, they sometimes leave a whitish alkaline efflorescence, resembling frost, gathered by the inflowing and evaporating waters of many years. The till also contains rarely small fragments of Cretaceous lignite, similar to that which is mined thirty-five miles west of Bismarck, Dakota. BIG STONE AND LAC QUI PARLE COUNTIES. 621 Terminal moraines. J The Coteau des Prairies, rising a thousand feet above Big Stone lake and the Minnesota river, is conspicuously seen in the view westward from these counties; and the base of its eastern slope, composed of smooth till, below the knolly and stony, rough belt of the second moraine, reaches into Manfred, the most southwest township of Lac qui Parle county. Antelope valley and moraine. Bordering the foot of the Coteau is a tract of smooth till, known as the Antelope valley, three to six miles wide, and reaching in a north-northwest course across Yellow Medicine county, southwestern Lac qui Parle county, and onward in Dakota to the south bend of the Sheyenne river. In Lac qui Parle county it includes the west part of Freeland, eastern Manfred, the greater part of Mehuriu, and the west side of Augusta. North- westward in Dakota the north branch of AVhetstone river and the south and north forks of the Minnesota river lie in this depression. Its valley-like appearance is due to its situation between the massive Coteau des Prairies on the west and the third terminal moraine on the east. The smoothly undulating belt which thus somewhat resembles a valley and is so called, gradually rises 10 or 20 feet per mile westward. Beyond a distance of a few miles this scarcely perceptible ascent is changed to the steeper slope of the Coteau, on which the smooth surface soon gives place to the hillocks and small, short ridges, of the second or Gary moraine. The Antelope valley is virtually the continuation of the smoothly undulating or rolling expanse of till which reaches with slight ascent from the Minnesota river westward across Lac qui Parle county to the third or Antelope moraine. This third series of terminal deposits of the last ice-sheet, like the two farther west on the Coteau, consists of hills and knolls and small ridges of till, containing many boulders, chiefly of gneiss, schists, granite and syenite, with a small proportion of limestone. It has been traced in a north-northwest course across Yellow Medicine and Lac qui Parle counties, a distance of about forty miles, in this state, and it continues with the same course in Dakota. Its width varies from one mile, or less, to two or three miles, and the hight of its elevations is usually from 40 to 100 feet above the contiguous east side of the Antelope valley. In southern Lac qui Parle county this moraine forms the two conspicuous clusters of the Antelope hills, in sections 27 and 16, Free- land, which rise about 100 feet above the smoothly undulating till of their region, and afford "a magnificent view of the prairies on all sides and of the Coteau toward the west." Continuing northward, it runs from section 32, GarfieJd, in a nearly straight course to section 33, T. 119, R. 4rr>.fUiuitrly fr-r t'ur/i •>>' ///•/ nh/n-r f/i '--tr~s =, ..I. -3. . ':•:• - .v W A S E C A " » , Bi^n * Co lith 1UCE COUNTY 649 Natural drainage.] that are scattered throughout the western half of the county, though some of these waters seem to reach that valley by underground drainage, the lakes having no visible outlets. In the southeastern part of the county the north branch of the Zumbro rises in a long marsh which extends unin- terruptedly to within a mile and a half of the Straight river. Prom that point another similar marsh extends westwardly and is drained by a creek into the Straight river. These marshes, and several others in the county, are caused by the impervious nature of the underlying Hudson River and Trenton shales, and mark the channels of glacial drainage. In a similar manner the valley of Prairie creek, which once was one of voluminous dis- charge, extends nearly as far southwest as to the valley of the Cannon river west of Cannon City. It is there partially filled up with drift. To the most casual observer Rice county presents remarkable contrasts in its drainage features. That portion which lies east and southeast of the Cannon river is different from that portion lying to the west and northwest of that valley. The former is undulating, in long and gentle swells, with slow-flowing streams that are fringed with wide often marshy and quaking low-lands. The streams are insignificant in comparison to the valleys which they occupy; and they have a direct and well-established direction of flow, without much tortuosity. Where they leave Rice county their channels are sunk from one to two hundred feet below the general upland level. The country here drained is alike without lakes and timber. The latter is rolling in short and often steep and frequent hills that rise from fifty to a hundred feet above the surrounding country. Among these hills the crooked streams wander with every conceivable curve and change of direction, often encountering small lakes, and receiving small tributaries that drain others. They have no deeply eroded valleys, but run near the average lowland level of the country where the present contours of surface will permit. While there are frequent marshes here, they are isolated like the lakelets, and have a similar relation to the drainage. In this part of the county the precipitated moisture is retained by the more slow course of surface drainage as well as by the more gravelly and sandy nature of the surface drift materials. This part of the county also is heavily timbered, a circumstance that not only produces, but also is favored by, a greater amount of natural moisture within the drift-materials and on the 650 TIIE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Water-powers. exposed surface. This last has also retarded the former devastations by prairie fires. This wooded portion is on the eastern edge of the "big woods" of Minnesota, or bois fort, well and long known as one of the great physical features of the surface of the state. The underlying causes for this difference of surface and drainage features will appear in the descrip- tion of the drift and geological structure. Water-powers. Several valuable water-powers have been improved in Bice county. These are chiefly in the valley of the Cannon river, viz: Northfield mills. Jesse Ames' sons, Northfleld; in the oldmill the present capacity is 80 bar- rels per day; 3 run of stone (two for feed) , nine feet head; one 45-inch and one 35-inch Leffel wheel, two 27-inch Huston wheels and one 34-inch Huston wheel (one is fora machine shop); the 35-inch Leffel wheel has 20.7 horse-power, and the 34-inch Huston has 21 horse-power. The new mill has a capacity of 400 barrels; 9 feet head; two 54-inch Victor wheels, each having a rated capacity of 80 horse-power; one 35-inch Leffel wheel with 21 horse-power; twenty double rollers; three single rollers; Gray patent of Allis' roll; three flour buhrs. Dundas mills. E. T. Archibald & Co.; Dundas, on the Cannon river; partly run by steam; full capacity 600 barrels per day; 10 feet head; two 48-inch Leffel wheels; four buhrs; 37 single rollers of Gray's Allis' patent. This mill is about half built of Trenton limestone, and the old Archibald mill, on an island in the river, now dismantled, is wholly of this stone. Another mill at Dundas is run wholly by steam. Cannon Valley roller mill. S. E. i sec. 8, Cannon City, on the east side of the Cannon river; owned by R. II. Scott and sons; seven feet head, four Leffel wheels, all 48-inch, and one La Croix wheel of 40 inches; three sets of double, smooth Allis rollers, and five sets of double, corrugated Allis rollers; one of Stevens single, smooth rollers; three buhrs (one for feed, run by the La Croix wheel); full capacity 130 barrels in twenty-four hours. There is a fine water-power at Faribault in the Cannon river, between the railroads, owned by Mr. Mattison, where the mill was lately burned. The fall here is about six feet and will fur- nish several hundred horse-power. Tlie Polar Star mills, Faribault, owned by F. A. and S. L. Bean, on the south side of the Cannon river; run partly by steam; head eight to eleven feet, according to the season; one Amer- ican, or Dayton, 75-inch turbine wheel, two Leffel wheels, one flfty-six and the other forty-eight inches; at eleven feet head these Leffel wheels produce, one, ninety and the other fifty-three horse power, and the American wheel one hundred and forty horse-power; in summer, however, steam is necessary to run the mill; rollers are made by Allis (Gray's), Cosgrove, Noye, and Dalton; three double smooth rollers, and five single smooth, seven sets of corrugated single rollers; full capacity 375 barrels in twenty-four hours. The water-power mill at Morristown is owned by C. H. Hershey; head of water seven feet; Case turbine wheel, fifty-four inches, twenty-seven horse-power. Two buhrs (one for feed); full capacity thirty-eight barrels in twenty-four hours. The mill at the outlet of Eoberd's lake, N. W. J sec. 22, Wells, owned by T. G. Scott, is known as the Roberd's Lake mill. In high water it has a head of sixteen feet, but in ordinary stage of water only twelve feet; one Small's turbine wheel of forty-eight inches and sixty horse- power (under twelve feet head); one double set of Allis' make of Wegmann's patent rollers; three buhrs (one for feed); capacity for wheat fifty barrels each twenty-four hours. The following mills are on the Straight river : The Kendall mill is at Faribault, N. W. } sec. 29, Cannon City township, on the east side of the river, and is owned by Green and Gold; eight feet head of water; one 40-inch Leffel wheel, with thirty-five horse-power, and one 30-inch wheel, not used, maker unknown; seven sets of Stevens single rollers, two smooth and five corrugated; one porcelain roller {Wegmamfs), and one smooth, small, old roller (maker unknown); two flour buhrs; full capacity 140 barrels in KICK COUNTY. 651 Topography.] twenty-four hours. This mill never has water enough to run its full machinery, but is aided by steam. Straight River mills, Faribault, owned by J. D. Green and Co.; head twelve feet; oneLeffel 40-inch wheel; one double roller, sixteen 'sets of single rollers, Stevens' break roller (Noye make) and two wheat buhrs; capacity 350 barrels per day; partly run by steam. Walcott mills, owned by M. B. Sheffield, S. W. i sec. 16, Walcott, on the west side of the river; head twelve feet; one48-inch new American wheel, and one 40-inch old American; two smooth and two corrugated sets (double) of Stevens rollers, one single set of Stevens corrugated rollers, one double set of Gray's smooth rollers, one double set of Rickerson's smooth rollers, one Wilmington (Del.) single smooth roller; four run of stone (one for feed); capacity of the mill, using water alone, 225 barrels per day, and when aided by steam 280 barrels per day.* Topography. The eastern and southern portions of the county are broadly undulating or smoothly rolling, with long swells running so as to operate as the primary divides between the drainage valleys. The north- eastern corner of the county, east of the Cannon river, is characterized by considerable differences of level, separated by plains that extend like ter- races along the river courses. The Prairie creek valley is thus a wide, nearly level, expanse bounded by an abrupt ascent of about a hundred feet to a higher flat which extends, with an undulating surface, right and left. The Cannon valley is the great topographic feature of the county. Its outer bluffs rise about a hundred feet above the water, at Northfield, about two hundred and fifty at Dundas and two hundred feet at Faribault. The water surface of Straight river descends northward, within the county, from the level of about 1050 feet above the sea to about 950 feet. The Cannon river in like manner, descends, in crossing the county from about 1000 to 890 feet, its source in the lakes at Shieldsville being about 1090. The high prairies in towns of Wheeling and Richland are 1150 to 1250 feet above the sea. The high plateau east and southeast of Cannon City is in general about flat, but has numerous deep valleys that penetrate within the St. Peter sandstone. The head of Prairie creek runs thus south and southwest far enough to unite with the Cannon valley. In the western, wooded portion of the county there is a greater diver- sity of the immediate surface contour, but the average elevation is not so great as in the eastern, no known elevations being above 1125 feet. The lakes that dot the surface here add much to the variety of topographic scenery. Some of these cover an area each of two to three square miles, and have a depth of ten to fifty feet. *Tlic mill at Mcclford, Sleclc county, partly run by steam, was burned about the year 1880. It had no rollers. 652 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Elevations. Ehrationx on tin- loira and Miimc--otn liirixinn of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul railn-ni/. From profiles in the office of George II. White, engineer, Minneapolis. Miles from Feot above St I'aul, tlie sea. Summit near line of Dakota and Rice counties, cutting 12 ft.: grade ____ 36.7 909 North field .......................................................... 38.1 915 Heath creek, water, 905; grade ..................................... 39.2 921 Dundas ....................... .................................... 41.0 955 Wolf creek, water, 947; grade ........................................ 42.3 974 Summit, cutting 9 ft.; grade .......................................... 45.9 1037 Depression, grade ................................................ 46.7 971 Summit, cutting 30 ft; grade ...................................... 49.5 1017 Cannon river, water, 959; grade on bridge ............................. 50.9 975 Faribault ........................................................... 51.7 1002 Summit, cutting 4 ft. ; grade ......................................... 54.3 1084 Summit, cutting 14 ft.; grade ....................................... 56.8 1140 Straight river, water, 1069; grade ................................... 60.2 1090 Medford .................. ' .......................................... 60.4 l(i!)8 Elevations, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pacific (or Cannon Valley) railway. From profiles in the office of Kobert Angst, engineer, Minneapolis. Miles from Feet above Wiiti-rvillc. the sea. Waterville, junction with M. & St. L. railway .......................... 0.0 1008 Line of Le Sueur and Rice counties, grade ............................. 2.5 1030 Summit, natural surface, 1067; grade ................................. 3.8 1056 Cannon river, water, 997; grade ....................................... 6.0 1008 Morristown ......................................................... 6.3 1008 Cannon river, water, 975; grade ........................................ 8.4 984 Warsaw ....... ......................................... ........... 9.3 1007 Junction of spur track to Polar Star mills .............................. 15.3 11711 Fair ground ......................................................... 15.6 976 Crossing C., M. & St. P. railway ....................................... 16.3 981 Faribault ............................................................ 16.8 971 Cannon river, low water, 954; high water, 960; grade .................... 17.3 966 Wolf creek, water, 925; grade ......................................... 25.6 942 Dundas ......................................... ................... 27.0 926 Cannon river, low water, 900; high water .............................. 29.4 906 Northfleld ...................... ................................... 29.9 910 Line of Bice and Dakota counties, grade ............................. 31.0 897 Waterford .................................. ....................... 32.0 903 The average elevation of the county may be estimated as follows, based on the contour lines shown on the county plate: Northfield, 990 feet above the sea; Wheeling, 1110; Richland, 1175; Bridge water, 1010; Cannon City, 1085; Walcott, 1100; Webster, 1060; Forest, 1025; Wells, 1025; Warsaw, 1070; Wheatland, 1075; Erin, 1090; Shields ville, 1075; Morristown, 1045. From these figures the average elevation of the county becomes 1065 feet. Soil and timber. The soil of the upland prairies in the southeastern part of the county, including the towns of Richland, Wheeling, Cannon City, and much of Northfleld, is a black loam underlain by clay. In the low grounds along the valleys this black loam is increased in thickness, and on some exposed knolls the underlying clay becomes the surface soil. In the low prairies of Northfield the subsoil is gravelly, and the soil itself, while rich and dark, is apt to be- KICE COUNTY. boil and timber.] come sandy, particularly in the immediate neighborhood of the bluffs where the St. Peter sand- stone has opportunity to mingle with it. In the western part of the county, while the soil is a dark loam and equally, fertile,; generally, as that in the eastern, it has not yet been wrought so extensively, and is' less highly prized. It has a subsoil, mainly, of stony blue clay, or a yellow pebbly loam, but on the gravelly hills, and on some of the lower ridges, in Morristown and Shields- ville, and particularly in Webster, the subsoil is gravel and sand. This is the case also in the terrace-flats that skirt the Cannon river. The soils in the western half of the county are much more stony than in the eastern. The following trees and shrubs are native to this county. In ascending the Cannon valley from Northiield there is a marked change in the character of the forest growth at the point where the blue clay, pertaining to the drift sheet extending northwestwardly, approaches the river. About Northfield, and northwardly through Dakota county, the trees are mainly of oak and aspen, this region being occupied by the red drift derived from the northeastward. But here these trees give place to sugar maple, butternut, ironwood, bass, ash, &c. The shrubs are also affected by the same change. Different species of Lonicera, Spiraea, and Cornus make their appearance as undergrowth, sharing the shade with little aspens and wolfberries. The trees are arranged in the estimated order of frequency. Tilia Americana, L. Basswood. Common throughout the county, and especially throughout the heavy timber in the flat or undulating tracts of Bridgewater, Forest, Erin and Shieldsville. At Morristown it is extensively wrought into barrel-heads and common lumber. Ulmus Americana, L. (PI. Clayt.), Willd. American or white elm, also known as water elm. At Morristown this tree is extensively used by J. B. Hopkins, and by II. II Osterhout and com- pany, for the manufacture of "head lining" for flour barrels, this being the only place in the state where this industry is carried on. It is also wrought ihto common lumber. Quercus coccinea, Wang., var. tinctoria, Gray. Black oak. This is the usual oak. It is most abundant as small trees and shrubs; and in the high and rolling parts of Webster and Wheatland it is only found in this condition. Very large trees, however, are scattered numer- ously through the heavy timber everywhere. In Morristown and Warsaw townships it is consid- erably used for lumber. Quercus macrocarpa, Michx. Bur oak. In exposed places, and particularly on the edges of the timber bordering the prairie, this is very abundant. It seems to endure fire better than the black oak, perhaps due to its more corky bark, but it does not succeed so well as the black oak on exposed and bleak hills or on poor soils. It occasionally furnishes a log for lumber and is apt to be confounded witli the white oak, which is a much less common tree in the county. Acer dasycarpum, Ehr. Silver maple. A common tree, sometimes growing very large and furnishing lumber, but generally not more than ten inches in diameter so far as now seen in the county. It is common as second growth after the cutting of the original forest. Populus tremuloides, Michx. American aspen. Common on the outskirts of the timber, on exposed hillsides, as in Webster, and as second growth in all parts of the county; generally not exceeding ten inches in diameter. Acer saccharinum, Wang. Sugar maple. This tree exhibits magnificent proportions in some heavily wooded tracts, as in western Shieldsville and Erin, where the old forests have not been cut. It also sometimes starts up more numerous than any other tree as a second growth. It is common throughout the timbered portions of the county, and has been set for ornamental pur- poses in most of the prairie portions. It furnishes considerable quantities of syrup and sugar in llice county, and is sometimes found among the saw-logs at the mills at Morristowu. Ulmus fulva, Michx. Slippery elm, or red elm. This makes better lumber than the white elm, but it does not grow so large nor so stiaight. Fraxinus sanibucifolia, Lam. Black or water ash. Some very large trees are found in western Shieldsville. Juglanscinerea, L. Butternut. Ostrya Virginica, Willd. Ironwood. Prunus Americana, Marshall. Wild plum. Negundo aceroides, Moench. Box-elder. Not found in the heavy timber, but along streams and lakes. This makes a low-branched, rather small, irregular tree, and if it lives long it sustains 654 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Trees and shrubs. "a broad light-green mass of foliage supported generally by two or three, or more trunks from one root. It grows rapidly, has a dense wood, but is not durable. Carya amara, Nutt. Bitternut or hickory. Quercus alba, L. White oak. Furnishes a valuable and tough timber, and is occasionally cut for that purpose at Morristown. Populus monilifera, Ait. Cottonwood. Along the river bottoms, but not generally through the county. Carpinus Americana, Michx. Water beech. Fraxinus Americana, L. White ash. Used for lumber. Some large straight trees were seen in Shieldsviile. Prunus serotina, Ehr. Black cherry. Scattered through the heavy timber. Quercus rubra, L. Red oak. Acer rubrum, L. Red or swamp maple. Juglans nigra, L. Black walnut. Populus grandidentata, Michx. Large-toothed aspen. Celtis occidentals, L. Ilackberry. Pirus eoronaria, L. American crab-apple. Larix Americana, Michx. Tamarack. Shieldsviile and Cedar lake. Betula papyracea, Ait. Paper or canoe birch. Amelanchier Canadensis, Ton-, and Gray. Juneberry. Populus balsamifera, L., var. eandicans, Ait. Balm of Gilead. Pinus Strobus, L. White pine. Cornus paniculata, L'Her. Dogwood. Cornus'circinata, LSHer. Dogwood. • Coiylus Americana, Walt. Hazelnut. Rhus glabra, L. Smooth sumac. Prunus Pennsylvanica, L. Wild red cherry. Cratsegus Crus-galli, L. Thorn. Juniperus Sabina, -L., var. procumbens, Pursh. Savin. Lonicera grata, Ait. American woodbine. Vitis cordifolia, Michx. Grape. Ampelopsis quinquefolia, Michx. Virginia creeper. Alnus incaua, Willd. Speckled alder. Spiraea opulifolia, L. Nine-bark. Cornus stolonifera, Michx. Red-osier dogwood. Celastrus scandens, L. Climbing bitter-sweet. Rosa blanda, Ait. Rose. Rosa lucida, Ehr. Dwarf wild rose. Symphoricarpus occidentalis, R. Br. Wolfberry. Rubus villosus, Ait. High blackberry. Rubus strigosus, Michx. Red raspberry. Ceanothus Americanus, L. New Jersey tea. Amorpha f ruticosa, L. False indigo. THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. The rocks of the county range from the Shakopee limestone to the upper portion of the Trenton period, probably including the actual repre- sentatives of the Hudson River group, though the latter cannot be subdi- vided, nor more exactly parallelized with any of the formations of the New York nomenclature. They will be considered in descending order, as follows: 1. Trenton rocks, 2. St. Peter sandstone, 3. Shakopee limestone. RICE COUNTY. (555 Trenton rocks.] The rocks of the Trenton period possess some characters that have been ascribed to the Hudson River and Galena formations, where they appear in southwestern Goodhue county, and these undoubtedly extend northwest- wardly in Rice county, at least as far as to Cannon City, since the thickness of rock, referable to the Trenton period, at the latter place amounts to about a hundred and thirty feet. This is ascertained by aneroid measure- ments from the top of the St. Peter sandstone in the Cannon river valley west of Cannon City, combined with data learned from common wells at Cannon City which encounter limestone at the depth of about thirty feet. Nothing can be said of the lithology of these beds in Rice county, but the elevated prairie under which they lie includes Richland, Cannon City and Wheeling. These beds also probably extend with feathery edges into the elevated tracts in eastern Bridgewater and southwestern Northfield. The existence of a little lake at Cannon City is probably owing largely to the impervious shales of this formation; and the long bogs which accompany valleys of this part of the county are due to the same cause. The limestones of the Lower Trenton are well displayed in Rice county. They are abun- dantly exposed along the valley of the Cannon river, and along Prairie creek, where they are somewhat quarried. The thickness of these beds is about fifteen feet. They are overlain by a heavy stratum of green shale, as in counties farther southeast, and there is a thickness of from six to ten feet between them and the St. Peter sandstone. They embrace, along Prairie creek valley, a carbonaceous layer of a few inches which, without previous drying, will ignite from a common match and burn with a flame.* The Trenton also underlies the southern part of Warsaw, extending probably into the southeastern part of Morristown. In general the Lower Trenton limestone is but little affected with magnesia or alumina as impurities, in Rice county. It is compact, generally blue, and breaks sharply and somewhat conchoidally. Its bedding is in sheets convenient for quarrying, being about six or eight inches thick, and it is tolerably free from pyrites, though crystalline clusters of this are sometimes so frequent as to cause a rusty stain on the surface of the blocks prepared for building. As quarried at many places it is not blue, but has a faded ashen color, becoming also yellowish, but free from pyrites, due to long weathering and submergence by the waters of the glacial period. Rice county affords the usual fossils that characterize this geological horizon, viz: large orthoceratites, such as Endoccras magniventrum, II., several species of Strophomena, Orthis, and of Rhynchonella, as well as specimens of a large coiled cephalopod like Lituites undatux, Con. t At Faribault the strike of the Lower Trenton, on the west side of the Straight river, passes through the southern part of the city, producing its characteristic plateau. A Similar wide plateau is conspicuously brought out on the east side of the same river. On this stand the state asylums for the blind and for the imbecile. Its higlit above the sea is from 1080 to 1090 feet. At Mr. Doyle's quarry on the west side of the river, the top of the limerock is about 1080 feet. The rock here is all faded to an ashen or drab color, both by the oxidation of the contained pyrite, and by the further oxidation and hydration of the iron-protoxide of the original blue color. Thus the aluminous portions become more finely cemented than in the blue rock as seen at Mr. Cromer's quarry, though the bedding is split and broken more by the weathering. This faded rock is more *This carbonaceous l:iyer extends eastward into Goodhue comity. |Of the last a .specimen is to he seen in the collections of Carleton college, and through the favor of Prof. L. B. Sperry a photographic copy has been furnished the survey. It will be described in the volume devoted to the paheon- tology of the state. (;:,(-, THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [St. Peter sandstone. durable than the blue, but is not so advantageously quarried in blocks of uniform thickness and size. Farther southwest from Faribault, across the creek that enters the Cannon river from the south near the fair ground, the Trenton evidently exists. This is evinced by the contour and abruptness of the bluffs. The southern part of Warsaw and probably of Morristown, are thus underlain by the Trenton. The Trenton has been quarried in the bank of the river below the Walcott mill, from six to ten feet above the water. Above the dam this limerock formerly appeared in the bed of the river, but it is now covered by the water of the dam, the water-power being due to the passing of the river over this rock-horizon, the same as at the falls of St. Anthony. Stone from below the dam was used in the bridge piers, and in the building of the dam. Quarries are owned by Henry Hall and Gale Sexton. There is a small area of the Lower Trenton on the west side of the Cannon river in sees. 33 .and 34, Bridgewater; and also in sec. 35, immediately west of St. Olaf 's college, near Northfield. The St. Peter sandstone begins to be seen in the banks of the Straight river about four miles north of the Steele county line, and at Faribault it reaches a hight above the river of eighty feet according to the following Section at Faribaull in the right bank of the Cannon river. 1. Drift (water deposited) covering occasional exposures of the Trenton lime- stone, and one or more beds of green shale 26 ft, 4 in. 2. Shaly bedded St. Peter sandstone 3ft. 6J in. 3. Massive St. Peter sandstone 76 ft. 7J in. Total 106 ft. 6 in. The St. Peter sandstone, having a thickness altogether of about 115 feet, rises about 110 feet above the river, west of Cannon City. It is ex- posed at the Cannon Valley roller mill, S. E. J sec. 8, Cannon City, in a per- pendicular wall, in the west bluff of a conical isolated hill, and affords there a good opportunity to measure its thickness, since the river must be run- ning very near the top of the Shakopee limestone. The top of this hill, though covered sparsely with a pebbly loam, is strown with bits of limerock due to the demolition of the Trenton in situ. Fossils in the St. Ptter. The sandrock here is pitted with circular holes, such as have been seen in a number of places in the state.* They are brought to view distinctly in the weathered and hardened surfaces, since the homogeneous sand on fresh fractures seems to constitute the entire rock, and no trace of these fossils is visible to the eye. They appear at this place on a lower bench, where the rock is hardened and reddened. They always run perpendicular, and can be traced to the deptli of two and- a half feet by the little furrows they cause on the face of the rock after the breaking and sliding down of masses of the bluff. This structure was first seen in this sandrock at the base of Dayton's bluff at St. Paul, and was ascribed to Cretaceous lithodomous shells, but it is more likely to be due to some marine vegetable, or to worm-burrowing, of Cam- brian age. By examining areas that have suffered different degrees of exposure, there can be traced a connection from the actually empty porous openings, through different degrees of ex- posure and induration, including a simple annular spottedness, to an innate internal structure in the mass of the rock itself. It would be the same as if a multitude of horse-tail rushes, or others, were growing in the bottom of the sea when the sand was accumulating, and became gradually buried under the sand, and then were imprisoned and fossilized, their presence only being evinced 'They are conspicuous at Castle Rock, in Dakota county. KICK COUNTY. Shnkopce limestone.] nr>w by the cementation of the sand-grains about their exterior, or by a looseness of the same in their interior, thus not only forming a rude cast of each stem within the rock but also providing for the more rapid erosion and removal of the grains that may have reached within their cases. The spots are only seen on upper surfaces, and if they be not due to imprisoned rushes or stems of some sort, or to worm- burro wing, they are at present inexplicable. They are generally from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in dialneter. The Cannon river enters on the Shakopee, having cut through the St. Peter, in sec. 4, Cannon City. This sandstone is also abundantly exposed in the valley of Prairie creek, in a great many places. In the eastern part of Northlield it constitutes the isolated mound-like hills that rise above the lower prairie to the upland, marking the limit of the overlying Trenton limestone. The outrunning edge of the St. Peter sandstone is not visible in the drift-covered westef n portion of the county, its most westerly exposures being a perpendicular bluff in the west bank of Heath creek, S. E. } sec. 34, P.ridgewater, and an isolated mound facing the river on the S. E. } sec. 26, Wells. This sandstone undoubtedly exists in considerable areas in that portion of Rice county, extending through Le Sueur county to the Minnesota valley, but with these exceptions not a single exposure of it has been recorded. In Wheatland and Webster it is also highly probable that the Trenton limestone caps the St. Peter sandstone in some of the hills that diversify those townships, since it is known to occur in such hills a few miles farther north in Dakota county, but as this is wholly conjectural, the plate of the county represents only drift in those townships. The Shakopee, limestone. This formation is exhibited at Northfielcl. It affords a thickness of about thirty-five feet in Rice county, its chief outcrops being in the Cannon valley between Dundas and the Dakota county line. At Dundas the depot of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway is twenty-two feet above the top of the Shakopee, and the Cannon Valley depot is about level with its upper surface. At the north county line the Iowa and Minnesota division of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul rail- way is ten feet above the top of the Shakopee, and at Northfield it is fifteen feet lower than its upper surface. A the county line the Cannon Valley railway is twenty-five feet below the top of the Shakopee and at Northfield it is about twenty feet. This formation is that which underlies immedi- ately the drift in most of that part of the county west of the Cannon valley, but no outcrops of it are known there. At Northfield it is seen in the streets of the city, and is excavated for cellars and foundations for buildings. It is frequently seen along the "river road" below Northfield on the west side of the river, where it has been wrought for quicklime. The lithology of the Shakopee at Northfield is variable, resembling that seen at its typical and original locality. The limestone is impure, and passes to a shaly magnesian rock. Some of it is in beds of three or of two inches, and some is coarse and vesicular, and in heavy beds. In the midst of the limestone are layers of white sand from three to six inches in thickness, two of them embraced in the interval of fifteen feet. One of these pinches out entirely in a distance of twenty feet, letting the limerock above lie on that below, and the other becomes mingled with lumps and lenticular masses of green shale. In other places, as at Tramm's limekiln, some of the limestone layers embrace, along with rounded grains of quartz sand, some pieces of, apparently, weathered chert, and indistinct remains of molluscs, probably of the same species as seen in the Shakopee at Cannon Falls, in Goodhue county. 42 658 TIIE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. ["Red till. The drift. Till. In the eastern part of the county, particularly in the northeastern, the unmodified drift is red or copper-colored, and in the rest of the county it is gray or bluish. In the eastern part of the county the un- modified drift, or till, is not abundantly exposed, but is covered by a loam of later date, and its character seems to blend rather more readily with the loam than does that of the gray till. There is also an abundant dissemina- tion of gravel derived from the gray till throughout the valleys in the north- eastern part of the county. This gravel occupies the immediate surface in some instances, only covered by a soil, but in others it is covered by a copi- ous loam which often is rather sandy. This loam is sometimes ten or more feet in thickness, and frequently is seen to be somewhat pebbly and appa- rently to become mingled gradually with the upper portion of the under- lying till, without the distinct intervention of the gray gravel. The most westerly point at which this red till has been recognized is at the roadside along the west side of section 9 in Cannon City, where it has been found to contain pieces of native copper. It here presents its usual facies, viz., red- dish color, rather sandy composition, numerous red and green pebbles and stones of igneous origin and some red quartz-porphyry, referable to the copper-bearing series of the northeastern part of the state, with rarely a boulder or stone of gray granite, and more rarely still a piece of the foreign drift-limestone. At this place the red till lies directly on the St. Peter sandstone, but it is not everywhere present. It occupies, rather, the depres- sions in the eroded upper surface of the St. Peter, and is covered by a gray gravel which in numerous instances is itself deposited directly on the sand- stone. Along the northwest quarter of sec. 9, Cannon City, the red till rises higher and constitutes an upper timbered flat, rising about 1075 feet above the sea. Here it lies on the Trenton limestone, and the bench which it apparently produces, in passing westward to the river, is sixty feet in hight. About half a mile still further west, lying on the St. Peter sand- stone, is the great kame, or horse-back, as it is popularly known, running through the bottoms of the Cannon river, and consisting wholly of gray gravel. This red till seems to be the oldest part of the drift, and it is quite probable that remnants of it will be found still farther west in sheltered depressions in the St. Peter sandstone. Indeed, in the northeast part of sec. 5, the road that ascends the hill northward from Carr's crossing, passes RICE COUNTY. 659 Blue till.] over red till which here lies on the St. Peter and constitutes a flat exposure on which the kune runs, at considerable elevation above the rest of its course in sees. 8 and 5. Toward the west this quickly changes to blue till, and toward the east it seems to be overlain by blue till. The gray, or blue, till which covers the most of the county, is easily distinguished, in general, from the foregoing. It has uniformly bits of Cretaceous shale, often known as slate, disseminated through it. It has fewer stones and pebbles thsin the red till, and is more impervious to water. Its contained stones are predominatingly granitoid, but sometimes dark with hornblende. Among the boulders, as gathered and piled by the farm- ers by the roadsides, on areas of the blue till, will often be seen masses of foreign, nearly white, limestone. These are generally rounded, and weath- ered from long exposure on the surface so as not to show any glacial mark- ings. This gray till also is covered, in the southeastern and southern portions of the county by a loam, sometimes pebbly, the exact origin and relations of which to the rest of the drift cannot be stated. There are also tracts in the timbered district, north and west of the Cannon river, where this blue till is covered by a thickness of six to ten feet of pebbly loam, though in most of that portion of the county the only covering the blue till has seems to be the soil, formed by a change in the till itself. This yellow- ish loam in the valley of Straight river, between Faribault and the mouth of Fall creek, is enormously developed. It there has exposed sections that measure thirty feet perpendicular, and it is apparently as much thicker in most of section 33, Cannon City. In some places here this clay is without pebbles, and might be compared to the "joint clay", so called, of Rock county.* In nearly all exposures it holds a variety of pebbles, with occa- sional stones, and it seems to pass into the stony till by gradual changes. The blue till lies under the soil, except when the yellowish loam inter- venes, in the southeastern and southern parts of the county, on both sides of the Straight river. The thickness of the gray till has been found at several places to exceed one hundred feet, but as these cases were in the digging of wells and the work ceased because of finding water, it is prob- able that the bottoms of these wells were near the bottom of the blue till, where water is generally obtained. The average thickness of the till for Rice would probably amount to about one hundred feet. In the high prai- *See pastes 544 and SSI. (',(',() THE GEOLOGY OP MINNESOTA. I [lh:c till and moraim-s. ries of Richland and Wheeling the elevation is due mainly to the under- lying Hudson River and Trenton rocks which probably exist in their full thickness, although there is still a great thickness of blue till in these townships, the surface being smooth or broadly undulating. Moraines and morainic belt*. The chief morainic accumulation in the county appears in the town- ship of Webster and in the northwestern part of Forest. The surface here is very rough, generally exhibiting conspicuous ridges that have an approxi- mate north and south direction, rising from 75 to 125 feet above the valleys, one of the highest points observed being in sec. 16, which is approximately 1150 feet above the sea. These ridges, and all the drift in the township, consist essentially of blue till, with disseminated Cretaceous debris. Yet, east of the hilly region, in some places on the Dodd road, considerable gravel deposits are seen, the result of drainage from the ice at the same time that it was bringing forward the drift itself. Toward the west further while the surface is rolling and perhaps is to be considered as included in the same general moraine, extending across the township of Wheatland, the hills rise only from fifty to seventy-five feet above the numerous lakes and long peat marshes. The general direction of this very rough portion of the county is a little south of southwest, occupying the eastern part of Erin, the whole of Shieldsville, and the western two-thirds of Morristown, leaving the county on the south side of lake Sakata. In Shieldsville, and in western Erin, where this high rolling surface attains apparently its greatest avenigo elevation, the highest hills become, rather, elevated plateaux, and the roughness of the surface pertains to their margins and lies somewhat lower than these higher flats. This flatness is due either to the existence of the Trenton formation, or to the lack of copious drainage at the time of depo- sition of the original till sheet. The southwest part of Morristown is very rough, with 75-80 feet between the hills and valleys, the higher points being 1150 to 1175 feet above the sea. Both toward the east and west from this rolling tract the contour of the immediate surface is less rolling or becomes simply undulating, and in some places might be denominated flat. Such flat tracts are found in the northeastern part of Forest, including the western part of Uridgewater. The northern and central parts of Wells are undulating, but the northeastern is broken again with other moraiuic surfaces. RICE COUNTY. (;(51 Moraines.] There is a second morainic belt, less distinctly continuous, lying east of that just described. Toward the north it begins imperceptibly, at least it is now impossible to define it. It does not appear distinctly in north- western Bridgewater, although in northwestern Greenvale, Dakota county it is more plainly marked. There is a tract of country, in sees. 5, 6 and 8, Bridgewater, that rises about fifty feet in an undulating manner, above the average hight surrounding it, which perhaps should be placed in this moraine. But in the southern part of Bridgewater, especially on the west side of the Cannon river, there is a notable accumulation of hilly blue till rising 1120 feet above the sea about the center of sec. 33. This range extends toward the southwest through the west part of Cannon City and the east part of Wells, where it lies between the present Cannon river and an older channel lying further west. Just north of the junction of the Cannon and Straight rivers this moraine passes to the east side of the Can- non and covers a belt about two miles wide on the east side of that river. But at the great bend of the Straight river in sec. 5, Walcott, it crosses again to the west side, and thence continues S. S. W. to the southern boundary of the county. This morainic belt also consists of blue till, but its changes of outline are less abrupt than in the more westerly belt. It is also less broad, being generally about two miles in width. Its highest points are 1150 and 1200 feet above the sea, and from these elevations the surface slopes rather smoothly to 1050 and 1100 feet above the sea. Where this moraine comes in contact with the river, as in the valley of Fall creek, the drift consists very largely of a yelloAV loam, which, containing some stones and many pebbles, may be a modified condition of the till, as acted on by the waters of the river at the time of its deposition. This loam or yellow clay seems to be the same as that which spreads wider and covers more thinly the general sheet of till both east and west of the river, and in both cases it seems to graduate into the till itself. There is another conspicuously rolling tract, entering the county from the south on the east side of Straight river, extending east from the river four miles. This continues along the east side of the Straight river through Walcott township. In Cannon City township it unites with the moraine already described, and further north its identity, separate from that moraine, can not be traced, it consists of gravelly, gray till, bearing granitic boulders and drift limestone. In north- eastern Walcott some of the knolls of this rolling belt are from 75 to 100 feet high, above the. val- leys, and where it apparently blends with the moraine already described, in Cannon City, north- east of Faribault, the elevations are from 100 to 150 feet above the valleys. This rolling tract, in that portion of Walcott east of the river, does not produce any elevation above the adjacent prai- 662 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Moraines and gravel. tie country lying next east. It is. on the contrary, rather lower than the prairie upland, and on approaching it from the east the country seems simply to be affected by a generally undulating and rolling timbered descent to the river valley. In delineating the morainic belts through Steele county, the outer one is shown to be sud- denly deflected toward the east at a point about two miles south of Aurora station, and to extend in a broad curve through the eastern portion of that county, becoming continuous with this rolling tract in southeastern Walcott, in Rice county. If, instead of this sudden deflection toward the east, the outer moraine could have been traced through Somerset and, by way of Owatonna, into the northeastern part of Deerfleld, it would then have maintained more nearly its normal course, and would also have articulated perhaps more completely, upon the outer morainic belt that crosses Rice county. It would also afford the usual explanation for the gravel terrace that accompanies the Straight river in Steele county, as seen at Medford. But it seems very reasonable and very probable that the line of accumulation should, at favorable places, be double, even during the same general period of accumulation ; and that the action of the waters of the upper portion of the Straight river was such as to aid such apparent duplication. The effect of this moraine on the Straight river, where it crosses it in the northern part of Walcott township, was to dam it up, during the existence of the ice, producing a lake covering those portions of Walcott and Medford townships that lie below about 1150 feet. This lake had its outlet through Walcott township into the north branch of the Zumbro river. This fact requires the moraine at this time in Walcott, on the west side of the Straight river instead of on the east ; and yet it is probable that at a slightly earlier period of time, it was heaped up farther east as represented on the map of Steele county. Gravel and gravel terraces. The Cannon valley, through its whole course in Kice county, after entering it from Le Sueur county, is accompanied by abundant gravel deposits. The Prairie creek valley, in Northfield town- ship, is also accompanied with abundant gravel. The same is true, but to much less extent, of the Straight river south of Faribault, and of the north branch of the Zumbro. Everywhere this gravel is of a gray color, and was derived from the blue till by drainage and wash from the ice-fields that spread over the most of the county in some portion of the glacial epoch. At the east end of Cannon lake the gravel of the beach is about one half limestone. In no place in the county has a red gravel been seen, such as appears in some places in Dakota county, referable to the red till. Straight river terraces, it these gravel deposits be described in the order of their age, prob- ably those of the Straight valley would come first. They lie highest and farthest south. They were deposited at the time of the last glacial epoch when the Straight river was dammed up by glacier ice and morainic accumulations a few miles south of Faribault, and north of Walcott 's mill, so as to find an outlet to the Mississippi at a much higher level than it now has. In the still earlier part of the same period these waters, still closer confined by a greater extension of the ice, probably had a feeble, interrupted discharge southward through the old channels, though nar- row and shallow, that cross the divide in Steele and Freeborn counties, reaching the Cedar or the Shell Rock river. But at the time of the most rapid accumulation of the gravel as it appears in Rice county along the Straight river, the water of that valley had its discharge through the north branch of the Zumbro eastward, through the broad valley that crosses Hichland, now mainly occu- pied by a conspicuous grassy marsh that gives rise to the north branch of the Zumbro. These gravel deposits are found southward from the northeast quarter of sec. 17, Walcott, on the west side of the river, to the south county line, and to Medford, at least, in Steele county, where the flat terrace on the east side of the river, on which the village is built, consists of gravel, having an elevation of 1008 feet above the sea. This terrace, which begins first distinctly near Walcott's mill, seems to be only an alluvial flat subject to overflow by the present river, bounded on the west RICE COUNTY. 6(53 River terraces.] by a line of abrupt drift bluffs that rise at once about 60 feet. It is here plainly underlain by the Lower Trenton limestone, six to ten feet above the river, but toward the south it slowly ascends and exhibits its gravelly composition. At Mud creek, which enters the river from the west in sec. 21, the same plain occupies a broad sweep up that valley, and is about 25 feet above the Straight river. The underlying Trenton and green shales, which at first make this terrace very wet, sustaining a copious flow of water in Mud creek, are covered with only a few feet of gravel and soil. Sometimes also the gray till is found to extend under the gravel of the terrace. At Medford the immediate drift bluffs are from fifty to seventy-five feet higher than the terrace, and the terrace is thirty feet above the river. On the east side of the river the terrace extends from Medford at least to the county line northward, and probably about a mile into llice county. The connection which is presumed to exist between this gravel-terrace and the gravel seen in sec- tions 23, 14 and 1 1 , Walcott, where the old outlet of the Straight river begins, has not been traced. The outlet itself, now, in section 14, probably somewhat silted up, is about 1150 feet above the sea, the old river banks rising abruptly on either side about fifty feet, and the country farther back from twenty-five to fifty feet more. The bluffs are continuous from the west-drained marsh to the east-drained, the actual divide being imperceptible and in the marsh in sec. 23, which is drained in both directions. The narrowest place in the marsh is where the road crosses, between sections 13 and 14, and it is here about a third of a mile across, the flow of water here being toward the east. There is a rough and rolling high, timbered, surface toward the west and north, but smooth and treeless toward the east and south. There is a general low tract through sections 10 and 11. Wells are shallow and enter gravel and quicksand. The low knolls have a remarkable amount of northern limestone. There is a lower terrace, abutting on the St. Peter sandstone, running from Faribault south along the west side of Straight river. This terrace consists of yellow, pebbly clay, sometimes containing boulders, and rises from 25 to 30 feet above the Faribault plain when it first com- mences, but seems to rather fade and mingle, upwardly, with the Trenton flat above, over which is also spread a yellow, pebbly clay. This appears in ascending the river. This terrace is also visible in the Cannon valley, where the two streams combine, and its outline is visible in the val- ley of the creek that joins the Cannon near the fair-ground. Its line of strike passes through the Maple-Lawn cemetery, while the Catholic cemetery is higher, and on the undulating ascent over the St. Peter sandstone. Cannon river terraces. As already noted, the Cannon valley is a remark- able one. Some of its remarkable features are exhibited in Rice county, and some of them only in Dakota county. It once conveyed the waters of the Minnesota river across Rice and Dakota counties to the Mississippi valley.* The lake that at first was formed by the damming up of the Minnesota by the ice of the glacial epoch has been described by Mr. Upham in the report on Faribault county. At a certain time during the period of its existence that lake had its discharge through the Cannon valley. Those waters must have entered the county, judging from the hight of the upper terrace-flat, at an elevation of about 1075 feet above the ocean. As the ice withdrew the lake was lowered by finding lower and lower avenues of dis- charge, some of which will be described in the report on Dakota county, till by the retreat of the ice-margin from the valley entirely, it was wholly drained, and the river assumed its present course to the Mississippi. *8cc page 461, foot-note ; also page 642. |;C,4 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. The river from its source passes through a morainic tract extending over the eastern part of Le Sueur county and into Rice county, ou both sides, as far as the center of Morristowu town- ship, and in this portion of its course its terraces are less distinct. The highest terrace is not well deiined continuously, even after passing Morristown, but the lower is very marked and persistent. The following are the only points in Rice county at which the upper terrace deposits of gravel, probably pertaining to the earlier portion of the time of the eastward outflow of the Minnesota river, have been noticed. On sec. 24, Morristown, and thence extending toward Warsaw, this upper terrace exhibits an undulating upper outline, consisting of gravel, and reaches a higlit of about sixty feet above Cannon lake. This terrace-like outline blends upward with the till, at least superficially, which at once ascends forty feet still higher and stretches off southward indefi- nitely as a smooth prairie. This till is covered with a copious yellow loam (or clay). West of Morristown, in sees. 20 and 21, the railroad enters an old valley apparently cut through the depos- its of this upper terrace,' leaving between it and the river (which lies farther north) an island which rises now about 105 feet. It is undulating, and apparently contains much till as well as gravel. The highest point on the railroad is in the south part of sec. l!0, where the grade is 1056 feet above the sea, and the natural surface is 1067. The hill north of the Polar Star mill, S. E. J of sec. 26, Wells, near the Cannon river, rises to 1095 feet, but consists mostly of St. Peter sand- stone, capped with about twenty feet of yellow loam, semi-stratified. The top of the limerock at Doyle's quarry, on the west side of Straight river, sec. 81, Faribault, is 1080 feet above the sea. This quarry is covered by fifteen feet of fine mortar-sand, overlain by four or five feet of stony and pebbly loam. The rock is changed in color and water-worn. There is a terraced projection of high land jutting northward in section 27, Bridgewater, lying between the present valley of the Cannon and the old valley passing through sec. 28. The uppermost flat, which is approximately 1060 feet above the sea, is probably due to the action of the Cannon river when its waters flowed nearly at that hight. At Northfield the highest gravel deposits seem to be about 980 feet above the sea, but the site of the city is an undulating, ascending, terrace-like plateau, in which the strike of the Shakopee limestone, as cut by the Cannon river, remnants of the St. Peter sandstone, and the gravel deposits of the ice-period, though elsewhere exhibiting two distinct terraces, are all concerned as causes. The highest part of this plain, in the southeastern suburbs, rises fifty feet above the Milwaukee depot. The west side of the valley is similar to the east, rising by an undulating plain to sixty feet above the Milwaukee depot, where there is a rather more flat and terrace-like expanse. This is 975 feet above the sea, and wells here enter gravel. Beyond this, toward St. Olaf college, there is a further abrupt ascent to 125 feet above the same depot, or 1040 feet above the sea, passing over the St. Peter saudrock. Back of St. Olaf college, on the rein- nunt of the Trenton limestone there quarried, at 1063 feet above the sea, the rock is simply over- lain by a yellow loam four feet thick. This isolated area of the Trenton limestone is remarkable for having no signs of foreign drift strewn over it. The Trenton is simply covered with a spread ing of yellow loam, varying to black, making a red brick. The rock itself is rotted and yellow with age and exposure, and only five feet thick, 'and water-worn on the upper surface. There is some drift visible on the St. Peter slope surrounding this plateau, appearing mainly as boulders of granite, but the great blue moraine must have passed to the west of this point. The water- worn condition of this Trenton limestone, which rises higher than the surrounding country toward the north and northwest, indicates that at some time during the flood-stage of the Cannon river, its waters spread widely over Bridgewater and Greenvale in Dakota county, and eastward over much of Northfield, forming rather a lake than a river; but a lake which though slowly flowing eastward, was annually frozen over in the winter. Ice thus annually formed would easily remove any boulders that may have once lain on the St.. Olaf plateau, since the waters probably did not rise much above that level, and would have congealed about them. On the movement of the ice in the spring they would be carried away, and be dropped at lower levels. These highest water-signs in the Cannon valley are doubtless much more numerous than here enumerated, but as these are the only definite field-observations that have been made respect- ing them, the outline of this terrace is not attempted on the plate representing Rice county. These gravel deposits and terraced forms in the bluffs of the river, between Morristown and Northfield require an elevation of at least 1066 feet for the surface of the river at Northfield. As there would ba some slope northward, the same water surface would necessarily be at least 1070 feet at the Le Sueur county line. The gravel which is spread over the Trenton plateau at Doyle's RICE COUNTY. (;(J5 Cannon river terraces.] quarry, and southwestward from there, having an elevation of 1090 feet above the sea, may have been deposited by the Straight river, as already mentioned, or by direct drainage from the wast- ing surface of the ice at the time of accumulation of the moraine in Walcott township. The luircr terrace, that on which the city of Faribault stands, is much more constant and conspicuous. At Faribault its elevation is 1002 feet, and forty-three feet above the river. At Warsaw it is 1007, and thirty-four feet above the river. At Morristown it is 1008, and about fourteen feet above the river. Below Faribault there are conspicuous morainic accumu- lations of gray till accompanied with considerable gray gravel that rise in the midst of this gravel terrace on the west side of the river; and on the east side it is quite narrow or entirely wanting. Through a valley in this rolling till area the Milwaukee road passes northward, after leaving the gravel plain at Faribault, the highest part of which valley has a natural surface 1047 feet above the sea, though the till itself rises in many places above 1 100 feet. The Cannon valley railroad also follows a low spot through this moraine. Both roads re-appear on the gravel terrace, the former in sec. 13, Wells, and the latter in sec. 8, Cannon City, where it is approxi- mately 975 feet above the sea. Again on sees. 33 and 27, Bridgewater, this plain is separated from the present river channel by extensive accumula- tions of till, whose hight, however, is not wholly due to an increase of the drift, but partly to the preservation of the St. Peter sandstone and the Trenton limestone. At a mile above the mouth of Wolf creek the river re-enters its old valley, and is skirted by the deposits of this terrace espe- cially on the east side of the river, between Dundas and Northn'eld. The strike of the Shakopee, with its boggy bench, is introduced conspicuously at and below Dundas, disturbing the course of this gravel terrace, and introducing a lower terrace on each side, between which latter the river continues to the county line. At Dundas the real valley is about two miles wide, with gravel flats on both sides. Gravel is spread over the lower prairies, at about an elevation of 950 feet, in the northeastern part of Xorthfleld, tributary to this same terrace in Dakota county, and especially over the "Stan- ton flat" in northwestern Goodhue county. It is probable, however, that some part of this gravel reached the Cannon valley by way of the Prairie creek, at the time of the morainic accumulation between Faribault and 'Jannon City. The Bridijcirah-r kunii'. The most important phenomenon of the drift in Rice county is the kame in Bridgewater and Cannon City townships. It can be traced, with unimportant interruptions, from the N. W. $ of the 666 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. I Bridgewater kame. N. W. i of sec. 21, Bridgewater, to the N. W. J of sec. 17, Cannon City, on the west side of the river, a distance of five and a half miles. It crosses the river twice, once in the N. W. ^ of sec. 4, and once in the E. A of sec. 8. It consists of gray gravel, with some larger stones, piled in a sharp ridge, about as steeply as such materials will lie. It is popularly known as a "horse-back."' It shows where the river ran during some portion of the ice-age, while the ice itself was present as a glacier, and extended westward and northwestward indefinitely. This ridge rises conspicuously, first, on sec. 21, Bridgewater, not far from Wolf creek, on John Cow- den's farm; crossing the land of Benj. Tupper, in the direction S. 25° W. (mag.), it is interrupted for about twenty rods. The country through which it passes is flat or slightly undulating. It rises again on the farm of Marshall Gates, and has about the same direction. It crosses the railroad near the southeast corner of section 20, and the north and south highway east of the railroad, and the east and west high way [within a few rods of that. It has several short gaps then, but can be traced nearly to the Cannon river a little below Carr's crossing, on the N. W. J of sec. 4, Cannon City, where it is very prominent. It re-appears in the S. E. J of sec. 5, in the bottomlands of the river, but on the opposite side. This flat is seventy-live feet lower than the fiat on which it lies in section 33. It is here lying on the Shakopee limestone, with occasional knobs of the St. 1'eter rising so as to be visible (one of them being visible under the gravel at the end of the kame where it is cut by the river in section 8), but in section 33, at its most eastern turn , it lies on a red till, though afterward, where it enters section 32. it lies apparently on a gray till, if not directly on the underlying Shakopee. On the N. J of N. E. J of sec. 8, Cannon City, where it crosses the land of Mr. Peter LeClaire Hall, its upper outline is broken by rather abrupt changes. It continues in the bottomlands (or flood-plain), the strike of the St. Peter passing under it just where it reaches the river and considerably increasing its elevation. It here measures, by aneroid, 92 feet in hight. The flood-plain is about 940 feet above the sea (8 feet above the river), and the kame rises to 1032. The red till, and loam, about one eighth mile farther east, here rise in a timbered bluff in which the lower Trenton limestone is probably included, to 1075 feet. Where the kame ceases, on the west side of the river in section 8, the descent is as steep, to the very water, as on either side of the kame itself. The direction of the kame at this point would cause it to be expected on the west side of the river in the lowest part of the old channel in the northwest part of section 17. Here are found, actually, two ridges, but of less definite characters, and neither of them can be affirmed to be the extension of the kame, since they seem to blend with the generally bluffy till area which here lies between the Milwaukee railroad and the river. One of these lies on each side of the north and south highway (likewise of the Cannon valley railroad). That on the east side, though capped and flanked with gravel, at a hight above the lower gravel terrace, yet has a basis of St. Peter sandrock and red till with northeastern boulders. Its length is about an eighth of a mile. Further east and south the land soon rises into a rough moraine. Toward the west the surface also rises irregularly. though some what in the semblance of a ridge at first, on the west side of which runs a little creek northward Fie;. 52. THE BIUDGEWATEK KAME. MCE COUNTY. BridgewaUr kame.] This kame, the course of which has been described, consists entirely of gray gravel. It generally has not a sudden depression immediately along- side, in the average level of the country, but the kame rises abruptly from* the general flat, the angle being from 25° to 35° from the horizon. Yet, although there is not a sudden depression where it lies, there is perceptible, in some cases, a broad, basin-shaped valley through the lowest parts of which it passes. This broad, smooth valley is from a hundred to a hundred and twenty rods in width. Such can be seen in sec. 21, Bridgewater. The hight of the ridge is usually from thirty to forty feet, with a smooth exterior; but near the school-house, in the west part of sec. 33, Bridgewater, its hight is from seventy-five to eighty feet, and in other places it has an average hight of fifty feet. The accompanying sketch-map of its course, fig. 52, was prepared with the assistance of Mr. W. H. Emery. Conclusions respecting the Bridgewater kame. Some important and neces- sary conclusions result from the existence and nature of this kame. 1. As it contains only gray gravel it must have been derived from the gray, or northwestern till sheet. 2. Its composition being gravel, water-worn, it must have been de- posited by water. 3. As it rises and falls, both on its upper and its lower surface, accord- ing to the surface on which it lies, it cannot have been caused by beach- action, and no other natural agent can be appealed to than a river in rapid flow. 4. The supply of the material of which it consists must have been rapid and long-continued; hence the glacier ice must have been present. 5. As a line of rolling morainic accumulations, the outer morainic belt of the county, here occupies in general the valley of the Cannon river from Faribault to sec. 33, Bridgewater, the kame must have been accumulated during that prolonged stationary stage of the ice. 6. As the ice would at that time have covered and enclosed the Cannon valley above Bridgewater, and also the Minnesota valley, the water con- cerned in its formation must have been that of the Straight river only. Again, 7. As the first outflow of the Minnesota through the Cannon valley was at an elevation of about 1075 feet, forming at Northfield rather a broad, 60S THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Bridge water kame. lake-like river, than a narrow rapid river required for this kame, it could not have been produced at the date when the Cannon first received the Minnesota; and again, 8. It could not have been produced by the Cannon when the Minne- sota acquired its lower passage to the Cannon, forming its lower gravel terrace, since at that time the ice would have been withdrawn from the region in which it lies. 9. It must, hence, have been produced by the waters of the Straight river alone. 10. As there is evidence of the obstruction of the Straight river by the glacier south of Faribault, causing the discharge of the Straight river through the north branch of the Zumbro, it must have been produced at a later date, when the ice had shrunken so as to allow of the drainage of the Straight river toward the north. 11. Hence the lake that covered the upper portions of the Straight river valley was lowered to the level of the top of the ice. 12. The river flowed over the margin of the glacier, and presumably at first on its very surface. 13. As the river received the gravel from the glacier, the gravel must have been at the same level, or above it. 14. As the gravel is the result of washing of the till and the removal of the clay, the till itself must have been as high or higher than the surface of the river. 15. The till was therefore on the surface of the ice. 16. The kame was not formed by a sub-glacial stream butjjy an epi- glacial stream. This results from the foregoing conclusions, and also from the fact that the bottom of the kame actually rises about 75 feet at the point where it leaves the flood-plain on sec. 5, and ascends to the S.W. | of sec. 33, where it lies on red till, the latter point being about three-quarters of a mile north of the former. 17. The ice bearing the gray till was projected eastward over the pre- existing sheet of red till, without entirely disrupting and removing the red till, at least where the red till lies on the St. Peter sandstone. At higher levels, over the Trenton limestone in sec. 33, Bridgewater, the red till is not found between the gray till and the rock. RICE COUNTY. (;(-,<, Kame. Minerals from the drift.] 18. The Straight river continued to flow about where the kame lies, after the withdrawal of the ice. 19. When the upper Cannon valley was freed from the glacier, and it received also the waters of the Minnesota, the volume of the river was so great that it not only covered the kame itself but spread eastward over the St. Peter sandstone. 20. As the stony till lately deposited by the glacier was less easily excavated than the St. Peter sandrock, gradually the greater volume of the river ran over the strike of that sandrock; and this may have taken place while only the Straight river occupied the valley, and perhaps when the ice still existed in the interval between the old valley and the new one. 21. Thus the river on the shrinkage again of the Cannon to its present size, or on the withdrawal of the ice, was permanently diverted from its course through or over the till deposits, marked by the present position of the kame in sees. 33, 32, 29 and 21, and remained in the narrower, but deeper, newly excavated gorge through which it flows from Carr's crossing to where it returns to its old valley in the north part of sec. 27. 22. A similar encroachment of the river on the St. Peter sandrock is witnessed in sec. 19, in the north part of Paribault, where also the river has abandoned its old valley, abundantly strewn with gravel, extending through sees. 23, 13, and the west half of sec. 7, and has followed a recently excavated narrow gorge through the St. Peter sandrock, a distance of about two miles, uniting again with the gravel-strewn wide valley just below the Cannon valley roller mill, S. E. cor. of sec. 8. 23. After the formation of this kame there was no re-advance of the ice over the same area. Minerals from the drift. Several pieces of native copper were found near the Cannon Valley roller mill. S. E. } of sec. 8, Cannon City, some in excavating for the foundation of the mill, and others along the road between sees. 8 and 0. They are from the red till which generally is there found lying in the eroded depressions of the St. Peter sandstone. Several pieces of silicifled wood have been found at Northfleld. These evidently are refer- able to the gravel and till of the gray drift derived from the northwestward. Among the specimens obtained from the drift, now in the collections of Carleton college, Prof. Sperry has preserved a boulder of very coarse porphyry. The crystals are apparently of albite, in a compact greenish diabase. They are about 1 \ inches in length, the corners and edges somewhat rounded off, making the rock resemble a conglomerate. In the same collection of drift-stones are several pieces, about six inches long, of the felsite of the Great Palisades, at lake Superior, with the disseminated crystals of quartz and translucent feldspar. Small specimens of asbestus have been brought twice to Carleton college, once said to have THK GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Wells. come from near Shieldsville, and once from near Faribault. It is in silky threads, that are fine and from a vein in some rock. This vein is 2J inches wide, the threads running transverse to the direction of the vein, and presenting a faulted structure near the middle of the vein. None of the rock is preserved in the samples seen, but as both specimens have the same faulted structure they probably came from the same vein, if not from the same boulder. The grain of the mineral, and its color, also indicate the same. Mastodon remains. Concerning the mastodon tusk found at Northfield, Prof. Sperry writes as follows: CARLETON COLLEGE, NORTHFIKLD, MINN., April 8th, 1882. PROF. N. H. WINCHEI.L, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. DEAR SIR: In reply to yours of 3rd instant making inquiries concerning some remains of a mastodon found in this city in 1879, and now in the cabinet of Carleton college, I would respect- fully state that the remains found here consist only of a part of one tusk. This was exposed by some workmen, while digging in a deposit of drift, about ten feet below the surface. The portion of the tusk found measured eight and one-half (8j) feet in length, and twenty- two 1 22) inches in circumference, at the base. When restored, by continuing its general line of taper to a point, it measures nearly twelve (12) feet. The broken extremity of the part found was so eroded and rounded as to render it evident that it had been broken and separated from the terminal portion before being deposited where it was found. Its whole appearance indicates that it had shared the rough-and-tumble experience of its associated drift material. Subsequent removal of much of the surrounding bank has not revealed the separated ex- tremity. Exposure to the light and air has resulted in checking and slacking the discovered specimen, so that protection, by the use of glue, sizing and varnish, became necessary. Yours cordially, L. B. SPERRY. Wells in Rice county. Wlieatland. Wells in Wheatland township are generally in blue clay after passing through two to four feet of yellow clay. The latter contains pebbles and bits of Cretaceous shale, and if not a weathered condition of the blue till, is closely connected with it in origin. William Sherack, S. W. J sec. 16; well, 33 ft.; yellow clay, then blue clay. Webster. Edward McFadden, S. E. J sec. 17; well, 38 feet; all yellow and blue clay except at the bottom where water was found in gravel. Pieces of Cretaceous shale and lignite were found in this well. Thomas Reynolds, sec. 14; well, 42 ft.; yellowish-red clay, 18 ft; the rest was blue clay. Martin Duffy, S. E. J sec. 16; well, 54 feet.; said to be all in gravel, finding no water. This is on land about twenty feet higher than McFadden's well. - Burke, on the south half of sec. 8; well, 68 ft., yellow and blue clay. John Malloy, S. E. J sec. 10; well, 30 ft.; yellow loam, 8-10 feet, then blue clay, and water in gravel. Mrs. Ann Kinsella, N. E. J sec. 14; well, 25 ft., only yellow loam and blue clay. Forest. Simon Taylor, N. W. J sec. 13; well, 73 feet; dug all the way, yellow clay, blue clay, quicksand, the blue clay making up the greater part of the depth, and the quicksand and gravel at the bottom furnishing water. The blue clay had considerable slate, and occasionally other stones as large as six inches. John Beckley, S. W. J sec. 12; well, 24 feet; yellow and blr.e clay; water in sand. Leonard Balleyett's well, east side of sec. 22, is 25 feet deep, mostly in yel- low clay. James Strange, N. E. J sec. 15; well, 18 feet, all in yellow and blue clay, with pieces of Cretaceous shale. Wm. F. Sloan, N. E. cor. sec. 10; well 90 feet; in clay all the way to the bot- tom, where qujcksand was struck, furnishing water. This well was bored 18 inches in diameter, and planked with pine, thus rendering the water foul. George Parker, sec. 35; well, 110 feet; a bored well, formerly good water. Bridyewater. At St. Olaf school, sec. 3(5, Bridgewater, near Northfield, the well is in sand 6-10 feet, sandrock, 80-90 feet, Shakopee, about 50 feet; water is raised by a windmill. I. I. Ilsley, N. E. J sec. 33; four wells, all in blue clay; 45 feet in blue clay, then limerock, then soap- stone, there finding water, at least stopping there; probably seep water; no red clay under the blue RICE COUNTY. 67] Well?. Building-stone.] clay. Mr. Ilsley found a log thirty- five feet under the surface in blue clay. Levi Strader, sec. 17; well, 27 feet; soil and yellow pebbly clay, 25 feet; sand, 1 foot; cemented yellow clay (hard pan), 1 foot; water rose about 8 feet. Shicldsrille. Pat. McKenna, N. E. } sec. 1; well, 20 feet; yellow clay, 10 feet; blue clay, 10 feet; both with small stones; water from the clay. Another well near was the same, though 8 feet higher at the surface. The lakes at Shieldsville do not supply the wells sunk near them, being in superficial basins in the impervious till. Some wells are sunk seventy feet, or more, near these lakes, without getting a permanent supply of water. Wells. Edward LaCroix, N. E. | sec. 12; well, 47 feet; yellow clay, 20 feet; sand, 2 feet; yellow, hard clay, 1 foot; blue clay, 25 feet; this well is about on the contour-line of 1000, the west limit of the gravelly, terrace-like expanse that accompanies the Cannon valley. C. J. Winans, S. E. } sec. 6; well, 33 feet; yellow and blue clay, with gravel at the bottom. J. G. Scott, sec. 21 ; well, 45 feet; yellow loam, 12 feet; blue clay, 28 feet; gravel, 5 feet; water. Tinus Rand, sec. 21; well, on thebrir.k of Roberd's lake; 28 feet in blue clay; though situated but ten feet above the lake, this well had no water. Dennis Scott, N. W. i sec. 6; well, six or eight feet deep in gravel; near the lake, but about 25 feet above the lake. Cannon City. Well of John Gordon, at Cannon City village, passed through soil and clay, 30 feet, and into limerock, 3 feet. Wm. Eigers. south part of sec. 18 (west of the river); well, 38 feet; yellow loam and clay, 4 feet; blue clay, 30 feet; sand, 4 feet; no water; small pieces of lignite. Morristown. At Morristown village wells are from 12 to 15 feet in depth, in gravel. Joseph Goar, N. E. } sec. 33; well, 70 feet deep; only in drift deposits. When the wind is west air comes into this well through the gravel near the bottom, and when it is east air passes in the opposite direction through the gravel. The well becomes so cold by this circulation that in winter, at the depth of seventy feet, the bucket freezes fast if left in the water. This well is in the prairie country, about 1100 or 1125 feet above the sea, with a westward slope toward a marsh about a hundred rods from the well. Warsaw. John O'Connor, S. E. J sec. 34; well, 13 feet; all in yellow clay; water in a thin gravel bed. John Davis, N. W. } sec. 34; well, 90 feet; yellow and blue clay; no water. Another well ten or twelve feet west of the last, 50 feet deep, had a little water, but not enough. Walcott. Widow Hannah Myers, S. W. ] sec. 21; well, 6 feet; soil and sand, 5£ feet; then blue clay; water rises and falls with Mud creek, but is unfailing. This well is situated on the terrace-flat that accompanies the Straight river, and is about 25 feet above the river. Wells in sees. 14 and 11 are shallow, and often in gravel. MATERIAL RESOURCES: Besides its fertile soil, and'the large supply of timber that covers most of the western half of the county, Rice county has natural means of wealth derivable directly from the bedded rocks, viz., building-stone, and lime. Bricks also are made in a number of places. Building-stone. Numerous stone-quarries occur in the eastern half of the county. The bluffs throughout this region are capped by a layer of the Trenton limestone varying from two or three feet to twenty feet in thickness, and the same stratum outcrops favorably at many points along the Straight and Cannon valleys. This rock furnishes a useful stone for nearly all purposes in common building, and is relied on throughout the country for all walls and foundations. It has also, till very recently, supplied all the stone used in the principal buildings in Northfield and Faribault; but within a couple of years several varieties of stone from abroad have been sparingly imported into those cities for some of the larger structures.* Prairie creek valley has scores of small quarries opened along its bluff -i, and the valley of the Cannon looks up to as many more. Some of the latter are as follows: east of Dundas quarries are owned by Messrs. Lemont, Larkins, Mills, Kuntz, and by others. The quarries of Peter Oleson and Archie Stetson are on the east side of sec. 25, Bridgewater. Porter Gray 'sand C. A. Reed's quarries are on the N. W. j sec. 34, west side of the river. Charles Sanford's and William Clelland's quarries, on the same quarter section, are run summer and winter. The stone obtained here is not blue, but ashen gray, similar to that at Doyle's quarry at Faribault. Stone of the best quality is furnished at Northfield at about six dollars per cord. * I'onipare the chapter on the building-stones of the state, p. 171. TIIK GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. [Building stow* Lime. Uriel' There are several quarries in the bluffs at Faribault, -but the most of the stone used at Fari- bauit is derived from the extensive quarry of Mr. Philip Cromer, situated about three miles east of Faribault, in the valley of Fall creek. The principal mass of rock here is about ten feet thick, and is nearly f r. e from the objectionable shaly impurities seen at St. Paul and Minneapolis. It is compact and uniform in structure, though slightly clouded in color by fossiliferous bands and by a slight dissemination of shale. The layers are thick and persistent, but can be split into blocks from six to ten inches thick. The lowest layer is very similar to the lowest layer at Min- neapolis, being somewhat vesicular, and darker colored. In the midst of the quarry also is a thickness of about a foot of very dark limestone, containing much carbonaceous sediment. The marble, so-called, which was once used somewhat in making table-tops and mantels, is the top layer, and really is embraced under and over shale, the upper shale being seen to be at least six feet thick, and containing thin bands of impure limerock, but non-fossiliferous. This marble layer is a little less than a foot thick. It is susceptible of a flue polish, and has a gray color. On a polished surface are shown numerous sections of fossils peculiar to the rock. This layer is not now quarried for its peculiar product, but is involved with the general quarry. Beneath the whole quarry are three or four feet of shale which separate it from the St. Peter sandstone. Mr. Cromer sells undressed stone for prices ranging from $2.50 to $5 .00 per cord. The greater part of his business however is in the best varieties which he sells by the cubic fool at prices ranging from 25 cents to 75 cents. Cut stone is sold from 20 to 30 cents per surface foot. The quarry is overlain by 2J-4 feet of loose stone mingled with loam. It was opened first about the year 1805. but was not continuously wrought till 1867, since which time it has furnished a very large amount of stone, which may be seen in Faribault in such buildings as the asylum for deaf and mute, the Shattuck school and the surrounding buildings, the public schools, Episcopal church and many of the business blocks. Willis Hall, at NorthQeld, is also partly constructed of stone from this quarry. Other quarries are owned by Michael Doyle and Frank Berry, the latter tjwo miles south of Faribault on the west side of the river. Mr. Doyle's quarry is in the bank of the Straight river near the center of section 31, Faribault, on the west side, and was opened in 1856. The stone here is all changed in color to yellowish drab. It is a durable stone, superior in that respect to Cramer's. Common stone here sells for $3.50 per cord of 128 feet. Mr. Doyle states that about 10 feet of shale underlies the limerock. In the vicinity of Northfleld, quarries are owned, near St. Olaf college, by H. II. White, John Lanpher, and Saul Stewart. This stone is hauled fifteen and even twenty miles further west. Other quarrymen are J. Leonhart, A. Revere and D. Ferguson. In Wheeling township, in the valley of Prairie creek, quarries are owned by J. Thompson, A. Knapp, and S. Aslagson. In Richland township, bordering on Goodhue county, are quarries owned by Ilalver Johnson, and Peter Halverson. Lime. The upper four strata of the Lower Trenton formation, as exposed in this county. furnish tolerably good material for quicklime, though in some places they are too siliceous and aluminous. Lime has been made from this formation in every township of the county east of Cannon river, but this is not now a regular and paying business except at Philip Cramer's kiln, near Faribault. Mr. Cromer uses a patent kiln and burns from 3.000 to 3,500 barrels per year. Other kilns near Faribault produce in the aggregate about 1,000 barrels per year. There is a kiln one mile north of Northfield, which burns lime from the Shakopee formation, and supplies Northlield and vicinity. It is owned by Michael Tram no. He burns 30 barrels in 2t hours. when running, and sells for seventy cents per barrel delivered in Northfleld. Brick have been made at numerous places in Rice county, and they are uniformly of a red color. They sell from six to eight dollars per thousand. One yard at Faribault has produced sometimes a million brick per year. Sorghum. Among the important industries of the county should be mentioned the sugar and sorghum establishment of Mr. Seth II. Kenney, situated in the N. W. 2 of sec. 6, Morristown. This is the pioneer establishment of the state, and it is equipped with the latest improved methods and machinery for the manufacture of sugar. Lumber. The steam saw-mills at Morristown cut five or six hundred thousand feet of lum- ber, or its equivalent in "head-lining", annually. The head-lining, which is the narrow stripping placed round the heads of flour barrels to secure the heads of the barrels, is made of "water elm" RICE COUNTY. £73 Artificial mounds. J but several varieties of logs are cut into common lumber of all dimensions. Other steam lumber mills, less extensive, are found in the same part of the county. Artificial mounds. At one half mile north of the old Wheatland post-office, S. W. .', sec. 16, Wheatland, several artificial mounds appear. They lie along a small lake which is on the west side of the north -and -south road. They are rather small, not exceeding two feet in hight. Five or six are visible from the road. There are probably others. In Webster township, sec. 17, an eighth of a mile north of Edward McFadden's, on the highest land, but yet surrounding a marsh, may be seen a number of mounds rising two and a half or three feet. There was an " Indian mound" on sec. 2, Shieldsville, on the south side of the outlet of the middle lake. According to Mr. 1'atrick McKenna, one of the early settlers of Shieldsville, the Sioux Indians used to fix their camp at this place. They had a scaffolding upon it where they placed their dead, and afterward buried the bones in the mound. This mound was from ten to twelve feet high. It was removed by the owner of the land that the surface might be tilled. Flint arrow-points have been found in that neighborhood, but they are not known elsewhere in the vicinity. Besides the mounds mentioned in Waseca county, on page 414, others are in the vicinity of Woortville. According to Mr. J. F. Murphy there are 21 mounds, from four to five feet in hight, near the center of section 3, between \Vatkins and Rice lakes, some of them thirty feet in diameter. In Fillmore county several large mounds are to be seen on the tops of the bluffs near Rush- ford; and at the junction of the north branch of Root river with the main river, two miles below Lanesboro, area great many mounds, probably forty in number. Several years since, on the dis- covery of human bones in plowing the fields in which they lie, about twenty of these mounds were examined by some citizens of Laneeboro. The human relics discovered on excavating consist of large human bones, several stone hammers, a copper spear-head, several clay pipes and beads, as well as a small clay image of the human face and head, the latter with a circlet of radiating feathers passing over the top.* Other earthworks are near Houston in the Yucatan valley. •Some of yiesc specimens have boon placed in the Renernl museum of the University. l>y the courtesy of Mr. B. A Man. Fora representation of the imasje of the human face found in the Lanesboro mound, «ee I'opitlar Science Monthly, XIX, 009. 43 GEOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL INDEX. Abenakis, 5. Abert, Col. J. J., 57, 59, 87. Accault, Michel, 9, 13. Adela lake, 46. Agassiz, lake (glacial), 101, 622. Agrenipoulak, 5. Akonsa, 13. Albert Lea, lake, 66, 377, 386. Alden, Rev. E. D., 600. Alexander lake, 46. Allen, Lieut. James, 50, 52. Allen, Capt. J., 79. Allen lake, 52. Allenoga river, 51 . Allouez, 4. Anderson and Clark's survey, 94. Andrews, Dr. E., 504 f. n., 548 f. n. Andrrisia, lake, 50. Angst, Robert, 409, 652. Annian, straits of, 8, 20, 25". Antelope hills and valley, 593, 605, 616. 621. Antonelli, lake, 48. Archives de la Marine, 2 f. n., 18. Areas of counties and state, 114. Assiniboines, 3. Assowa, lake, 52, 75. Atkinson, fort, 31. Austin, Gov. Horace. 106. Avernus, lake, 46. Baer, Aaron, 550 f. n., 551. Baker, Samuel H., 39S. Harris, W. II., 303, 353. Harry, Charles, 156. Hasswood lake, 52. Beal, J., 82 f. n. Bear lakes, 518, 525. Beatty, J. R., 447, 449. Beaver Bay, quarries, 145, 148. Beaver river, 53. Bechdolt, Prof. A. F., 435. Beche, Henry T. de la, 156. Belle Plaine, 104. Beltrami, J. C.,44, 110, 130. Benton, lake, 124, 594, 603, 610. Big Cobb river, 404, 416, 422, 431, 437, 454. Big falls, 56. Big Fork river, 18, 99. Big Salt lake, 53. I!is Salt river, 88. Big Sioux river, 79, 90, 91, 499, 518, 533, 538, 590-1. Big Stone and Lac qui Parle counties, chapter on, 613. Big Stone lake, 40, 53, 124, 132, 613, 622-4. Big Winnipeg lake, 51. Big Woods, 409, 421, 525, 636, 650. Bigsby, Dr. J. J., 34, 42, 100. Birch lake, 52. Bismarck, Dak., lignite near, 578. 620. Black Hawk purchase, 66. Black Hills, Dak., 344. Black river, 7, 11. Blake, W. P. 99. Bloody river, 46. Blue E:\rth county, chapter on, 415. Blue Earth river, 30, 59, 71, 85, 90, 415, 117, 422, 427, 435, 445, 451, .160, 4(17; glacial lake, 461, 622, 042. Blue mounds, Cottonwood county, 80, 4!)5, 497, 506-7. Blunt, John E., 244, 408. Bonifs, river, 11. Bois Blanc lake, 112. Bois Brule river, 15. Bois des Sioux river, 113. Boundaries of the state, 111. Bourbon, river, 23. Boutwell, Rev. W. T., 50, 51 f. n.. 75. Bow String lake, 134. Bridgewater, kame. 11115 9. Broachus, river, 46. Brochet, lake, 19. Bromwick, Charles, 354 f. n. Hi nun and Red wood counties, chapter on, 682, Brown's Valley, 123, 622, 624. Bryan, F. C., mineral spring of, 264. Buache, 18. Buade, lake, 3, 5, 7. Buade, river, 110. Bndd, William II., 4s2. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL INDEX. 075 Buffalo ridge, 520. ISnnis, John F. and Daniel, 572-3. IJurt, G. ('., 423,425. Cabotian mountains, 32, 53. Caledonia, quarries, 102; section, 2i!">. Calvin, Prof. S., 303. (lamp Crescent, 3fl. Cannon lake, 73, 048, 662, 664. Cannon river, 15, 73, 138,461 f. n., 022, 633, 642, 648-652, 657, 663, 668, 671. Capitol at St. Paul, how constructed, 163, 193. Carleton college, 172, 669, 670. Carte du Canada, 20. Carver, Jonathan, 19, 217 f. n., 560 f. n. Carver's cave, 21. Carver's river, 23, 36, 58. Carver, rapids near, 59, 85. Cass, Gov. Lewis, 31. Cass lake, 32, 124. Castle rock, 33, 58, 74, 656. Catlin, George, 62, 538 9, 542, 54'i f. n. Cedar river, 84, 135, 347-8, 350, 364, 367, 662. Central chain of lakes, 481. Chabadeba river, 7. Chains of lakes, Martin county, 479. Chamberlin, Prof. T. C., 219,288 f. n., 463 f . n., 479 f. n., 605. Cliainplain, 2. Chaniushkah river, 90. Chapeau lake, (56. Charlevoix, 2 f. n , 17. Charlotte, fort, 19. Chataba river, 40. Chaudiere falls, 112. Chemann river, 51. Chickasaw bluff, 4. Chimney rock, 33, 74, 20i;. Chippewa river, 40, 53, 1 18. Chongaskethon, 8. Clark, Thomas, 93. Clear river, 28, 52. Clearwater river, 110. Clinton Falls, quarries, 170, 397. Cloqnet river, 52. Colbert, river, 6, 9. Colhoiin, J. Edward, 34. Commissioner of statistics, 92. Comstock, Col. C. II., 211 f. n. Condi1, lake, 7. Conisburgh castle, 150. Conty, lake, 8. •Converse, Clarence W., wells, 413. • 'IKIII creek, 52. Cooper, Dr. J. G., 91. Cooper, William, 52 f. n. Cormorant river, 46. Coteau des Prairies, 36, 41, 60, 80, 111), 121, 123, 125, 131, 494, 507, 519, 534, 5:51), 544, 565, 593, 59G-9, 601, 616, 621. Coteau du grand bois, 76. Coteau lakes. 596. Cottonwood and Jackson counties, chapter on,49I. Cottonwood county, quartzyte range in, 150. 499. Cottonwood river, 85, 492, 518,562-4,566-8, 572, 586, 590, 594, 596, 602. Coulee de 1'Anglais, 88. Council lake, 66. Coureurs des bois, 11, 19, 26, 50. Courtland,Nicollet county, building stone. 153. Coxe, 16 f. n. Creve Cceur, fort, 9. Croll, Dr. James, 549 f. n. Crow river, 28, 53, 75, 118. Crow Wing river, 52, 53, 56, 87, 122. Dakota, lignite nnd silicified wood from, in drift, 620, 643, 669. Dakota, lignite mined in, 578, 620. Dakota, Winona county, quarries, 178. Dakotahs, 3. Dalles of the St. Croix, 57. . Dalles of the St. Louis, 53. Dana, Prof. J. D., 542 f. n., 549 f. n. Daniels, Prof. E., 92. Daniells, Prof. W. W., 542. Dauphin, lake, 8. David, lake, 86. Davis, C. E., 100." Davis, Capt. John B., 134 f. n. Davis, Squier and, 560, 561 f. n. Dawson, J. W., 283. Dayton's bluff, St. Paul, 656. Deer river, 52. Derague, 17. De Soto, 4 f. n. De Soto river, 51 . Des Feuilles river, 28. Des Moines river, 74, 79, 135, 492, 495, 507, 510,513,515, 518, 533,590; east fork, 461, 473, 485. Desor, E., 504 f. n. Devil's lake, Dakota, 81. J Mviding ridge, 53, 56. Dodd, Capt., 90. Dodge county, chapter on, 367. Dodge, Prof. J. A.. 184, 438, 449,524 f. n. Doon, Iowa, railroad branch, 536. Douglas, Alexander, 487. Douglass, Capt. D. IJ.,32 f. n. 676 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Douglass, lake, 52. Dresbaeh, Winona county, quarries, 178. Du Gay, 9, 13. Du Luth, Sieur, 4, 9, 14. Duluth, rocksat, 103; quarries, 147. Du Pratz, Le Page, 2 f. n., 23 f. n. Eagle lake, 80, 90. Eagle rocks, 296. Eames, II. II., 95, 578. Eames, Richard M., 97. East chain of lakes, 80, 481. East fork of the Mississippi, 77. Easton, bed-rock in well, 457. East St. Cloud, quarries, 142. Elbow lake, 76, 87. Eldora, Iowa, 402. Eleonora, lake, 46. Elevations, 122, 124, 211, 244, 277, 328, 349, 369, 379, 396, 408, 419, 455, 474, 496, 522, 536, 565, 593, 615, 634, 652. Elk lake, 26, 87. Elk river, 28, 36, 52, 75. Elm creek, 473, 476, 489, 493. Elysian, lake, 405, 633, 634. Embarras river, 66. Emery, W. II., 667. Emmettsburg, Iowa, 507. Emmons, E., 84. Epervier river, 40. Evans, J., 82 f. n. Everard, lake, 46. Everett, II. W., 465. Faribault county, chapter on, 454. Faribault, Rice county, quarries, 171, 672. Featherstonhaugh, 17, 57, 74, 99 f. n., 165,428. Fillmore county, chapter on, 268. Fleuve de 1'ouest, 18. Flynn, B., 577. Folwell, Pres. Wm. W., 106, 108. Fond du Lac, quarries, 180. Fond du Lac river, 54. Fond du lac Supcrieur, 4. Foreston, Iowa, 304. Fort Atkinson, 81. Fort Charlotte, 19. Fort Creve Cceur, 9. Fort L'Huillier, 17, 71, 430 f. n. Fort Pembina, 134. Fort Ridgely, road to, 91. Fort Ripley, road to, 91. Fort Rupert, 3. Fort Snelling, 58, 175, 177; quarries, 177. Forty Sioux villages, 3. Foster and Whitney, 84 f. n., 500, 504 f. n. Fountain, Fillmore county, quarries, 170, 288. 292, 322. Fountain cave, near St. Paul, 58. Fountain lake, GO, 377, S86. Fowl lakes, North and South, 112. Fowle river, 52. Fox lake, 66. Franklin, G. B., wells, 466. Franquelin's map, 66, 110. Frederica, lake, 46. Freeborn county, chapter on, 376. Fremont, Lieut. J. C., 68, 71. Fremont lake, 72. French, 15. F., 2 f. n., 4 f. n. Frontenac, Count, 1 1 . Frontenac, Fort, 11. Frontenac, Goodhue county, quarries, 160, 183. Frontenac, lake, 8. Frontenacie, 110. Gannett, Henry, 114, 133 f. n. Gardiner, lake, 89. Gastacha. river, 9. Geikie, James, 389 f. n. Geographical position of Minnesota, 1 , 1 1 1 , 1 40. Gere, T. P., 419. Geyer, Charles, 68. Giant's range, 120, 125, 135. Gillmore, Gen. Q. A., 184. Godard, J. C., 596. Gold Fish river, 46. Goose river, 23. Grand Portage, 19, 40, 53. Grand rapids, 28, 56. Grand river, 10, 14. Gravel river, 46. Gray, Dr. Asa, 91. Great Portage river, 46. Great Rock river, 46. Green river, 16. Grindstone river, 177. Groselliers and RadissOn, 3. Grosillers, river, 3. Gull river, 75. Gwinu's bluff, Winona county, 243. Haight, W. Z., 465, 466, 468, 469. Hall, Prof. James, 97, 225 f. n., 284 f. n., 290, 303, 353, 538, 576. Halliday, Alex., 457. Hanchett and Clark's survey, 94. Ilanska lake, 563, 565, 568. Harris, J. S., 217. Hauteurs des terres, 76. Ilayden, Dr. F. V.,538. Ilendricks, lake, 594, 603. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL INDEX. 677 Heiinepiii, Father Louis, 5, 6, 9, 14. * Heurie, lake, 80. Heron lake, 124, 493, 496, 503, 507, 509. Hewitt, A. 8., 92. High Island creek, 59 f. n. Hills, valleys and plateaus, elevations of, 125. IlincUley, quarries, 176. Hind, Henry Y., 09 f. n., 101. Ilinton, James, 844. Historical sketch, 1. History of the present survey, 100. Hitchcock, Prof. C. II., 9J f. n. Hodapp, W., 4C2. Hokah, section at, 224. " Hole in the Mountain," 595, 603, 012. Holmes, W. 11., 555 f. n. llonolbotons, 5. llorton, Horace, 328. Houghton, Dr. Douglass, 50, 52 f. n. Houston county, chapter on, 207. Hunt, T. S., 84 f. n. II untley, Calvin E., 313. Hurlbut, \V. D., 102, 108, 339. Hurons, 4. Ikouetii, 13. llligan, lake, 52. Independence lake, 80. Indian lake, Blue Earth county, 418. Inyan-bosndata (Castle rock), 74. Iowa lake, 80. Iroquois, 13. Irving, Prof. R. I)., 98 f. n., 220, 502 f. n., 542. Isle de Corbeau river, 28. Isle Pelce, 16. Isle Royale, 3, 181. Islinois, 6, 9. Islinois river, 9. Issati, 7. Itasca lake, 26, 50, 51 f. n.,70, 123-5, 130. Itasca prairie, 386. Izatys, 5. Jackson county, chapter on, 491. Jackson, Dr. C. T., 70, 84 f. n., 538, 512. James river, Dakota, 499, 538. Jeromine, lake, 48. Jesuits, 8, 11. Joliet, maps by, 110. Jordan, Scott county, quarries, 179. Julia, lake, 47. Julian sources of thu Mississippi, 45, 56 110 130. Kabekonang river, 75. Kakaling river, 1 1 . Kamauistigouia, fort, 110. Kasota, quarries, 165, 638, 646. Kathio, 5. Keating, Prof. W. II., 15, 31 f. n., 33, 99f.n. Kettle river, 52, 86, 104, 135. Kiester hills, 462, 464. Kikapou, 14. KitchiGummi,2. Kloos, J. II., 103. Knife falls, 32. Kossuth county, Iowa, 461. Kwiwiseus river, 75. Lac du Diable, 62. Lac la Biche, 55, 76. Lac la Crosse, 54. LaclaPluie, 112. Lac Pie, 52. Lac qui Parle, 40, 613, 018, 023. Lac qui Parle county, chapter on, 613. Lac qui Parle river, 590, 594, 596, 602, 614, 623, 625, 630. LaCroix, lake, 112. Lac Vieux Desert, 52. "La Grande Riviere," 2. La Ilarpe, 17. La Hontan, 15, 73. Lake of Tears, 7. Lake of the Isle, 52. Lake of the Mountain, 52. Lake of the Woods, 42, 112, 114 f. u.,124, 131, 133 f. n., 134. Lakes and rivers, 130. Lakes, elevations above sea, 124. Lakes of the Park region, 89. Lakes of the upper Mississippi region, 78. Lander, Fred. W., 91. Lanesboro, quarries, 162, 284, 323. La Place, river, 77. La riviere a Gauche, 53. La Roche Galet, 53. La Salle, 3, 9. La Salle. lake, 51. La Sang Sue, lake, 26, 29. Lavinius, lake, 40. Lea, Lieut. Albert M., 66, 386 f. n. Leaf hills, 89. 119, 121, 123, 125, 130, 406. Leaf lake, 90. Leaf river, 28, 52, 53, 56, 87, 90, 122. Leaping rock, 70, 538. Le Cross, river, 30. Leech lake, 26, 29, 52, 75, 77, 124, 131. Leiberg, John, 435. Leidy, Dr. J.,82f. n. Le shute de la Roche Peinture, 28. Lesquereux, Dr. L., 354, 573, 574, 676. LeSueur, 16,36,60,71; site of his copper mine, 428, 435 f. n. 678 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. LeSueur county, chapter on, 632. Le Sueur creek, 632. Le Sueur prairie, 634, (112. Le Sueur river, 404, 410, 418, 422, 431, 135, 436, 4 Hi, 454. Lewis and Clarke, Capts., 25. L'Huillier, fort, 17, 71, 430, f. n. L'lluillier mound, 430. Lightning lake, 86. Lime Springs, Iowa, 304. Lincoln county, chapter on, 589. Little Boy river, 75. Little Cottouwood river, 492, 404, 500, 563, 565-7. Little Falls, 33, 56. Little Heron lake, 71. Little Long lake, 52. Little Pelican river, 89. Little rapids, 35, 39, 72. Little Sac river, 56. Little Sioux river, 493, 508, 51 i). Little Vermilion lake, 52, 112. Little Winnipeg lake, 54. Litton, A., 82 f. n. Livermore, G. S., 477. Locke, Dr. John, 84 f. n., 290. Logan, AV. E., 100. Lone mound, Olmsted county, 328, 338. Lone rock, Dakota county, 74. Long, major 8. IL, 30, 33, 44. Long lake, 62, 56, 111. Long Prairie river, 56. Long Prairie, road to, 91 . Long Rice lake, 52. Long river, 15, 52, 73. Longwater lake, 52. " Lost timber," 524. Louisiana, 2. Loyell, Dr. Joseph, 34. Low, John II., 525. Lower Red Cedar lake, 27. Luverne, quarries near, 151, 554. Lyon county, chapter on, 589. Magdalena, lake, 46. Maidens, Three, 546. Marnecan lake, 112. Man, B. A., 573. Mankato, deep well at, 422, 452. Mankato, quarries, 166, 42'J, 447. Mankato river, 71, 416. Mankato, road to, 90. Mantwrville, quarries, 167, 373. Maple river, 416, 417, 422, 431, 436, 446, 453, 454. Maple wood lake, 71. Margry, Pierre, 2 f . n , 9. Maroa, 9. Marquetle, 4. Marquette, lake, 51. Marsh lake, <>23, 626. Martin county, chapter on, 472. Mascoutens, 10. Mather, W. W., 17, S4. McCadden, R. J., 490. McMillan, senator S. J. R., 109. McNiven. Malcolm, 568. Meadow river, 29, 30. Meek, F. B., 82 f. n., 104, 308, <>uo. Me-me-si-pi river, 3. Menard, 4. Mendota, road to, 90. Mer Vermeille, 8. Mesabi range, 119, 120, 123, 125, 130. Meschetz Odeba river, 10. Messipi river, 4. Messorie river, 23. Miamis, 10, 13; river of, 10. Military roads, 90,91. Mille Lacs, 5, 13, 27, 124, 130. Miller, Gov. Stephen, 95. Miner, A., 519. Minneapolis, section, 168; quarries. 175. Minneopa falls, 416, 426. .Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, 35 f. n., 99 f. n. Minnesota Historical Society, 2 f. n., 4 f. u., 15 f. n., 17 f. n., 18, 26. 30 f. n. Minnesota Lake, bed-rock in well, 458. Minnesota river and valley, 16, 35, 58,71, 85, 100, 103, 118, 121, 133, 416, 418, 430, 432, 439, 444, 485, 562, 565-9, 577, 580, 591, 594, 607, 611, 614, 616, 622-6, 632, i;:;i. 642; ele- vations. 420, 566, 594, 616, 635; glacial lake, 461 f. n.. 606, 622, 642. Minnetonka, lake, 124, 131. Miscousin river, 7, 10. Mission creek, quarries on, 181. Mississippi river, 2, 4-35, 44-58,75-7,86-91, 118, 133, 207, 236, 241; Pike, 26; Beltrami, 44; Schoolcraft, 50; Nicollet, 75; river sys- tem, 133. Missouri river, 23, 533, 544. Mitchell, Dr. S. L., 32 f. n. Monette. John W., 2 f . n. Money Creek, section, 229. Monteleoiie, lake, 48. Moon creek. 59. Morgan, Lewis II., 560 f. n., 561 f. n. Morin, William, 379, 386. Morris, C. A. F., 616. Morrison, William, 26, 50. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL, INDEX. Morse, P., wells, 465. Mound, Rock county, 151, 536, 5-10 1, 550. Mound creek, Brown county, 501, 5G3, 57:2. Mountain lake, 483, 492, 514. Mower county, chapter on, 347. Muddy lake, 30. Murchisou, 11. 1., 346. Murray and Nobles counties, chapter on, 517. Myah Skah, 59. Nadouecioux, 6. Nadeuesioux, 11. Nadouessans, 8. Nadouessi, 4. Nadoussion, river, 7. Neill, llev. E. D.,2 f. n. 3 f. n., 4 f. n., 17 f. n., 18,51 f. n., 10'J. Nelson, Lieut., 86. Nemadji river, 53. Nenaudag river, 52. Newberry, Prof. J. S., 354. New France, map of, 8, 20. New Ulm, sections, 570, 582. Nicollet, Sieur, 3, 4 f. u. Nicollet, Jean N., 15, 67, 416, 428, 494, 507, 538, 593, 634. Nid de Tonnere, 61. Nimissakouat river, 7, 15. Nipissiriens, 5. Nobles county, chapter on, 517. Noire, river, 11. Nokasippi river, 28, 33. Norfal, England, quarries, 156. North and South lakes, 134. Northern boundary, 42, 112. Northfleld, 657, 664, 670, 672. " Northwest angle" of the lake of the Woods, 112, 113, 134 f.n. Norwood, J. G., 82 f. n., 84, 9'J, 154. Noyes, W. A., 264, 512, 550. Ochagach's map, 18. Ocheyedan or Ocheeda creek and lake, 519, 523. 525. Ocheyedan mound, Iowa, 520. Odell, L. O., 280. Ohio, terminal moraines in, 463 f. n. Okabena lakes and creek, 519, 525. Okaman,lake, 72. Okamanpidan lake, 71,90. .Okoboji lakes, Iowa, 507. Olmsted county, chapter on, 325. Omanhulake, 90. Onisconsin river, 7. Openagaux, 5. Otontenta, 7. Ottawa, LeSueur county, quarries, 164, 639, 646. Otter Tail lake, 29, 87, 89, 122, 124. Otter Tail river. 89, 118. Ouadebathon, 8. Ouisconsing, river, 10. Outagamis, 13 f. n. Owatonna, well, 398; springs, 402. Owen, D. I)., survey of, 81, 99 f. n. 166, 282, 284 f. n., 285 f. n., 290 f. u., 335, 431. Owen,K., 82 f. n. Ozawiudib, 51. Pacagama falls, 54. Pacific railroad survey, 91. 1'ackegamau falls, 29. Paniitascodiac lake, 50. Paote, 10. Paradise prairie, 67, 386. Parallel river, 57. Parkman, Francis, 2 f. n., 13 f. u. Park region, described by Capt. Pope, 89; lakes of, 130. Park river, 88. Parliament, new houses of, 156. Parry, Dr. C. C., 82 f. n. Patterson's rapids, 38, 566, 587. Paul le Jeune, 3. Peace rock, Watab, 33, 75. Peckham, Prof. S. F., 469, 514,516, 532, 542, 578. Pelican lakes (lake Shetek), 524. Pembina, expedition to, 86. Pembina, fort, 134. Pembina hills. 62. Pembina Indian reservation, 128. Pembina, road to, 91. Pemidji lake, 51, 55. Penicaut, 16. Pepin,lake, 58, 124,132. Perch lake, 51, 55. Perch river, 90. Period prior to 1783, 2; of territorial explora- tion, 25; of state exploration and survey, 91. Perrot, Nicholas, 2 f. n., 16, 110. Physical features of the state, 111-141. Pigeon river, 3, 136. Pike, Lieut. Z. M., 25, 56. Pike lake, 87. Pike rapids, 56. Pikwabik river, 75. Pillsbury, senator J. S., 106, 108. Pimiteoui (lake Peoriaf, 9. Pine hills, 53. Pine river, 26, 29, 52, 53, 75. Pipestone and llock counties, chapter on, 533. THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Pipestone City, quarries, 151 , 554. Pipestone creek, 69, 533, 539. Pipestone falls, 534. Pipestone quarry, 62, 69, 98, 538, 541. Plantagenet, lake, 51. Plum river, 53. Point Douglas, road from, ill. Pokegama falls, 29, 3) , 54, 77, 96, 100. Pomme de Terre river, 53, 87, 118, 623, 626. Pope, Oapt. John, 86, 87. Portage a couteau, 54. Porter, E., 465. Position, boundaries and area of the state, 111. Poualak, 3. Prairie creek, 649, 651, 657, 662,665, 671. Prairie river, 52, 97. 1'ratten, II., 82 f. n. Prince society, 2 f. u. Providence lakes. 48. Puans, bay of, 7, 10. Puposky, lake, 47. (Jueeii Anne lake, 51. llabbit river, 87. Raccoon creek, 52. Uadisson, 3. Rainy lake and river. 43, 1)2, 124, 132, 134. Ramsey, Gpv. Alex., 93. Ramsey falls, 587. Raiidin, engineer, map by, 110. Rapid river, 52. Ked Cedar lake, 26, 46, 53, 54. Red lake, 46, 53, 124, 131. Red Lake Indian reservation, 128. Red Lake river, 53, 87. 110. Red Marble river, 23, 24 f. n. Red river of the North, 53, 87, 110, 113, 119, 122, 133, 614, 622. Red river valley, 42, 88, 119, 125, 128, 133, 136. Red sea, 6. Redstone, Nicollet county, quarries, 149. Red Wing, quarries, 160. Red Wing's village, 67. Redwood county, chapter on, 562. Redwood falls, 98, 570, 587. Redwood river, 49, 80, 518, 533, 562, 564, '567, 577, 587, 590. 594, 596, 602, 611. Regents, board of. in charge of the survey, 106. Relations of the Jesuits, 3. Reno, Capt. J. L., 90. Resting lake, 55. Rice county, chapter on, 648. Rice creek, 53. Rice, senator Edmund, 108 f. n. Ridgely, fort, 91. Ripley, fort, 91. Rupert, fort, 3. River of the West, 23, 132. Riviere an Mantis, Nos. 1, - and 3, 88. Rock county, chapter on, 533. Rock river, 123, 135, 518, 533, 535, 541, 550. Root river, 15, 118, 214, 287, 326, 346, 350. Rose, Dr. P. «., 4B8, 409, 647. Rossbach, Dr. G. A., 398. Routes to the Red river valley, Sis. Rum river, 12, 23, 27, 52, 57. Runals, D. E., 543. Sac river, 2fS. Saganaga lake, 124, 145. Saint Anthony falls, 7, 9, 12, 15,21,27,30,33, 34, 49, 57, 58, 75, 133. Saint Croix falls, 57. Saint Croix lake, 125, 132. Saint Croix river, 15, 57, 97, 118, 135. Saint Francis river, 7, 15, 23, 28, 52, 57. Saint Louis river, 29, 113, 118, 122, 128, 135. Saint Olaf school, 664, 670, 672. Saint Paul quarries, 172. Saint Pierre, 21. Saint Pierre river, 21, 88. Saisaginaga, lake, 112. Sakata, lake, 633, 634, 642, 060. Salt river, 53. Sand Hill river, 53. Sandy lake, 28, 54. Sank Rapids, 33, 88; quarries, 142, 148. Sauk river and valley, 86, 104, 136. Sauteaux river, 28. Sauteurs, 11, 28. Savanna rivers, 29,52, 54, 110, 12,s. Sawteeth mountains, 120, 125. Say, Thomas, 34, 78. Schoolcraft, II. R., 31, 32 f. n., 50, <>2 f. n. Schoolcraft island, 55. Schweinitz, Lewis D. de, 34. Scisaiaguay river, 48. Seignelay, Marquis, 5. Seignelay, river, 7. Seward, William II., 140. Shakopee, quarries, 164. Shaokatan, lake, 594, 603. Shea, John, 398. Shea, John Gilmary, 2 f. n., 5 f. n., 6. Shell river, 53, 56. Shell Rock river, 376, 386, oi>2. Shetek, lake, 79, 124, 507, 518, 522-4, 590. Shieldsville, lakes, 648, 651, 671. Shingle creek. 53. Shining mountains, 1, 23. Shoemaker, J. F., 537, 541 f. n. Slnmiard, Dr. B. F., 82 f. u.,85, 98 f. n., 2S5 f. n., 310. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL INDEX. GS1 Sibley, Gen. II. II., 52 f. n., 109 f. u., 174, 430 f. n. Sibley mound, 430. Sidener, G. F., 184, 438,449. Simpson, Capt. J II. ,91. Sioux Falls, Dakota, 1.52, .580, -538. Sissitons, SI. Sleepy Eye, Indian chief, 72. Sleepy Eye creek, 563. Smith, Charles II., 1-50. Smith, Dr. William, 156. Snake river, .52, 86, !I7, 101. Snelling, fort, 53, 175, 177. Songaskitons, 5. Source of the Mississippi, 24, 26, 82. 44,50, 55, 76. Southwell church, 156. Sperry, Prof. L. 13., 410, 648 f. n. 655 f. n., 669, 670. Spirit lake, 90, 494, 499, 505, 507-9, 514, 510. Spirit Mountain creek, 40. Sprague, O., 344. Spring Valley, section, 301, 307. Squier and Davis, 560, 561 f. n. Standard Cement company, 434, 149. Standing rock (Castle rock), 74. State exploration and survey, 91. Steele county, chapter on, 394. Stevens, Gov. J. J., 91. Stilhvater, quarries, 159. Stockton, quarries, 162, 255. Straight river, 394, 397, 648-652, 659, 661, 662, 667-8, 671; glacial lake, 662, 663, 668. Straits of Annian, 8, 20, 25. Streng, Prof. A., 104 f. n. Strong, Moses, 221. Sturgeon river, 46. Suckley, Dr., 91. Sugar Loaf, Winona, 155, 260. Sugar Loaf mound, near Rochester, 338. Sumner, Capt. E. V., 80. Superior, lake, 120, 122, 132, 135; rocks, 84, 100, 424, 500, 627. Swan lake, Iowa, 80, 508. Swan lake, Nicollet county, 60, 124. Swan river, 29, 52, 91. Table rock, Houston county, 226. Tailhan, 2 f. n. Talcott lake, 80, 499. Tamaroa, 9. Tanner, Rev. G. C., 395. Taoapa, 35. Taylor, N. C. D., 97, 104. Taylor's Falls, 98, 104, 182. Tchanhassan lake, 71. Tchan-shetcha lake, 74. Tchatchakigona, 13. Ti'akiki, river, 9. Temple, C. C., 310. Tetonka, lake, 633, 634, 642. Thinthonka, 7. Thompson, David, 25, 109. Thomson, T., 542 f. n. Thousand lakes, 23. Three Maidens, 546. Three rivers, 110. Thunder Nest, 53, 61. Tiuthona, 8. Tipsenah river, 87. Ti-tanka-tanninan, lake, 73. Tomb river, 7. Torrey, Dr. John, 68, 79. Torrigiani, lake, 48. Trail lake, 67. Traverse des Sioux, 36, 90. Traverse, lake, 49, 55, 113, 124, 132, 622-4. Trout river, 52. Turtle lake, 32, 45, 48, 56, 110, 130. Turtle river, 88. Twining, major W. J., 112, 134 f. n. Twin mounds, Olmsted county, 33s. Two rivers, Kittson county, 88. Undine region, 71, 90, 138, 416. Union slough, Iowa, 461, 622. University of Minnesota, 106, 108, 192. Upper Iowa river, 347, 348, 350, 358, 364. Upper Mississippi region, 75,77, 121, 125,133. Usaw-way lake, 55. Valeuse river, 46 Verd river, 23. Verendrye, 18. Vermilion lake, 18, 52, 95, 103, 124, 132. Vermilya, S., 489. Virginia, lake, 46. Wabasha, road to, 91. Wabe/i, river, 75. Wadapaw Menesotor river, 21. Walcott, C. D., 289 f. n. Walnut lake, 66. Wapsipinicon river, 347. Waraju river, 23 f.n., 85, 98,562, 575. Warpetou Sioux, 81. Warpool lake, 52. Warren, G., 82 f . n. Warren, Gen. G. K., C7, 100. 103, 622, 623. Warren, river (in glacial period), 101, 134,615, 622. Waseca county, chapter on, 404. Washington Irving, lake, 51. 682 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Watab, quarries, 146. [472. Watonwaii and Martin counties, chapter on, Watonwan river, 417, 422, 431, 436, 446, 4712, 474, 476, 48!), 492, 494. Wattah river, 56. West chain of lakes, 482. West Savanna river, 52, 54. Wheelock, Joseph A., 92. Whelpley, C. E., 410. Whetstone river, 614, 625. Whitcomb, O. I'., 108. . White Bear lake (or lake Whipple), I'ope county, 87, 124. White Bear lake, Hamsey county, 12-5. White, Dr. C. A., 300, 303, 308, 363, 461 f. n., 508 f. n., 537, 538. White, George II., 396. Whiteflsh lake, 26, 29, 75. White Rock bluff, 59, 637. Whitewater river, 66, 236, 326, 327. White Wood lake, 52. Whitfield, B. P., 291, 303. Whitney, Foster and, 500, 504 f. n. Whitney, J. D., 103, 222, 225 f. n., 254 f. n.. 298, 311, 317, 353. Whittlesey , Col. C., 82 f. n., 93 f. n., 99, 555 f. n. AVild Hice river, 53. Williams, Prof. H. S, 360. Williamson, Prof. A. W., 577. Willow river, 53. Wilson, II. B., ins. Winchell, A., 104. Wind-mill bluff, 126. 145. Winnebago City, bed-rock in well, 457. Winnibigoshish lake, 124, 131, 134. Winnipeg lake and basin, 42, 44, 101, 134, 615, 622. Winnipeque lake and river, 30. Winona county, chapter on, 236. Winona, quarries, 161, 255, 265. Wisconsin river, 4. Woods, lake of the, 42, 112, 114 f. n., 124,131, 133 f. n., 134. Woods, major S., 86. Wood worth. George B., 211. Worden, Park, 597. Worth, Dr. F.,212. Wright, Prof. G. F., 406. Yellow Bank hills, 621. Yellow Bank river, 40, 014. Yellow Head, Indian chief, 55. Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln counties, chapter on, 589. Yellow Medicine river, 40, 590, 594, 611. Young, II. II., 114 f. n., 207 f. n. Young, Thomas M., 590. Zumbro river, 118, 326, 329, 334, 336,394, 6 lit. 662, 668. SCIENTIFIC INDEX. Aboriginal mounds. 8ee Mounds. Absorption of atmospheric moisture and of water by building stones, 185, ISO. Acervularia, 357 f. n. Acid fumes, action on building stones, 180. Agassiz, lake, 101, 408, 412, 461, 484, 581, 6122, 623. Alkali, 524, 610, 620. Alkaline soils, 128, 129, 524, 610. Alkaline waters, 136, 512, 524, 554, 610, 620. Alluvial terraces. See Terraces. Alluvium, 264, 445, 451, 464, 467, 527, 583, 612, 624, 643, 662. Altamont ( first) moraine, 505, 520, 528, 602, 64 1 . Altitudes. See Elevations. Arnbocojlia, 360. Ammonites, 577; A. placenta, 600. Amphibole, 38. Analyses: alkali, 524 f. n. Building stones, 195—203. Cretaceous clays, 438. Dolomites, 154-5. Galena limestone, Lime City, 299. Hydraulic cement and limestone, 449. Lignite, 578; lignite ashes, 579. Peat, 469, 514, 532, 047; peat ashes, 516. 1'ipestone (catlinite), 542. Shakopee limestone, 450, 638. Water of Heron lake, 512. of spring near Minnesota City, 264. of Owatonna mineral springs, 402. of Rock river, 550. Andromeda 1'arlatorii, 574. Antelope, 80. Antelope( third )moraine, 478, 509, 581 , 593, 605, 017, 021, 624, 641. Antelope valley, 593, 605, 616, 621. Arcluuan system, 568, 596. Archeology, 489, 555—561, 647, 673. See J/oim1 0, 61 1 , 620. Calcareous soils, 129. Calcareous veins in till, 442, 64(1. Calciferons series, 422, 424, 500. Calcite, lamellar, 233, 267; crystals, 575. Calumet, peace, 6, 9, 13, 24, 5fiO. Calymene, 343. Cambrian formations: Houston county, 217, 219-227; Winona, 249,251-9; Fillmore, 280-9; Olmsted, 334-9: Blue Earth, 422-431; Cotton- wood, 499-503; Pipestone and Rock, 537-543; Le Sueur, 636-9; Bice, 656-7. Cambrian rocks, chief source of tf!e red till, 126. Cannon valley railway, elevations, 652. Carbonaceous shale, 655, 672. Carbonic acid, action on building stones, 186. Carp, 78. Castle rock, 33, 58, 74, 656. Catlinite, 24, 37, 62, 70, 500-502, 541. Cedar logs in drift, 345. Cedar, red and white, 139, 248. Cedar river, Devonian rocks on, 84, 357-361. system of drainage, 135. Central chain of lakes, 481. Cervus sylvestris, 52 f. n. Clia-tetes, 292. 301, 342, 374. lycoperdon, 293. Chains of lakes, Martin county, 479, 507, 528. Chalybeate springs, 136,414,465,488,532,586, 610,645. Channels. See Erosion and Water-courses. Channels through the moraine on the Coteau des 1'rairies, 603. Cliazy formation, 424. Chicago & Northwestern railway, elevations. 245, 329, 369, 396, 408, 419, 565, 593, 635. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway, eleva- tions: Hastings & Dakota di vision, (i 15. Iowa & Minnesota division, 349, 396, 652; Austin & Mason City branch, 350. River division, 244. Southern Minnesota div'n,211,277,349,455, 474, 496, 522, 536; Mankato branch ,419. Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha rail- way, elevations, 419, 474, 496. 522, 536, 635. Chimney rock, 33, 74, 296. Chimneys, quartzyte used for, 500. Chlorite slate, 32. Choke-damp in wells, 488. Cinnarnomum Scheuclr/.eri, 574. Cissus, 574. Clay and clay loam as subsoils, 128. [588. Clay, layers indicating years in deposition, 467, Clay, lumps in gravel, 629. Clay, pottery, 402, 452, 573, 585. Clay, stratified, 119. Clay, transition to till, 544, 659, 661. Clays, Cretaceous, 353, 432, 573; analyses, 438. Clear Creek limestone, Illinois, 356. Climatic changes, 498, 524, 526. effects on ice-sheet, 641 . Coal, 62, 98, 579. See Lignite. Cocnostroma, 357 f. n. Coffee-tree, 139, 215, 248, 421. Coluber, 37. Columnaria alveolata, 289, 290. Concretions and concretionary structure, 257, 285, 340, 360, 375, 442, 543, 552, 575-6, 577, 598-600, 640. [640. Conglomerate, 61, 77, 86, 97, 355, 499, 501, 541, Contour of the state, 120-5. See Topography. Copper- bearing rocks of lake Superior, 32 f. n., 52 f.n., 100,422,500. of the St. Croix valley, 97, 98, 104. Copper, in aboriginal mounds, 560, 673; in the drift, 321, 628,643, 669. mined by Indians, 561. Copper, Le Sueur's mine, 17, 59. 71, 428, 435. Coregonus albus, 78, 89. Coteau des Prairies, 123, 494, 519, 539, 544, 593, 598,601, 616, 621. described by Keating, 41; Long, 44; Feath- erstonhaugh, 61; Catlin, 63; Nicollet, 68. its geological formation, 41, 09, 99, 494, 598, 599,601. [491. Cottonwood and Jackson counties, chapter on, Situation and area, 491. Surface features, 492 . Natural drainage, 492. Lakes, 493. Topography, 494. 086 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Coteau des Prairies, 101. Valley of Des Moines river, 495. Elevations, 196. Soil and timber, 4!)7. Trees and shrubs, -tun. Geological structure, 499. Potsdam quartzyte, 499. Drift and contour, 503. Glacial stria;, 503. First and second terminal moraines, 505. Medial moraine, 506. Interglacial drainage, 507. Drainage during the last glacial epoch, 508. Boulders and pebbles, 509. Modified drift, 510. Wells, 510. Water of Heron lake analyzed, 512. Travertine, 513. Material resources, 513. Water-powers, 513. Building stone, 513. Lime, 513; bricks, 514. Peat, 514; analyses of peat ashes, 516. Aboriginal mounds, 516. County geology, 205. [18, 432, 638-9, Cretaceous clay in hollows of Cambrian strata, of Devonian strata, 353-4. clays, analyses, 438. Cretaceous formations: Sank river valley, 104; Houston county , 233; Fillmore, 280, 307-3 1 1 ; Olmsted, 352-6; Dodge, 370, 374; Freeborn, 383-5; Steele, 398-9; Waseca, 410; Blue Earth, 431-9, 451; Faribault, 459 ,460; Waton- wan and Martin, 477; Pipestone and Rock, 535, 538; Brown and Redwood, 98, 568, 572-9; Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lin- coln, 598-600; near Big Stone lake, 619; Marsh lake and Lac qui Parle, 625; Le Sueur, 639. Cretaceous formations, chief source of the blue till, 126, 374, 595, 599, 659. extent in Minnesota, 579. making the Coteau des Prairies, 598-9, 601. Cretaceous lignitic beds, 383, 398, 568, 572, 577-9, 599. See Liynile in drift. Crinoidal remains, 79, 301. Crystalline rocks, as building stones, 142. Cupriferous series, 422, 500. Curved glacial strise, 604. Cyathopliyllum ceratites, 79. Cyrtina, 360. Dakota Central railway, elevations, 593. Dakota group, 308, 574, 576. [570. Decomposition of gneiss and granite, 75, 98, Deer, 23, 30, 79. Des Moines river, drainage system, l.°>5; inter glacial drainage course, 507. Devonian formations, 84, 303, 357. Diallage, 103. Dikes, 500, 597. Diospyros primawa, 354. Dip of Cambrian rocks, 225, 252; Cretaceous strata, 599; Eoz.oic rocks, 569,597,598; Pots- dam qnart/.yte, 499, 502, 53s. 5 to 1. Dodge county, chapter on, 367. Situation and area, 367. Surface features, 367. Natural drainage, 367. Water-powers, 368. Topography, 368. Elevations, 369. Timber, trees and shrubs, 369. Geological structure, 370. Shakopee limestone, 370. St. Peter sandstone, 370. Trenton limestone, 370. Galena limestone, 371. Drift, 374. Bricks and lime, 375. Dolomites as building stones, 153. Dolomitic limestones, as building stones, 163. Dovre (seventh) moraine, 621. Drainage, 132-6. Also see reports of counties. Drainage, interglacial, 481. 507. Drainage, local, effect on soils, 129. Drain-tiles, 452. Drift: Houston county ,227-230; Winona, 260-3; Fillmore, 311-318; Olmsted, 343-5; Mower, 362-5; Dodge, 374; Freeborn, 385-8; Steele, 397, 399-402; Waseca, 406, 411-413; Blue Earth, 439-445; Faribault, 460-7; Watonwan and Martin, 4 78 -488; Cottonwood and Jack- son, 503-513; Murray and Nobles, 520-2, 526-531; Pipestone and Rock, 548-553; Brown and Redwood, 580-6; Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln, 595, 599, 600-610; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 619-630; Le, Sueur, 639-615: Rice, 658-671. Drift, contained in the ice-sheet, 440, 602, 604, 626, and exposed on it by melting, 604, 610, 662, 665, 668. distribution and characters, 1 16, 126, 4:i9. of successive glacial epochs, 406, 484, 52S, 582,626,658.' |6.vs ". origin of material, 99, 126, 374, 595, 599. soils and subsoils, 125-8, 351. thickness, 116, .'{4:!, 363,3X5, 399, Ml, 439, 478, 505, 527, 528, 551, 580, 601, 620, 639, 659. Also see ./>V>i/Wi ;•*, Till, Modified drift, Mo* raiwx, (Undid cjxw/is, Glacial xtria\ and Jce-theet. SCIENTIFIC INDEX. GS7 Drift lakes classified, 180, 480. Driftless area, 117, 227, 275, 311, 317, 406. Ducks, 21. " Duluth granite", 103, 147. Eagles, 22. Eagle rocks, 296. Elevation and subsidence, 09, 101. Elevations above the sea, 122; lakes, 124; hills, valleys and plateaus, 125; Houston county, 211-213; Winona, 244; Fillmore, 277: Olm- sted, 328; Mower, 349; Dodge, 369; Freeborn, 380; Steele, 396; Waseca, 408; Blue Earth, 419; Faribault, 455; Watonwan and Martin, 474; Cottonwood and Jackson, 496; Murray and Nobles, 522; Pipestone and Bock, 536; Brown and Kedwood, 565 7; Yellow Medi- cine, Lyon and Lincoln, 593; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 615; Le Sueur, 634; llice, 652. [594, 616, 635. Elevations of the Minnesota river, 420, 566, Also see names of railroads. Elk, 23, 28, 29, 79. Elms, 215, 636, 653. [634, 641. Elysian (fifth) moraine, 461 f. n., 581, 606, 621 , Endoceras magniventrum, 300, 655. Eozoic system, 568, .V.MI. Eozoon Canadense, 283. Epidote, 104. Erosion by streams. 122; Houston county, 210; Winona, 239-242; Fillmore, 270-6; Olmsted, 328,333; Mower, 348; Dodge, 369; Freeborn, 381; Waseca, 408; Blue Earth, 417, 418, 430, 439; Faribault, 455; Watonwan and Martin, 474; Cottonwood and Jackson, 495-6; Mur- ray and Nobles, 527; Pipestone and Bo ck 541; Brown and Kedwood, 564, 581; Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln, 592, 602; P.ig Stone and Lac qui Parle, 615, 622; Le Sucnr, 630; Bice, 651, 669. Also see Water-courses. Erosion by weathering, 226, 598, 599. Erosion, glacial, 43(1, 571, 602. Erosion in Cambrian strata before the Creta- ceous age, 234, 432, 439. Eskers, 582. See Kames. Euomphalus, 78. 431; E. Minnesotensis, 637. E-yan-shah, the Indian word for pipestone, 62 f. n. Faribault county, chapter on, 454. Situation and area, 454. Surface features, 454. Natural drainage, 454. Lakes, 455. Topography, 455. Elevations, 455. Soil and timber, 456. Trees and shrubs, 457. Geological structure, 457. Bed-rock in wells, 457. Cretaceous beds, 460. Drift and contour, 4(10. [460. Glacial lake in basin of l>hie Earth river, Terminal moraines, 462. Modified drift, 464. Alluvium, 464. Pebbles and boulders, 464. Wells, 465. Material resources, 467. Water-powers, 467. Bricks, 467. Peat, 468. Artesian fountains, 470. Aboriginal mounds, 471. Fault in St. Croix sandstone at Dresbach,259. Fauna of the Minnesota valley, 37. of the Mississippi valley, 21. 28, 30, 32 f. n. Favosites, 357 f. n.; F. lycoperdon, 79. Favositoid coral, 391. Feldspar, 38, 143, 569, 669. Also see Crystalline rocks as building stones. Fenestella, 304, 305. Ferruginous soils, 129. Ficus, 573, 574; F. Ilalliana, 576. Fillmore county, chapter on, 268. Situation and area, 268. Surface features, 268. Natural drainage, 268. Water-power mills, 268. Topography, 270. Elevations, 277. Soil and timber, 277. Trees and shrubs, 278. Geological structure, 280. St. Croix sandstone, 281. St. Lawrence limestone, 282. Jordan sandstone, 284. Shakopee limestone, 285. St. Peter sandstone, 288. Trenton limestone, 289. Green shales, 293. Upper Trenton and Galena, 293. Maquoketa shales, MOO. Niagara limestone, 302. Devonian limestones, 303. Cretaceous beds, 307. Drift, 311. [313. Ancient peat and vegetation in tlied rift Wells, 315. Loess loam, 315. Alluvial ten-aces, 317. 688 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Material resources, 318. Fuel, 318. Iron, 318. Lead, 319. Quicklime, 319. Bricks, 321 . Gold and copper, 321 . Building stone, 322. Sand for mortar and concrete, 323. Calcareous tufa, 324. (Artificial mounds, 673.) Fire-brick, 403, 451,588. Fires, prairie, 345, 881, 524, 520. Fish in lakes of 1'ark region, !-7, 89. Flora of the state, 79, '.)5. of Rainy lake, 43. of the Minnesota valley, 37. of the Mississippi valley, 21, 22, 28-80, 77. of the Park region, 89. of the Undine region, 72. Flowers on prairies, 37, 520, G17. Flowing wells, 389,402,453,470,486, 510, 5R5. Forest bed in drift, 314, 363, 390, 5sr,. See Wood in drift, and Peat, interylacial. Forests of the state, 136, 140, 636, 650; deso- lated by fire, 136. See Timber. Fort I5enton group, 308. Fort Pierre group, 599. [falls, 78. Fossils collected by Nicollet at St. Anthony Fountains. See Flouring wclh. Fox Hills group, 599. Freoborn county, chapter on, 376. Situation and area, 376. Surface features, 376. Natural drainage, 376. Topography, 376. Elevations, 379. Soil, 380. Timber, 381. Geological structure, 382. Drift, 382, 385. Cretaceous rocks, 383. Exploration for coal, 384. G ravel and sand, 385. Wells, 388. Vegetation in the drift, ,'ii>o. Boulders, 390. Material resources, 391. Lime, 391. Brick, 391. Peat, 393. Fringilia vespertina, 52 f. n. Frost, effect on building stones, 186. in a well 70 feet deep, 671. rock masses dislodged by, 540. Fucoids, 79, 258, 288, 374, 500. Gabbro, as building stone, 147. Galena, 32, 33, 259. Galena limestone, 84, 293, 334, 340. 362, 37 1 ,655. Gary (second) moraine, 4(«i, 505, 521. 52S. 605. 621,641. Gas in wells, 384, 388, 4S8, 552, 62'.). (ieese, 21. Geological survey of the state, 91, 93, 94, 106. Gerolle in Winona county, 262-3. ( i lacial currents, 99, 406. 408, 441 , Hill, 481 , 504, 506, 548, 027, 62S, 041 f. n., 667- 9. See Icc- shcct. Glacial drift. See Drift, Till. Momiws, lioiil- dcrK, and Modifnd drift. Glacial epochs, 406, 528, 580. See InlerijhirutL Glacial erosion, 430, 571, 602. Glacial furrows, 600, 619. Glacial lakes, 408, 442, 460, 508, 509, 545, 5SO 1 , 501, 006, 615, 622, 642, 662, 668. effect on deposits of till, 408, 442, 461, 544, 581, 622, 661. Glacial markings, showing rock-fracture, 548. Glacial rivers, 135, 388, 417, 444, 582, 622, 624, 668. Glacial striw, 99, 478, 503, 517-550, 5SO. 600. curved, 504; intersecting, 503. |596, 617. Gneiss in the Minnesota valley, 146, 568-571, Gold, 95, 321, 346. Gopher knolls, 365. Granites as building stones, 142-8. Granites of the Minnesota valley, 36, 38, 49, 61 , 86, 146, 568-571, 596-6, 617. of the Mississippi valley, 33, 142 5. on the northern boundary, 42, 1 45. Graphite, 32. Graptolithus, 297. Grasses, 525-6, 595-6. Grasshoppers, 498. Grauwacke, 32. Gravel and sand, distribution in the stale, 1 is soils and subsoils, 127. See Mmlijii d drift and Alluvium. Green-sand, 224,425. Green shales, 218. 274, 293, 334, 342. 399, 655. Gypsum (selenite) crystals, 600,619. Hematite, 96. Hamilton formation, 360. Hardpan, 512, 530, 607. See Till. Hard water, 136, 512, 513, 524, 553, 51)5. Hay used as fuel, 525, 537. Head-lining of Hour barrels, 672. Heat, effect on building stones, 186. Hemlock, 139. Hickories, 215, 247. Hieroglyphics, 21, 33, 501, 555. Ilights. See Elevations. SCIENTIFIC INDEX. 689 " IIole-in-the-Mountain", 603. [ite, 626. Hornblende schist, 597, 598; fragments in gran- " Horse-back", 666. Houston county, chapter on, 207. Situation and area, 207. Surface features, 207. Natural drainage, 207. Water-power mills, 208. Topography, 208. Elevations, 211. Soil and timber, 213. Trees and shrubs, 214. Geological structure, 217. Trenton limestone, 218. St. Peter sandstone, 218. Shakopee limestone, 219. Jordan sandstone, 221. St. Lawrence limestone, 222. St. Croix sandstone, 223. Drift, 227. Alluvial terraces, 227. Wells, 230. Material resources, 231. Building stone, 231. Sand, 233. Lamellar calcite, 233. Brick, 234. Lime, 234. Earthworks, 235 (also 673). Hudson River formation, 102, 176, 217, 218, 260, 289, 300, 334, 339, 361, 397, 655. Huronian system, 100, 103, 104. Hydraulic limestone and cement, 434, 449. Hypersthene, 103. [641, 668. Ice-sheet, 99, 101, 406, 440, 441, 463, 479, 484, See Glacial currents. ice-sheet, drift contained in, 440,602, 604,626. drift on, 387, 604, 610, 662, 665, 668. thickness, 484, 549. Image in mound near Lanesboro, 673. Indians, 3, 4-23,46,55, 63, 81; burial customs, 673; inscriptions, 21, 33, 501, 555; stone pipes, 560; traditions, 64, 69, 546. Induration of quartzyte, 502. Inoceramus, 600. Inscriptions by Indians, 21, 33, 501, 555. Interglacial drainage and water-courses, 484, 507, 580. Interglacial epochs, 313, 364, 406, 484, 580. Interglacial formations, 313, 363,390,402, 406, 441, 466, 485, 511, 552, 580, 585-6, 609, 626. See Wood in drift deposits. Intersecting glacial stria;, 503. [Alluvium. Interval lands, 567. See Bottomlands and Iron ore, 94, 103; at Vermilion lake, 96, 103; at Prairie river falls, 97: in Fillmore county, 44 310, 314, 318; boulders in drift, 344. Iron springs. See Chalybeate. Isotelus, 343. Itasca prairie, 386. [491. Jackson county, Cottonwood and, chapter on, See Cottonwood county for contents of chapter. Joints, 500, 502, 569, 698, 600, 618, 620. Jordan sandstone, 179, 221 , 252, 280, 284, 334-5 , 426-9, 636. Juniper, 139. Kames, 388, 417, 444, 464, 582, 624, 665-9. Kame-like deposits, 545, 565, 582, 584, 606-7. Kaolinized gneiss and granite, 37,98,570,588. Kasota stone, 164, 638, 646. Kentucky coffee-tree, 139, 215, 248, 421. Keweenawan formation, Michigan and Wis- consin, 422, 500. Kiester (fourth) moraine, 387, 461 f. n., 462, 581,606,621, 641. Labradorite, 103; labradoiite rock, 149. Lac qui Parle county, Big Stone and, chapter on, 6 13. See Big Stone county tor contents of chapter. Lakes, 130, 480, 564; of the upper Mississippi region, 78; of the Park region, 89; Dodge county, 367; Freeborn, 376-8; Steele, 394-6; Waseca, 405; Blue Earth, 416; Faribault, 455; Watonwan, 473; Martin, 479-485; Cotton- wood and Jackson, 493; Murray, 518; Nobles, 519; Pipestone, 539; Brown and Redwood, 563; Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln, 591; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 614, 623; Le Sueur, 633; Rice, 648, 651, 660. Lakes, absent beyond the outer moraine, 519. chains of, in Martin county, 479-485. [640. in drift deposits, origin of, 386, 408, 480, 622, See Glacial lakes. Lake-ridges, 564, 624, 643. Laumontite, 103. Laurophyllum reticulatum, 576. Laurus, 574; L. Nebrascensis, 573. Lead, 340. Leaf hills, 89, 119, 121, 123, 125, 130, 406. Leaves, Cretaceous fossil, 573, 574, 576. Leeches, 78. Leguminosites Marcouanus, 576. Lemont limestone, 182. Leptsena, 293; L. sericea, 301, 339. Le Sueur county, chapter on, 632. Situation and area, 632. Surface features, 632. Natural drainage, 632. Topography, 633. 690 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Elevations, 634. Soil and timber, 636. Geological structure, 636. [636. Jordan sandstone and Shakopee limestone, Cretaceous clay, 639. Glacial and modified drift, 639. Terminal moraines, 640. Terraces of modified drift, 642. Alluvium, 643. Boulders, 643. Lake-ridges, 643. Copper found, 643. Wells, 643. Material resources, 645. Water-powers, 646. Building stone, 646. Lime, 646. Bricks, 646. Peat, 647. Aboriginal earthworks, 647. Le Sueur prairie, 634, 642. [577-9. Lignite, exploration for, 98, 363, 384, 573, in Cretaceous strata, 73, 84, 96, 98, 383, 398, 568, 572, 577 9, 599, 620. in drift, 84, 363, 383, 413, 435, 443-4, 465, 486, 510, 511,529, 553, 584-5, 608, 620, 629, 643, 644,671. mined in Dakota, 578, 620. Lime: Houston county, 234; Winona, 265; Fillmore, 319; Olmsted, 335; Mower, 366; Dodge, 372, 375; Freeborn,391; Waseca,413; Blue Earth, 448; Jackson, 513; Murray and Nobles, 531; Brown and Redwood, 587; Yel- low Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln, 611; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 630; Le Sueur, 646; Kice, 672. Limestone at lake of the Woods, 42; at Saint Anthony falls, 33, 35, 58, 85; in the Minne- sota valley, 36, 59, 85, 98, 575-6. See St. Lawrence, Shakopee, Trenton, Oalena, Hudson River, Niagara and Devonian formations. Limestone boulders and pebbles in the drift, 383, 464, 485, 509-10, 531,543, 553, 595, 606, 611, 620, 631, 640, 643,646,659, 663; derived in part from the vicinity of Winnipeg, Man- itoba, 509, 553, 620, 643. Limestones, as building stones, 158, 163, 170. Lincoln county, chapter, 589. See Yellow Med- icine county for contents of chapter. Liugula, 83, 258, 429 f. n , 637. Cobourgensis, 292, 298. Dacotaensis, 637, 638. Elderi, 291,298, 343. quadrata, 298. Lingulepis, 288 . Liriodendron Meekii, 576. Lithology of rocks in the Minnesota valley, 38. of the building stones of the state, 142-190. Lituites undatus, 655. Loam, 117, 119,128,209,239,245,246,263,278, 315-317,365, 392, 543, 544, 659, 661. Lobes of the ice-sheet, 406,463,479,481,484,640 Locust, Rocky Mountain, 498. Lodestone, 344. [543-5. Loess, 118, 119, 213, 245, 260, 262, 278,526, Lower Magnesiau limestone, 83, 85, 98, 102. See St. Lawi-ence and Shakopee limestones. Lower Magnesian series, 422, 500. Lower Silurian formations: Houston county, 218; Winona, 250; Fillmore, 289-301; Olm- sted, 339-343; Mower, 362; Dodge, 370-4; Steele, 397; Rice, 655. Lower Trenton limestone, 85, 102; section at Minneapolis, 168: as building stone, 170-6; Houston county, 218; Winona, 250; Fill- more, 289-292; Olmsted, 343; Dodge, 370; Steele, 399; Rice, 655. Lumber, 421, 672. Lyon county, chapter, 589. See Yellow Medi- cine county for contents of chapter. Maclurea, 300; M. Bigsbyi, 340. Magnesian lime, character of, 157, 448. Magnesian limestone. See Dolomites and Limestone. Magnetic variation, 378, 396, 547 f. n. Magnetite, 96, 103. Magnolia alternans, 574. Maples, 653. Maps: by Allen, 52; Beltrami, 45; Carver, 24 f. n.; DeL'Isle, 20; Franquelin, 66; Henne- pin,8; Joliet, 110; Lea,66;Nicollet, 67; Och- agach, 18; Owen, 82 f. n.; Schoolcraft, 52; Warren, 100. Maquoketa shales, 84, 300. Marble, 357, 366, 672. Marcellus formation, 360. Marl and marly soils, 129. Marshes, 364, 393, 394, 395, 524, 564, 649, 660. Martin county, Watonwan and, chapter on, 472. See Watonwan cnunty for contents of chapter. Mashkilonge, 78. Mastodon tusk, 670. Medial moraines. See Moraines. Mergus cucullatus, 37. Mesabi range, 119-121, 123, 125, 130. Metamorphic rocks. See Eozoic system. Metamorphism of rocks north of lake Supe- rior, 84-5. Meteorology, 95. See Climatic clianyes. SCIENTIFIC INDEX. 691 Mica, 38, 143, 569; mica slate, 43. Mica schist, masses of, in gneiss, 597. Microscopic characters of building stones, 145, 147, 153, 155, 164, 172,176,177,179,180,182. Millstones, quartzyte used for, 555. Mineralogy, 32 f . n., 52 f . n. See Lithology. Mineral springs, 264, 402, 414, 465, 488, 532, 586, 610, 645. Mining for gold, 95; for coal, 579. Also see Copper, Iron ore, and Lignite. Minneapolis and St. Louis railway, elevations, 380, 409, 634. Minnesota lobe of the ice-sheet, 406, 479, 481 , 484, 640. [642, 667. Minnesota valley in the glacial period, 580, 622, preglacial erosion, 432, 439. glacial lake, 461 f. n., 606, 622, 642, 663. Mississippi river system, 133; extension in the glacial period, 101, 622. Mississippi valley, erosion, 241. Modified drift, 118, 127, 444, 480; Houston county, 228; Winona, 261; Fillmore,311-313, 317; Olmsted, 344; Mower, 364; Freeborn, 385-8; Steele, 401; Blue Earth, 444; Fari- bault, 464; Jackson, 496; Clay county, Iowa, 508; Nobles, 527; Pipestone and Rock, 544-5; Brown and Bed wood, 580-3; Yellow Medi- cine, Lyon and Lincoln, 606; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 624; Le Sueur, 640, 642; Rice, 662-9. Modified drift, contained in the ice-sheet, 444, 480, 626, and exposed on it by melting, 387, 665, 668. of the earlier glacial epoch, 581, 625. rate of deposition, 588. Also see Rames, Terraces, and Loess. Moose, 29, 30. Moraine, buried, 607, 626. Moraine, medial, 504, 506. Moraines, terminal: Freeborn county, 377, 385; Steele, 399; Waseca, 406; Faribault, 462; Watonwan and Martin, 478, 484; Cotton- wood and Jackson, 495, 505; Murray and Nobles, 520, 527; Pipestone, 544; Brown and Redwood, 581; Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln, 596, 601; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 621; Le Sueur, 633, 640; Rice, 660-2. Moraines, terminal, formation of, 406, 640. in Ohio, 463 f. n. Also see Altamont, Gary, Antelope, Kicster, Elysian, Waconia and Havre moraines. Mounds, aboriginal, 3 f. n., 235, 266, 365, 403, 414,471,489,516,532,588,612, 631, 647, 673. Mounds, articles found in, showing recent date of burials, 489, 647. Mower county, chapter on, 347. Situation and area, 347. Surface features, 347. Natural drainage, 347. Water-power, 348. Topography, 348. Elevations, 349. Soil and timber, 35(1. Trees and shrubs, 351. Geological structure, 352. Cretaceous, 353. Devonian limestones, 357. Hudson River rocks, 361. Galena and Upper Trenton, 362. Drift, 362. Ancient peat, 363. Mounds, 365. Material resources, 365. Murchisonia, 300. Murray and Nobles counties, chapter on, 517. Situation and area, 517. Surface features, 518. Natural drainage, 518. Topography, 519. Elevations, 522. Soil, 523. Timber and prairie, 524. Geological structure, 526. Glacial and modified drift, 526. Terminal moraines, 527. Wells, 528. Material resources, 531. Water-power, 531 . Stone, lime, bricks, peat, 531. Springs, 532. Aboriginal mounds, 532. Mus bursarius, 32 f. n. Muskrat, 37, 525. Niagara limestone, 302, 356. Niobrara group, 308, 576. Nishnabotany sandstone, 308. Nobles county, Murray and, chapter on, 517. See Murray county for contents of chapter. Norway pine, 138. Nucleospira, 360. Nucula cancellata, 600. Oaks, 214, 247, 279, 653. Ocher, 619, 639. Olenidse, 638. Olmsted county, chapter on, 325. Situation and area, 325. Surface features, 326. Natural drainage, 326. Springs, 326. Water-power, 327. 692 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Contour, 328, 333, 337-8. Elevations, 328. Surface features of various towns, 329. Timber, 330. List of trees, shrubs and vines, 331. Geological structure, 332. St. Lawrence limestone, 334. Jordan sandstone, 335. Shakopee limestone, 336. St. Peter sandstone, 387. Trenton period, 339. Drift, 343. Wells, 345. Material resources, 345. Soil, 345. Brick, 345. Gold in the drift, 345. Ophileta, 223, 257. Opwagonite, Schoolcraft's name for catlinite, 62 f. n. Orbiculse, 83. Oriskany sandstone, 356. Orthis, 293, 297, 305, 342, 637, 638, 655. ;i n n rim. 301. Lynx, 301. perveta, 291. plicatella, 301. polygramma, 78. snli;i-(|ii;ita. 301. subquadrata, 301. testudinaria, 78, 301. tricenaria, 291 . Whitfleldi, 301. Orthoceras, 78, 223, 291, 340, 360. Orthonota, 297. Otters, 23. Paint, 571, 588, 639. [531,647,660. Peat, 108, 129, 318, 363-4, 393, 468, 489, 514, Peat, interglacial, 313, 363, 402. Peat, process of manufacture, 468. Peaty soils, 129. Pebbles, on Kiester hills, 464; on lake shores, 485-6, 509; at Balaton, 606; Cretaceous, 309, 552, 607. Pelicans, 524. Pepin, lake, its cause, 58, 124, 132. Perch, 78. Persea, 574. Petrified moss, 327, 513, 550, 587, 610, 620. Phillipsite, 86. Phragmolites, 78. Physical features of the state, 95, 100, 111-141. Physical tests of building stones, 185. Pickerel, 78. Pigment used by Indians, 60, 71, 428. Pike, 78. Pine, area of merchantable, 138. species of, 138, 139, 215, 248, 279. Pinus (fossil), 574. Pipes, Indian stone, 24 f . n., 560. See Calumet. Pipestone and Rock counties, chapter on, 533. Situation and area, 533. Surface features, 533. Natural drainage, 533. Topography, 534. Elevations, 536. Soil, timber and fuel, 537. Geological structure, 537. Red quartzyte, 537. Historical resume, 538. The pipestone quarry, 538. Conglomerate, 541. Pipestone or catlinite, 541. Drift. Till, 543. Terminal moraine, 544. Loam-clay, 544. Kame-like deposits, 545. Boulders, 545. Glacier-marks, 547. Thickness of the glacier, 549. Analysis of water of Rock river, 550. Springs, 550. Wells, 550. Material resources, 554. Building stone, 654. Archseology, 555. Indian inscriptions, 555-560. Indian stone pipes, 560. Pipestone, 24, 37, 62, 70,500,501,502,541,561 Pipestone quarry, 62, 70, 538, 541. Placenticeras placenta, 600. Plains of sand and gravel, 118, 122. Platanus primseva, 574. Pleurotomaria, 78, 223, 342. Polished rock surfaces, 66, 541. Ponds, 326, 564. Poplars, 214, 247. Populites cyclophyllus, 574. Populus cordifolia, 574. cyclophylla, 574. elegans, 574. Lancastriensis, 574. litigiosa, 574. Porphyrite, 104. I'ot-holes, 61, 434, 583. Potsdam formations, 83, 97, 100, 103, 180; Blue Earth county, 422, 424; Watonwan; 474, 476; Cottonwood, 494, 499, 513; Pipe- stone and Rock, 537, 554; Brown, 568, 572. Potsdam pebbles and boulders, 465, 486, 509, 606. SCIENTIFIC INDEX. 693 Potsdam period, Cupriferous series referred to, 100, 103, 422, 500. Potsdam sandstone as building stone, 180. "Potsdanr'fSt. Croix) sandstone, 83,98,102,107. Pottery, 343, 402, 452, 588. Prairies, 42, 125, 136, 421, 498, 524, 526, 567, 617. Prairie-fires, 129, 524, 526, 617. Preglacial erosion, 226, 234, 275, 418, 439. Productella truncata, 360. Proteus of the lakes, 32 f. n. Protophyllum crednerioides, 574. " Protozoic rocks," 83. Qualitative tests of building stones, 184. Qualities of building stones, 187, 195-203. of the natural waters of the state, 136. Quarries: Houston county, 221, 231; Winona, 252, 256, 265; Fillmore, 284, 292, 297, 305-7, 322; Olmsted, 335, 337, 341, 348; Mower, 357- 361, 366; Dodge, 373; Steele, 397; Blue Earth, 446; Cottonwood, 513; Pipestone and Kock, 554; Brown and Redwood, 587; Yellow Med- icine and Lincoln, 611; Big Stone, and Lac qui Parle,630; LeSueur,646; Kice, 671-2. Quarries referred to in chapter on the building stones of the state: Beaver Bay, 145, 148. near Caledonia, 162, 225. Clinton Falls, 176, 397. Dakota, 178. Dresbach, 178. Duluth, 147. East Saint Cloud, 142. Faribault, 171,672. Fond du Lac, 180. near Fort Snelling, 177. Fountain, 170, 288, 292, 322. Frontenac. 160. Hinckley, 176. Jordan, 179. Kasota, 165, 638, 646. Lanesboro, 152, 284, 323. near Luverne, 151, 554. Mankato, 166, 429, 447. Mantorville, 167, 373. Minneapolis, 175. Ottawa, 164, 639, 646. Pipestone City, 151, 554. lledstone, near New Ulna, 150. Red Wing, 160. Saint Paul, 172. Sank Rapids, 142, 148. Shakopee, 164. Sioux Falls, Dakota, 152. Stillwater, 159. near Stockton, 162, 255. Taylor's Falls, 182. Watab, 146. Winona, 161, 265. Quartz, 38, 143, 360, 569; veins, 597, 598. Quartzyte near New Ulm, 36, 60, 85, 149, 499; at the pipestone quarry, 63, 70, 537, 554; at Pokegama falls, 77, 100; in Watonwan county, 474, 476; Cottonwood, 494, 499, 513; Pipestone and Rock, 537, 554; Brown, 568, 572. Quartzytes as building stones, 149. Quebec formation, 424. Raccoons, 28. Rain-fall, 498, 524, 591. Rainy river, drainage system, 134. Receptaculites, 297, 298, 342, 371, 374, 510. Recession of ice-sheet, 406, 479, 496, 504, 508, 580-1, 591, 604-6, 622, 641, 662, 669. Red-bird, 37. Red clay at Duluth, 120. Red marble, 24. Red marls and sandstone at New Ulm, 98, 576. Red river of the North, system of, 133. Red till, 126, 127, 627, 658, 666, 668-9. Redwood county, Brown and, chapter on, 562. See Brown county for contents of chapter. Rensselseria, 360. Reptiles, 37, 78. Rhynchonella, 292, 301, 655. Rice county, chapter on, 648. Situation and area, 648. Surface features, 648. Natural drainage, 648. Water-powers, 650. Topography, 651. Elevations, 652. Soil and timber, 652. Trees and shrubs, 653. Geological structure, 654. Rocks of the Trenton period, 655. St. Peter sandstone, 656. Shakopee limestone, 657. Drift. Till, 658. Moraines and morainic belts, 660 Gravel and gravel terraces, 662. Cannon river terraces, 663. The lower terrace, 665. The Bridgewater kame, 665. Minerals from the drift, 669. Mastodon remains, 670. Wells, 670. Material resources, 671. Building stone, 671. Lime, 672. Brick, 672. Sorghum, 672. 694 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Lumber, 672. Artificial mounds, 673. Ripple-marks, 500, 502, 599. Rivers, systems of, 132. Rochester and Northern Minnesota railway, elevations, 329. Rock county, Pipestone and, chapter on, 533. See Pipestone county for contents of chapter. Rock decomposed in place, 75, 98, 397, 570. Rock-outcrops in the state, 116. Rock- specimens collected by Norwood, 84. Rocky Mountain locust, 498. Roman architecture in England, 156. St. Croix sandstone, (83,98, 102,) 107; as build- ing stone, 178, 182; Houston county, 223-7; Winona, 257-9; Fillmore, 281; Blue Earth, 422-4. [463 f. n. St. John's ridge (terminal moraine), Ohio, St. Lawrence limestone as building stone, 154; Houston county, 222; Winona, 253-7; Fill- more, 282-4; Olmsted, 334; Blue Earth. 424-6. St. Louis river system, 135. [463 f. n. St. Mary's ridge (terminal moraine), Ohio St. Paul & Sioux City division, Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railway, eleva- tions, 419, 474, 496, 522, 536, 635. St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba railway, Brown's Valley branch, elevations, 616. St. Peter sandstone, 24,33,98,102; as building stone, 177; Houston county, 218; Winona, 251; Fillmore, 288; Olmsted, 337-9; Dodge, 370; Steele, 399; Waseca, 410; Rice, 656; fossils, 288, 656. Salix, 435; S. protesefolia, 573, 5Z4. Salt, brought by Indians, 6. on the shores of lakes, 61. Salt ponds and lakes, 53, 61, 614. Salt springs, 42, 62, 108, 414. Salt spring lands, 104, 105, 108. Salt well at Belle Plaine, 104. Sand-hill crane, 37. Sand prairie, 642. Sandstone at Castle rock, 33, 58, 74, 656; Fond du Lac, 32, 77, 180; Fort Snelling, 35, 85, 177; Jordan, 105, 179; Little rapids, 35, 85; Myah Skah, 59; Pokegama falls, 54, 77, 96; St. Anthony falls, 33, 58; Taylor's Falls, 104; "of the upper Mississippi", 83. See Potsdam, St. Croix, Jordan and St. Peter formations. Sandstones as building stones, 176-182. Satin spar, 341. Scaphites Nicolletii, 600. Sciurus tridecem-striatus, 32 f. n. Scolithus, 288. Sections (also see Wells): Cretaceous beds on Big Cobb river, 438. on Cottonwood river, 573-4. in Le Sueur valley, 435. on Maple river, 437. on Minnesota river near New Ulm, 574 6. Trenton limestone at Minneapolis, 31,58,168. Shakopee limestone at Mankato, 429. Jordan sandstone in Blue Earth county, 427. St. Croix sandstone at Hokah, 224. in Winona county, 257. Potsdam quartzyte, Cottonwood county, 502. Albert Lea, 388. Caledonia, 225. ChatUeld, 286. Clear Grit, 283. Clinton Falls, 397. Concord, 370. Dresbach (at a fault), 259. Faribault, 656. Fort Snelling, 35, 85. Fountain, 288, 292. Freeborn, 384. Gregson's mill, Mower county, 360. Heron Lake, 503. Hokah, 224. Kasota, 638. L'Huillier mound, 430. Mankato, 423, 429. Mantorville, 373. Milton, 371. Money Creek, 229. Oronoco, 335. Owatonna, 398. Pickwick, 246, 262. Pleasant Grove, 342. (iuincy, 336. across Root river valley, 287. St. Anthony falls, 31, 58. Spring Valley, 301. Whalan, 284. Selenite crystals, 600. Sequoia, 384. Shakopee limestone: as building stone, 163; Houston county, 219-221; Winona, 252; Fillmore, 285-8; Olmsted, 336; Dodge, 370; Blue Earth, 429-431; Faribault, 459; Le Sueur, 336-9; Rice, 657. Shark's tooth, 435. Shells, in alluvial deposits, 552, 553. interglacial, 441, 485, 487,511, 580, 608-9. Shrubs: Houston county, 214; Winona, 247; Fillmore, 278; Olmsted, 332; Mower, 351; Dodge, 369; Freeborn, 381; Steele, 397; Blue Earth, 421; Faribault, 457; Cottonwood, 499; Murray, 525; Pipestone and Rock, 537; SCIENTIFIC INDEX. 695 Redwood, 568; Coteau lakes, Dakota, 596; Big Stone lake, 617; Le Sueur county, 636; . Bice, 653. Silieifled wood, 643, 669. Silurian rocks at St. Anthony falls, 83. See Lower and Upper Silurian. Silver, 52 f . n. Sink-holes, 209, 252, 275, 326, 333, 341. Sioux Falls branch, Chicago, St. Paul, Minne- apolis & Omaha railway, elevations, 536. Sioux quartzyte, 537. Slate, 32, 56, 103; talcose, 75. Slickeusides, 571. Sloughs, 524, 564, 595. Snow-fall in glacial period, 641. Soils and subsoils, 63, 69, 125-9; soil of Hous- ton county, 213; Winona,245; Fillmore, 277; Olmsted, 345; Mower, 350; Dodge, 374; Freeborn, 380; Steele, 396; Waseca, 409; Blue Earth, 420; Faribault, 456; Watonwan and Martin, 475; Cottonwood and Jackson, 497; Murray and Nobles, 523; Pipestone and Rock, 537; Brown and Redwood, 567; Yel- low Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln, 595; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 617; Le Sueur, 636; Rice, 652. Sorghum, 672. Southern Minnesota division, Chicago, Mil- waukee & St. Paul railway, elevations, 211, 277, 349, 455, 474, 496, 522, 536; Mankato branch, 419. Specific gravity of building stones, 185, 195-203. Specimens in duplicate ordered, 109. Spirifer, 301,339. Springs, 71 f . n., 264, 274, 275, 286, 326, 333, 357, 402,414, 465, 488,515,532,550,586,590, 595,610,611,620,645. Spruce, 139. Stalactites, 341. Standard Cement company, 434, 449. State buildings, 193. Staurolite, 43. Steaschist, 76, 77. Steele county, chapter on, 394. Situation and area, 394. Surface features, 394. Natural drainage, 394. Water-power, 394. Topography, 395. Townships described, 395. Elevations, 396. Soil and timber, 396. List of trees and shrubs, 397. Geological structure, 397. Trenton period, 397, 899. Cretaceous, 398, 399. Owatonna well, 398. Glacial drift, 399. Terminal moraines, 400. Wells, 401. Mineral springs, 402. Pottery and brick, 402. Aboriginal mounds, 403. Steriocisnia, 78. Stone buildings in Saint Paul, 191; in Minne- apolis, 192. Stone City limestone, 183. Stone hammers in mounds, 673. Storks, 21. Straparollus Minnesotensis, 431. Striae. See Glacial strice. Stromatoporoid corals, 357. Strophomena, 78, 292, 293, 297, 300, 361, 655. alternata, 78,291, 301, 307. fluctuosa, 301, 307. Subsidence, 99, 101 . [276, 326, 453, 586. Subterranean streams, 71 f. n., 208, 237, 242, Sucker, 78. Sulphuret of copper, Huronian, 100. Sulphuret of lead, 32, 33, 259. Swans, 21. Syenite, 33, 142-9, 569, 596-7. Table of qualities of building stones, 184, 195- Taconic controversy, 84. [203. Tamarack, 139. Terminal moraines. See Moraines. Terraces of modified drift, 118, 227, 261, 313, 317,364, 386, 445,496,510,545,564,581, 583, 607, 642, 643, 662-5. of rock strata, 270-4, 418, 625, 636, 665. of till, 607, 625, 626. Thickness of the ice-sheet, 484, 549 . of drift. See Drift. Thousand-foot contour-line, 123. Tiles for drains, 452. Till (see Drift], 117, 126, 440; Fillmore county, 311; Olmsted, 343; Mower, 362; Dodge, 374; Freeborn, 385; Steele, 399; Waseca, 413; Blue Earth, 439-442; Faribault, 460; Waton- wan and Martin, 478; Cottonwood and Jack- son, 505; Murray and Nobles, 526; Pipestone and Rock, 543; Brown and Redwood, 580; Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln, 601; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 620; Le Sueur, 639; Rice, 658. Till, blue in western Minnesota, 126,440, 627-8. changed by weathering to yellow next to surface, 440, 582, 625. contained in the ice-sheet, 440, 602, 604. 626, and exposed on it by melting, 604, 610, 662, 665. 668. 696 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. Till, effect of glacial lakes on its deposition, 408, 442, 545, 622, 659, 661. red (chiefly in eastern Minnesota), 126-7, 627, 658. varieties, 126, 440-2, 461, 465, 512, 529, 530, 543, 582, 607, 659, 661. yellow till below blue till, 529. red till below the blue, 659. Timber, 136-140, 636; Houston county, 214; Winona, 247; Fillmore, 278; Olmsted, 831; Mower, 350; Dodge, 369; Freeborn, 378-9, 381; Steele, 395-7; Waseca, 409; Blue Earth, 421; Faribault, 456; Watonwan and Martin, 476; Cottonwood and Jackson, 498; Murray and Nobles, 525; Pipestone and Rock, 537; Brown and Bed wood, 567; Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln, 596; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 617; Le Sueur, 636; Rice, 653, 672. Topography, 120-5, 406; Houston county, 208; Winona, 238; Fillmore, 270; Olmsted, 328; Mower, 348; Dodge, 368; Freeborn, 376; Steele, 395; Waseca, 405; Blue Earth, 416; Faribault, 455; Watonwan and Martin, 473; Cottonwood and Jackson, 494; Murray and Nobles, 519; Pipestone and Rock, 534; Brown and Redwood, 563; Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln, 591; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 614; Le Sueur, 633; Rice, 651. Tourmaline, 39. Traditions of the Indians, 64, 69, 546. Trap-rock, 32, 33, 97, 100, 104, 500. Travertine, 327, 513, 550, 587, 610, 611, 620. Trees, 138-9, 636; Houston county, 214; Wino- na, 247; Fillmore, 278; Olmsted, 331 ; Mower, 351; Dodge, 369; Freeborn, 381; Steele, 397; Waseca, 410; Blue Earth, 421; Faribault, 457; Watonwan and Martin, 476; Cotton- wood and Jackson, 499; Murray and Nobles, 525; Pipestone and Rock, 537; Brown and Redwood, 568; Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln, 596; Big Stone and Lac qui Parle, 617; Le Sueur, 636; Rice, 653. Tree cultivation, 331, 382, 525. Tree, supposed fossil, 598. Trenton formations, 85, 102; as building stones, 167-176; Houston county, 218; Winona, 250; Fillmore, 289-301 ; Olmsted, 339-343; Mower, 362; Dodge, 370; Steele, 397, 399; Rice, 655. See Lower and Upper Trenton, Green shales. Galena and Hudson River formations, and Maquoketa shales. Triassic (?) at New Ulm, 98. Trilobites, 83, 343, 637, 638. Trout, 78. Tuliby, 78. Turbinolopsis bina, 79. Turkeys, 21. Turritella, 79. Upper Magnesian limestones, 83. Upper Silurian, 83, 302, 35"6. [362. Upper Trenton limestone and shales, 289, 293, Utica slate, 289. Valleys. See Erosion and Water-courses. Veins, calcareous, in till, 442, 640. of quartz, 597, 598. Wabash ridge(terminal moraine), Ohio, 463f .n. Waconia (sixth) moraine, 461 f . n., 606, 621 ,641 . AVarren, river, 101, 134, 615, 622. Waseca county, chapter on, 404. Situation and area, 404. Surface features, 404. Natural drainage, 404. Lakes, 405. Topography, 405. Terminal moraines, 406. Glacial lake, 408. Elevations, 408. Soil and timber, 409. Geological structure, 410. St. Peter and Cretaceous formations, 410. Drift, 411. Wells, 411. Material resources, 413. Lime and brick, 413. Springs, 414. Aboriginal mounds, 414 (also 673). Water in the state, 120, 130-6; area, 132. Also see Lakes and Springs. Water-courses, glacial, deserted, 509, 592, 606, 624, 626, 642, 662. Also see Interglacial. Water-powers: Houston county, 208; Winona, 237; Fillmore, 268; Olmsted, 327; Mower, 348; Dodge, 368; Freeborn, 376; Steele, 394; Waseca, 413; Blue Earth, 445; Faribault, 467; Watonwan, 489; Martin, 489; Cotton- wood, 513; Jackson, 513; Murray, 531; Rock, 534; Brown, 586; Redwood, 587; Yellow Medicine, 611; Lyon, 611; Big Stone, 630; Lac qui Parle, 630; Le Sueur, 646; Rice, 650. Water-worn boulders, 583. ledges, 61, 226, 434, 583, 597, 664. [472. AVatonwan and Martin counties, chapter on, Situation and area, 472. Surface features, 472. Natural drainage, 472. Lakes, 473, 479. Topography, 473. Elevations, 474. . Soil and timber, 475. Geological structure, 476. SCIENTIFIC INDEX. 697 Drift and contour, 478. Third terminal moraine, 478. Chains of lakes, 479. Boulders and gravel, 485. Wells, 486. Material resources, 488. Water-powers, 489. Stone, bricks, peat, 489. Aboriginal mounds, 489. ' Weathering, 169, 174, 176, 226, 233, 286, 655. See .Erosion and Till. Well, salt, at Belle Plaine, 104. Wells: Owatonna, 398; Mankato,-423; Heron Lake, 503; Houston county, 230; Fillmore, 315; Olmsted, 345; Mower, 363; Freeborn, 389; Steele, 398, 401; Waseca, 411; Blue Earth, 442; Faribault, 465; Watonwan, 486; Martin, 486; Cottonwood,510; Jackson, 511! Murray, 528; Nobles, 529; Pipestone, 550; Rock, 551; Brown, 583; Redwood, 585; Yellow Medicine, 607; Lyon, 608; Lincoln, 609; Big Stone, 629; Lac qui Parle, 629; Le Sueur, 643; Rice, 670. See Artesian wells and Flowing wells. Wells, curbing for, 610. Wheat, 498, 610. White-fish, 78, 89. White pine, 138. White Rock bluff. 59, 637. [671. Winds, effects of, 66 f. n.,226, 535, 541, 623, 641, Winnipeg, limestone boulders from near, 509, 533, 620, 643. basin, drainage from, during recession of ice-sheet, 101, 134, 615, 622. Winona & St. Peter division of the Chicago & Northwestern railway, elevations, 245, 329, 369, 396, 408, 419, 565, 593, 635. Winona county, chapter on, 236. Situation and area, 236. Surface features, 236. Natural drainage, 236. Water-power mills, 237. Topography, 238. Elevations, 242. Soil and timber. 245. Trees and shrubs, 247. Geological structure, 249. Trenton rocks, 249. St. Peter sandstone, 251. Shakopee limestone, 252. Jordan sandstone, 252. St. Lawrence limestone, 253. Drift, 260. High alluvial terrace, 261. Loess loam, 262. Fossils in alluvium, 264. Springs, 264. Material resources, 265. Stone quarries, 265. Quicklime, 265. Brick, 266. Archaeology, 266. Minerals, 267. Wisconsin, Minnesota & Pacific railway, ele- vations, 652. Wood. See Timber and Trees; also Silicijied wood. Wood in drift deposits, 314, 345, 363, 375, 390, 402, 413,487, 511, 530,552,553,584,586, 630, 671. Wooden well-curbing, 510, 554, 608, 670. Woodstock branch, Chicago, St. Paul, Minne- apolis & Omaha railway, elevations, 536. Yellow Medicine, Lyon and Lincoln counties, chapter on, 589. Situation and area, 589. Surface features, 590. Natural drainage, 590. Lakes. 591. Topography, 591. Coteau des Prairies, 593, 601. Elevations, 593. Soil and timber, 595. Geological structure, 596. Eozoic rocks, 596. Cretaceous beds, 598. Glacial and modified drift, 600. Outer or western terminal moraine, 602. Channels through the outer moraine, 603. Second terminal moraine, 605. Third terminal moraine, 605. Antelope valley, 605. Ancient water-courses, 606. Fourth, fifth and sixth moraines, 606. . Modified drift, 606. Boulders, 607. Wells, 607. Travertine, 610. Springs, 610. Material resources. 610. Water-powers, 611. Building stone, 611. Lime, 611. Bricks, 612. Aboriginal earthworks, 612. Yew, American, 139. Zoology of the state, 21-3,28-30, 32f.n.,37, 52 f. n., 78-80, 87, 89, 106, 498, 524-5. ^tf? y*5i€5£ - SiP aHP^s^k^' HHHcUl 111 HE H ^S^^~» gL6 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED «™ SC1ENCES UB ara^g^ ^^is^i!k^tib^TDATE ^^yp^S»^^ ^^^^I^^^R ^P»^^^i ^M«l ^^a^^p^ ^i^^^^^S^S^^ f5^^W^ f A^^^l ^j^^T^^^^aS^ ir^f^^^^S^P^ t«rf !^?-5-^