Full text of "The story of the prairies : or, The landscape geology of North Dakota"

THE

Story of the Prairies

THE LANDSCAPE GEOLOGY OF
NORTH DAKOTA

DANIEL E. WILLARD, A. M.,

Professor of Geology, State Agricultural College, Fargo,
North Dakota.

FIFTH EDITION.

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY

RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY, ,
CHICAGO. NEW YORK. LONDON.

PREFACE.

A book justifies its existence if it supplies a need or assists in any way
in solving the problem of life. There is a noticeable lack of books suited
to the general reader in the branch of science which deals with the earth
upon which we live. Splendid contributions to knowledge have been
made in this line in recent years, but many of the best things that have
been written are practically inaccessible to the average reader both by
reason of the technical character of the language used and by the fact that
the material is often contained in large volumes unhandy for general use.
That these contributions are of great value to the people is indicated
by the large amounts which are annually expended by the National
'Government and by the State surveys for their compilation and
publication.

To present in untechnical language a scientific statement of a subject
is not an easy task. Whether the present book accomplishes this or not an
intelligent public will soon discover. The author has had in mind, as
a class to whom he would make every page readable, those who have
reached the degree of maturity represented by the sixth and seventh
grades in the public schools. If the book is intelligible to pupils rep-
resented by these grades it should be understood by the average citizen
who is interested in knowing about his own State. It has seemed impos-
sible to avoid the somewhat technical character of certain portions, owing
to the intricate and difficult nature of the subject. It may be asked
if these passages might not have been omitted. To do this would
have marred the book as a whole, and it seemed best to carry out the
original plan, leaving to the discretion of teachers what part should be
omitted in class work. Such subjects as the causes of the changes of
level of Lake Agassiz, the distribution of the lakes of the State, and
the chapter on " The Beginnings of North Dakota," may be omitted
where these topics are beyond the mental grasp of the pupils. But
to have omitted them from the book would have left unanswered questions
which the more advanced pupils in the high schools, and many general
readers, will be certain to ask.

It is the author's opinion that not enough attention is given in our
schools to- instruction relative to the character and resources of our
own State. Not enough attention to our own State is given by the teach-

808772

iv PREFACE.

ers in their private studies, and not enough careful reading is done along
this line by the average citizen.

In geography instruction in our schools why do we need to go to South
America and Asia and the uttermost parts of the earth for illustrations of
land forms? Why do we need to study about the river systems, hills,
plateaus, lakes, soils, and resources of states which are hundreds of miles
away in preference to those of our own State ? When the child has gained
a general idea of the earth as a whole, and of North America more partic-
ularly, why should he be required to go to states and countries which are
far away for concrete examples ? Have we not rivers, lakes, and marshes,
hills, valleys, plateaus, and plains in our own State, which are more access-
ible and just as real as those of other states ? Have we not types of land-
scapes, developing river systems, desiccating lakes, mineral and forest
problems ? Indeed, there are no better examples in the world. And
the writers of text-books for the use of schools in the Eastern states are
now coming to the far West, to the Red River Valley and elsewhere", for
examples to illustrate the great principles of geographic science.

The author has sought to reach three classes of readers in this
book. The primary purpose has been to adapt the language and treat-
ment to pupils in the higher grades of public schools. This purpose
has been constantly kept in mind, for a large number of boys and girls to
whom a knowledge of the resources of the State ought to be of the great-
est value will never enter -the high school. While some portions are rather
difficult for pupils of the grammar grades it is thought that the book as a
whole will make a profitable half year's work in the high school, satisfying
the requirement of the State Course of Study in Geology or Physiography.
And it is hoped to reach a large class of readers who have entered
the practical school of life, but who would be benefited by a fuller and
more accurate knowledge of the character and resources of the State
in which they live.

It has been impracticable in a book of this character to give specific
reference in the body of the text to the authors consulted, but the author
wishes to give fullest credit for the use of this information.

More than all others the author is indebted to the classic work of Prof.
Warren Upham, "The Glacial Lake Agassiz," a monograph of the
United States Geological Survey. This work leaves little to be added
regarding the landscape geology of the Red River Valley and the adjacent
portions of the State. He would be a bold student who would attempt to
cover the field better than has been done in this comprehensive quarto of
more than six hundred pages, but its very elaborateness renders it incon-
venient for those to whom its contents should be of the greatest value.

The author of this volume has drawn freely from Professor Upham's
treatise, hoping to bring its vast fund of useful information within reach
of the bus)'- citizen who would not be likely to read a larger work.

PREFACE. V

Through the very kind permission of Professor Upham a number of the
illustrations in his work have been either redrawn and adapted to the
purpose of the present work, or copied by the Bureau of Engraving at
Washington.

The author is also indebted to the valuable bulletins by Prof. J. E. Todd,
of the University of South Dakota, for much that is here given
regarding the Altamont and Gary Moraines and the landscape features
connected with these in Logan and Mclntosh and adjoining counties,
and also for facts regarding Lake Dakota in Dickey County, and for
several illustrations.

The valuable " Report of the State Geological Survey of North Dakota,"
by Prof. E. J. Babcock of the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks,
has been drawn upon in the treatment of the coal deposits of the State, and
the author wishes to express his appreciation for the kind permission to
use several plates from this Report in the present work.

The author acknowledges his personal indebtedness to Prof. War-
ren Upham, Secretary of the State Historical Society of Minnesota ; to
Prof. Charles M. Hall, of the Agricultural College of North Dakota ; Prof.
E. J. Babcock, of the University of North Dakota ; and to Miss Lillian V.
Lambert, Instructor in English in the East Side High School, Des
Moines, Iowa, who read this book in manuscript, and who by their
scholarly and valuable criticisms greatly increased its value.

Acknowledgment is made to all those who have so kindly assisted in
the preparation of the drawings which illustrate the book. The writer's
thanks are particularly due to Miss M. Emma Davis and to Prof.
Thomas H. Grosvenor, members of the faculty of the Mayville State
Normal School. Many illustrations which needed to be drawn under the
author's direction were made possible by their assistance. Pres.
Joseph Carhart, under whose supervision the author has for several years
had the pleasure of teaching, has given practical suggestions which have
been of great value in the preparation of this volume.

If this book serves the purpose of making the people of North Dakota
better acquainted with their State, and thereby enlarges their appreciation
of the opportunities which belong to them as citizens of this growing
commonwealth, the author will feel that he is amply repaid for the labor
which has been expended upon it.

D. E. W.

Mayville, North Dakota, State Normal School.
May /, igos.

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION,

It is a source of gratification to the author that the demand for this
work has made the fifth edition possible. The sales of the book prove
that the public will read the literature of science provided it is expressed
in simple terms and in readable form. The continued demand for the
book for class use in schools, by teachers, and by the public generally,
makes a new edition necessary, and affords an opportunity for the addition
of new matter which the progress of geological investigations in the State,
during the five years since the book first appeared, has. made possible.
Subjects relating to some portions of the State could not be as fully treated
in the earlier editions as it was then felt their importance required, owing
to lack of sufficient knowledge. An effort has been made to supply this
lack in the present edition. Particularly does this apply to the western
half of the State. The number of illustrations has been greatly increased,
since it has been the experience of the author that pictures are often the
most valuable reading.

The author wishes to express his appreciation of the kindly reception
the book has received. The cordial adoption of the book by school
boards, superintendents, and teachers, and the liberal sales to professional
men, real estate men, farmers, and citizens generally, have fully justified
the author's notion that there should be more study of our own State by
pupils, teachers, and the people generally. North Dakota is preeminently
an agricultural state, and the soil is her greatest resource. The soil is the
surface geologic formation, and therefore ought to form a part of the
course of study of every pupil in the schools, and should be embraced in
the private readings of every intelligent citizen. The book is now in use
as a class room text in many of the best high schools of the State, and
in a great number of the graded and ungraded public schools, as also in
several of the State educational institutions.

The author wishes to express his obligation to Professor H. V. Hibbard,
of Chicago, for assistance rendered by him in the preparation of the chap-
ters relating to the plateau region of the western portion of the State, and
also for the use which has been made of the work done by him for the
U. S. Geological Survey under the author's direction on the Sheyenne and
Maple Valleys.

D. E. W.

State Agricultural College,
December,

THE TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHAPTER THE FIRST The Landscape, - - - 11

CHAPTER THE SECOND Excursions Afield, - 20

CHAPTER THE THIRD The Work of Ice, - 30

CHAPTER THE FOURTH An Excursion to Some Glaciers, - - 39
CHAPTER THE FIFTH The Great Ice-Sheet in North Dakota, - -47

CHAPTER THE SIXTH More Excursions, - 61

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH North Dakota, The Old and the New, - 71

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH Glacial Lake Agassiz, 79

CHAPTER THE NINTH The Deltas and Beaches of Lake Agassiz, 92

CHAPTER THE TENTH Other Extinct Glacial Lakes, - 112

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH The History of Devils Lake, - - 123

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH The Sheyenne River, - 131

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH The History of Maple River, _ . _ 143

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH The Lakes of North Dakota, - 151

CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH Salt and Alkaline Waters in Lakes, - 154
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH Map Studies: Distribution of the Lakes upon the

Landscape, 157

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH Lakes as a Landscape Feature. - 166

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH The Bad Lands, - 173

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH The Coal Beds of North Dakota, .... 190

CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH The Beginnings of North Dakota, - - 202

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST The Coteaus of the Missouri, - - 213

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND The Plateau Region of North Dakota, - - 229

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD Agriculture West of the Missouri River, - 245

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH The Water Supply, 258

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH A Study of the Soils, 269

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH Minerals in North Dakota, - 291

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH The Future of North Dakota, - - 303
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH Geology from a Car Window: The Great

Northern Lines, - 313

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH Geology from a Car Window: The Northern

Pacific Lines, - - 335

CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH Geology from a Car Window: The Soo Line, - 350

APPENDIX Rainfall in North Dakota. 362

A LIST OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS.

FIG. i A Geological Map of North Dakota, - - - - _ Frontispiece

FIG. 2 Showing Erosion of Young Valleys on Hilly Landscape, - 14

FIG. 3 Diagram of a Young Valley, - - - . - _ !6

FIG. 4 Cross Section of a Young Valley, 17

FIG. 5 A Cutting Coulee, or Young Valley, - - - - - - 18

FIG. 6 In the East They Work the Land on Both Sides, - 20

FIG. 7 In North Dakota Enough Can Be Raised on One Side, - - - - 21

FIG. 8 Three Types of Landscape, --______ 2 2

FIG. 9 Map Showing Position of Extinct Glacial Lakes and Direction of Ice

Movement, ---- ____^j

FIG. 10 Movement of Pitch Illustrated, - - - - - - - -34

FIG. ii View Along the Top of a Terminal Moraine, - - 36

FIG. 12 The Snow-field on a Mountain Top, - . 39

FIG. 13 A Glacier and Terminal Moraine, - - 40

FIG. 14 An Ice Cave, - 4I

FIG. 15 An Ice Cascade, -_-__ --42

FIG. 1 6 Terminal Moraine and Front of Glacier, - - 43

FIG. 1 7 Terminal Moraine and Ice Front Crowding Upon It, 45

FIG. 1 8 Terminal Moraine Wasted by Glacial Stream, - - 45
FIG. 19 An Old Moraine, -----______ 45

FIG. i9a Map Showing Great Ice Sheet of North America, Opposite 47

FIG. 20 Dakota and Minnesota Glaciers, - - - 48

FIG. 21 Cross Section of Valley of Glacial Stream, - 49

FIG. 22 Beaver Lake and Glacial Channels, 51

FIG. 23 The Ice Sheet at Time of Formation of Outer Moraine, 52

FIG. 24 Small Hill Being Planed Down by Ice, - 53

FIG. 25 Formation of Moraine and Stratification of Ice, 54

FIG. 26 Showing Moraine, Being Crowded Upon by Moving Ice, 54

FIG. 27 A Striated and Polished Boulder, 55

FIG. 28 Granite Pebble, Showing Ice Planing and Striae, - 55

FIG. 29 Striae on Quartzite, South Dakota, - 56

FIG. 30 Hills Worn Down by Action of Ice, - 57

FIG. 31 Ideal Sections of the Turtle Mountain Plateau, - 57

FIG. 32 A Veneered Hill, - 58

FIG. 33 In the Hills Southwest of Minot, 60

FIG. 34 A Huge "Foreigner," 62

FIG. 35 Section of a Gravel Pit, - 64

FIG, 36 A Joint Moraine, - - - 68

FIG. 37 A Glacier and Its Moraine, - 69
FIG. 38 Map of North Dakota, Showing Highlands, ------ 73

FIG. 39 The Tributaries of the Red River of the North, 75

FIG. 40 Contour Mayville and Westward, - 87

FIG. 41 Section Across Beach Ridge, - 88

FIG. 42 Profile Across Beaches at Wheatland, - - -> - - - -89

FIG. 43 Section Across Red River Valley at Wahpeton, 89
FIG. 44 Section Across Red River Valley at Fargo, ------ 90

FIG. 45 Section Across Red River Valley at Grand Forks, - - - - 90
FIG. 46 Section Across Red River Valley near International Boundary, - - 90

FIG. 47 Stratified Clay, Bottom of Lake Agassiz, - - - - - - 91

FIG. 48 Profile of Elk Valley Delta, - - - 93

FIG. 49 Section Across Sheyenne Delta, - - 94

FIG. 50 Delta on Campus, University of Chicago, - - 95

A LIST OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS. 9

PAGE

FIG. 51 Section, Elk Valley Delta Showing Stratification, - 97

FIG. 52 Angular Outlines, Not Passed Over by the Ice-Sheet, 99

FIG. 53 Smooth Outlines, Showing Effects of Moving Ice, - 99

FIG. 54 Profile of "The Ridge" and Beaches at Inkster, - - 100
FIG. 55 Profile Park River and Westward, - - - - - -101

FIG. 56 Relationship Between Higher and Lower Beaches of Lake Agassiz, - 105
FIG. 57 Multiple Character of Beaches, - - - 106

FIG. 58 Progressive Elevation of Beaches Northward, - - 107

FIG. 59 A Map of Lake Souris, 113

FIG. 60 Sand Dunes Burying Forest, - - - 118

FIG. 6 1 Section of Devils and^Stump Lakes, - - 126

FIG. 62 Map of Devils and Stump Lakes, - - 127

FIG. 63 The Tower Quadrangle, - 129

FIG. 64 Sheyenne Valley, -- 130

FIG. 65 Section, Sheyenne Valley, Valley City, 132

FIG. 66 Section, Sheyenne Valley, Valley City, - - 132

FIG. 67 Terraces, Sheyenne Valley, Valley City, - 133

FIG. 68 Sheyenne Valley, 3^ Miles South of Valley City, - 134

FIG. 69 Sheyenne Valley. 7 Miles South of Valley City, - 134

FIG. 70 Sheyenne Valley, 10 Miles South of Valley City, - 135

FIG. 71 Sheyenne Valley at Daily, ---- -136

FIG. 72 Sheyenne Valley at Standing Rock, - - 136

FIG. 73 Sheyenne Valley, Under-Cut Bank, - 137

FIG. 74 Sheyenne Valley at "The Jaws," - - 137

FIG. 75 Sheyenne Valley, Lisbon Cut-Off, - - 138

FIG. 76 Railroad. Cut, Kathryn, - - 138

FIG. 77 An Outlier of Shale, - - 139

FIG. 78 Sheyenne Valley, Fort Ransom, - 141

FIG. 79 Banks of Sheyenne, Fargo, - 141
FIG. 80 Glacial Channels, Maple River,' - - Opposite 142

FIG. 81 Section, Glacial Channel, - - 145

F.IG. 82 Section, Maple Valley, - 145

FIG. 83 Glacial Channel, Oriska, 146

FIG. 84 Glacial Channel, Tower Tp., - - 146

FIG. 85 Glacial Channel, Terraces, - 147

FIG. 86 Glacial Maple, Clinton Tp., - 147

FIG. 87 Glacial Maple, at Enderlin, 148

FIG. 88 Glacial Maple, Moore Tp., - 148

FIG. 89 Photograph, Maple River, - 149

FIG. 90 Glacial Maple near Enderlin, - - 150

FIG. 91 A Kame, - - - 150

FIG. 92 Lakes Top of Turtle Mountain, - 162

.FiG. 93 Map of Rush Lake, - - 169

FIG. 94 A Butte, - 172

FIG. 95 Bad Lands, Williston, 175

FIG. 96 Clay Butte, - - - --_ --i?5

FIG. 97 Pyramid Butte, - - - - - 176

FIG. 98 "Capped Butte" - 177

FIG. 99 Halting at the Schack, - - 179

FIG. 100 Structure of the Buttes, - - 180
FIG. 101 Masses of Scoria, _____ ____ '182

FIG. 102 Custer Trail Ranche, - - 183

FIG. 103 Bad Lands, Little Missouri, - - - 185

FIG. 104 "The Palisades," - - 185
FIG. 105 Coal in North Dakota, - - - 191

FIG. 1 06 Old Sim's Mine, ------ -192

FIG. 107 Out Cropping Coal, - - 196

FIG. 108 Mouse River Lignite Coal Mine, - - 198

FIG. 109 Section, Lignite Coal Mine, - - 199

FIG. no Section, Lehigh Mines, - - - - 200

FIG. in Section of North Dakota, - - - 202

FIG. T.T.2 Cretaceous Era in North America, - 205

10 A LIST OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

FIG. 113 Section, Artesian Well, Grafton, ' - .-.; - - - - 208

FIG. 114 Section, Missouri Plateau, - - 212

FIG. 115 Extent of Glaciation in United States, - - - , - - 215

FIG. 116 Morainic Lake, - - - .-...- - 219

FIG. 117 A Stony Ridge, - - - - - - - .*: v-"- ' - -. 220

FIG. 118 In the Coteaus, - - - - - - - - - - - 221

FIG. 119 A Land Mark, - - 222

FIG. 120 Douglas Valley, - - 223

FIG. i2i Glacial Drainage, --_ 226

FIG. 122 Map of Missouri Plateau, -- -- 228

FIG. 123 West Rainy Butte, - - 232

FIG. 124 East Rainy Butte, - 233

FIG. 125 Alkali Lake, - - 234

FIG. 126 Where the Bad Lands Begin, - 237

FIG. 127 Border of the Bad Lands, 233

FIG. 128 Crown Butte, - 239

FIG. 129 Buttes near Williston, - 240

FIG. 130 Sentinel Butte, - - 241

FIG. 131 Cross-bedded Structure, - - 242

FIG. 132 The Great Stone Face, - - 243

FIG. 133 A Ranch Home, 246

FIG. 134 Cuskelly Ranch, - 248

FIG. 135 Jack Williams' Ranch, - - -251

FIG. 136 Cherry Creek, -254

FIG. 137 Section, Artesian Wells - 259

FIG. 138 Artesian Section, Devils Lake Southward, - - 261

FIG. 139 Section, Fresh Artesian Wells, - - . 263

FIG. 140 Flowing Well, Red River Valley, - - 264

FIG. 141 Flowing Well, Mooreton, - - 264

FIG. 142 Flowing Well, Chaffee Farm, - 265

FIG. 143 Flowing Well, Woods, Cass County, - 265

FIG. 144 Sources of Artesian Water at Grandin, - - - - - -266

FIG. 145 Just Struck Water, - - 268
FIG. 146 Machinery Buried by Eruptive Well, -

FIG. 147 Sandstone-capped Butte, - 272

FIG. 148 Clay Butte, ----- - 273

FIG. 149 Muskrat House, 274

FIG. 150 Camp of Soil Party,

FIG. 151 Sun Cracks, Missouri River, - - - - - - - -279

FIG. 152 Wind-Blown Sand,

FIG. 153 Four Sisters, Holding Claims, - 281

FIG. 154 The Four Claims, - - 282

FIG. 155 First Occupant of the Soil, - 287

FIG. 156 Sandstone Concretions, - - - - 295

FIG. 157 School House of Petrified Wood, ------- 299

FIG. i57a An Agatized Stump, - - 3 01

FIG. 158 Eastern Farm in Small Fields, 34

FIG. 159 "Pictured Rock," Fort Ransom, - 35

FIG. 1 60 The Last of Fort Abercrombie, ------- 305

FIG. j6i The Pioneers. (Sod House), - 3 6

FIG. 162 Stock Farm, Red River Valley, 36

FIG. 163 North Dakota Farm in One Big Field, - - - - - - -3 7

FIG. 164 Ten Feet of Coal in Banks of Missouri River, - 39

FIG. 165 Freeman's Ranch, - 3 11

FIG. 1 66 Russian Home, - - - - - - - - - - -3 11

FIG. 167 Soil Map of North Dakota, - In Pocket

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

THE LANDSCAPE. /' V

INTRODUCTION.

How many of the readers of this book understand what is meant by
the words Landscape Geology? Every one has seen a landscape, but
we often hear people speak about Geology as though that meant rocks
and stones and minerals and was therefore hard and dry. It is true
that Geology deals with rocks and stones and minerals, among other
things, and sometimes it is hard and dry. But Arithmetic and Gram-
mar are sometimes "hard and dry" also. It may not always be the
fault of the subject that it is uninteresting. The trouble may be in the
way it is studied.

When the author was a boy and sat upon a hard, old-fashioned
wooden bench in a little country schoolhouse between the hills, in the
state of New York, he used to think the reading lessons were pretty
"hard and dry." Since he has become older, however, he has come to
think that the fault was not in the subject, for he now finds these same
speeches of Webster and Clay and Washington, and selections from
Irving and Lowell and Emerson, very interesting. The trouble seems
to have been in the way he studied them. He did not see the beauty
in them. He saw big words hard to pronounce and harder to spell, and
punctuation marks, at which he must stop, put in between the words!
When he read it was to pronounce the words and mind the pauses !

The trouble was not with the lessons, for they were beautiful and
grand. The trouble was not entirely with the boy, for he tried to do
what he was told to do. Perhaps the fault was not altogether that of
the teacher, for she did not know any better !

If after the reader has studied this book he finds Geology "hard and
dry" the trouble will certainly not be with the subject, and probably not

12 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

with the reader. If the author has not made the landscape, the fields,
the roadside, the school grounds, the river and the lake, more interesting
because we have come to know more about them and to see something
more than mere rocks and stones, sand and water, then it is his fault
and not that of the subject.

In geography we sometimes think of the things we are studying

about as far away, in some other state, or in some other country, the

features of some landscape somewhere, but we, may be, do not realize

that it means par State, our neighborhood, our school grounds, our door-

yard. V ; :' ; *..f

t . t , ,cQne 'who, kftpws Botany sees a good deal more in the fields than
: \: rgSriss^ and 'grain, 1 weeds, trees and bushes. The psychologist says he
"apperceives" more. We do not wish to talk about apperception now, at
least we do not wish to call it by that name, but we w r ish to talk about
some things which, may be, we have not seen in the fields round about us,
in our own State, our own neighborhood, and so perhaps come to see
the great beautiful world in a larger and fuller sense, and may be to a
larger realization of what is ours to enjoy.

Just as the botanist sees more than grass and weeds and trees in
the fields, so may we all see more than soil in the ploughed fields, more
than a hindrance to farming in the stones in the fields, more than poor
land in the hilly farm, more than a misfortune in the rugged coulee
which cuts into the level prairie wheatfield, more than a hay-meadow
in the level marsh, more than wheat in the waving billowy sea of grain,
more than a useless waste in the boggy slough, more than a worthless
waste in the sandy tract of dunes upon which barely a vestige of any-
thing green exists. There 'is a grand and beautiful meaning in all the
varied landscape of our State if we can but read Nature's story book.
In these pages the author has tried to make readable a few of the
paragraphs of this great book, paragraphs which are not too commonly
read and not too fully enjoyed by the average of human kind.

Have you ever wondered why the prairies are prairie and the hills
are hilly? Or have you, may be, thought about it and said to yourself
that you supposed God made the prairies and hills because He saw fit
to do so, and made some parts of the world hilly and some parts level
because in His great wisdom it pleased Him to so arrange things? This
may enable you to satisfy your wondering curiosity, but a little thinking
will enable you to see that, while God in very truth made the hills and
the prairies and made some parts of the world different from other parts,

THE LANDSCAPE. 13

nevertheless this does not answer the question why things are as they
are ; for this great universe which an All-wise Creator made and which
He rules is governed by laws in accordance with which the prairies and
the hills have been formed, the water and the dry lands have assumed
their places, the rivers and the lakes have established themselves, and the
face of all the landscape has been fashioned.

Hills and Valleys. Every one who reads these pages has seen a val-
ley, and also what might be called hills. Maybe the valley was only a
ditch or small coulee on the prairie and the hills only little banks one or
two feet high. But the importance of things is not always measured by
their size. Maybe you have been in those parts of our State, or some
other state, where there are great rugged hills and broad, deep valleys.
Whoever has seen hills has also seen valleys. Have you ever thought
that there might be a necessary relation between the hills and the val-
leys? Perhaps you have been accustomed to thinking of the earth as
"made" in the beginning with oceans and continents and mountains,
with plains and rivers of water flowing through them, and have never
questioned but that these have always bee/i so. But a little observation
and reflection at once teaches that this is not so, for you have not failed
to see that the river is constantly changing the land, a little soil is
being washed into the valley from the banks along its sides with every
rain and this is carried down the stream. All streams transport mate-
rials by carrying them or shoving and rolling them along their bottoms.

Perhaps you have watched the sand and pebbles creeping down
stream on a gravelly bottom, and wondered how long this process has
been going on, and when it was that soil and sand began to be carried
down stream. And then perhaps you wondered if the stream would
ever stop carrying away the soil and sand toward the ocean. By and by
you began to think that this carrying away process must have begun as
soon as there was any land on which rain fell ; and so also you concluded
that this constant wearing away of the land, called erosion, will keep
on as long as there is any land left above the level of the sea. It occurs
to you that likely this has been going on ever since the beginning of
things and you perhaps begin to wonder if the land will not all be car-
ried away in time and you wonder if there has not been more land here
sometime which has been carried away. When you think -that "the
beginning" was a good while ago you are forced to> conclude that a
good deal of land has been carried away. And when you think that
the land which is nearest the rivers is the first to be carried away, and

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

How the Farm is Lost.

How the Farm is Regained.

How the Farm is Retained.

FIG. 2. Showing the Erosion of Young Valleys on a Hilly Landscape.
Photographed from a C/iart, by Prof. E. S. Keene.

THE LANDSCAPE. 15

that the hills and higher lands are but the parts which are farther
away and have not yet been carried away, you see that the river or
running stream is the agent which is doing the work of carving and
fashioning the landscape.

The river is water seeking its level. The rains loosen the soil on
the banks of streams so< that it, too, seeks a lower level, or falls. The
energy of the sun causes water to evaporate and rise as vapor. This
forms the clouds, and the clouds are blown by the winds and carried
over the land. Then they fall as rain and again form rivers. Then
the rivers, as we have seen, flow off the land and carry with them the
soil or fine parts of the earth, the materials of which the hills'are made.
So long as the sun furnishes heat the waters will be evaporated, and
clouds will be formed, and rains will fall upon the earth, and rivers
will flow into the seas. And so the endless cycle goes on, has been
going on through the long aeons of the past, and will continue to go on
through the lapse of ages to come. And so the continents are being
gradually worn down and carried into the seas. The "everlasting
hills" are not everlasting. They tarry but a day when time is meas-
ured in geologic cycles. In truth, "one day is with the Creator as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The little rivulet
which runs by the school-house playground or along the roadside is
doing the same kind of work in carrying away the land to the ocean
as the river, only on a smaller scale. But it is only a question of time
till the level prairies will give way to the hilly landscape, and finally
the hills will yield to the constant wearing of the streams. When the
landscape has been thus worn away so that the land is but little
higher than the ocean-level then it is said to have reached its base-
.level of erosion.

Beginnings of a Landscape. If a new continent were imagined to
arise out of the ocean, upon which were no rivers, no valleys or hills,
its surface sloping uniformly to the sea, how would rivers get started?
It must be that they would form in some way, for there are rivers or
streams on all continents where rain falls. Children have been taught
sometimes (let us hope not in the schools of our own State) that rivers
were established- in their courses by a gathering of waters in the in-
terior of the continent and that this water .flowed across the land wher-
ever it could go most easily, and in so doing cut a channel and became
established in a definite course. Now, all the water there is on the
land in lakes or streams or in the soil comes from the rain which falls

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

upon the land. A large part of the rain-water percolates into the soil
and rocks of the earth. Some of it collects in low places and forms
lakes, pools, and marshes. From these a good deal evaporates and
goes into the air to form clouds again.

Now, where will a river have its beginning? Where will a definite
stream channel first appear? Will it start from the interior and flow
toward the sea? What will start it? Does any more water fall on the
land in the interior than nearer the sea? Since the land is higher than
the sea, the land waters will tend to move toward the sea. Where are
the waters which will reach the sea first? It is plain, the waters nearest
the sea. * And since moving water always cuts a channel, or erodes
the land over which it flows, the first soil to be carried to the ocean and
deposited on its bottom as sediment will be the soil which was at the
margin, or edge of the land, and the beginning of a channel or valley
will be at the edge of the land. The next water to get to the sea will
be that which fell on the land near to the edge but a little farther inland.
Then that from a little farther inland still, and so on, till finally the
water from the interior will get down to the shore.

But where now has the valley been cut most? Where is the largest
part of the river? Where did the river begin?

If we indicate a series of small areas extending from the sea-shore
toward the inland by the letters a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, the waters which
fall upon a will be the. first to reach the sea ; those which fall upon b will

FIG. 3. Diagram showing how a Valley begins at its own Mouth.

be next, taking advantage in their course of the channel made by
the waters of a; those falling upon c will be the next, and these will
go down by the channel made by a and b; and d will in turn reach the
sea coursing down the channel made by a, b and c, making the channel
deeper and wider by erosion; and at length e, f, g and h will reach
the sea.

Let us now compare one part of the valley with another from a to

THE LANDSCAPE.

//.. How do the amounts of water which have gone over each area
compare? Suppose we say the water which falls upon one area is
one volume. Then if the whole length of the valley is the distance
from a to h, and if we suppose all the water which falls on each area
to go down the valley, the water which passes over a will be seven
times as much as passes over g, that which passes over b will be six
times as much as passes over g, five times as much over c as over g,
and so on, while from h will pass only the water which falls upon
that area.

Where there is the most water, other things being equal, there is
the greatest erosion. Where then has the greatest channel been
formed? And where is the river largest? And finally, where does
the valley of a river begin, in the interior of the continent or at its own
mouth ?

Let us now think of the series of areas, a, b, c, d, etc., as a thousand,
and the extent of each area to be large. From the farthest and highest
part of the continent the waters may be thought of as a long time
in reaching the sea. There will be then a broad and deep valley nearer
the sea, and it will be smaller and smaller as we go inland, and on the
thousandth area, or the summit of the continent, it will be only a
place where rain falls, with hardly a beginning of a coulee.

Let us now go out upon the level prairies of North Dakota and
look at the coulees and see what we can observe of the workings of a
river system. Let us see if we can find any examples of what we have
just been studying. If we select a day when it has been raining for
some time so that the land is well covered with water, we shall be able
to see in reality what we have been seeing in imagination. Here on
the prairie, cutting through level wheat fields, is a coulee, a little valley

FIG. 4. Cross Section of a Young Valley.

18 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

having steep sides, growing wider down stream and narrower up
stream, its sides becoming less steep towards the mouth and more steep
towards its head. In the bottom of this trough or notch in the prairie
trickles a tiny stream. Can it be that this stream has carried away
the earth which once occupied the space where is now the trough or
coulee? Strewn along the bottom are boulders, sand and gravel, the
heavier masses which could not so easily be carried away by the waters
and which were in the soil or earth which has been carried away. If
we go out upon the land some distance from the coulee and look across
it we shall see that the whole trough of the young valley is below the

FIG. 5. A Cutting Coulee, or Young Valley. Photograph by Prvf. Chas, M. Hall,

level of the surrounding country. On the level prairies of the Red
River Valley you could imagine a great board or plank to extend
across from the prairie on one side to the prairie on the other. The
Grand Canyon of the Colorado River is but a great coulee cut down by
the river deep into the plain. The materials of which the great Colo-
rado plateau is made are of such kind that the moving waters cut it
away rapidly, and the walls on either side are steep and high. Canyon is
another name for a young valley.

Let us now go along the bank of the coulee and see if we can dis-
cover how the valley got started. All about upon the level prairie
we see water standing in sheets from recent heavy rains. If we ask
ourselves if the prairie will by and by be dry again we shall certainly

THE LANDSCAPE. 19

answer that it will, for it has often been very wet before and has become
dry again. Where did the water go? It soaked into the ground, or
a part of it did, and some of it evaporated, and went to help make
clouds. But how 7 about the water which was near by the edge of the
coulee? Some of it fell down the side into the trough carrying with
it always some soil. If it chanced that there was a depression or lower
place in the prairie, and there ahvays are such places, this hollow was
filled with water, and if the low place is so near the coulee that its
waters break over the edge and fall down the side, or if a little rivulet
on the bank of the coulee should cut back into the edge of the little
"lake" and tap it, then its water would be drained. But in falling down
the side of the coulee the water cuts a little channel, and when it rains
again the water which falls in this hollow, or lake, will run into the
valley through the little channel formed before, cutting this deeper.
If this depression were a large one the little channel would become
a feeder to the larger stream which made the valley, and it would then
be called a tributary to the valley.

If we go down the course of the coulee to see where it ends we
shall see that it discharges into a larger stream, or maybe runs into a
lake. If it joins a larger stream then it is itself a tributary to the larger
stream.

How then did the coulee or young valley get started? In just the
same way as the branch or tributary, for the coulee is only a branch of
a larger stream. How does a coulee or valley increase its length? If
you watch a little rivulet by the roadside when it is raining hard you
will see that the head of the little stream pushes back toward the land
as the water from the land falls over into the little valley. In fact it
grows longer in just the same way as it got started in the first place,
by water falling from a higher to a lower level and carrying the soil
along with it.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.
EXCURSIONS AFIELD

A Few Comparisons. North Dakota is one of the "prairie states."
Yet those who have seen the various parts of the State often speak
of the "hills" in any place as though North Dakota could be said to
have real hills! Compared with Pennsylvania or New York or Ver-
mont the "hills" of North Dakota are hardly more than knolls. When
eastern people think of a North Dakota landscape they often think of
broacl-reaching prairies limited to the view only by the distance the
eye can reach. North Dakotans will make no serious objection to
such opinions being held, especially when the rugged hilly character
of many eastern landscapes is considered. And even if it be contended
that in the east they can almost "work the land on both sides" because
the surface appears to be turned up on edge, yet we are satisfied to answer

FIG. 6. In the East they work the land on both sides'.

Photograph by McCormick Harvesting Machine Co.

EXCURSIONS AFIELD.

FIG. 7. In North Dakota enough can be raised on one side!
Photograph by McCormick Harvesting Machine Co.

that we can raise more on the one side of our prairies than can be raised
in the states named on two sides.

But those who know the geography of North Dakota know that
the whole story has not been told when it is said that ours is a prairie
state.. There are prairies and prairies! Level prairies and rolling
prairies. And sometimes the "rolling" is so marked that we may ven-
ture to speak of it as "hilly."

Compare the floor-like level about Fargo or Grand Forks, Cassel-
ton or Grafton, or any part of the Red River Valley; the rolling-prairie
country about Langdon or Devils Lake, Oakes or Ellendale; the
rugged and unploughed hills between Hope and Valley City, or the
picturesque "curves" of the landscape along the Sheyenne River in
Foster county; the billowy ups and downs on the Coteaus of the Mis-
souri west of Minot; the steep and bouldery landscape south of Dog
Den Butte in McLean County ; the broken-prairie country about Dick-
inson known as the "breaks;" the ragged and rock-ribbed hills, known
as "buttes," in the valley of the Little Missouri. We shall see that
while North Dakota is a prairie state yet she has much diversity of
surface.

Again, in some places the fields are very stony, in others hardly a
stone can be found over great areas. And not only this but the stones
are mostly rounded and smooth, while in some places they are nearly
all angular and rough. Some of the lands are called "light," having
a dry sandy soil with no stones larger than sand grains, and some are
"heavy," with a clayey soil, often with large stones imbedded in the
clay or on the surface. And still again, some of the fields are black,

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

with a deep loamy soil. And these differences often occur within
short distances. One who has ridden over the Great Northern Rail-
way westward from Larimore may have observed that there is an
abrupt change from the level prairie east of Larimore to the "hilly"
prairie to the west. The same kind of a change, though not nearly as
great, occurs four miles west of Wheatland on the Northern Pacific

BROKEN.
FIG. 8. Three Types of Landscape.

line, wh'ere that road rises off from the level Red River Valley onto
the highland to the west.

East of the city of Devils Lake the prairie swells and rolls in grace-
ful undulations. Go across the lake and the landscape becomes very
hilly, and often the hillsides are strewn with large boulders. From
Towner to Minot the country is gently uneven prairie. West of
Minot there is a sudden change to a high plateau with an uneven and
hilly surface. Along the Goose River east of Mayville the fields are
almost as level as the floor of the school-house, and the soil is black

EXCURSIONS AFIELD. 23

and when wet exceedingly sticky. Travel west toward Sherbrooke
and it will be observed that the soil becomes sandy, and well defined
sand-ridges run north and south. About Sherbrooke the hills are
sharply rolling and the soil is less black.

In many parts of the State fields free from stones and those which
are very stony are intermingled. And it is noticeable that the stones
are nearly all rounded and smoothed. Cross the Missouri River how-
ever in the western part of the State and the hills are seen to be different
in shape. Here they are flat on top with trough-like valleys between
them very different from the rounded hollows among the hills on the
rolling prairies, and the "cobble-stones" or boulders, which are so
common over much of the State, soon disappear entirely west of the
Missouri River.

North Dakota has level and rolling prairies, hills and hollows, lakes
and marshes, fields very stony and those free from stones, fertile farm-
ing lands the best and richest in the world, other lands more valuable
for grazing than for farming, and the most wonderful "Bad Lands,"
all resulting from geologic agencies. They are not so by accident or
chance. They are geologic facts. Their explanation belongs to the
science of Landscape Geology.

An Excursion Among the Boulders. Everyone has noticed boul-
ders scattered here and there over the prairies, big boulders some-
times weighing several tons and smaller ones of all sizes down to
"cobbles" weighing a few ounces, and pebbles of the size of marbles,
and finally gravel and fine sand. A little study of the soil will show
that it also is made up largely of tiny particles or grains of sand which
are boulders reduced to small size. And the familiar clay which is so
common a feature of the soil a little below the surface is but the still
finer particles of broken rocks so finely ground or pulverized as to
make the separate particles not able to be seen without the aid of a
microscope. Boulders are seen scattered sometimes in groups or
patches, sometimes a single one with no others near, and big and little
are mingled in great confusion. Sometimes a sand pit is seen in which
the sand is arranged nicely in layers; and occasionally a stray boulder
is found in the sand, sometimes many of them. It has also been no-
ticed that the boulders are very unlike in kind. Some of them when
broken look very much like broken glass, often having a milky gray
appearance. These are called quartz, or quartzite boulders. They are
among the hardest of all the rocks commonly found in the fields or

24 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

in quarries. It is the same kind of rock as that from which window
glass is made. It is so hard that a freshly broken piece of it will readily
cut or mark window glass. A steel knife blade will leave a black mark
like a pencil mark on it. By remembering these things you can easily
tell which are the quartz boulders in the field.

Another kind which is likely to be found in any group of boulders
is one which when broken will show a rough surface with little blocks
having a somewhat cubical shape, and colored pinkish or reddish,
though sometimes white, and often flesh-colored. The surfaces of
these little cubes are smooth and shiny, and reflect the sunlight so that
they look very bright. These little blocks or crystals, for they are
really crystals, are a mineral called feldspar. They may be so small
as not to be easily distinguished, and sometimes the little shiny faces
are one or two inches across. Mixed with these feldspar crystals may
be seen little black specks or plates. These also vary much in size.
When they are large enough they may be easily split with the point of a
knife into thin scales. This mineral is soft and can be cut or scratched
with a knife point. These are crystals of mica, and when they occur
in large plates are cut up and split apart into thin pieces and used in
coal stoves. The micas used in coal stoves are simply pieces cut out
of very large crystals. The mica crystals seen in boulders are some-
times black, sometimes clear, sometimes brown, and sometimes green-
ish. But they are always soft and can always be split into thin scales.
A third mineral which is always present in the kind of boulder we are
now describing is quartz, the same quartz as has been before spoken of
as making up some whole boulders. It has somewhat the appearance
of broken pieces of glass, scattered through the rock among the feld-
spar and mica crystals. These particles of quartz are sometimes hard
to distinguish from feldspar, but the faces of the little blocks are never
shiny like those of feldspar, and it is never in little square blocks like
feldspar. Then it may be remembered that quartz is very hard. Feld-
spar is hard, but not as hard as quartz.

These three minerals, feldspar, mica and quartz, make up the rock
called granite, and these boulders are granite boulders, the same kind
of granite as is used for making tombstones and for building purposes.
It is a very hard rock and is not easily broken. The action of frost
and sun has little effect upon it, and it also takes a fine polish. These
things make it very valuable for monuments and building purposes. A
fourth mineral called hornblende is often found in connection with the

EXCURSIONS AFIELD. 25

three named, and this is somewhat like mica in appearance. It is,
however, harder than mica and does not split into thin scales so easily
as mica and it is generally in thicker masses, and is usually green or
greenish-black in color.

These two kinds of boulders, quartzites and granites, are among
the most common. These are the more familiar "hard-heads" which
everyone has observed. Besides these, however, there are others
which when broken do not present the glassy, milky or grayish appear-
ance of the quartzites nor the flesh-colored, red, brown or specked
appearance of the granites. Limestone boulders are common in North
Dakota, and in most of the northwestern states. These can be known,
however, by their softer character, and usually by being more affected
by the action of sun and frost. They dissolve and crumble much more
readily than the others. A good deal of the soil of North Dakota is
made of ground-up limestone, and as we shall see by and by this ma-
terial has helped to make our rich wheat-fields and also to make our
wells furnish hard water.

Still other boulders there are which have long hard names which
we do not need to describe here in particular, but only to say that
there are a good many others and nearly all of them are made of hard
materials so that they do not easily crumble or break. This fact of
their being hard is important, for we shall see later that this helps to
explain why they are here. They have not been broken up or dis-
solved, because they were so hard. But a fact that we should notice
here is that these different kinds are found scattered almost all over
our State and over other northern states as well; limestone, granites,
quartzites, hornblendes, augites, cherts and many others, large, small,
and all sizes, mixed, and scattered singly and in patches, sometimes
almost covering the ground and sometimes few and far apart, on the
surface and deep in the soil below the surface.

This great variety in kinds, in sizes and in the way they are scat-
tered leads us to inquire how this has all come about, where have the
stones come from and why are they so different in kind and size, and
so curiously scattered? Why are huge boulders sometimes found on
.the tops of the hills as well as in the valleys? And again sometimes
not even a good-sized pebble can be found for miles. Then again it
is all sand for miles, suddenly changing to black sticky prairie.

It has not required any great skill in guessing to surmise that these
rocks, these huge boulders and the great quantities of sand, were not

26 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

"made" in North Dakota, that is, that they did not in the first place
belong here, but have been brought here by some means from some-
where else. These rocks are not like any of the rocks in the quarries
of the State, and then too these boulders, pebbles and gravel, and even
the sand grains are all rounded more or less, while the rocks from our
quarries or from ledges along the streams where the bed-rock comes
to the surface, are all rough and angular. To explain how these things
have come about a geological story will have to< be told, a little frag-
ment of the earth's history, of the manner in which a great change took
place over a large part of North America, and which includes most
of the State of North Dakota, all of that part in fact which lies east
of the Missouri River. A part of this story will be told in the next
few chapters.

An Excursion to Some Quarries. Just as it is necessary for us to see,
feel, smell, taste and hear in order to think about an object, so it is
necessary for us to see, handle, break, dig and walk over the fields,
rocks, soils, hills and valleys in order to understand the geography of
our own neighborhood or State. But all parts of our State are like all
other parts in many respects, and what is true of North Dakota is in a
large measure true of other states, and other countries. Since we can-
not all visit all parts of our own State, and still fewer can visit all the
states or all the countries, let us first study our own neighborhood, and
then from this we may be able to understand the parts we cannot visit
from what those say who have seen parts we have not seen. He is a
good scientist who understands thoroughly his own neighborhood.
Let us then go out and pick up a basket full of stones from the fields
and roadsides. Let them be collected from all parts of the neighbor-
hood, and let big and little and all kinds be gathered. If there is a
patch of boulders in the neighborhood which are too large to be moved
look carefully at them where they are. In the collection which we
have made we have perhaps one hundred, maybe two or three hundred,
"specimens," yes specimens, for each one of these humble stones .has
its own story to tell, and strange as it may seem scarcely any two of
them will tell the same story. Can you find two which are exactly
alike in shape or size? Or, what is more wonderful, can you find two
in the whole collection which seem to be, when broken, exactly the
same kind of stone? If we have two or three hundred specimens gath-
ered from about the neighborhood, very likely if you try to sort them,
placing them in piles so as to have each kind by itself, meaning by

EXCURSIONS AFIELD. 27

kind those which are exactly alike, we shall have a hundred or more
piles!

Now if you have ever been in a stone quarry you have probably
noticed that the stones which were being taken out by the workmen
were all very much alike. If the ledge in which the quarry is located
is deep, if the wall of rocks is high and you see many layers in order
you may have noticed that they are not all alike, but if you look
at different parts of the same layer, following it from one part of the
quarry to another, you notice it is the same all along. The different
layers may also be very much alike. You see no such differences in
these layers, or strata as they are called, as you saw in the collection
you made from the fields. If you have been in a quarry in Minnesota
or Wisconsin or Iowa it may have been a limestone quarry you saw.
Among the specimens you collected there are probably several lime-
stone boulders. These you will observe are different in shape from the
quarry blocks. The boulders are all rounded and smooth, while those
freshly broken from the ledges are sharply angular.

If you have been in eastern South Dakota may be you have seen
the hard reddish building stone which is taken from the extensive quar-
ries along the Big Sioux River This rock is of quartzite, the same min-
eral as has been spoken of as making some of the "hard-head" boulders.
This particular region of South Dakota has no other rocks in the quar-
ries. It is known as Sioux quartzite and is famous as a building stone.
The city of Sioux Falls gets its name from its location near where the
Big Sioux River crosses an outcropping of this rock.

Stone quarries are very scarce in North Dakota, for reasons which
we shall see a little later. Let us look again to our sister state of Min-
nesota. At Kasota, near Mankato, are large quarries where the splen-
did reddish-brown sandstone is obtained which is used for trimming
the best brick buildings in many towns and cities. The bed-rock at
Kasota is of this one kind of sandstone. But around about on the
surface, in the fields and by the roadsides, are boulders such as these
we have gathered from the fields and roadsides of our own State. So
also about Sioux Falls, are boulders in the fields and along the road-
sides, but in the quarries there is only the one kind of rock, quartzite.

Now if we could dig down deep enough in our own State we should
by and by come to bed-rock. In some parts of the State we should
find this to be limestone, in other parts sandstone, and in others shale.
The sandstone would be different from that at Kasota, however. If

28 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

we should go north into Canada, away to Hudson's Bay, for instance,
or about Lake Superior, we should find the bed-rock to be like some
of the boulders we have in our collection. In some places we should
find granite, in other places quartzite, and hornblendes, and augites.
So similar are the bed-rocks in those localities to the pieces or boul-
ders which we have collected here, and so much do the scattered boul-
ders look as if they had come from some other place, that we almost
begin to wonder if in some way our boulders did not come from about
the Hudson Bay or Lake Superior country. In a later chapter we
shall see that there is reason for thinking that many of our boulders and
a large amount of finer materials have really been brought from these
far-off regions. All the boulders, pebbles and sand-grains of our prai-
ries and fields have come from other places where the bed-rock is the
same kind of rock as these boulders. In other words these boulders
are pieces broken off from the layers or strata of the bed-rock where
these come to, or near to, the surface. They are fragments which have
been broken from many different quarries in many different places, and
carried sometimes hundreds of miles to where we find them in the
fields. Some of the pieces were very large and heavy when first
broken. In the process of moving they have become a good deal
broken, big blocks being broken up into small pieces, the corners worn
off, and the whole surface made smooth.

When a large rock is broken into smaller blocks there are always
some small fragments formed, and when a corner gets knocked off
from a rock by striking against another rock more small fragments
are broken off. The only difference between boulders and sand is in
the size of the fragments. A boulder may be broken into several
smaller boulders, and these may be again broken into pebbles, and
these in turn are only larger grains of sand. They all get smoothed
and rounded by being jostled and rubbed against each other and
against other hard things which are in their w r ay, or which are moved
against them. Indeed soil and the clays of the fields and hills are
mostly ground-up rock. The softer boulders are more easily worn to
powder and broken. The boulders, the larger ones, those which are
well rounded and smoothed, and which have been quite correctly called
"hard-heads," are the harder masses which have been broken loose
from the bed-rock somewhere and by reason of their being so hard
have not been worn out and made into soil. If you examine the
grains of a handful of sand from a sand-pit you will find it to be made

EXCURSIONS AFIELD. 29

up of hard particles of stone. The grains will be largely quartz grains,
and bits of feldspar and other hard minerals. You will generally find
but few grains of mica or limestone because these are softer and more
easily ground to powder. These have been ground into earth and
clay. Nearly all the sand patches or sandpits, like the sands of the
sea-shore, are whitish, and this is because it is largely grains of hard
whitish quartz.

Because the boulders, sand and clay of our fields have come from
somewhere else, have drifted here from other regions, this material is
called "Drift," and the boulders are often spoken of as "foreign" boul-
ders or drift rocks to distinguish them from the rocks which have
come from our own quarries or from the bed-rock near where the pieces
are found.

All of North Dakota except that part of the State which lies west
of the Missouri River is covered with a great sheet or mantle of "drift."
In some parts of the State this covering of drift is very deep, being more
than 300 feet in some places in the eastern part of the State. It becomes
thinner toward the west till along the Missouri River it is only a few feet
thick and further west disappears entirely.

The black soil of our fields does not extend down very far, as you
have likely noticed. But if you have watched the digging of a deep
well or a place where any deep excavation was being made, you have
seen that clay and boulders occur down to a much greater depth, and
probably no shelf or layer of rock was struck such as you saw in the
quarries.

All these materials, these many millions of tons of clay, boulders,
sand, and gravel and most of the soil also, which cover nearly the
whole State, are drift, and the time during which this vast amount of
work was being done is known as the "Drift Period," or Glacial Period.
It was the last great geologic period before that in which man lives, the
period of written history.

\Ye shall, in the next few pages, try to see how the boulders, peb-
bles, sand, and clay were carried and how they come to be left as
they are.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.
THE WORK OF ICE.

The Great Ice Sheet. All of North Dakota east of the Missouri
River is embraced in that part of North America which was covered
by the ice during the Glacial Period. We have wondered how the
boulders and rounded pebbles came to be here, scattered all about as
they are, when they are so different from the bed-rocks and also so
different from each other. Geologists agree that ice was the agent
which transported these rocks here; that it was by the action of the ice
that the rock fragments were first broken from their parent ledges and
carried, smoothed, broken, and ground to powder; that the way the
boulders, gravel and sand are distributed is due to the ice melting and
leaving the rocks which it carried; and the peculiar hills and rolling
prairies which mark the landscape have been formed by the dumping of
these transported materials from the great ice-plow.

All the northern portion of North America was covered by this
great flood of ice. In all the northern states from North Dakota to
Maine and the Atlantic Coast about New York City occur boulders,
sand and clay, and peculiar rounded hills such as- are seen between
Larimore and Devils Lake, along the line of the Great Northern Rail-
way, about Cooperstown in Griggs County, west of Hope in Steele
County, at intervals along the line of the Northern Pacific Railway
from east of Valley City to Bismarck, east of Lisbon in Ransom County,
about Oakes in Dickey County, and, in fact, here and there through-
out the whole State west of the eastern tier of counties and east of the
Missouri River, occur irregular generally rounded hills, and valleys
without outlets. These are hills which mark positions where the edge
of the great ice-sheet stood for a time, and, melting, left the mate-
rials of which these hills are composed. Wherever such hills are seen
the country has been "glaciated."

The ice-sheet was a good deal deeper or thicker in some places than
in others. \Ve shall get the right idea if we think of the great flood of
ice slowly flowing or shoving its way across the country, covering the

THE WORK OF ICE.

32 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

hills and filling the valleys, planing off the hill-tops and filling the val-
leys with the materials of the hills. It may seem a little strange to
think of ice flowing over the land, but there are a great many strange
things in the world and we should not refuse to study them because
they are strange. In another chapter we shall try to see some of the
reasons which have led geologists to think that it was a great ice-flood,
a vast sheet of snow-ice slowly creeping or flowing from the northeast
toward the southwest which has caused all these strange things. We
must try to be fair and honest in a study of this kind and not refuse to
think about things because we cannot at first understand them, or can-
not see how such things can be.

No one claims that we know these to be the facts absolutely. No
man was on the earth at this time to write a history of what occurred;
or if there were any men then at least they did not write any history
which we know about. All that we can tell about what occurred is by
studying the records left in the rocks and clays and gravels, and the
peculiar hills and valleys. The collection of boulders, pebbles and sand,
the clay dug up from below the fertile soil, the hills and hollows them-
selves which we walked over and through, and the rocks we studied in
the field, all enter into the great subject of the history of this period
of the earth's changes.

Without trying at this time to explain the causes of the extreme
cold which made such a gathering of snow and ice possible, let us see
what the physicist says, the man who has studied the action of ice
and snow and water, and other substances under various
conditions, about the behavior of ice in very large masses. Then we
may afterwards seek what reasons or evidences there are for thinking
that ice was the agent which did all this work; or that what has been
called an "ice-invasion" has really at some time occurred.

Behavior of Ice Under Pressure. >We are accustomed to think of ice
as a brittle substance; and we know that when struck a sharp blow with
a hard instrument it will break into pieces. But it can be shown in a
laboratory where all things needed are at hand, or in great glaciers
where the mass of ice is very great, that when ice is placed under great
pressure and acted upon slowly and steadily for a long time it not only
does not break into pieces as a brittle solid but actually flows very
much as a mass of resin or cold, thick pitch will flow if it is given time,
bulging out on all sides from the pressure of its own weight.

To get some idea of the way the ice will act let us use some figures.

THE WORK OF ICE. 33

A cubic foot of ice weighs about 62.25 pounds. If we imagine two
blocks of this size placed one upon the other, the bottom one will hold
up a weight of 62.25 pounds. If ten blocks are piled up on top of the
first one then the bottom one will be holding up 622.5 pounds. If we
imagine the blocks to be piled up as high as the highest grain elevator,
say 100 feet high, then the pressure upon the bottom due to the weight
of the ice blocks would be 6,225 pounds, or more than three tons.
Imagine the whole weight of a load of a hundred bushels of wheat
to rest upon one such block of ice. It would be crushed, would it not?
Now, suppose that the whole landscape round about were covered
with ice to a thickness of 100 feet. Each square foot of land might be
thought of as having a pile of one hundred foot-cubes of ice resting
upon it. Each bottom cube would be prevented from crushing the way
the load of wheat was imagined to crush a single block because there
would be more blocks all around it and each one trying just as hard
to crush. The lower layer of ice would therefore be under a great
stress.

Now, in parts of the country where there are high mountains, as the
White Mountains in the state of New Hampshire, drift boulders and
pebbles on the tops of these mountains show that the ice covered their
tops, or, in other words, the thickness of the ice was so great that the
high mountains were buried. Some of those mountains which were
so covered are more than a mile high, that is, their summits are more
than a mile vertically above their bases, and drift boulders and gravel
are found upon their sides and up to their very summits. The ice
must therefore have been more than a mile deep in those regions.
Many careful observations have led to the conclusion that the ice was
in some places two or more miles deep. What, then, must have been
the pressure upon the bottom layers due to the weight of the ice? One
mile is 5,280 feet. The pressure upon the bottom of each square foot,
therefore, must be 5,280 times 62.25 pounds, or 328,680 pounds, or
nearly 165 tons. Since the ice cannot crush, being hemmed in on all
sides by more ice under just the same pressure, the stress upon the
bottom layers will be very great. Under these conditions of great
pressure ice behaves like a thick, viscous substance, such as pitch or
thick tar.

An Illustration. Let us imagine a large cask or barrel filled with
hard pitch. It appears solid, and if a piece of it is struck a sharp blow
it will break much like a brittle rock or a piece of ice. Suppose we

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

should knock, the barrel -to pieces and leave the pitch standing in a
great block. It will have the form of the inside of the barrel. But let
it stand for some time, say a week or a month, and it will be seen to
have bulged out at the sides near the bottom. Leave it longer. The
mass no longer has the form of the inside of the barrel. It is flattening
down and broadening out at the base. Leave it for a still longer time,
for a year maybe, or even two years, and it will have flattened out so
that no one would ever think that it had once had the form of the inside
of a cask or barrel.

Now, suppose such a block of pitch is left to stand on a level floor.
It would flatten out and flow over the floor from the pressure due to
its own weight. If there were some marbles or small stones lying upon
the floor scattered about or in little heaps, the pitch would flow over

FIG. 10.

these and shove them along with itself. If the block of pitch were on
the cellar bottom where there were small hollows it would fill these and
push on over them. If there were small gravel stones in these hollows
some of these would be shoved along up out of the hollows and pushed
over the uneven surface.

If we now can imagine the pitch to disappear by some means with-
out disturbing the pebbles it has moved over the cellar bottom, we
should find these pebbles to have been shoved into a somewhat irregu-
lar row near where the edge of the spreading pitch had been.

In much the same way the ice flowed across the continent, filling
the valleys and crossing the hills as the pitch flowed over the cellar
bottom and filled and crossed the hollows and hummocks. The great
pressure from the accumulation of snow in the interior of the continent
caused the outward flow. In the interior of the continent the ice
melted on the land when it had flowed southward into the warmer

THE WORK OF ICE. 35

climate of lower latitudes. Off the coast of New England the edge of
the great ice-sheet pushed off into the sea. In the latter case the rock-
fragments carried by the ice were thrust off into the sea. But in the
former case, where the ice melted on the land, the broken rock, some
of which had been ground to fine powder forming clay, and the small
fragments in the form of gravel and sand, together with the large boul-
ders, were left where the melting ice dropped them.

Alpine Glaciers. Ice can be seen flowing down mountain sides at
the present time in many countries, in Switzerland, Norway, Green-
land, Alaska and the Rocky Mountains in our own country. Ice-
streams flowing down the slopes of mountains are called Alpine Gla-
ciers, from the Alps Mountains in Switzerland, where there are splendid
examples of glaciers in action, and because it was there that the flow
of ice in glaciers was first studied.

If you have been on the top of Pike's Peak, or through the Yellow-
stone National Park, in the hottest months of summer you have seen
great patches of snow here and there among the crags and pinnacles,
above what is known as the "snow-line." Where there are high moun-
tains with their crests reaching far above the snow-line the summers
are not warm enough to cause all the snow to melt, and so it continues
to gather in the hollows high among the clouds and craggy peaks.

When,o<n the mountain tops, enough snow gathers so that its weight
becomes very great the lower layers become more like ice than snow
because of the pressure from the mass overlying. And if the amount
of snow becomes very great it will by and by begin to move slowly
down the mountain.

The snow does not need to gather upon a mountain slope in order
to flow. We saw that stiff, hard pitch flowed across a level surface by
reason of its own weight. The place of starting of glaciers is often
high on mountain tops where it is too cold even in mid-summer for
all the snow to melt. But a glacier may be formed upon a level sur-
face, the conditions which cause a glacier being that more snow shall
fall during the winter than melts during the summer.

When either high upon mountain tops or on a plain, therefore,
more snow falls than melts, so that it gathers deeper and deeper and
piles up higher and higher; after a while the snow which is near the
bottom becomes pressed so hard by the weight of that which lies above
it that it changes its form from flaky snow into a sort of snow-ice
known as neve, and when the pressure has become great enough it will

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

begin to flow out at the sides or edges of the snow-field and push down
the mountain side, or out over the plain.

Moraines. Stones and various fragments of earth are carried down
by Alpine glaciers, and as the ice melts when it gets down into the
valleys, or down the mountain sides where it is warmer, it leaves the
stone-fragments which have been carried or pushed along. These
materials are left in irregular heaps and piles, and are known as Mo-
raines, from a French word meaning "a heap of stones."

Those rounded hills and long, irregular ridges which we have no-

FlG. ii. View Along the Top of a Terminal Moraine.
Photograph by Ray Abel.

Western Walsh County.

ticed west of Larimore and Hope, about Cooperstown, Valley City and
Oakes, are morainic hills, and the whole group of hills to which they
belong, in each locality, is a Moraine. They were left where they are
by the melting of the ice of the great continental ice-sheet, just as the
smaller heaps and irregular piles of broken stone and earth, left by the
melting of the glaciers on the mountain sides of Switzerland, or on the
west coast of Greenland, are Moraines.

There are several kinds of Moraines, or, rather, several forms in
which "heaps of stones" or earth are deposited by the melting ice. At
the lower edge of the ice, where the melting back is just about equal

THE WORK OF ICE. 37

to the pushing down, so that the glacier end seems to stand still, will
be a great gathering place of broken stones, earth and soil which were
carried down by the ice. These will be dumped 'in heaps and irregular
ridges. Small fragments of rock, sand, clay and soil from the land-
surface will all be piled together in great confusion. Hollows will be
between these knolls and ridges, small and large, round and irregular,
deep and shallow, and some of them will be filled with water from the
melting ice.

This whole affair- the heaps and piles of earth and broken rock,
the irregular ridges, the hollows and lakes makes up what is called a
Terminal Moraine. It is called terminal because it is at the terminus
or end of the glacier.

On the sides of glaciers rock and soil gather from the grinding of
the ice against the hillsides along which it passes, and from crags falling
upon the edge of the moving ice. Often these materials form long
ridges or piles which extend for long distances along the edge of the
ice-stream. These are sometimes upon the ice and being carried along
with it, and sometimes they occur as ridges skirting the edge of the
ice but upon the ground. Such a line of broken rock and soil is a Lat-
eral Moraine, so named because formed on the side of the glacier. If
the glacier melts aw r ay entirely these long side-ridges are left upon the
sides of the valley down which the glacier moved. They are side
moraines, therefore, in just the same way that terminal moraines are
end moraines.

It frequently happens in mountains where glaciers exist that two or
more smaller streams of snow-ice from higher up the mountain run
together lower down and form one larger ice-stream, just as the
branches or tributaries of a river run together to form a larger river.
On the sides of each of these branch or tributary glaciers there are
lateral moraines. When, therefore, two such streams come together
two lateral moraines will meet, like the two parts of a letter V, and
below the point of meeting the two ridges will become one, and this
will continue down the course of the larger stream, but in the midst of
it and not at the side or edge. The two lateral moraines which unite
form a single ridge like the stem of the letter Y, and this is known as
a Medial Moraine, because it is carried on the middle of the glacier.

Sometimes a glacier moves farther down a mountain valley than at
other times. We have seen how a terminal moraine is formed at the
end of a glacier. If now the ice should melt back for some time faster

38 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

than it moved down the slope then the belt of terminal moraine ridges,
heaps and hollows, and maybe lakes, would be left below the glacier. If
then the glacier should advance, or move down more rapidly than it
melted at its lower end, the ridges, heaps and hollows would be ridden
over and shoved farther down the slope. Along the bottom of the
glacier, on the ground which the ice-stream passes over, pieces of rock
which are broken off from projecting crags, loose fragments of stone
lying upon the surface of the ground, and soil, would be shoved along
and ground under or near the bottom of the ice. This material, to-
gether with that of the terminal 'moraine which is pushed along and
over by the advancing ice will be shoved into hollows and ground to
powder on the hard bottom. When the glacier melts back and un-
covers this material, or when the glacier disappears altogether, as many
glaciers have done, this will be left as a Ground Moraine.

There are thus seen to be four kinds or forms of moraines, Ter-
minal, Lateral, Medial and Ground. These are not always sharply sep-
arated from each other. It is not easy sometimes to see just where one
begins and another ends. All these forms of deposits from glaciers are
of interest to us because they all occur on a very large and grand scale,
making conspicuous landscape features in North Dakota, and all the
Northern States and Canada. Various forms and modifications of these
make up many, indeed, most of the hills and swells of the prairies of
our State.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
AN EXCURSION TO SOME GLACIERS.

Illustrations from Norway. Norway furnishes many good examples
of alpine glaciers, and much may be learned about the hills and prairies
of our own State by studying the behavior of glaciers as they exist
to-day. We cannot all go to Norway, or to Switzerland, or even to
the snow-capped mountains in our own country where glaciers flow
down their sides. Since it is not possible for us to see the actual
glaciers, let us see how much we can learn from pictures.

In Figure 12 the barren and lofty peaks of the Jotenheimen Moun-
tains in Norway are shown. Here is the gathering-ground of the snow
which descends the mountain sides as glaciers. This is said to be the
wildest and most bleak and dreary tract in all Norway. Here the
mountain tops are rock, naked of any vegetation, and covered in some
places the whole year with ice and snow. Standing on the high, cold,
bleak landscape, nothing but crags, snow, ice and lakes formed from
melting snow can be seen for long distances. The water from the

FIG.

The Snow-field on the Mountain Top.
Photograph by A. Thorson,

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

melting of the snows of this region in part goes to the Atlantic Ocean
on the west coast of Norway, and in part south by the River Glommen
past Christiania to the Skager Rack. The distance shown in the pic-
ture, from the foreground to the high crags in the background, is about
ten miles. The highest of the crags in this group are the loftiest peaks
in Norway. A glacier flows down the mountain side to the right from
the snow-field shown in the foreground. Another large glacier de-

FlG. 13. A Glacier and Terminal Moraines. Photograph by A. Thorson.

scends to the left from the snow-field among the crags in the back-
ground. The waters from the melting of this glacier are the head-
waters of the largest river in Norway, the River Glommen.

Figure 13 shows an ice-stream or glacier as it moves slowly down
the side of the mountain. In the foreground is shown the dumping-
ground of the materials carried by the ice, the terminal moraine of the
glacier. It is a belt and not a simple ridge. The distance across this
belt of ridges, heaps and irregular mounds of boulders or rock-frag-
ments, gravel, sand and earth, is about three-fourths of a mile, from

AN EXCURSION TO SOME GLACIERS.

the extreme foreground of the picture to the edge of the ice. Six
morainic ridges can be seen, counting the one at the extreme front on
which the top of a small tree appears.

Then comes a broad, low moraine with gravel and coarse pieces of
rock, the large fragments of rock showing dark in the picture. Two
or three huge masses stand above the general surface immense blocks
broken from the mountain side, shoved down with the ice and dropped
here where the ice melted. The light belt behind these is the crooked
stream of ice-water which flows from under the glacier.

Next are two large, ragged, dark-appearing ridges which are cov-
ered with scattering, scrubby trees. The stream from under the ice
comes from the right in the picture from between these two ridges and
turns sharply back toward the right.

Farthest over and near the ice-front is another riclge. Still another
which cannot be seen lies back of this, between it and the ice-wall. All
these ridges, all the sand, gravel and boulders, make up the terminal
moraine. Sometimes a single ridge is spoken of as a moraine, but the
term is correctly applied to all the ridges and piles which together make
up the dumping-ground of a glacier at any period of its existence.

FIG. 14. An Ice Cave. Photograph by A. Thorson.

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

If the glacier has at some time extended considerably farther
down the mountain side and left a moraine there, and i:his older
moraine is separated from the later or the one forming now by a tract
which is comparatively free from boulders and piles of gravel and earth,
then these are often spoken of as the older and the younger moraines.
They represent stages of advance and retreat of the glacier.

FIG. 15. An Ice Cascade. Photograph by A. Thorson.

Back of the dark-appearing terminal moraine ridge in the left of
the picture is a lateral moraine, marked v v. This is a sharp-crested
ridge of broken stones, earth and debris from the mountain side. At
the places marked v along the side of the glacier are ridges and heaps
of earth and stones thirty feet high, which belong to the lateral moraine
of the glacier, and are still being carried along with the ice. Dark
patches along the side of the ice at the foot of the mountain si4e and
extending up the glacier are also heaps of earth and stones belonging
to the lateral moraine.

Figure 14 shows a near view of a small part of the same -ice-front
which was seen from a distance in Figure 13. A great cave is hollowed

AN EXCURSION TO SOME GLACIERS.

out in the ice-wall, out of which flows the sub-glacial or under-the-ice
stream shown in Figure 13. The ice is clean, blue and hard. Huge
blocks have fallen from the melting and undermining at the bottom.
The man is standing on the ridge of stones and broken ice which was
spoken of before as lying close to the ice, and not able to be seen in
Figure 13.

In Figure 15 more than half of the picture, embracing the fore-
ground from the upper left corner to the upper side of the black belt
near the lower right corner, is a part of the lateral moraine of the
glacier. The crest of the moraine is the dark part running diagonally
across the middle of the picture. The rugged surface of the glacier ic
back of the dark crest of the moraine, behind the two men. It moves
from near the upper left corner toward the centre of the right side of
the picture. The snow in which the men are standing has fallen upon
the moraine and is not part of the glacier. The big, dark boulders or
blocks of rock in the snow are part of the lateral moraine.

In Figure 16 a nearer view of the front of the glacier is shown than
in Figure 13. The morainic ridge which lies close against the ice is cut

FIG. 16. Terminal Moraine, Front of Glacier, and Glacier in Distance.
Photograph by A Thorson.

44 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

through by the sub-glacial stream which comes from under the ice
where the black place is seen at the bottom of the ice, near the centre
of the picture in the foreground. At the time this picture was taken
the ridge was being pressed upon by the ice and apparently shoved
down by it.

Near the centre of the picture is a part of the glacier where the ice
is broken into a chowder by a fall or slide down a precipice about 3,000
feet. The precipice is shown just back of the white place in the centre
of the picture. This is what is called an ice cascade or cataract, corre-
sponding to what in rivers of water instead of ice is a water-fall. The
ice goes over this great cataract in immense masses, crashing with tre-
mendous force down over the rocky steep, making a noise like the
heaviest thunder. There is a roaring and booming as of a mighty can-
nonading as the great, slowly-creeping mass of ice comes to this jump-
ing-off place, breaks up into huge masses by its own weight, and goes
crashing down this great '"toboggan." The ice is not only shattered by
the fall, but it is shivered into snow-dust, and this loose mass of snow-
powder is what is seen in the centre of the picture.

The sub-glacial stream which has been noticed before coming out
from under the ice, descends into the ice at the foot of the cataract
where some of the ice is melted by the friction from the fall, and flows
under the glacier till it emerges at the end or foot of the glacier.

Below, toward the foreground of the picture, the ice-powder has
become solid ice again, and at the ice-front or end of the glacier it is
seen to be hard, blue, stratified ice.

The ice in the background of Figure 16 is the same as that in Figure
15, and the lateral moraine in Figure 15 is behind the dark mountain in
the background at the left in Figure 16.

Figure 17 is taken a little to the right of Figure 16. The man is
standing in the edge of the river which flows away from the glacier.
The morainic ridge is about eight feet high, and is being pushed by
the ice from behind. It is composed of small broken stones and coarse
gravel. The pieces of rock are mostly angular, not having been carried
in the ice far enough to become much rounded.

Figure 18 shows a part of the ice-front taken a little to the left of
Figure 17. The stratified structure of the ice is here well shown. The
morainic ridge near the ice is about twenty feet high. The two black
places at the bottom of the ice show where water emerges from under the
glacier to form the river of ice-water noticed in Figure 13. The morainic

FIG. 17. Terminal Moraine and Ice Front Crowding Upon It.
Photograph by A. Thorson.

FIG.

Terminal Moraine Being Washed Away by Glacial Stream.
Photograph by A. Thorson.

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

ridge has been mostly washed away by the stream, in this picture. A
hill, or pile of boulders and broken bits of rock, lies between the two
places where the water emerges. Morainic boulders, angular fragments
and gravel are strewn about in the foreground.

In Figure 19 is shown a large boulder-strewn moraine formed by a
glacier which once occupied a valley at the left of the picture, that is,
the glacier had its end or terminus at the moraine shown in the picture,
the ice moving down the valley from the left toward the right. The
moraine extends from the foot of the mountain at the extreme left across
the valley toward the right. The glacier has melted back or retreated so
that the moraine is left as a mark of its former greatness. The snow-field
from which the glacier comes is among the crags shown in the back-
ground of Figure 12.

The houses which stand on the moraine are what are called "Seth-
ers" summer dwellings used while grazing herds in these mountain
regions during the warmer months of the year. The house at the left
is used as a tourists' hotel.

FIG. 19. An Old Moraine. Photograph by A. Thorson.

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

110 Lontflu

Map Showing Great Ice Sheet of North America. After U. S. Geological Survey.
FIG. 19a

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
THE GREAT ICE-SHEET IN NORTH DAKOTA.

The Dakota Glacier and Its Moraines. The landscape of North Da-
kota is marked by many hills similar to those made by the alpine
glaciers of Norway, only our hills are grown over with grass like the
old moraine in Figure 19. Just as the hills we saw bordering the ice
were made of materials brought down by the ice and left where it
melted, so our hills are morainic hills deposited by the ice of a greater
glacier.

This great glacier was a lobe of the Great North American Ice-
Sheet. There were several large lobes along the southern edge of the
Continental Ice-Sheet, but the lobe which covered our State, which is
known as the Dakota Glacier, interests us most. A similar lobe pushed
its way across Minnesota and as far south as central Iowa. This is
known as the Minnesota Glacier.

The position of these two lobes or glaciers and their relation to
each other and to the Great Ice-Sheet from which they pushed out, and
of which they were a part, is shown in Figure 20. The moraine forming
at the edge is that of the Ninth or Leaf Hills stage. The position of
this moraine and the others in the State are shown on the Map,
Figure i.

The moraines in North Dakota which are most important are the
terminal moraines. They extend across the State in a generally north-
northwest and south-southeast direction. Sometimes a moraine is a
ridge or single range of hills and sometimes it is a belt of hills, hollows
and ridges from one to several miles wide. The hills of a moraine may
be high, sometimes becoming 150 to 200 feet above the hollows at their
bases, and they are sometimes merely low swells on the prairie.

Lakes are a feature of a morainic landscape. A dozen, a score, half
a hundred, may occur in a single township. Plymouth Township in
Massachusetts is said to have 360 lakes. Such lakes fill the hollows
which are deep enough to receive more water than can evaporate.

The region which lies between two moraines is most commonly

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

ground-moraine, that is, boulders, gravel, sand and clay, which were
shoved and pushed along the bottom of the glacier and run over and
ground up. But often a terminal moraine blends with the ground-
moraine so that it is difficult to say where one begins and the other
ends.

Generally the land between moraines, or between the belts and
ridges of the same moraine, is good farming land, and is what is com-

G.V.* GOLDEN VALLEY E.V. = ELK VALLEY E.VD. - ELK VALLEY BELTA

FIG. 20. Dakota and Minnesota Glaciers. From a Drawing
by Prof. Thomas H. Grosvenor.

monly called the "rolling prairie." Shallow lakes often occur on these
rolling lands, caused, like the lakes among the hills and ridges of a
moraine, by more water collecting in the low clay-bottomed places than
can evaporate. Many "alkali lakes'" are such "pans" from which dur-
ing dry seasons the water evaporates leaving the white alkaline min-
erals which were dissolved from the soil, forming a white crust over the
bottom.

THE GREAT ICE-SHEET IN NORTH DAKOTA. 49

Lateral and medial moraines do not so much concern us in North
Dakota, because they cannot generally be distinguished from terminal
moraines. The series of long hills known as "The Ridge" and "The
Mountains," which lies between Larimore and Edinburg, shown in
Figure 20, is a medial moraine formed between two great lobes or glaciers
of the ice-sheet.

Do not forget that each moraine or belt of hills means that here was
the edge of the glacier at one time; that these hills, all the gravel and
boulders, all the clay and sand, of which they are composed, were de-
posited from the melting of the ice at or near the glacier's edge. It
should also be borne in mind that the melting of a great mass of ice
means that a large amount of water must find escape somewhere.
These ice-waters formed large rivers which flowed away, making great
channels with their mighty currents, and carrying down their courses
gravel, sand and fine silt. Many lakes also were formed along the edge
of the glacier from waters pouring off from the ice and from under-
neath it.

The marks of these glacial rivers and lakes are now plainly seen
upon our prairie landscapes. Broad valleys with steep and high banks
are seen in many parts of our State, and these often have only a tiny,
meandering brooklet threading its way over the broad, level bottom.
And sometimes there is no stream at all in such a valley.

D ^V^-=

o o

FlG. 21. Cross Section of the Valley of a Glacial Stream.

The great Sheyenne Valley is one of the most notable examples of
this kind, and one of the grandest in all the Northern States. It re-
quires no great effort of the imagination to see that the present small
and slow-flowing Sheyenne River did not make the great valley in the
bottom of which the river now flows.

Many broad, fertile prairies, a little lower than the surrounding roll-
ing prairie, and having hills alongside and not very far distant, may be
the place where has been a sheet of ice-water from the melting glacier

50 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

a temporary glacial lake. The richness of the soil on such prairies is
often due to the fact that waters flowing into the lake carried fine silt
or rock-flour and deposited it over the bottom of the lake. This tem-
porary lake disappeared after its supply of water from the melting ice
ceased. Sometimes, how r ever, a pond or marsh remains as a vestige of
the larger lake.

The Dakota Glacier flowed south and a little east from the direction
of Lake Manitoba and the region west of Lake Winnipeg, and at the
time of its greatest extent reached across North and South Dakota.
The Dakota Lobe and a part of the Minnesota Lobe at a later stage,
when the ice had melted back a long way, is shown in Figure 20. When
it stood at the position shown in Figure 22 the outermost moraine,
called the First or Altamont Moraine, was formed, along the edge of
the ice. On the west side of the lobe was formed the irregular system
of hills shown in Figure i crossing the State through Mclntosh, Logan,
Emmons, Kidder, Burleigh, McLean, Ward and Williams Counties.

Across the State from Ashley in Mclntosh County (see Map, Figure
i), northeast to Park River in Walsh County, a line would cross the
ten great Terminal Moraines formed by the Dakota Lobe or Glacier
of the Great Ice-Sheet in North Dakota. These moraines have been
named in their order from the one first formed at the outer edge of the
glacier to the one far to the north in Canada. They are numbered as
well as given geographic names.

The outer or First is the Altamont Moraine, the name meaning
high hills; the Second or Gary Moraine, the Third or Antelope, the
Fourth or Kiester, the Fifth or Elysian, the Sixth or Waconia, the
Seventh or Dovre, the Eighth or Fergus Falls, the Ninth or Leaf Hills
and the Tenth or Itasca. The Itasca Moraine was formed after the ice
had retreated to the next stage after that represented in Figure 20. The
reader need not try to remember these names. They are given here
for reference, for convenience later. The names are geographic names
from places where the moraines are well developed, as for example the
Fergus Falls Moraine is named from the fact that the city of Fergus
Falls, Minnesota, stands upon this moraine, where the hills are very
conspicuous. The names have no more meaning than the names of
persons.

Lakes and streams of ice-water skirt the edge of the glacier. Great
streams also poured off from the surface of the ice and spread out upon
the ground adjoining. Much gravel, sand and finer rock-powder were

THE GREAT ICE-SHEET IN NORTH DAKOTA.

SMMKse W -

Sip !:-'$,

1^4^*1 ^ *'' I >^ -fei

fift

m *

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

washed by such streams from the ice-front and spread as "over-wash
plains" upon the land. The streams cut wide and deep channels, for
the waters were kept at flood by the continued melting of the ice.
When the ice had melted of course the streams ceased to be, but their
channels were left and they mark the landscape to-day in many parts of
the State.

South of Devils Lake are some of the largest hills in the State.
There was probably a large range of hills there before the ice-sheet

ICE .SHEET

AT THE TIME Of

THE FORMATION OF

THE OUTER MORAINE

IN SOUTH DAITOTA

PIG. 23. After Todd.

covered the country. When the Dakota Glacier extended across North
and South Dakota these hills were buried in the ice.

At the time of the formation of the Leaf Hills Moraine, or when
the Dakota Glacier reached as far south as is shown in Figure 20, the ice
edge stood upon the hills south of Devils Lake, not being deep enough
to flow over them. East of these hills it pushed farther south. The
ice of the Dakota Glacier moved from the north in the direction of
Lake Manitoba toward the south and a little east, and that of the

THE GREAT ICE-SHEET IN NORTH DAKOTA. 53

Minnesota Glacier from the region beyond Lake Superior and south of
Hudson's Bay toward the south and west. The two lobes of the Great
Ice-Sheet thus met along the Pembina Mountain highland. It was in
the hollow or ice valley between the lobes that the Glacial Elk River
flowed, at first probably on the top of the ice, and later formed what
is now known as the Elk Valley. It was this great glacial river which
carried down the sand and finer rock-flour which made the Elk Valley
Delta, from about McCanna and Larimore south to Portland.

The Work Done by Moving Ice. Let us now inquire as to the effect
of a great moving mass of ice upon the land-surface it passes over. If
there are rough places on the rock surface these will be ground off and
smoothed, and the fragments which are torn away will be shoved or
carried along with the moving mass. The rubbing of the moving ice

FIG. 24. A Small Hill Being Planed Down by the Ice.

serves to give a peculiar polish to the stones carried in it. Such
smoothed and polished rocks are very common among glacial gravels
and boulders. In fact, nearly all the boulders in the fields are smooth,
at least the sharp, angular corners have been rounded, and many of
them are distinctly polished. It is common also to find boulders and
pebbles not only smoothed but having straight lines cut in their sur-
faces. These lines have been caused by the stone being shoved against
another hard rock. Boulders or pebbles having marks made in this
manner are said to be "striated," and the fine lines or furrows are called
"striae."

Boulders or fragments which are carried or shoved along the bot-
tom of the ice upon a hard rock floor will indeed receive severe treat-
ment. Not only will their rough corners be ground off, but any except
those which are very hard will be likely to be ground to powder. Much

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

FIG. 25. Showing Formation of Moraine, and Stratification of the Ice
Photograph by Prof. T. C. Chamber tin.

FIG. 26. Showing Moraine, which is being Crowded upon by the Moving Ice.
Photograph by Prof. T. C. Chamber -tin.

THE GREAT ICE-SHEET IN NORTH DAKOTA.

FIG. 27. A Striated and Polished Boulder. Photograph by M. B. Erickson.

of the clay of our fields is rock-flour thus ground by the great glacier-
mill.

While these rock fragments which are carried along by the moving
ice are being thus ground to powder, what is the effect upon the under-
lying bed-rock? It must be getting a pretty hard scouring! Figure
29 is a photograph of striae on a surface of hard quartzite rock in South
Dakota. If a hummock or little hill lies in the path of the glacier, and if
its width and height are SO' great that it cannot be broken off, then
the ice will surround it and flow over it. The hummock will be combed
and rasped by the ice and by the pieces of rock which are being car-
ried in it. If the hummock should withstand the harsh treatment, when
the glacier disappears by melting and leaves the once ice-covered land-
scape, the little hill or hummock may look something like A Figure 30

or like B Figure 30 the ice having moved in the direction of the
arrows.

The Turtle Mountains furnish a good example in our own State of
a large and broad "hill" which was covered by the ice and "veneered."

FIG. 28. Granite Pebble, Showing Ice Planing and Striae. Drawn by Miss Jessie Dawson.

THE GREAT ICE-SHEET IN NORTH DAKOTA.

FlG. 30. Hills Worn Down by Action of the Ice.

The "Mountains," so-called, really are not mountains at all, but a
plateau. Before the ice-invasion this plateau looked something like A

Figure 31 standing upon the prairie like a great, broad biscuit on a
table or floor. After the ice had passed over it, it looked more like B

Figure 31 which is about as it appears to-day. The steep side at the
left is near Bottineau and the section extends northeast across the In-
ternational Boundary.

Devils Heart Hill and Sully's Hill south of Devils Lake are
"veneered" hills. East of the Missouri River many long hills with

FlG. 31. Ideal Sections of the Turtle Mountain Plateau, A before, and B after, being Cro&be d

by the Ice-sheet.

smooth outlines have a core of stratified rock, but have been combed
across by the ice and strewn with boulders and finer glacial gravel and
sand, and so are "veneered" with drift.

The great fertility of the Red River Valley and the eastern part of
our State comes not alone from the fact that the land in the Valley

58 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

was once covered by a lake, but we have inherited a large amount of
limestone, in the form of soil, from the limestone beds in western Mani-
toba. This limestone has been ground to powder by the ice as it shoved
it along. We have noticed that the Dakota Glacier moved south and
a little east from the region about Lake Manitoba west of Winnipeg.
This gave the Red River Valley and the eastern portion of the
State a valuable "shipment" of the best wheat-producing limestone
soil from our neighboring Province to the north. This pulverized and
ground limestone is the best and most fertile known for wheat grow-
ing-
Advance and Retreat of the Ice Front. In the chapter on the Glaciers

of Norway something was said about the advancing or pushing ahead
of the front of a glacier due to. the movement of the ice being greater
than the melting, and again the ice melting away more rapidly than it
flowed down, causing a retreating or moving backward of the edge of

FIG. 32. A Veneered Hill, Ideal Section of Mauvais or Big Butte.

the glacier. We may now apply what we saw then to the great Con-
tinental Glacier.

If melting were for a season more rapid than the onward movement
of the ice, then the edge of the ice would slowly retire backward and
leave its supply of earth, sand, gravel, boulders and clay to show where
it had been. If the edge had stood for some time at one place there
would be a long heap or ridge of materials forming what has been
called a moraine. If the ice melted back somewhat rapidly there would
be scattered boulders, gravel, sand and clay over the area between the
moraine and the ice front. If the forward movement of the ice and
the melting should now balance for a time so that the ice front became
stationary again, here would be formed another morainic ridge.

If this should occur again, this formation of a moraine would be

THE GREAT ICE-SHEET IN NORTH DAKOTA. 59

repeated, and so there might come to be a series of morainic ridges
more or less nearly parallel to each other. If, however, the ice should
move ahead more rapidly than it melted away at the front, the ice
would O'verride these ridges, leveling them down and pushing their
materials .along. This melting back and pushing ahead have occurred a
great many times, as a study of the terminal moraines of our State and
of other Northern States show. Such advance and retreat of the ice
front would tend to cause the terminal moraine to become not a simple
line or long heap of earth and stones, but a belt of such materials. And
as not all the earth and rock of the hills and ridges would be shoved
along in front of the advancing ice but would be run over by the ice,
the depth of the material in a moraine-belt becomes often very great,
and so much material piled up in front of the ice would act as a dam
to the on-flowing ice and hinder its advance.

The terminal moraines which mark the places where the edge of
the Great Ice-Sheet stood are not merely ridges of earth and rocks,
but are belts of ridges and hills.

The hills may be of all sizes and all heights up to 150 feet or even
200 feet. Between theni are little hollows and large hollows, "kettles,"
they have been called, sometimes containing water, sometimes dry,
and sometimes what have been lakes have given place to marshes or
"hay-meadows" by the blowing in of dust and the continued growth of
rushes and water plants till the lake has been filled. Sometimes the
hills are long, graceful swells, and sometimes their sides are very steep.
So also the hollows may be round or they may be elongated and irregu-
lar, and they may be deep or shallow. Sometimes the hillsides are
strewn thickly with boulders, and sometimes no pebble larger than a
toy marble can be found.

Figure 33 is a photograph taken in "The Hills" southwest of Minot
in Ward County. Boulders are seen scattered in abundance over the
hills. In the foreground is a patch of boulders which have been
brought together from far away. Limestones, granites and quartzites
are here side by side. The limestones came from over in Manitoba,
perhaps a hundred miles away. The granites and hard quartzites may
have come from much farther away, possibly 200 miles or more. Such
boulders have sometimes been traced back to their parent ledges over a
distance of more than 300 miles.

The hill at the right where the carriage stands is one of the highest,
if not the highest, in this section of the State. It can be seen from

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

more than twenty miles distant on the prairie. Many lakes of small
size and hay-sloughs can be seen from its crest. The smoke rising
from the chimneys of the shops at Minot can be seen also twenty miles
away. To the left of the centre of the picture is a small circular lake
now nearly filled so that it is a marsh. Two others can be seen, one at
the right and one at the left on the margin of the picture. These are
the "meadows" from which the ranchmen get their supplies of hay
during summers when there is not too much rain. They are lakes dur-
ing wet seasons.

If we imagine that the ice pushed ahead, leaving its burden of earth
and stones and then in turn melted more rapidly so that the edge of the

FIG.

In the Hills Southwest of Minot.

ice was farther back; and if we imagine that it, so to speak, stood still
here for some time so as to leave another mass of earth and stones; and
if again the ice should advance and plough through and over the nearer
masses of morainic material, and this process should be repeated again
and again, when the ice should have finally all disappeared and left the
landscape to become covered with plants and trees, we should expect
that a very rough and hilly landscape would be the result. And if, as
has been suggested, the materials piled up at the ice edge stood in the
way of the forward movement of the ice, the tongues of ice would push
out where there was less material in the way, and this would help to
form the irregularities such as we now see in terminal moraines.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
MORE EXCURSIONS.

Shore Boulder Chains. We may now understand better perhaps why
the soil changes in character so much in going short distances. A
farm may be located in a rnorainic region and its soil be stony, gravelly
or sandy, or all of these, and it may be very hilly and rough, with small
lakes or sloughs and marshes. Another farm only half a mile away,
or even only a few rods distant, may be nearly level, of fine black
loamy soil, and almost entirely free from stones. Still another may
have a gentle slope or undulating surface, with almost no stones, but
the soil may be very sandy, so that when the wind blows it may drift
into dunes or heaps of sand. The first farm may be on what was the
land barrier or moraine which hemmed in a temporary lake on one
side; the second, where was once the deep water of the lake and hence
received the fine sediments ; and the third may be on what was a delta in
the lake.

Sometimes again a chain of boulders may lie in great collections
along some parts of a farm or section of land, and other parts near by
be entirely free from such boulders. Such chains of rocks are often seen
along the shores of lakes, especially of lakes whose waters are shallow.
During cold "winters such lakes freeze to their bottoms. And lakes
which are deeper in some parts and so do not freeze to their bottoms
will freeze to their bottoms in, the more shallow parts nearer shore.
If rocks and boulders are lying on the bottom, these become frozen
into the ice. The sheet of ice cracks and breaks during the winter and
the cracks become filled with water and this freezes and in freezing ex-
pands, and so the ice sheet covering the whole lake becomes larger
and it therefore shoves outward upon the shore. In so doing the
bl-jcks of stone and boulders which were frozen into the bottom of the
ice are shoved toward shore with the ice. This not only moves them
a little way shoreward, but it serves also to loosen them from the bot-
tom. When the ice "breaks up," in the spring, these rocks will be
carried with the floating ice cakes until by melting of the ice they are
again dropped. Whichever way the prevailing winds bk>w the ice

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

cakes will tend to be moved and the rocks with them. The result is
that the boulders are moved toward the shore in the direction of the
prevailing wind. Winter after winter they are caught by the ice and
shoved and carried a little way toward shore. Finally they are stranded
along the bottom near the shore. Then they are frozen in and shoved
up on the shore by the expansion process spoken of until finally there is
a great chain of rocks and boulders piled along the shore, shoved up
above the water's edge and left there by the melting of the ice. Hence
if often happens that there is a great shore chain of rocks piled along
the windward shore of a lake, as though they had been hauled there
and dumped by some titanic force. Such chains of boulders were
sometimes piled along the shores of glacial lakes, and when these lakes
disappeared and the lake bottom became a dry field here were left the
boulders to mark where once had been the lake.

Boulder-Strewn Prairies. There are many places where boulders of
all sizes are scattered over the land in great numbers. Great blocks
weighing many tons often lie upon the prairie as though they had been
dropped there by some gigantic force. Sometimes the land is strewn
with boulders so that one can walk for a considerable distance with-
out stepping upon soil at all. Large and small sizes, and different
kinds, granites, quartzites, limestones and others, appear as though
they had been carried there and thrown down.

Just how these boulders, these huge masses and the smaller blocks,

FIG. 34. A Huge " Foreigner." Photograph by Prof. Chas. M. Hall.

MORE EXCURSIONS. 63

came to be distributed just as we now find them we need not now
trouble ourselves about, only to observe that they are all "drift" boul-
ders or "foreigners," and that they have been transported from some
other place by the great ice-sheet, and when the ice melted they were
left just where the ice happened to drop them. Their corners are
nearly always rounded and their surfaces smoothed by the rubbing and
grinding of the great ice-mill in which they were carried.

Buffalo Boulders, It quite frequently happens that a large boulder
lies in the center of a small basin or hollow, as though the basin had
been dug around the rock. Such hollows are usually not large, ex-
tending only a few feet each way from the stone. This has suggested
the idea that buffalo, wandering in herds over the once unbroken
prairie, rubbed their bodies against the sides of the rock, and in tread-
ing about it ploughed up the soil. Loose soil is easily carried by the
wind, and so the hollow might easily have been formed by the joint
action of the hoofs of the buffalo and the wind.

The rocks are sometimes polished on their sides with a sort of
greasy polish, but no such thing is seen on the tops of the boulders
beyond the reach of the animals' heads.

Sometimes when these hollows become quite deep, or are on low
ground, water collects in them during wet seasons and they become
"buffalo wallows." When this is the case the soil would be carried away
on the bodies of the animals.

Stratified Gravel and Sand in Sand-Pits. Probably all have seen a
gravel- or sand-pit. Here the little fragments of stone we call gravel
or sand are arranged in beautiful layers, one above another like the
boards in a lumber pile. Some of the layers are very thin, perhaps only
a small fraction of an inch in thickness, and again they are several
inches thick, or even several feet. Occasionally, also, a boulder is found
imbedded in the layers. The size of the particles in any particular layer
or stratum it is noticed is about the same, though the next layer above
or below may be much finer or coarser. If we follow the line o<f one
layer either w r ay for some distance we may notice that in some cases it
becomes coarser as we proceed, or it may become finer; and many
times \ve see that a layer becomes thinner and thinner in one direction
and finally ceases entirely.

When we attempt to picture to our minds the way in which this
gravel mass came to be here, remembering that each of these grains of
sand and gravel, however small, and every boulder and cobble, was

t)4r THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

once a part of a larger rock, that these tiny bits are w r hat is left of huge
rock-masses torn or broken from ledges somewhere, and brought here
and left as we now find them by some process, we shall no longer simply
wonder how these things came to be, but will try to definitely explain
them.

W T e have seen before how lakes of longer or shorter duration might
be formed at the front of the ice-sheet, hemmed in by masses of earth

FIG. 35. Section in a Gravel Pit, Showing Stratified Sand Below, and Coarse Gravel and
Boulders Above. Photograph by Prof. Chas, M. Hall.

and stone outside the line of the ice front. We have seen how streams
flowing into such lakes would carry great quantities of earth, fine silt
or rock-flour, and sand, and even coarser materials, the product of the
great ice-plow on the rocks over which it has passed. We have seen how
such lakes might have deltas formed at their shores and reaching out over
their bottoms, and how finer sediments would be scattered all over their
bottoms, and how they might finally become entirely filled. We have
seen that these lakes might be of all sizes, from mere ponds to deep and
broad bodies of water manv miles in extent. The streams which flow

MORE EXCURSIONS. 65

into them may be few and small, or they may be many, and large as
well as small. They may flow with swift or slow ^currents, and may
carry coarse or fine materials, according to what materials were in the
ice and the speed with which the current flowed, for a swiftly-flowing
stream can carry a great deal more material and a great deal larger
fragments.

Now, let us suppose that the ice has crowded its way close upon
the already formed terminal moraine. The ice front stands as a great
wall, maybe 100 feet or 150 feet or 1,000 feet high. The melting
causes great streams of water to flow down off from the ice and out
from its .base. These waters flow away from the ice as fast as they
can find a way to escape over the earth and stones. Torrents carrying
earth, sand and gravel pour their dirty waters into a basin filled already
with water, and even roll cobbles and boulders into the lake. As soon
as these rapid currents enter the still waters of the lake they become
slower and throw down their burden of earthy materials. The heavier
particles will be thrown down first, then the lighter, and finally farther
from shore the finest of all.

Suppose this keeps on till a layer of gravel or sand or finer silt has
been formed, an inch or two inches or even more in thickness. Mean-
while the ice front may have changed its position or form by movement
of some part of its mass, or by melting, or both, so that the course of
the stream has become changed and hence the gathering of sediments
carried into the lake will be changed. Conditions may be such that
sediments will not be carried into the lake at the same places as before,
and so the layer which was forming on the bottom may not be added
to, but other parts of the bottom will receive the sand and finer sedi-
ments, and only fine silt may be deposited on the top of the layer of
coarser sand.

Then other changes may cause still other manner of distributing
the gravels, sands and silts. We may imagine some coarser material
being left as a third layer. The incoming currents of water may be-
come more swift by more rapid melting of the ice or by the ice of the
glacier moving in such way as to cause a steeper bed to the water
course, and hence while some of the materials already thrown down
may be again taken up and carried farther along into the lake by the
swifter currents other coarser materials now being carried by the
swifter streams may be left on the top of the finer layers already laid
down, so that now there are four layers lying one above another,

66 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

the first of sand, then one of very fine rock-flour or silt, then a coarser
layer again, and finally another layer which may be coarser still than
the last or it may be finer, according as the waters which carried it were
moving more swiftly or more slowly than the waters which carried in
the last layer before.

Now, still other changes may occur and other streams may flow into
the lake in greater abundance in some other parts of the lake, and these
streams may carry still different materials. But coarser materials will
be dropped nearer the shore and the finer carried farther out, and some
of these may be scattered over the layer just described, the fourth in
the series, and so a fifth layer be added. And a sixth and a seventh
may follow, according to the time the lake remained and streams con-
tinued to pour in their muddy and sand-laden waters. The thickness
of the layers depends upon the changing conditions which have just
been noticed, a layer of coarse sand or gravel accumulating more
rapidly than a layer of fine silt.

If occasionally a boulder occurs imbedded in the fine layers we shall
understand that even large rocks may be rolled and even carried by
streams if their currents are very swift. Larger and smaller boulders
may therefore be expected to be found imbedded in the layers of gravel,
sand and silt.

The coulees or young valleys and the larger streams which are now
furnishing sediment to fill the lakes, and many other changes in the
appearance of the landscape surrounding glacial lakes, including the
growing of grass and trees, and the crumbling of rocks by action of
frost, air and wind, and the dissolving of soils by the rains, are things
which have occurred since the ice of the great Ice-Sheet disappeared
to return no more, in other words, these are what are called post-
glacial changes, or changes which have occurred since the Glacial
Period.

A Hard Problem for a Boy to Understand. It is not an easy thing to
think that all the materials of the fields, the sand, gravel and larger
rocks of the hills, all the materials in fact of which the landscape for
many feet below the surface is composed, have been brought from some-
where else, are transported materials, that the whole top of the earth, as
it were, has been shoved in from outside, has been brought here in or
on or under the ice. This seems a great piece of fiction perhaps at
first. We have seen earth and rocks carried by ice, but not on such a
scale as would amount to anything like the great covering of drift

MORE EXCURSIONS. 67

which overlies the bed-rock over the greater part of our State, and over
many of the Northern States. Considerable exercise of the imagina-
tion is needed to realize the force of this great fact.

A young man once brought to the writer a stone which he had
found in the earth thrown up in the digging of a well, and he thought
it very strange that there was what he called a "petrified butterfly" in
the stone! His face wore a surprised and puzzled look while a few
simple things were explained to him that this stone was a "glacial"
pebble, that the "petrified butterfly" was not a butterfly at all, but a
fossil form of a sea animal which had long ages ago lived upon the
sea bottom, and the shell of the little animal had been buried there in
the mud. This stone had once been part of that mud. In the lapse of
the ages the ocean had disappeared from that part of the earth, the mud
had become solid rock, and when the great Ice-Flood spread itself over
the land the rock in which this little animal had had its tomb for so
long was broken away by the moving ice and had been carried here
along with other stones, clay and soil, and the fragment of rock had
been dug up from the drift, the boulder had broken to pieces, and so
here was the "fossil" remains of the little sea animal!

"A sea animal!" he exclaimed. "Why, it was nearly a thousand
miles from the ocean where I found this piece of stone!"

"Yes, but all the land, all the solid rocks have been formed from
mud in the bottom of the ocean, and afterwards the ocean bottoms
have become dry land, and the muds of the ocean the solid rocks. The
ice carried the stone to where you found it long after the ocean had
gone."

"The ice carried it!" he exclaimed again, still puzzled. "That seems
to me a pretty big story to believe, for it was down more than twelve
feet in the ground and there were other large stones above it."

Now, to the reader who has followed these pages, it is hoped that
the story does not seem "too big" to be understood. It is hoped that
the reader is able to understand, after reading the pages of this book
thus far, that ice spreading and flowing over the land in a vast sheet
could have carried the soil of the fields, the rocks and clays of the hills
and prairies, and that in this way is explained the occurrence of large
and small stones, stones of many kinds, and clay and sand, all in a great
mixture, making up our landscape.

When we try to picture to our minds the distance to the Moon, to
the Sun or to the planet Neptune, we cannot without some effort realize

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

these great distances. The mind cannot at first readily think them.
But we think of the Sun as being much farther away than the Moon,
and Neptune as much farther away than the Sun, and of the stars as
vastly farther distant in space than Neptune. We dwell upon the fig-
ures representing those great distances, and finally come to a realiza-
tion of the immensity of space and of the extent of the great universe.
So when the untutored youth tried to follow the thought of the ex-
planation of the stone which contained the "petrified butterfly," the sea
animal which was found a thousand miles from the ocean, his mind was
quite unable to grasp the problem, and so he exclaimed, "It is a pretty
big story to believe !"

To the minds of many persons who have not trained thei'r imagina-
tions to an enlarged view of things about them ; who have, it may be,
never asked themselves the reason why rivers run in valleys or why
valleys are bounded by hills or whether prairie plains must some time
become hilly slopes ; who have never wondered why the boulders and
gravel, the clay and soil are distributed as they are, such an explana-
tion as that related above would be as hard to understand and believe
as it was to the boy. We must not therefore expect to grasp the full
force and meaning of the geological story of our own neighborhood or
State at the first effort. If we could all visit the great ice fields of
Greenland and look upon the vast ice sheet, see the great promon-
tories of ice standing like huge walls of rock as high above the ground

FIG. 36. A Joint Moraine Formed by the Meeting of two Glaciers.
Photograph by Prof. T. C. Chamber lin.

MORE EXCURSIONS.

70 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

in front of them as would be measured by standing three of the highest
church spires in. our State one above the other; if we could look upon
the great masses of rock which are being carried, shoved and broken,
and left in great terminal moraines; if we could walk or climb upon the
top of the great slowly moving mass of ice; if we could behold the
great expanse of snow stretching away in the distance and
from which reach out towards the lower regions the great ice tongues
or glaciers, it would help us to understand the meaning of a great Con-
tinental Glacier or Ice-Sheet. We should be better able to see how the
stone which the boy found in the well digging could be a part of a great
mass of materials which had been carried by the great moving ice-sheet
from the regions of the North. The hills known as moraines, of which
our State has a great number, would then be more easily ^understood
as the dumped material left from the melting of the ice.

If we can imagine a great ice-sheet many times larger than the
great ice-sheet now covering Greenland to be spread over two-thirds of
North America, and instead of the ice having a depth three times as
great as the height of the highest church spire you have seen, we
imagine the whole country to be covered by ice to a depth of half a
mile to a mile or more, we shall be still better able to understand the
meaning of the landscape with its hills and prairies, lakes and marshes,
boulders and sandy plains.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.

NORTH DAKOTA, THE OLD AND THE NEW.

Three Types of Landscape. North Dakota may be said in a general
way to have three kinds of topography or landscape features: first, the
level-prairie portion, which is almost perfectly flat, and is almost un-
drained by streams; second, the rolling-prairie portion, which is marked
by ranges of rounded hills, some of them high, and many small lakes
without outlets ; and, third, the region which is drained by streams hav-
ing well-established courses, many high hills with flat tops and steep
sides, and no lakes.

The first kind of landscape includes those parts of the State which
were for a considerable time covered by large bodies of water during
the time of the melting of the ice of the Great Ice-Sheet. There are
four regions in the State which belong to this class. These are the
great Red River Valley, embracing the eastern tier of counties of the
State; the Mouse River Valley, including parts of Bottineau, Ward,
McHenry, Pierce and Rolette Counties; a small area in the southern
part of the State extending south from Oakes and embracing the east-
ern part of Dickey County; and a region covering most of Sargent
County, and a part of Ransom.

The second kind of landscape includes all the great central portion
of the State west of the Red River Valley, to the Missouri River, ex-
cept the Old Lake bottom areas just mentioned.

The third kind of landscape includes all that part of the State west
of the Missouri river, and includes the famous region known as the
"Bad Lands."

There are, therefore, the Old Lake bottom regions, the glaciated
regions which have not been covered by large bodies of water, and
the region which was not at any time covered by the ice of the Great
Ice-Sheet.

The Manitoba Escarpment. A line of highland extends across the '
State from Pembina Mountain on the International Boundary south-

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

ward to the hills known as the Coteau des Prairies near the southern
boundary of the State in southeastern, Sargent County, near Rutland
and Havana, This highland continues far north into Canada, and
south across South Dakota and into southwestern Minnesota. The
highest part of the highland within our State is the Pembina Moun-
tain, five or six miles south of the International Boundary and about
five miles west of Walhalla. It forms the highland which rises west of
Larimore and which is plainly seen from the passing railway train
south to Northwood and Hatton, on the Breckenridge Division of the
Great Northern Railway. Farther south it is not so high. Where it is

FIG. 38. Map of North Dakota, showing the Highlands.
Drawing by Miss M. Emma Davis.

crossed by the Northern Pacific Railway west of Wheatland it is only
a prairie swell fifteen or twenty feet high. South from here to Havana
it continues low, but rises suddenly at Havana into the high-hilly region
of the Coteau des Prairies.

The Coteau du Missouri. More than one-third of the State of North
Dakota is embraced in what is known as the Plateau du Coteau du
Missouri, a rather large name, but which simply means the hilly upland
plain of the Missouri. The eastern edge of this great plateau rises
quite suddenly 300 to 400 feet from the prairie lands eastward. The

NORTH DAKOTA, THE OLD AND THE NEW. 73

line of the eastern edge crosses the International Boundary near the
northwest corner of the State in Williams County, and extends in a
southeasterly and southerly direction across the State, passing fifteen
or eighteen miles west of Minot in Ward county, Dog Den Butte in
northern McLean County and Hawk's Nest in southeastern Wells
County being outlying hills belonging to this plateau ; thence it runs in
a more southerly course about ten miles west of Jamestown, five to
eight miles west of Edgeley in western Lamoure County, and about
fifteen miles west of Ellendale in Dickey county. The whole of the
Missouri "slope," within our State, lies upon this great plateau. The
eastern part of the plateau is the watershed between the Missouri
River and the rivers draining into Hudson's Bay, the Mouse, the
Sheyenne, and the James Rivers. This highland extends westward
with gradually increasing altitude till it flanks the, Rocky Mountains.

The Turtle Mountains, lying upon the International Boundary about
100 miles east of the edge of the Coteau du Missouri, belong with this
great plateau geologically. That is, the Turtle Mountains were once
a part of the great Missouri plateau, but they have been cut off by
the great valley which now lies between the valley of the Mouse
River. The layers of rock in the Turtle Mountains are the same as
those in the larger plateau, and the strata or rock layers once extended
across the valley.

We see therefore that there is a general rise in elevation westward
from the Red River of the North on the eastern boundary, which is
951 feet at Wahpeton, 900 feet at Fargo, 835 feet at Grand Forks,
and 753 feet at Pembina, to an altitude above sea-level at Buford, near
where the Yellowstone River enters the Missouri, of 1,950 feet, more
than 2,400 feet on the general level away from the river, and west of
Sentinel Butte where the Northern Pacific Railway crosses the State
line, 2,810 feet.

All these highlands, except the region west of the Missouri River,
were covered by the ice of the Great Ice-Sheet, the western limit of the
ice being nearly along the present course of the Missouri River. The
vast ice-sheet by its melting supplied a great amount of water, but at
the same time those streams which flowed toward the north were
dammed up by the ice so that lakes accumulated in the valleys south
of the ice-front where the highlands furnished a wall to hem in the
waters. The waters finally were compelled to find escape by overflow-
ing southward.

74 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

The Manitoba Escarpment formed a highland on the west which
prevented the escape of the waters of Lake Agassiz into the James
River Valley. Lake Dakota, of which the northern end only reached
into North Dakota, was hemmed in by those same highlands on the
east and by the Coteau du Missouri on the west, lying in the trough
of the James Valley between these two highlands. This trough was
the valley of the James River before the invasion of the ice, as it is
now. Lake Souris occupied the lowland lying between the Turtle
Mountains and the Coteau du Missouri, extending as far south as
Velva, at the Ox-Bow of the Mouse River, and west to Minot and east
to Rugby.

The Missouri River It is natural to wonder how it happened that
the great Missouri River should flow almost exactly along where the
edge of the Great Ice-Sheet was. We naturally wonder if the ice-sheet
had anything to do with causing it; and when we notice the course
of the upper portion of the river from far west in Montana, and notice
also how the great Yellowstone River enters the Missouri at Buford
from the southwest bringing waters north from the Big Horn Moun-
tains in Wyoming, and still again observing that the Little Missouri
River flows north for 200 miles from the Black Hills in South Dakota
and Wyoming, finally emptying into the Big Missouri; and when we
notice what a great elbow or bend the Missouri makes, turning almost
south and following the edge of the drift-covered region all the way
till it empties into the Mississippi at St. Louis, we are almost ready to
think that the great river was changed from its old course and com-
pelled to seek a new one.

The direction of the three streams, the Upper Missouri, the Yellow-
stone, and the Little Missouri, is toward a point in North Dakota, and
suggests that they may have once flowed toward the east and finally
discharged their waters into- Hudson's Bay or Lake Superior. Then
add to this that when the ice-sheet was all over the land half a mile or
a mile deep the waters would be prevented from flowing east or north
by the great ice wall, and so their waters would keep flowing down
to the ice. There must, therefore, be a great lake formed along the
ice wall where these streams met or else the waters must escape along
the edge of the ice.

The melting of the ice along the edge of the Glacier caused vast
floods of water which would add to that of the rivers. This too must
escape. So it seems likely that a stream channel came to be formed

NORTH DAKOTA, THE OLD AND THE NEW.

along- the edge of the ice. So when the ice finally melted away the
river could not get out of this new channel. And so here the great
Missouri River has staid ever since.

The Ox-Bows in the River Courses It is a striking fact that so many
of the streams in North Dakota make a bend or ox-bow in their courses,
curving to the east and south and then to the east and north. A nota-
ble example of this is the great bend or ox-bow of the Mouse River.
Another is the big bend of the Sheyenne.
And when we look at a map of the State
it is noticed that nearly all the tributaries
of the Red River of the North flow first
south and east, then bend around to the
north and east.

In order to see this more forcibly
draw a heavy line on a sheet of paper to
represent the Red River of the North,
and then draw the course of the Sheyenne
from east of Devils Lake to its entrance
into the Red River O'f the North north of
Fargo. Then draw the Maple River, the
Wild Rice, the Goose with its principal
headwaters, the Turtle, the Forest or
Big Salt, the Park, the Tongue, and the
P'embina. Notice the direction of the
headwaters of the Goose, Turtle, Forest,
Park, and Tongue, particularly. Draw
a line on your map to show the western
shore of Lake Agassiz. Why do these
streams at first flow in a southeasterly
direction? Because the highland of the
Manitoba Escarpment is higher toward
the north and becomes gradually lower
southward. But they must flow east also
because the front, or edge, of the highland
slopes rapidly that way. But why do they so soon turn toward the
north after getting upon the Red River Valley bottom ? Let us answer
this by asking whether the Red River Valley is higher toward the north
or toward the south? The Red River flows down north. It is easv

FIG. 39. The Streams of the Red River
Valley all make a Southward Curve.

76 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

then to see why they turn toward the north and east after flowing for
some distance to the south and east.

But when these streams first started they emptied into Glacial
Lake Agassiz. As this lake grew smaller and its shores became farther
*md farther east from the foot of the highland, these streams followed
;hc retiring waters of the lake, pushing their channels along over the
shore-sand of the lake. They thus came to have a direction more nearly
east. Finally as the lake gradually grew smaller, and sediments,
deposited along the central axis of the lake where now runs the Red
River, blocked the way of the streams, they turned more and more
northward. Some of the small streams between Turtle and Forest
Rivers are unable to get to the Red River and spread out into marshes.
Forest River nearly suffers this fate, but escapes toward the north
after spreading out into a lake in southern Walsh county.

Many Small Lakes. Lakes are always found in a region of country
which has been covered by the ice. They are commonly small and
without outlets. Such lakes show th-at the drainage of the region in
which they are has not yet become established. Since the great ice-
flood filled the former channels and left the landscape without definite
stream courses, the development of land drainage, as described in Chap-
ter One, has not yet had time to become worked out. One has but
to glance at any map of the State which shows the rivers and lakes to
see the marked contrast between that part of our State which lies west
of the Missouri River, where the land was not covered by the ice-flood,
and that part of the State which was covered by the ice. The net-
work of rivers and small streams and the absence of lakes west of the
Missouri River, and the absence of rivers or even small streams and
the great number of small lakes, over a vast region east of the river,
strike the eye at once and hold the attention of the thoughtful reader.
The rounded hills which are so marked a feature east of the Missouri
River to the Valley of the Red River of the North, between and among
which hills are the round, oval, and irregular hollows often filled with
water forming the lakes just mentioned, are morainic hills, which have
been described before, and the lakes are morainic lakes.

The Old (Pre-Grlacial) Landscape of North Dakota. What was the land
surface of North Dakota before the Glacial Period? What was then
the land surface is not now, except that part of the State which lies west
of the Missouri River. The old landscape, or what we may call Old
North Dakota, is buried beneath the drift, covered by a mantle of clay,

NORTH DAKOTA, THE OLD AND THE NEW. 77

boulders, sand, and gravel from four or five feet to 300 feet in thickness.
It will be of interest to inquire what was the appearance of the land-
scape before this great change took place, before the hills were planed
down and the valleys filled, by the great ice-plow.

The Cretaceous Inland Sea. In order to understand what the old
landscape of North Dakota was, it is necessary to ga far back in the
story of the past to the time when nearly or quite all of what is now
North Dakota was under the sea, and the rocks which now form the
bed-rock under the drift were being deposited as mud on the sea
bottom.

At this time the Gulf of Mexico extended up the Mississippi Val-
ley to the mouth of the Ohio River, and a great arm from the western
part of the Gulf of Mexico formed an inland sea extending north over
what is now western Texas, and Indian Territory, and covering Kan-
sas, Nebraska, South and North Dakota, thence extending far into
British America. (See Fig. 75, p. 174.) The sediments washed into
this sea from the land were spread over its bottom as mud. These be-
came the layers of shale and sandstone now the bed-rock of the North
Dakota landscape. This period of Geologic Time is known as the
Cretaceous Era. All the strata or layers of shale and sandstone which
come to the surface in our State, or which are pierced by borings for
wells, belong to the Cretaceous series of rocks. All the sediments of
which they are composed were deposited upon the bottom of the great
Inland Sea during the Cretaceous Era. This great Cretaceous sea
bottom therefore became the original landscape of what is now North
Dakota.

Underneath the mantle of drift are the layers of rock which were
once the mud of this sea bottom. Where the streams have cut down
through the overlying drift these rocks are exposed to view, and in the
Bad Lands where there is no drift, the upper layers of these rocks are
well exposed in the steep sides of the buttes, for the layers of rock, cut
into by the streams, form the buttes for which this part of the State is
noted.

Pre-Glacial Erosion. The flat tops of the buttes and table-lands were
once part of the great plain which was lifted above the sea to form the
land of North Dakota. Erosion, or the cutting of valleys by streams,
has been going on in this western region since the time before the
Glacial Period. The rocks which are at the surface in the western
part of the State may therefore be imagined to extend eastward under-

78 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

neath the drift materials. The edges of these layers outcrop or come
to the surface along the eastern front of the Coteau du Missouri. The
edges of the layers outcrop because the layers which once extended
farther east have been carried away by erosion.

The Coteau du Missouri and the Turtle Mountains are regions
which were higher before the Glacial Period than the country east of
them. The region embraced in the great central portion of the State
was a broad lowland plain. Streams had formed valleys ; the old ocean
bottom, which had been elevated and become dry land, had become
cut up by valleys. The hills were slowly being carried away by rains
and rivers. This process had gone on till nearly the whole land surface
of the central part of the State had been worn down to a new level.

The Missouri River and its tributaries from the west, the Little
Missouri, the Heart, and the Cannon Ball, in North Dakota, and the
Grand, Moreau, and Cheyenne, in South Dakota, probably once dis-
charged their waters to the east and north by the course of the pres-
ent Red River of the North. This great northward-flowing river had
made a wide valley in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota.
The present Red River of the North now occupies this valley, but of
course the Red River Valley is now on top of the great mantle of drift
which fills the old valley. Pembina Mountain and the highland south
to the Coteau des Prairies form the western boundary of this valley.
Pembina Mountain rises 350 to 450 feet from the lower land to the
east. Sixty miles farther south, the Great Northern Railway rises
more than 300 feet in passing on to this highland from Larimore to
Petersburg.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ.

The Conditions It has already been observed that there was a wide
and deep valley occupying- the present Red River Valley before the
Glacial Period. The western side of this valley was the Manitoba Es-
carpment, the continuation of Pembina Mountain southward to the
Coteau des Prairies. The eastern side of the valley was the higher
land of northwestern Minnesota, the "Great Divide" or continental
watershed, called in our geographies the "Height of Land," from which
streams flow south by the way of the Mississippi River to the Gulf of
Mexico, east by Lake Superior to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and north
by the Red River of the North to Hudson's Bay.

The head of this great valley was south of Wahpeton in the region
between the Coteau des Prairies west of Lake Traverse and the Height
of Land on the east.

The map, Figure 9, shows the portion of North America which was
covered by the Great Ice-Sheet, and the position of the State of North
Dakota. You see that all of the State except the southwest corner
was covered by the ice. The great valley of the Red River of the
North was filled with ice; the Coteau des Prairies and Pembina Moun-
tain, and the Turtle Mountain Plateau, were covered, and the great,
interior region occupied by the valleys of the Sheyenne, James, and
Mouse Rivers was filled; and the eastern edge of the great western
plateau, the Coteau clu Missouri, was also buried beneath the vast sheet
of ice.

Imagine yourself standing upon the surface of this great sheet of
ice and looking away over its broad expanse. Everywhere is snow
and ice, the surface of a great snow sea, no land anywhere in sight,
nothing but saow and ice. Deep, very deep, all over the land lay the
great sheet. How deep was the ice? Let us see. How high are the
highest grain elevators you have seen? Less than 100 feet perhaps.
Suppose that ten elevators were placed one above another, even then
the height of all these would not reach up one-half as high as the sur-

6 79

80 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

face of the ice was here in North Dakota, probably. And if this height
were multiplied by ten even this great amount would be much less than
the depth of the ice in some parts of North America. Remembering
what has been said about the effect upon the lower parts of the ice of
the pressure from the weight of the mass, think of the force which this
tremendous mass of hard ice, moving slowly from its own weight,
exerted upon the rocks and hills which it came against. Think what it
means for ice to flow, pushing its way into the valleys and filling them,
and riding over the hills and grinding off their sides. You can picture
to your mind something about how so much "drift material," fragments
of rock and earth, were broken loose and scraped from the surface of
the ground underneath, and shoved and carried along by the mov-
ing ice.

You can now understand how it comes that there is the great depth
of clay, gravel, sand, and boulders all over the bottom of the Red
River Valley, for these are the broken and ground up rocks which were
carried by the ice, and when the ice melted these materials were left. In
some parts of the Red River Valley these drift materials are as much
as 300 feet in thickness.

Of course there was no river where is now the Red River of the
North when the ice-sheet covered this region, because the whole valley
was filled with ice. But there were rivers flowing away from the ice-
sheet toward the south, for the melting of the ice caused great quan-
tities of water, and these flood waters had to escape somewhere, and the
only escape was toward the south into the Mississippi River. Many
streams which flowed away from the great ice mass as large rivers have
ceased to be, and their names are not in our geographies. There is
no melting ice-sheet to furnish the water to keep them running. Their
old valleys are still left, often wide and deep channels. In some of
these old channels much smaller streams still run, supplied with water
by the rains which fall upon the land.

One of these large river channels is that in w 7 hich Lakes Traverse
and Big Stone, on the boundary between South Dakota and Minne-
sota, now lie, and along the old bottom of which the Minnesota River
now flows to its big bend at Mankato. This old river channel is of
much interest to us because it was for a long time, as we shall see pres-
ently, the outlet of Lake Agassiz. The great river which cut this wide
and deep channel has been given a name, although that name does
not appear in our geographies. It has been called the River Warren,

GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ. 81

in honor of General G. K. Warren of the United States Army, who
in 1868 discovered the old channel and explained its origin.

The Beginnings of the Lake If now it is recalled that the land about
Lakes Traverse and Big Stone is higher than the land to the north (and
this must be so since the Red River flows toward the north), and that
the Coteau cles Prairies near the southeast corner of the State and the
line of highland from these north to Pembina Mountain are higher than
the lands to the east, and the Height of Land in Minnesota is higher
than the Valley lands to the west, it will be easy to understand how the
glacial Lake Agassiz came into existence. For, when the ice had
melted back so that the regions about Wahpeton and Fargo were no
longer covered by the ice-sheet, but the ice front was still as far south
as Hillsboro and Blanchard, the water from the melting ice filled this
basin. From the melting of the ice the basin began to overflow, and
the outlet naturally was formed at the lowest point of the rim. This
outlet was by the old channel in which, as has been stated, Lakes Traverse
and Big Stone now lie, and which was the former channel of the Shey-
enne River before Lake Agassiz began to be.

If we think of the great ice-sheet retreating toward the north, that
is, that it melted at its southern edge more rapidly than the mass moved
southward, it will not be difficult to understand how it was that this
lake became larger, until finally it spread over a great area, the extent
of which in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Canada has been determined
by Mr. Warren Upham to have been as much as 110,000 square miles.
On the map, Figure 9, you will see that Lakes Winnipeg-, Manitoba,
and Winnipegosis still occupy a part of the old lake bottom. These are
remnants of Lake Agassiz which still remain to tell of the glory which
has been.

After the ice had melted back from the position it occupied when
the Dovre Moraine was formed, the Sheyenne River discharged its
waters by way of the River Warren and the present large channel of
the Minnesota River into the Mississippi and so to the Gulf of Mexico.
But when the ice had melted farther back and a lake began to be
formed, then the Sheyenne discharged its waters into the lake. The
Sheyenne was a much larger stream than it is now because the waters
from the melting ice kept it at flood, and it carried a large amount of
sand cut from its channel and silt from the melting ice. These at first
helped to build up the flood-plain of the River Warren, but when the
ice had melted farther back so that the river spread out into a long

82 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

narrow lake, a delta began to be built up at the mouth of the Sheyenne.
The great Sheyenne Delta thus began to be formed as soon as Lake
Agassiz began to exist.

When the ice had melted back farther and Lake Agassiz had be-
come larger, the delta first formed served to block the course of the
river and turned its waters to the east, so that the Sheyenne then dis-
charged its waters toward the east into Lake Agassiz, and continued
to build up the delta into a broad sand-plain. The waters of Lake
Agassiz overflowed south by the River Warren.

We see therefore that at first Lake Agassiz was a long narrow sheet
of water about thirty miles in length and only one, two, or three miles
in width, extending in a northwest and southeast direction from the
Big Bend of the Sheyenne east of Lisbon away toward Hankinson.
The higher land west formed the shore on that side, and the wall of the
glacier formed its eastern shore. Lake Agassiz was therefore at first
little more than a broadening of the Sheyenne River.

On the western shore of this first beginning of Lake Agassiz was
formed the Milnor Beach or shore-line for a distance of about ten miles.
This beach is about twenty-five feet higher than the highest beach
formed after the lake became a larger sheet of water. The waters of
the long narrow lake, finding outlet by the channel of the River War-
ren, cut down this channel about twenty-five feet. It was at this lower
level that Lake Agassiz stood during the time when the highest Herman
Beach was formed, called the Herman Stage of the lake.

Increase in Size and Depth. The lake soon became much larger with
the retreat of the ice toward the north. A large and conspicuous mo-
raine, the Fergus Falls Moraine, marks the next halting place of the
edge of the glacier. Lake Agassiz at this time was a sheet of water
covering an area of about 5,000 square miles. It extended from the
outlet at Lake Traverse to the wall of the ice front as far north as Ada,
Minnesota, and Caledonia, Hillsboro, and Blanchard, North Dakota.
Its eastern shore in Minnesota was about eight miles west of the City
of Fergus Falls and three miles east of Barnesville. Its western shore
in North Dakota was near Wyndmere, at Sheldon, and about five
miles east of Buffalo. Its depth at Breckenridge and Wahpeton was
about 100 feet, at Fargo and Moorhead about 200 feet, and about 275
feet at Caledonia. It was while the lake occupied this area that the
highest shore-line, known as the Herman Beach, was formed about
this part of the lake.

GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ. 83

The Fergus Falls Moraine is easily recognized on the east side of
the lake bottom in Minnesota by its high, rounded and irregular hills
and hollows. It appears again on the west side of Lake Agassiz in
North Dakota as rolling hills or very uneven prairies near Galesburg,
and becomes more rugged and like the usual type of morainic hills
east of Erie. Upon the area of the Red River Valley, however, the
materials which were dumped at the edge of the melting ice-sheet
where the ice front was bathed by the waters of the lake were washed
away and leveled down by the action of the waves and currents of the
lake and distributed over the bottom.

The course of the moraine across the bottom of Lake Agassiz is
marked by the slightly undulating character of the prairie. The mo-
rainic materials were not entirely leveled by the action of the lake wa-
ters so that the bottom became slightly uneven. This belt of slightly
uneven prairie extends across the Red River Valley from Ada and
Rolette in Minnesota in a westriiortrwesterly direction to Caledonia,
Reynolds, Buxton, and Cummings, North Dakota, and thence south-
westerly to Blanchard, varying in width from three to six or seven
miles.

The undulations in the prairie surface upon the belt of this leveled
moraine vary from three to five feet, though sometimes eight or ten
feet, above the adjacent hollows. Over this belt many boulders are
scattered and gravel is more common than elsewhere upon the lake
bottom. They sometimes occur in chains or long patches upon the
beach ridges, having been carried or shoved up onto the shore by the
lake ice during the winters, as suggested in the chapter on Shore Boul-
der Chains. (Chapter Six.) Such a boulder chain extends for several
miles along the crest of the Blanchard Beach between Hillsboro and
Mayville.

Where the Fergus Falls and Leaf Hills Moraines are crossed by
the Red River between Caledonia and Belmont, occurs what are called
the Goose Rapids. The rapids are caused by the dam made across the
river's course by the materials of the moraines. Boulders are so numerous
along the river channel here that boats cannot pass in time of low water.

The next increase in the size of Lake Agassiz was caused by the
recession or melting back of the ice-sheet to the position of the Leaf
Hills Moraine.

. The Leaf Hills Moraine of the Minnesota Glacier is marked upon
the area of Lake Agassiz by slight undulations in the prairie surface,

84 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES,

as in the case of the Fergus Falls Moraine. The two moraines run
together where they cross the Red River so they cannot be separated
from each other. From near the Red River the Leaf Hills Moraine
extends northeast nearly to Red Lake in Minnesota, and northwest
along the east side of the Elk Valley Delta east of Larimore, and con-
tinues as "The Ridge" and farther north as "The Mountains" on the
east side of Elk and Golden Valleys to Edinburg. The area of Lake
Agassiz will therefore be seen to have been increased by two triangu-
lar areas, the larger of which embraces the region about Mayville and
Portland and north to Arvilla and McCanna, the other being north and
east of Caledonia, in Minnesota.

The positions of the Dakota and Minnesota Glaciers or Lobes of
the Great Ice-Sheet at the time of the formation of the Leaf Hills Mo-
raine are shown in Figure 20. It will be seen that it was the Minnesota
Glacier which covered the northern part of the Red River Valley and
formed the moraine just described.

The next increase in the size of Lake Agassiz is very marked. It
would seem as though the climate must have become warmer from
some cause, for the edge of the ice-sheet moved back or receded towards
the north near to where the City of Winnipeg now stands. Thus all
that part of North Dakota which was covered by Lake Agassiz was
now relieved of its burden of ice and was covered by the waters of the
lake. The Dakota Glacier had not yet melted entirely from off North
Dakota, The moraines which are crossed by the Great Northern Rail-
way between Lakota and Devils Lake and those extending across the
northeast corner of the State between Pembina Mountain and Devils
Lake and west to the Turtle Mountains were formed at later stages
than the Leaf Hills Moraine, and after Lake Agassiz had spread over
the whole Red River Valley in North Dakota and Minnesota from Lake
Traverse to near the City of Winnipeg. These moraines, formed dur-
ing the successive stages of the Dakota Glacier while it covered this
part of the State, belong to the Itasca Stage of the Dakota Glacier.
The Minnesota Glacier extended as far south as Lake Itasca in Minne-
sota, and formed the hills which hem in the waters of that and other
small lakes in Minnesota.

Still another period occurred when the forward movement of the
ice-sheet was not so rapid as the melting, and Lake Agassiz extended
still farther northward to the southern ends of Lakes Winnipeg and
Manitoba, and eastward nearly to the Lake of the Woods, and west-

GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ. 85

ward to a line running nearly south from Lake Manitoba to Pembina
Mountain. The hills forming the moraine which marked the position
of the ice at this stage of the development of Lake Agassiz are known
as the Mesabi Moraine.

Finally another recession of the ice, due probably to increase.d
warmth of the climate, caused the areas now occupied by Lakes Win-
nipeg and Manitoba to be uncovered, a moraine being formed along
what is now the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg. This moraine forms
a dam which still prevents the drawing off of the waters of this lake.
Some of these morainic hills which are partly covered by the waters of
this lake now form islands along its eastern side.

Along the great ice wall which formed the northern shore of Lake
Agassiz the waters were probably the deepest that they were any-
where in the entire lake. The slope of the Red River Valley, which
is the old lake bottom, descends from Lake Traverse towards the north
to the Nelson River outlet of Lake Winnipeg, a distance in a straight
line of about 700 miles. It will be recalled that when the northern
ice-shore of Lake Agassiz was at Caledonia the water was there about
275 feet deep, 200 feet at Fargo, and about 100 feet at Breckenridge
and Wahpeton, and flowed over the rim of the basin at Lake Traverse.
When the lake had extended as far north as the present mouth of the
Red River at Lake Winnipeg its depth was 650 feet; over the northern
end of Lake Manitoba about 525 feet; and when the morainic hills
which hem in the waters of Lake Winnipeg on the east were clumped
from the melting ice they were left in water from 600 to 700 feet deep.

The great depth of the water of Lake Agassiz at the ice front on
this far north shore, and the great amount of material deposited as a
moraine may help to explain why Lake Winnipeg has not disappeared
along with the rest of Lake Agassiz. Deep bodies of water are less
readily affected by storms and their waves are less active in eroding
the bottom and shores: The moraine which was deposited at the edge
of the ice therefore remained as- hills below the surface of the water,
and they were not leveled clown when the waters of the lake were
finally lowered by the melting of the ice farther north. This range
of morainic hills therefore remains as a clam holding back the waters
of Lake Winnipeg and the sister lakes, Manitoba and Winnipegosis,
this group of lakes being the last vestige of the great Lake Agassiz.

During all the time in which Lake Agassiz was extending its area
the waters were unable to flow to the north by the present Nelson

86 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

River outlet to Hudson's Bay because of the Great Ice-Sheet which
barred the way. This still lay upon the land between the present Lake
Winnipeg and Hudson's Bay and probably still filled the basin of Hud-
son's Bay. The waters therefore discharged by some northeast-
ern outlet into Lake Superior. The length of Lake Agassiz from
south to north was now about 550 miles, and its width irom Red Lake
in Minnesota to Larimore in North Dakota was about 130 miles. Its
area embraced about 65,000 square miles in Canada, about 15,000
square miles in Minnesota, and about 6,500 square miles in North
Dakota.

Into this vast sheet of water many large rivers poured their waters,
and to these were added the waters from the melting ice-sheet which
poured directly into the lake.

The melting along the edge of the ice-sheet, which was the north
shore of the lake, as we have seen caused the dumping of a great
amount of rock, boulders, gravel, sand, and fine silt, into the lake,
much of which was washed away and spread over the bottom of the
lake. The rivers also brought in gravel, sand, and fine silt in great
quantity which also was added to the floor materials of the bot-
tom. Some of these streams formed deltas at their mouths. All did
not form deltas, for there was much more gravel, sand, and silt from
the melting ice-sheet delivered to some of these streams than to oth-
ers. Those which carried the greatest loads of earth materials, when
they reached the lake shore and their currents were slackened, dropped
their burdens and so formed deltas.

There were three large deltas formed on the west side of Lake
Agassiz in North Dakota, and one in Manitoba. Two smaller ones
were formed on the east side in Minnesota. Those in North Dakota
were formed by the Sheyenne, Elk, and Pembina Rivers, and the one
in Manitoba by the Assiniboine River. The two in Minnesota were
formed by the Buffalo and Sand Hill Rivers. These deltas all bear the
names of the streams by which they were formed. There is no Elk
River now, for this was a glacial river only, that is, its waters came en-
tirely from the melting ice, and when the ice had all melted it ceased
to be. However, its old valley is left, and the delta it built, as we shall
see later.

The lands of the Valley of the Red River of the North are the most
fertile and the most nearly level probably in the world. They are the
most fertile because the fine sediments of ground up limestone and

GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ.

88 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

other rocks which were deposited upon the bottom of Lake Agassiz
make a most productive soil, and this is rendered still more fertile by
the black organic matter which gathered while the waters were drying
off from the old bottom. It is the most nearly level large tract of
land in the world probably, because of the leveling action of the waters
of the vast lake Which covered it.

The Red River Valley. While the old lake bottom is nearly level,
there are some uneven parts which are of much interest. Ridges of
sand and gravel extend for great distances along the level prairie on
the east and west sides of the Valley. These are beach ridges or off-
shore sand-bars piled up by the waves of the lake. But the shore did not
remain always at the "same place, and a margin or belt of land was left
along the edge which was not covered by the water. What had been
lake bottom became land. Where the waves had once beaten upon the
shore and left long ridges of sand and gravel the waters ceased to
reach. The level of the lake had become lower, and the shore line had
moved in toward the center or axis of the lake. The waves therefore
beat upon the shore at a lower level, and a beach ridge was built by
the waves, marking the new shore line. The successive levels or
stages of the lake are marked by these shore lines or beach ridges, so
that the old bottom of the lake as we now see it is not quite level.

Each of these ridges is a little higher from the center or axis of the
lake toward the shore.

Lakes often build up off-shore sand-bars because, when the waves
roll in toward shore carrying and rolling over the bottom sand, earth,
and gravel, these materials are dropped where the waves "break" upon
the bottom. Along the off-shore line where the ^breakers" are formed

BEACH

_ ^ :^^ T/LL, SLIGHTLY FffODD.

FIG. 41. Typical Section Across a Beach Ridge of Lake Agassiz. Scale, 100 feet to an inch.

U. S. Geological Survey.

the water loses a good deal of its force, the sand and gravel which were
being carried are mostly thrown down, and a. "bar" is thus built up.
To this off-shore bar layer after layer is added till it is built up as high
as the surface of the water, or even higher, for when the waves roll high
during storms, ridges of sand and gravel are piled up higher than the
surface of the water, sometimes fifteen to twenty feet. In these ridges

GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ. o9

gravel- and sand-pits are often opened, and the sand and gravel are
often beautifully arranged and assorted in layers.

It is commonly the case that the land is not as high back of, or on
the shore side, of these ridges. Here, when the waters were beating
upon the shores and the waves were driven over the sand and gravel of
the off-shore bars, was a lagoon, a place where the water which was
driven over the ridge formed a shallow pool. Sueh places are often
seen on the prairies of the Red River Valley, and the soil in such low
places is generally more "heavy" or clayey, and not infrequently
marshy, while the crest of the ridge is sanely or gravelly only a few
rods distant. This is because the coarser material carried by the waves
was thrown down when the waves "broke" upon the bar, and only the
finer sediment, such as forms the "heavier" clayey soil, was carried over
the ridge and deposited in the lagoon.

FIG. 42. Profile Across Beaches at and near Wheatland. Horizontal scale, 3 miles to an inch.

U. 5. Geological Survey.

A cross section from the Red River to the outer and highest shore
therefore shows a rise by steps from the lo\Ver land along the river to
the highest shore line. Such a cross section from Casselton west to

^J^-- '?*.:' '^i'. ; ~-C>i'9~*--:'-i'.-?-~:.'~'-^Z

500

FIG. 43. Section Across the Red River Valley on the Latitude of Breckenridge and Wahpeton.
Horizontal scale, 25 miles to an inch. U. S. Geological Survey.

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

* - * * ? * * ' ** " * " * L " v " V v . * ' * J.^

FIG. 44. Section Across the Red River Valley at Fargo. After Upham.

FIG. 45. Section Across the Red River Valley at Grand Forks.- After Upham.

FIG. 46. Section Across the Red River Valley near International Boundary. After Upham.

the highest Herman Beach is shown in Figure 42. A section across
a beach ridge is shown in Figure 41. The ridge is made up of sand and
gravel arranged in layers. Underneath the ridge is the boulder-clay
called "till," the unstratified drift which underlies the materials nearer
the surface which were arranged in layers by the waters of the lake.

Sections across the Red River Valley at Wahpeton, Fargo, Grand
Forks, and along the International Boundary, are shown in Figures
43, 44, 45, 46. These sections show the till or boulder-clay under-
lying the wave-washed materials, and underneath the till the layers of
the stratified rocks, the top of which was the land surface, the pre-
glacial landscape, before the great ice-sheet spread over the land.

The upper portion of the clay which makes up the deeper sub-soil
of the Red River Valley is arranged in layers, as is shown in Figure 47.
This is due to the fact that the upper part of the drift clay of the Red

GLACIAL LAKfc AGASSIZ. 91

River Valley was deposited in the water and spread over the bottom
of Lake Agassiz. This material was dropped from the melting ice
while the ice-sheet was receding and the lake was increasing in size,
and was washed by the waves and deposited in layers upon the bottom.

FIG. 47. Stratified Clay, Sediments of Bottom of Lake Agassiz. Excavation in City of May vilie.

Photograph by the Author,

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ.

Three deltas were formed on the western side of Lake Agassiz on
that part of the bottom now embraced in North Dakota. These are
known as the Sheyenne, the Elk Valley, and the Pembina Deltas. They
were formed by the Sheyenne River, the Glacial Elk River, and the
Pembina River. These rivers were flooded by the waters from the melt-
ing ice-sheet, and when their swift currents entered the still waters of
Lake Agassiz their speed was checked and they threw down the burden
of materials they were carrying, the coarse gravel and sand first, and
later the fine sand and silt. The finer sand was carried for many miles
into the lake and spread out as a great fan, and the finest silt was spread
over all the bottom of the lake, being distributed by the waves and
currents.

Not all the streams which flowed into Lake Agassiz formed deltas.
It is interesting to inquire, therefore, why the Sheyenne and Pembina
Rivers, and also the glacial Elk River, which ceased to be a river at
all after the ice-sheet had melted away, should have formed deltas^
while other streams flowing into Lake Agassiz formed no deltas.

We have seen that much earth material was carried by the ice, and
that much water flowed away from the edge of the ice-sheet from the
melting. If a river had its head near the edge of the ice-sheet, or
flowed along its edge so as to receive these waters, then whatever
gravel, sand, and earth the ice contained might be in considerable part
carried to the river. Some parts of the ice-sheet probably carried more
gravel and sand than other parts, depending upon the kind of land
surface it had passed over. Then, too, the edge of the ice-sheet was
very irregular and indented by jagged places made by the melting, and
so there would be many small hollows and lakes in which the earth
materials from the ice would be deposited, so that not all the streams
which flowed at flood height from along the ice-sheet's edge received
such great burdens of gravel and sand. When, therefore, a river had
its head near a portion of the edge of the ice-sheet where a good deal

9-2

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ.

of sand was left so that it was washed into the river's channel this
stream, having a swift current because its channel was kept flooded,
would carry much sand and gravel down its course.

FIG. 48. Profile of Elk Valley Delta and Beaches at Larimore and Arvilla. After Upham.

Again the Elk River was a stream which at first probably flowed on
the surface of the ice-sheet in the hollow between the Dakota and
Minnesota Glaciers (see Figure 20), though it later formed a channel in
the drift between these Lobes, and this river formed a delta thirty to
thirty-five miles long and from five to twelve miles wide.

In Minnesota, of the rivers entering Lake Agassiz, only the Buffalo
and Sand Hill Rivers formed deltas, although the Red River, the Wild
Rice River, and the Red Lake River, on that side of the lake were as
large or even larger than these.

The Sheyenne Delta. When the ice-sheet had receded so that its
edge rested upon the high hills south of Devils Lake, the Sheyenne
River received a great influx of water from the melting ice, and with
it the finer materials which were in the ice. These were carried by
the stream down its course. The water was muddy, something as the
waters of our streams now are muddy after a hard rain, or when they
are swollen from melting snows. Not only this, but sand and gravel
which were too coarse to be carried any distance by the current would
be rolled along the bottom, or taken up and carried for a short distance
and thrown down again, perhaps forming a sand-bar, to be in turn taken
up and carried on again by the varying current. So at the mouth of
the stream where the current met the still waters of the lake these were
thrown down, first the coarser gravel and then the finer sand. These
became the delta.

Little by little the river kept adding more materials to the delta, the
coarser being dropped nearer the shore or head of the delta, the finer
being carried farther out, and the finest, which would remain in sus-
pension in the water for a long time, being carried far out and dis-
tributed over the lake bottom as the so-called lacustrine silt.

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

The delta is made up mostly of sand and gravel arranged in layers.
Whoever has traveled along the lower Sheyenne River south and east
of the Big Bend has noticed how sandy is the soil, also the hills along
the river and over great areas farther from the river. The sand has
been blown and piled into heaps by the wind, forming the "dunes"
which are a conspicuous landscape feature.

The Sheyenne Delta covers an area of about 800 square miles, be-
ing mostly in Ransom and Richland Counties, but extending also into
Cass and Sargent Counties. From the Big Bend eight or nine miles
below Lisbon the Sheyenne River flows north for ten miles along the
western edge of the delta, then flows east and north across its surface,
leaving the delta front about three miles south of Kindred. The town
of Sheldon is located on the western edge of the delta plain, and its
western edge extends from here north about three miles into Cass
County. Thence the northern edge extends eastward a little to the
north of Leonard, and eastward and southward near Walcott, Colfax,
and Barrett, on the 'Great Northern Railway; thence south to Moore-
ton, on the Milnor branch of the Northern Pacific Railway, and a little
east of Hankinson to the Lightning's Nest, a very large wind-blown
sand-hill or dune. The southern and western edge of the delta extends
from the Lightning's Nest west and north by Taylor, Willard, and
Swan Lakes, to a point about four miles northeast of Ransom in Sar-
gent County, and from here northwest to Milnor and the bend of the
Sheyenne River. Much of the surface of the delta is now marked by
wind-blown sand piled into dunes of all sizes from little choppy knolls
two to four feet high to large hills fifty to one hundred feet high.

FIG. 49. Section Across the Sheyenne Delta After Upham.

Along the northeastern front the waves of Lake Agassiz cut a cliff
or bank, so that in approaching the delta from the northeast the land-
scape rises suddenly in passing from the adjoining prairie onto the
delta plain in some places as much as seventy-five feet. Figure 49
shows a cross section of the delta in which the valley of the Sheyenne
River is shown at the left, and near this the Herman Beach, which

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ.

marks the highest level of Lake Agassiz. A tract of dunes more than
ten miles across is near the center of the cut, and the steep delta front
si,xty to seventy feet high is shown at the right.

FIG. 50. Delta on University Campus, Chicago. Photograph, 1894, by the Author.

Figure 50 is a photograph of a small delta which was formed during
a single night. The current of water from under the sidewalk was
slackened as it poured out upon the low fiat area in the foreground,
and the materials carried by the little stream were thrown down layer
upon layer in the same manner as the sand and gravel of which the
great Sheyenne Delta is composed.

The Pembina Delta. The Pembina Delta was formed by the Pem-
bina River after the ice-sheet had melted back so as to leave the Pem-
bina Mountain uncovered, the delta lying along the foot of that Moun-
tain. The delta plain rises quite abruptly from the level prairie of the
valley bottom to the east, and is locally known as "First Pembina
Mountain." It covers an area of about eighty square miles, or only
about one-tenth of that of the Sheyenne Delta. Its average depth is
estimated to be about 150 feet. The average depth of the Sheyenne
Delta is estimated to be about forty feet, so that the volume of the Pem-
bina Delta is more than one-third that of the great Sheyenne Delta.
The materials of which the Pembina Delta is composed are not only
sand and gravel brought from the melting ice-sheet, but shale from

96 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

the underlying rock-formations of Pembina Mountain, into which the
river has cut a very deep valley, and also pebbles of granite and other
hard rocks up to six inches in diameter. Large boulders of granite lie
upon its surface, dropped perhaps from blocks of floating ice from the
lake.

The delta extends from the foot of Pembina Mountain about four
miles south of the International Boundary east and a little south to
near Walhalla, thence curving south and east to its widest point, and
south and west to the foot of Pembina Mountain again a mile south
of Tongue River, being about eight miles wide at its widest part. Its
western boundary thus lies along the foot of Pembina Mountain. Its
highest point is about six miles southwest of Walhalla and a little more
than a mile south of the Pembina River. It is here 1,270 feet above
sea-level. The highest, or Herman, shore-line of Lake Agassiz is
about two miles east of this point, and about fifty feet lower. This
shows that the river piled its burden of sand, gravel, shale, and pebbles
up to a height at the head of the delta greater than that of the level of
the lake. The surface of the delta slopes gradually to the north, east,
and south from this highest point or head.

Along the foot of the delta front run the Norcross, Tintah, Camp-
bell, and McCauleyville Beaches, marking the height of the waters of
Lake Agassiz during those stages of the lowering of the lake imme-
diately following that during which the delta was formed, the highest
or Herman Stage. The waves of the lake washed against the front or
edge of the delta plateau and eroded the loose materials, forming a
steep bank or wave cliff which on the northeast side of the delta is more
than 150 feet high. In crossing the delta from the level prairie east of
Walhalla to Olga, about twelve miles southwest, after crossing well
marked McCauleyville Beaches, the road rises suddenly up the steep
face of the wave-washed and tree covered cliff 150 feet, from the top
of which the surface of the delta plain spreads out as a great undulat-
ing plain with scattered clumps of trees here and there. From Beau-
lieu on the delta plain the road leads up the steep face of Pembina
Mountain (called Second Mountain, to distinguish it from the delta
plateau which is called First Mountain) a height of about 300 feet.
The outcropping Cretaceous shales are exposed by the roadsides and
in the coulees, and drift boulders of granite are scattered upon its sides.

Where the Pembina River cuts across the crest of Pembina Moun-
tain the valley has been cut 350 to 450 feet into the soft shales and

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ.

clays which underlie the drift, and tributary streams which have also
eroded deep valleys, give to the landscape, which is covered with trees,
a wild and picturesque appearance. The delta plain or plateau is also
much cut up by streams. The Pembina and Little Pembina Rivers
have cut deep gorges in the delta, even cutting down into the till which
underlies the delta and on which it was built upon the lake bottom, so
that a section through the 150 feet of delta sand and gravel is shown.
The Cretaceous shales and clays (these belong to the Fort Pierre group
of the Cretaceous series) are well exposed in the sides of the valley of
the Pembina River where it cuts through the (Second) Mountain, and

FIG. 51. Section Showing Stratified Sand of the Elk Valley Delta. Erosion by Tributary of
the Goose River. Photograph, iqoo, by M. B. Erickson.

98 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

farther down its course the layers of the delta sands and gravels are
similarly exposed.

It is worthy of notice here that what seems to be a small "butte"
stands about a mile north of the northern end of the delta and three
miles south of the International Boundary, a half mile east of the face
of Pembina Mountain. It has much the appearance of the small
rounded buttes of the Bad Lands. It looks from a distance much like
a large haystack, being thinly covered with grass. Badger holes near
its top and on its sides showed clean shale such as that of the Mountain,
If this is its true character it is an outlying fragment of Pembina. Moun-
tain, and so was a tiny island in Lake Agassiz when its waters washed
the eastern face of the Mountain. It is interesting also as being the
most eastern "butte" in the State, and perhaps in the United States.

The Elk Valley Delta. The Elk Valley Delta covers an area of about
300 square miles, extending from McCanna east of Larimore and south
to Mayville and Portland, and covering the area west to the shore of
Lake Agassiz. No river which could have formed this delta now
exists. The stream which formed it, the glacial Elk River, is no more.
The reasons for thinking that such a stream did once exist are found in
the structure of the delta itself, the materials of which it is composed,
and the form- of the landscape near to the delta, The delta is higher
north of Larimore and its surface slopes gently toward the south, west,
and east, as though the "head" or place where the materials of which
it is composed were poured into the lake was at this point. The mate-
rials making up this delta are of, a finer character than those of the
Sheyenne and the Pembina Deltas, being mostly fine sand and silt
brought from the ice of the great ice-sheet, and are not mixed with
shale graVels from the Cretaceous rocks underneath the drift, as are
those of the other deltas. And then, extending north from Larimore
and McCanna, just where a river ought to have been to have formed
this delta as it is, the broad flat bottomed valley extending for more
than forty miles to Edinburg and Gardar is what is known in its
southern portion as Elk Valley and farther north as Golden Valley.
It is, however, all one valley, varying in width from about four miles
along the greater part of what is called Elk Valley to two miles at Ram-
sey's Grove, where begins the part, called Golden Valley, and this por-
tion varies in width from one to two miles.

Figure 20 shows the positions of the Dakota and Minnesota Gla-
ciers, or lobes of the Great Ice-Sheet, at the time of the formation of

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ.

FIG. 52. Angular Outlines, not Passed over by the Ice-sheet.
. Photograph by Prof. T. C. Chamber lin.

FIG. 53. Smooth Outlines, Showing Effects of Moving Ice.
Photograph by Prof, T C. Chamber lin.'

100

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

the Elk Valley Delta. At this time the Leaf Hills Moraine was formed
at the edge of the ice. Remember what has been said about the thick-
ness of the ice-sheet, and that the surfaces of these lobes were higher
along their axes or centers and the ice thinner near the edges. The
arrows indicate how the ice spread out or flowed toward the south, east,
and west, near the southern ends of the lobes.

There was melting of the ice on the surface of the ice-sheet as well
as at the edge. Water would therefore collect in the hollow along the
line where the two lobes met. When the ice-sheet reached farther
south, as at the time of the formation of the Fergus Falls Moraine, the
ice extended across from one lobe to the other, in the region shown in
Figure 20. As the ice melted and the edge came to be farther back a
hollow came to be upon the surface of the ice-sheet. At the time the
Leaf Hills Moraine was being formed a large stream flowed in the hol-
low where the two glaciers met, having its bottom and sides of ice.
This was the glacial Elk River.

Soon the ice valley became deeper from the melting due to the
stream and from the melting at the edges of the lobes. The sand and
silt which were elsewhere left at the edge of the ice as moraines were
washed away by the swiftly flowing river. This was added to the ma-
terial of the delta.

In time, however, this glacial river came to flow upon the ground
between the two glaciers, being kept at high flood by the waters from
the melting ice, which poured in from both sides. As the ice of the two
glacier edges on each side of the hollow kept moving toward each
other, and each delivered its burden of sand and silt, a large amount of
earth material was left along the course of the stream only to be quickly
carried away by the rapid current of the stream which was constantly
renewed by the inpouring of waters from the ice. So it would seem
that the conditions must have been such as to form a large river bur-
dened with a great load of earth, and when the still waters of the lake
were entered a delta must result.

FIG. 54. Profile of " the Ridge " and Beaches at Inkster. After Upham.

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ. 1Q.1.

There was, however, more drift piled into this valley from the melt-
ing ice than could be carried away by the river. The wdst side of the
valley is the highland of Cretaceous rocks which for,nred >; tne we-stenv
boundary of Lake Agassiz. Along the top of this hi-ghla/id was' left the.
Leaf Hills Moraine of the Dakota Glacier. On the east side of the
valley the Minnesota Glacier piled its moraine, a chain of hills which is
now locally known in its southern portion as "The Ridge" and the
northern part as "The Mountains." This chain of hills extends from
McCanna north to Edinburg, a distance of about thirty-five miles. "The
Ridge" is a series of three morainic hills from one to three miles in
length and from a half mile to three-fourths of a mile in width. "The
Mountains" are two long, large hills, one about six miles long, lying
west of Conway, the other about fourteen miles long and two to three
miles wide, lying west of Park River and extending north to Edin-
burg.

After the Leaf Hills stage of Lake Agassiz, when the ice-sheet had
receded to the position of the Itasca Moraine, this chain of hills formed
islands in Lake Agassiz, and the valley of the Elk River was a great
sound or strait between these islands and the western shore of the
lake. This is shown by the beach ridges which mark the height of the
water on the sides of the islands and the west shore of Elk Valley.
Figures 54 and 55 show profiles across the Elk and Golden Valleys,
the Ridge and the Mountains, and the upper beaches of the Lake.

Tlie Mount a\ns" Island.
I Mo-1-airnC.Ti U

/^arx^S^H.&Hcvr

FlG. 55. Profile across Beaches at Park River and Westward.
Horizontal scale, 3 miles to an inch. After Upham.

The northern mountain is crossed by the south branch of Park
River, west of the city of Park River, in a well-marked valley. Farther
south to the west of Conway and Inkster is a gap two or three miles
wide between the southern mountain and the northern hill of the ridge.
The three branches of Forest River send their waters through this gap
after they have united into one stream, cutting across the beach ridges

102 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

which extend along the east side of the chain of hills. West of Orr the
ridge is broken in two, but Lost Creek, which is formed by several
small tributaries from the higher land west of the shore of Lake Agas-
si?:, fails' to flow across but becomes "lost" on the flat, marshy prairie
trie old sand and silt bottom of the Elk Valley.

Between these islands were straits or necks of water connecting the
main lake with the large sound west of the islands. The bottom of
Elk and Golden Valleys is a level tract forty miles in length and from
one to four miles in width with no stream on its bottom representing
the great Elk River which once surged down its course and built the
broad delta at its mouth. It has so little slope that no stream flows
upon the level bottom for more than a few miles. In fact, Lost Creek,
after it enters the flat bottom of this valley, struggles toward the north
instead of south in the direction of the Elk River, and after two or
three miles gives up and becomes a marsh. West of the northern
mountain several small streams flow into the valley from the highland
to the west and become "lost," spreading out into a marsh.

The Pembina Delta was formed after the ice of the Great Ice-Sheet
had melted back so that Lake Agassiz extended north beyond the
International Boundary to the city of Winnipeg, but the lake remained
at about the same level, for the same beaches which run across the
eastern side and along the front of the Elk Valley Delta also cross the
eastern side and run along the steep front of the Pembina Delta. And
the Herman Beach, which marks the highest level of the lake, runs
along the western or shore side of both deltas. And similarly the Nor-
cross, Tintah and Campbell Beaches run across the eastern side of the
Sheyenne Delta, and the McCauleyville Beach along its front, while
the Herman Beach runs near its western or shore side. The highest
or Herman stage of Lake Agassiz therefore continued during the sev-
eral stages of "retreat" or melting of the ice-sheet, which are marked
by the Dovre, Fergus Falls, Leaf Hills and Itasca Moraines. The
stages of Lake Agassiz should, therefore, not be confused with the
stages of retreat or melting of the ice-sheet.

Stages and Beaches. It has been previously explained how Lake
Agassiz came into existence by the hemming in of the waters of the
melting ice-sheet by the higher lands which formed the sides of a great
pre-glacial valley. These formed the shore boundaries of the lake on
the east, west and south, while the great wall of ice formed its northern
shore. Since the lowest place in the rim of the surrounding highlands

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ. 103

was at the south here was established the first outlet. And the waters
must needs find escape to the sea to the south because the great ice-
sheet prevented any drainage toward the north. The first great stage
of the lake was begun when the ice had melted back to the position of
the Fergus Falls Moraine. During this time the highest beach or
shore line, known as the Herman Beach, began to be formed. As has
been before explained the Sheyenne Delta began, to be built up as soon
as the lake began, and its level had not changed much when the Elk
Valley and Pembina Deltas were formed. The outlet of the lake was
across the soft drift materials of the Dovre Moraine. Lake Traverse
now lies in the north end of the old outlet channel, near the southeast
corner of North Dakota and on the boundary between the states of
South Dakota and Minnesota. The lake grew larger by the melting
of the ice-sheet, or the "retreating" of the ice-wall which formed the
northern shore. The water remained at the same height during all the
time the lake was increasing in size, the outlet channel being cut down
during the time five or ten feet.

The beach which marks the next lower stage or level of the lake is
the Norcross. At the time this beach was formed the level of the lake
was about twenty feet lower than during the time of the formation of
the Herman Beach, the outlet having been cut down this amount. The
lake stood at this level for quite a long time, as is shown by the well-
defined shore lines or beaches. Then the outlet was cut clown again
about fifteen feet, causing a lowering of the lake this much below the
Norcross stage. At this level the higher of two Tintah Beaches was
formed, followed by another lowering of the water-level of about fifteen
feet and the forming of the lower Tintah Beach. Again the level of the
water was lowered about fifteen or twenty feet and the Campbell Beach
was formed. And finally about the same amount of cutting down of
the outlet brought the level to the lowest stage while yet the waters
escaped to the south, the McCauleyville Beach being formed at this
lowest level. Thus a beach was formed at each stage of the lake.

The names of these beaches are a little awkward, and have no mean-
ing except that they are names. They were applied to the beaches
from towns which are built upon the beaches or which are near to them.
The five names applied to the higher beaches of the lake are the names
of towns in Minnesota. Other and lower beaches were named from
towns in North Dakota and Manitoba, as the Blanchard, the Hills-

104 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

boro, Emerado, etc., in North Dakota, and Gladstone, Burnside, etc.,
in Manitoba.

The next lower stage than the McCauleyville was about twenty
feet below the bottom of the southern outlet channel, and the melting
of the ice at the north had allowed the waters to find escape by another
outlet. At this time were formed the Blanchard Beaches, and it is
known as the Blanchard stage of the lake. The outlet was probably
to the northeast, the waters escaping into Lake Superior, thence to
Lake Ontario, and by way of the Mohawk Valley and the Hudson
River to the Atlantic Ocean. The ice had not yet melted off from the
Valley of the St. Lawrence and hence escape of the waters by that
course was impossible.

It was noted above that during the time of the forming of the Her-
man Beach the outlet channel was cut down only five or ten feet, al-
though the water stood for a considerable time at this level. Then while
the outlet was being cut down fifteen or twenty feet no shore line what-
ever was formed. While the water stood at this second level, the Nor-
cross stage, another beach was formed. Again the outlet cut down
rapidly, leaving no beach ridges on the shores because the water did
not stand at any one level long enough for the waves to pile up a shore
ridge. This is the upper beach of the Tintah stage. Again the outlet
deepens suddenly while no shore lines are formed, and then the water
stands at the second level of the Tintah stage while the lower Tintah
beach is forming. Then, still again is the outlet cut down rapidly to
the Campbell stage, and the Campbell Beach. And finally another
lowering of the outlet to the McCauleyville stage, when the last beach
was formed while the waters discharged by the southern outlet.

But the next level of the lake is below the bottom of the outlet. It
was not, then, the cutting down of the outlet channel which caused
these changes of level of the lake, for this outlet could not drain the
lake below its own bottom. It is evident, therefore, that some other
outlet had been found for the waters at a lower point in the rim of the
lake. This occurred when the ice melted back at the north so as to un-
cover a lower place in the surrounding highlands which kept the waters
hemmed in. This, however, does not explain why the lake stood at
certain levels long enough for the waves to build up distinct beach
ridges while the outlet was cut down but little, and then the outlet cut
down so rapidly that the waves left no shore marks at all.

The outlet was changed and the old River Warren became an aban-

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ.

105

doned channel. This is shown by the fact that those beaches which
were formed after the McCauleyville stage, the lowest stage while the
waters were drained to the south by the River Warren, run across the
axis or central part of the old lake bottom (where is now the Red
River of the North) instead of running down along either side of the
old channel, as do the McCauleyville and the higher beaches.

O 4?

FIG. 56. During the Higher Stages the Lake Outflowed Southward. The Lower Beaches
Cross the Red River of the North.

Figure 56 shows the relation of the higher beaches formed while
the lake discharged toward the south and the first two (Blanchard)
beaches formed after the lake had ceased to overflow southward and
had formed a lower outlet into Lake Superior.

The explanation of these rather remarkable things is somewhat dif-
ficult, and those who' do not care to attempt to follow it may omit the
next few pages.

Causes of These Changes. The cause of these changes of level of the
lake is a, somewhat difficult one to understand. It is no less a matter
than changes in the form of the earth's crust, changes in the altitude or
level of the surface of the earth itself. It has been observed that in fol-

106

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

lowing the beach lines from south to north that they are not simple or
single ridges at the north as they are in their southern parts, but they
become double and multiple as they are followed northward. The Her-
man Beach, for instance, which is a single ridge in its southern portion,
becomes five distinct beaches near Maple Lake in Minnesota, and still
farther north in Manitoba becomes seven distinct beaches. And simi-
lar facts are observed on the west side of the lake. The five beaches
near Maple Lake are separated from each other by vertical distances

FIG. 57. Map of Portion of the Herman and Norcross Beaches, near Maple Lake, Minn., showing

the Multiple Character Northward. The five Herman Beaches become one Beach,

and the four Norcross Beaches one.

of eight, fifteen, thirty and forty-five feet; that is, the highest Herman
Beach is there eight feet higher than the next lower, that is, fifteen feet
higher than the next lower than this, making the highest twenty-three
feet above the third one, and this third one in turn is thirty feet higher
than the fourth, making fifty-three feet from the highest to the fourth
lower, and the fourth is forty-five feet higher than the fifth, so that
the first or highest is ninety-eight feet higher than the fifth or lowest.
And all these merge into the one single Herman Beach in the southern
portion of the lake. Similarly the Norcross Beach, which is a single

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ.

107

FIG. 58. Diagram Showing the Progressive Elevation of Beaches Northward in Vicinity of Maple

Lake, Minn. Continue the lines to the right and the upper five meet in

one, and the lower four in one.

beach ridge in the southern portion, becomes double at the north, as
does also the Tintah, while the Campbell and McCanleyville Beaches
each become separated into three distinct ridges at the north.

The five stages of the lake, while it discharged its waters by the
southern outlet, are represented in the southern portion by the five
beaches named, the Herman, Norcross, Tintah, Campbell and McCau-
leyville. These five beaches in the south are represented by seventeen
beaches in the north. The highest, or Herman Beach, near the old out-
let at Lake Traverse, is about 90 feet higher than the lowest or Mc-
Cauleyville Beach, while the vertical distance between the highest of
the Herman beaches, 300 miles to the north, and the lowest McCauley-
ville Beach is nearly 300 feet. In traversing these beaches from south
toward the north it is observed that they rise gradually northward.
They were formed at the waters edge and were therefore in the first
place level.* The ascent or rise is more gradual toward the south and
more rapid toward the north. The uplift of the crust of the earth was,
therefore, going on at the time Lake Agassiz was here and forming the
beaches, and it, the uplift, was greater toward the north.

The movement of elevation of the country at Lake Traverse during
the time of formation of the five beaches while Lake Agassiz outflowed
to the south was about ninety feet. On the International Boundary at
Pembina Mountain it was 265 feet. At Gladstone, in Manitoba, about
350 feet, and 200 miles north of the International Boundary on the east
side of Duck Mountain, nearly 500 feet.

* The surface of the lake was not perfectly level, for the waters were drawn
by the attraction of the great mass of ice toward the north, making the water "pile
up" toward the north, and hence the shore lines would ris.e a little in going north,
but for our study they may be considered as horizontal.

108 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

To explain these remarkable changes of level it is necessary to con-
sider a somewhat difficult geological problem, that of the changes of
level of the earth's crust before referred to. This is the rising in one
place and sinking in another, over large areas, or regional elevation and
subsidence, called "epeirogenic movements," of the crust of the earth.

That the form of the earth's outer layers or "crust" is not fixed or
"solid" is a well established fact. The sea creeps upon the land, or
withdraws from the shore as the land rises or sinks, very slowly, to be
sure, but none the less truly. The movement is more easily recognized
at the seashore because the sea-level forms a convenient base-line for mak-
ing comparisons. It is thought that the great basin in which Hudson's
Bay lies is being uplifted at the present time, probably a continuation
of the same great movement by which the beaches of Lake Agassiz
were lifted out of their level positions. This uplift of the basin of Hud-
son's Bay has been estimated to be from five to ten feet in a century.*

If the great weight of the vast ice-sheet caused the crust of the
earth to bend down or sink, then the melting of the ice and the flowing
away of the water would relieve the pressure and so allow it to rise
again. The ice was deeper at the north and the rise of the land, as we
have seen, was much greater at the north.

The Herman stage of Lake Agassiz represents that period of the
lake during which all the beaches at the north which unite into the
one Herman Beach near the outlet at Lake Traverse were formed.
But during all this time the water was pouring out at the Lake Traverse
outlet without cutting the channel down very much, which means that
the current was not very swift at the outlet. The elevation at the north
may be likened to the slow tipping of a broad pan or dish filled with
water so as to just keep the water steadily flowing out at the side.
But then there followed a more sudden and widespread elevation which
affected the whole area of the lake. The whole basin was lifted up,
which had the effect to increase the rate of flow of water at the outlet,
and so the channel \vas cut down rapidly to the level of the next stage
of the lake, the Norcross stage.

Here the same process was repeated, the outlet staying just about
the same during the time that the several Norcross Beaches were being
formed at the north. These beaches, like those of the Herman stage,
unite into one in the southern portion of the lake, showing that the

* Dr. Robert Bell.

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ. 109

uplift during this stage did not extend to the southern end of the lake.
The close of the Norcross stage is marked by another comparatively
sudden uplift of the whole lake bottom, followed again by the rapid
cuttino- down of the outlet channel.

This series of changes, viz., the uplifting of the northern portion
of (the lake area during the time of each stage while the outlet remained
at 'just about the same depth, followed by a somewhat sudden uplifting
of the whole region of the lake so that the water passing through the
outlet channel increased in speed so as to cut down its depth a consider-
able amount, to the level marking the next lower stage, continued dur-
ing the five great stages while the outlet remained at the south. The
two Tintah Beaches at the southern outlet mark substages, there being
a lowering of the outlet between the two periods of the Tintah stage
when the two* beaches were formed.

Finally, at the close of the McCauleyville or lowest stage of the lake
while the outlet remained at the south the uplifting of the bottom coin-
cided with the uncovering of a place in the rim of the lake lower than
the bottom of the Lake Traverse outlet, and so the outlet was changed
to the northeast.

The several beaches at the north which belong to one stage and
which unite to form one at the south, mark intervals of quiet or pauses
in the uplifting which affected the more northern region only and not
the whole area of the lake. This means that the uplifting was progres-
sively greater toward the north.

The succeeding beaches, which mark the stages of the lake after
the water had ceased to be discharged by the southern outlet, are three
Blanchard Beaches, representing three stages of the lake, each being
lower than the preceding, the first being fifteen feet lower than the
McCauleyville Beach, the second twenty feet lower than the first, the
third fifteen feet lower than the second, the Hillsboro twelve or fifteen
feet lower still, the Emerado thirty feet, the Ojata twenty-five feet, the
Gladstone twenty feet, the Burnside twenty feet, the Ossawa fifteen
feet, the Stonewall twenty feet, the Niverville forty-five feet/ and from
the Niverville Beach still another fall of forty-five feet reaches the
earliest level of Lake Winnipeg, and the cutting down of the Nelson
River outlet has lowered Lake Winnipeg still further twenty feet.

Let us now briefly review the history of Lake Agassiz. The lake
first began as a body of water from one to three miles wide and about
thirty miles long, and was little more than a broadening of the Shey-

110 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

enne River. The melting back of the ice-sheet to the position of the
Fergus Falls Moraine increased the size of the lake and the first and
highest Herman stage of the lake was ushered in. When the ice
melted back to the position of the Leaf Hills Moraine it became still
larger; and again the rapid recession of the ice to the Itasca Moraine
increased its area still further. And when the Mesabi Moraine was
formed the lake extended to the southern ends of Lakes Winnipeg and
Manitoba, and still later embraced all the vast territory adjacent to
these lakes. Most of the melting away of the ice occurred during the
time of the formation of the Herman and Norcross Beaches, as these
beaches have been traced from Maple Lake, Minnesota, south to Lake
Traverse, and north through North Dakota to Duck Mountain in
Manitoba, a distance of more than 700 miles.

The deltas which have been described, the Sheyenne, Elk Valley
and Pembina, and also the Buffalo and Sand Hill Deltas in Minnesota,
and the great Assiniboine Delta in Manitoba, were formed mostly dur-
ing this earlier time of the lake, as they are crossed by the Herman
and Norcross Beaches, whereas the others which mark lower levels
of the lake mostly pass around them, leaving them to the landward.

The changes in level of the lake were caused by changes in the form
of the earth's crust, an uplifting of the floor of the lake causing more
rapid cutting down of the outlet and draining away of the water, the
successive stages or levels of the lake being marked by shore lines or
beach ridges. The northern portion was uplifted more than the south-
ern portion, as is shown by the beaches which become double and mul-
tiple at the north. Finally the floor of the lake was uplifted so that
escape of the waters by the southern outlet was cut off and the waters
overflowed to the northeast, the ice melting at the north so as to allow
the waters to escape by a new outlet at the same time the outlet to the
south was elevated. Successive stages in the level of the lake are marked
by beaches.

At the time of formation of the Gladstone Beach the southern point
of the lake was about as far south as Buxton, the Red River of the
North flowing into the lake there. The western shore of the lake in
North Dakota is marked by the Gladstone Beach west of Grafton and
Minto. At the time of the formation of the Niverville Beach the lake
did not extend south of the International Boundary, and the Red River
of the North flowed into the lake near Morris, Manitoba, twenty-five
miles north of Neche and. Pembina. The entire area covered by Lake

THE DELTAS AND BEACHES OF LAKE AGASSIZ. Ill

Agassiz was about 110,000 square miles, or an area equal to more than
one and a half times the whole State of North Dakota, and the greater
part of this vast expanse was covered during the highest or Herman
stage of the lake. The depth of the waters of Lake Agassiz above the
present surface of the south end of Lake Winnipeg during its higher
Herman stages was about 600 feet. At the time the waters ceased to
discharge by the southern outlet and began to overflow toward the
northeast the depth at this point was about 300 feet. At the time of
the Niverville stage, the last before the waters fell to the highest level
of Lake Winnipeg, the depth was about sixty-five feet. Finally the ice
disappeared, uncovering the present Nelson River outlet and the
waters lowered to the highest level of Lake Winnipeg, and then by the
cutting down of the Nelson River channel the waters were lowered to
the present level of Lakes Winnipeg, Manitoba and Winnipegosis,
which remain as a last vestige of the once great Lake Agassiz.

CHAPTER THE TENTH.

OTHER EXTINCT GLACIAL LAKES.

Glacial Lake Souris. Glacial Lake Souris occupied the Valley of the
Souris, or Mouse River, from which river it gets its name. It was
formed by the waters from the melting ice-sheet, as was Lake Agassiz,
and, like that lake, had the wall of ice for its northern shore, the ice
acting as a dam preventing the escape of the waters northward.

After the ice had melted .back from the position of the First or Al-
tamont Moraine, the waters began to fill the basin between the higher
land along the eastern front of the great Missouri Plateau, the Coteau
du Missouri, and the edge of the ice. The First or Altamont Moraine
lies on the top of the eastern portion of the great plateau, extending in
a northwest and southeast direction across Ward and McHenry
Counties, being crossed by the Great Northern Railway between Tagus
(Wallace) and Palermo, the distance between these stations represent-
ing the width of the Moraine. West of Balfonr and Anamoo'se the
high hills of the Second or Gary Moraine appear, marking the second
halting place of the edge of the Dakota Glacier or lobe of the ice-sheet
as it slowly melted off from the landscape. It was probably in the inter-
val between the times of formation of these two moraines that Lake
Souris began, being at first a long, narrow lake fed by the waters flow-
ing directly from the melting ice-sheet and the then great glacial river,
the Des Lacs. The upper course of the Souris or Mouse River was
probably at this time covered by the ice.

The earliest outlet of Lake Souris was to the south by the broad
valley which extends from near Velva at the southern point of the Ox-
Bow or Big Bend of the Mouse River south and west of Balfour and
Anamoose, and then conducted the waters across to the Missouri
River probably by Pony Gulch, or the channel to the west of Dog
Den Butte, in which lie Strawberry, Long and Crooked Lakes, form-
ing a channel across the great Altamont Moraine. This valley south
from Velva is a broad, level tract of prairie, low in many places and
covered with lakes and hay-sloughs. It varies in width from a quarter
to a half mile or more. That this was the outlet for a considerable time

112

113

114 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

is shown by the fact that the old channel is well marked, having clearly
defined banks and a broad, flat bottom.

After the ice had melted back farther, probably to the position of
the Fourth or Kiester Moraine, and at the time when the edge of the
great ice-sheet rested upon the high hills south of Devils Lake, the
outlet was changed so that the waters escaped by the channel of the
present Big Coulee and Girard and Buffalo Lakes to the upper course
of the James River.

This old outlet channel is about 125 feet deep and a third of a mile
wide. The Big Coulee, which now occupies this valley, is one of the
head streams of the Sheyenne River. A well marked channel a half
mile in width leads across from the valley of the Sheyenne to the valley
of the James in northern Wells County, by which the waters of Lake
Souris were carried to the James Valley from the upper course of the
Sheyenne, the lower valley of the latter being at this time still buried
beneath the ice. This old channel connecting the Sheyenne and James
Valleys is now a "dry" waterway. In time of high water there is a
stream on its bottom flowing toward the Sheyenne, the valley of the
Sheyenne being now a deeper and larger valley than that of the James.
The Big Coulee now extends as a well marked valley to> within about
twelve miles of the Mouse River. Here, then, is an old waterway, from
the basin of Lake Souris to the Valley of the James, fifty miles in
extent, in which now lie the Big Coulee, and Girard and Buffalo Lakes,
the upper valley of the Sheyenne and the abandoned channel which
connects the valleys of the Sheyenne and James Rivers.

Afterward, when the ice-sheet had melted back so that its edge
extended from west of the Turtle Mountains to the high hills south of
Devils Lake, and south and east through Nelson, Steele and Barnes
Counties, the Sheyenne River, now receiving flood waters from the
melting ice, was cutting its broad and deep channel and building its
delta in Lake Agassiz. With the deepening of its channel the waters
from Lake Souris were diverted from their course to the James, and
Lake Souris became connected with Lake Agassiz by the Sheyenne
River. The old channel which formerly carried the waters of Lake
Souris to the James now became a reversed waterway. The Valley
of the James is lower than the former mouth of this old channel, so
that the headwaters of the James are not cut off and drawn away by
the Sheyenne, although in time of high water a sluggish current moves
in this channel toward the Sheyenne.

OTHER EXTINCT GLACIAL LAKES. 115

When at a later time the ice had melted back so that the Turtle
Mountain plateau was uncovered and the lower land north of these
mountains was freed from its burden of ice and was covered by the
waters of the now larger Lake Souris for the lake grew larger as the
ice melted back still another outlet lower than that by the Big Coulee
was formed north and east of the Turtle Mountains, about twenty
miles north of the International Boundary, and the waters of Lake
Souris flowed south by the course of Badger Creek in Manitoba,
through Lac des Roches in Towner County, and thence south by the
Mauvaise Coulee into Devils Lake. At this time Devils Lake drained
into Stump Lake, and Stump Lake drained into the Sheyenne River.
So Lake Souris still furnished water to keep the Sheyenne at flood
while it was cutting its deep channel and building up the great Shey-
enne Delta in Lake Agassiz. On the northwest side of the lake the
Assiniboine River was pouring in its waters and building a delta upon
the bottom of Lake Souris, and its waters also were added to the
volume of the Sheyenne.

During the time that Lake Souris was discharging its waters by
the Big Coulee outlet into the James River, and. later into the Shey-
enne, and probably also at the time of the later outlet north of the
Turtle Mountains to Devils Lake, another large glacial lake far north
in Canada, Lake Saskatchewan, was sending its waters into Lake
Souris also, so that there was a vast waterway from 200 miles north of
the International Boundary in Canada by the way of Lake Souris and
the Sheyenne to the southern part of Lake Agassiz, and from Lake
Agassiz south by the River Warren and the present course of the
Minnesota River into the Mississippi and so to the Gulf of Mexico.

At a still later stage in the melting of the ice Lake Souris was
drained by the Pembina River into Lake Agassiz, and its waters helped
to build up the Delta of the Pembina in Lake Agassiz, and deepened
the channel of the Pembina River where it crosses the crest of Pem-
bina Mountain to a depth of 350 to 450 feet.

The Dakota Glacier or ice-lobe still lay upon the northeast corner
of North Dakota at the time Lake Souris was drained by Lac des
Roches and the Mauvaise Coulee into Devils Lake, the southern end
of the ice-lobe forming a point which rested on the highland west of
Park River, Conway, and Inkster, and formed the moraine which ex-
tends from west of Inkster northwest to the northeast corner of Tow-
ner County. But the ice had entirely melted off from North Dakota

116 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

at the time of the Pembina River outlet. The water of Lake Souris
had by this time lowered so that the southern end of the lake did not
reach south of the International Boundary, and the lake was finally en-
tirely drained while the waters outflowed by this outlet.

Thus, while Lake Souris began a long time before Lake Agassiz,
Lake Agassiz was still at nearly its highest stage when Lake Souris
was entirely drained. Lake Souris began after the ice had melted back
from the position of the First Moraine so that there began to be a
basin between the highland of the Missouri Plateau and the edge of the
ice-sheet. The region of the Red River Valley was buried beneath the
ice of the Minnesota Lobe till after the time of forming of the Seventh
or Dovre Moraine. About the time when the Sheyenne River began
to broaden out to form the first long, narrow lake, which was the
beginning of Lake Agassiz (page 80), Lake Souris was changing to its
third outlet and the waters of the Lake covered the whole region of
the Ox-Bow of the Mouse River. During all the time that Lake
Souris was being drained into the Missouri River and then by the Big
Coulee into the James River, Lake Agassiz had not yet begun to exist.
But the long time that Lake Agassiz continued while all the beaches
below the Herman and Norcross stages were being formed makes it much
older in length of time of existence.

By reference to the Map (Figure i), it will be seen that the shore-
line of Lake Souris crosses the International Boundary near the north-
west corner of Bottineau County, extending south to the city of Minot.
thence follows nearly parallel with the Ox-Bow of the Mouse River to
Rugby, thence north to the Turtle Mountains, and skirts the base of
these mountains around their south, west and north sides, and then
extends north for forty miles, making the area in Manitoba about the
same as that in North Dakota, and this is just about the same as the
area covered by Lake Agassiz in North Dakota,

It will thus be seen that all the great expanse of prairie from Rugby,
Willow City and Bottineau west and south to Towner, Velva and
Minot, and north to the International Boundary, is lake bottom. This
vast region embraces a natural basin of nearly 4,000,000 acres within
the State of North Dakota and an area of about equal extent in Canada.
When the Great Ice-Sheet covered the continent this great basin and
the surrounding highlands were filled and covered by the ice. It was
the melting of this enormous mass of ice which furnished the water
which, hemmed in by the higher lands on three sides and by the ice on

OTHER EXTINCT GLACIAL LAKES. 117

the fourth or north side, caused the lake. When, therefore, the ice of
the great glacier had melted back farther north than where Velva now
stands a lake began to be formed, growing larger as the ice continued
to melt away toward the north. There was at this time, of course, no
Mouse River, because the land which it now drains was buried under
ice probably half a mile deep.

Just how long it took for the ice to melt away, and therefore how
long the lake lasted we do not know, but it was a long time measured
in years, perhaps several centuries, for the outlet channels were cut
down a good way into the land surface, and the shore marks made by
the washing of the waves indicate that the water stood here for a long-
time.

It will be noticed upon the Map (Figure i) that the moraines stop
at the edge of the lake. The ice left these earth materials upon the
lake bottom as well as upon the land outside the lake. But the waves
and currents of the lake leveled down the hills to a. large extent and
spread the materials upon the bottom. The lands are not perfectly
level on the old lake bottom just west of these hills, buf are quite roll-
ing, or undulating. They have been leveled a good deal so that the
rough and high places have been softened and toned down, giving a
gracefully curved contour to the surface. One can trace the line of
hills of a moraine across the lake bottom in many places by the rolling
and undulating character of the land surface. The lake bottom hills
have low-rounded, smooth surfaces quite different from the rugged and
irregular heaps and ridges of clay, sand and boulders which make up
the moraines east of the lake shore.

Since the waters of the lake have gone the old bottom has become
a : grassy prairie. Boulders are scattered upon its surface as they were
left by the melting ice of the glacier, or were dropped from floating
cakes of ice formed on the surface of the lake during winters and so
scattered over the prairie.

The hills on the lake bottom are often quite sandy, and dune tracts
are common. The sand comes from the Turtle Mountains and the
region south, for the ice-sheet in crossing the Turtle Mountain plateau
combed off great quantities of the soft sandstone rock which makes up
a large part of the rock layers of these mountains. The underlying
rock south of the mountains is sandstone also, so that as the ice
ploughed over the landscape, sandstone rock was broken loose and
ground up, and so when the ice melted it left the sand in morainic

118

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

heaps. The waves and currents of the lake washed away much of
whatever clay and earth was carried by the ice. The clean, almost
white, sancl was therefore left. The "heavier" soils became covered
with grass and other vegetation, and the sod so formed prevents the
wind from carrying the particles. The sand does not readily become
sodded over and so it is taken up by the wind and blown and piled
into dunes.

Some large dune tracts are crossed by the Great Northern Railway

FIG. 60. Sand Dunes, North of Towner, McHenr> County. The Sand is Carried by the Wind over
the Crest of the Hills, and is Burying the Forest. Photograph by F. N. Molyneitx.

where it passes over the old lake bottom from Rugby to Minot. A
scant growth of scrubby timber holds a footing on many of the dunes.
Some of these hills are made up of almost perfectly clean whitish sand
and they are moved across the country in drifts in the same manner as
drifting snow travels with the winds.

During "the time that the Antelope Hills were being formed at the
edge of the ice Lake Souris still discharged by the Spring Creek outlet
to the south, and to the Missouri River. If the lines of the moraines
shown on the Map are extended across the lake bottom to show where
the edge of the ice was across the lake it will be seen that the lake was

OTHER EXTINCT GLACIAL LAKES. 119

as yet only a small sheet, for these lines mark the position of the ice-
shore on the north side of the lake. It was, however, supplied with
water by the Des Lacs and Mouse River drainage from along the edge
of the ice-sheet far to the northwest. The outlet and shores were high
at this time, and it seems likely that the well marked ridge which ex-
tends about fourteen miles from south of Balfour north and west to
Pendroy at the Mouse River is a beach ridge formed on the east side
of a bay which formed the southern end of the lake, and which ex-
tended south until the waters broke over the summit near Balfour.
This ridge, the famous "Balfour Ridge," is as smooth and well-defined
as a railroad grading, becoming higher and broader toward the north.
It rises six to eight feet above the prairie at the south end about Bal-
four and rises gradually and evenly till at the north end, where it is
abruptly cut off by the Mouse River, it is thirty feet high. Such a
beach would be built higher where the lake was wider and the waves
rolled higher, and this accords with the form of this southern bay,
which had its narrow point ten to fifteen miles south of Velva, near
Balfour.

That this shore, and the southern Balfour or Spring Creek outlet,
were higher than the Big Coulee outlet, which was opened after the
Antelope Hills had been formed, or which likely began to be cut while
the last ridges of these hills were being formed, is shown by the fact
that Wintering Creek flows from along the east side of the Balfour
Ridge toward the Big Coulee outlet, several small coulees which enter
it flowing in deep cuts across the ridge.

Glacial Lake Dakota. North Dakota has a "majority" in the number
of old lake bottoms within the limits of the State. Besides Lake Agas-
siz and Lake Souris. a third lake, which lay mostly in South Dakota,
extended over a small area in Dickey County in North Dakota. This
old lake has been called Lake Dakota. Like the other two large
glacial lakes which have been described, it \vas caused by the flood
waters from the melting ice-sheet, but not in just the same way as
were these.

Lake Dakota was formed when the edge of the ice on the western
side of the Dakota Glacier stood at the position of the Third or Ante-
lope Moraine, when the Valley of the James River had but just been
uncovered from the ice. The lake lay in the Valley of the James River.
It \vas an enlargement on a very large scale of the James River. The
waters could not escape at the south fast enough, being dammed by a

120 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

ridge of hard rock, the Sioux Quartzite, the rock which is spoken of
in Chapter Two as being at the surface in central eastern South Dakota.
This rock is very hard, and the ice-sheet in passing over it did not plane
it off as it did the softer rocks to the north. The result was that a
ridge or low hill of this rock lay across the course of the James River
and acted as a dam, causing the waters to accumulate and spread out
north of it, thus forming the lake. The edge of the ice-sheet lay along
the east side of the James Valley and so there was much water flowing
down its course from the melting of the ice.

The ridge of hard quartzite was at Alexandria, South Dakota, and
the lake extended north from here along the present Valley of the
James River to Oakes in North Dakota. Its length was about 175
miles, and it varied in width from eight or ten to thirty miles, and its
depth in the deepest part was probably 175 feet.

Only the northern end of this lake extended into North Dakota.
Where the southern boundary line of the State crosses the old lake
bottom it is about eight miles in width. It extends a few miles north
of Oakes in North Dakota, and covers a territory in this State of a little
more than 100 square miles.

Glacial "Lake Sargent." In the interval after the draining away of
Lake Dakota and before the beginning of Lake Agassiz, a glacial lake
covered the greater part of Sargent County, a small part of Ransom
County, and extended about ten miles into Marshall County, South
Dakota. No name having been given to this extinct lake, it is here
called "Lake Sargent."

The broad morainic belt on the western line of Sargent and Ran-
som Counties served as the western shore of this lake, this moraine
and the Coteau des Prairies the southern " shore, and the wall of the
melting ice-sheet the northern and eastern shore. As the ice melted
on the eastern side of this moraine adding its waters to those of the
lake the area of the lake extended eastward following the melting ice,
till the Dovre Moraine was formed. This moraine became the eastern
shore and was washed on its western side by the waves of the lake.
The shore-line thus extended from Nicholson and Straubville south
across the State Line to Burch, South Dakota, then north and east
around the head of the Coteau des Prairies to Lake Tewaukon or
Skunk Lake, and north by Cayuga and Ransom, covering the Stormy
Lakes, and extending north into Ransom County, its area covering
probably between 600 and 700 square miles.

OTHER EXTINCT GLACIAL LAKES. 121

Lake Dakota had been drained away before the beginning of Lake
Sargent, and the James River was flowing across its old bed. Lake
Sargent at first discharged to the southwest across the now dry bottom
of Lake Dakota into the James River. Later when Lake Agassiz had
begun to be formed a lower channel of discharge probably was found
to the east from Lake Tewaukon close north of the Coteau des Prairies
highland and south of the high range of hills (Dovre Moraine) which
extends south of Lidgerwood, passing through a low place in the mo-
raine, and entering Lake Agassiz about four miles south of Hankin-
son, and twenty miles east of Lake Tewaukon.

The depth of the lake at the time of its highest stage was probably
about 50 feet at Forman, 100 feet at Perry and 150 feet along the
northeast side in the vicinity of the Stormy Lakes, though the eastern
outlet may have lowered the water before it became as deep as these
figures indicate.

The eastern two-thirds of Sargent County is now drained into the
Red River of the North by the Wild Rice, which enters the area of
^Lake Agassiz near Wyndmere. A cut of twenty-five feet in the mo-
raine east of the James River twelve miles south of the State Line at
Amherst, South Dakota, would permit the waters of the James River
to be carried by the course of the Wild Rice to the Red River of the
North. The elevation at Amherst is 1,312 feet above sea-level. Wild
Rice station, near the mouth of the Wild Rice River, where it enters
the Red is 911 feet above sea-level, so that there would be a fall of
about 400 feet from the James River to the Red River of the North in
a distance of about 100 miles, a fall about four and one-half times as
great as that of the Red River from Lake Traverse to Lake Winnipeg.
Had it not been that the James River cut a channel deep enough to
prevent it breaking over to the east while the ice-sheet still covered
the land to the east and was forming the large moraine which lies east
of the Valley of the James, that river might have taken an easterly
course to the Red River of the North instead of its present southerly
course. This is an interesting example of the way the ice-sheet
changed and directed the course of rivers.

At Nicholson a broad channel widens out onto this old lake bottom,
a channel by which a large glacial river entered this old lake. This
old channel was occupied by the Sheyenne River before the ice-sheet
had melted back far enough to allow this river to cut its present chan-
nel south of Valley City to Lisbon. It is about two and a half miles

122 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

wide where it is crossed by the Fargo Southwestern Branch of the
Northern Pacific Railway at Englevale. It extends north into the Fort
Ransom Military Reservation, and south at Nicholson broadens out
onto the bottom of Lake Sargent. Ridges of drift formed islands in the
broad river, and deep channels cut in its flat bottom perhaps by cur-
rents of the old river during winters when the melting of the ice-sheet
was less rapid, are now filled with water and give to the old valley the
name of Big Slough.

The Sheyenne River received water from all along the edge of the
ice-sheet north to Devils Lake, and probably during this time received
the waters from Lake Souris by the way of the Big Coulee outlet. It
did not, however, cut a channel so deep but that, when the ice had
melted back farther than to the position of the Dovre Moraine and
the course of its present valley was uncovered and Lake Agassiz began
to be formed, it cut its deep channel south and east to Lisbon and
began to build up its delta at Milnor.

When, therefore, Lake Sargent had been lowered by the opening of
its eastern outlet from Lake Tewaukon to the east into Lake Agassiz
and the Sheyenne River had ceased to pour its waters into Lake Sar-
gent this lake rapidly ceased to be, and later still the drainage from
the Lake Sargent area was established by the course of the present
Wild Rice River. So Lake Sargent came into existence after the
formation of the large moraine which consists of the combined Fourth,
Fifth and Sixth Moraines along the western boundaries of Ransom and
Sargent Counties, and continued to grow larger during the time that
the ice was melting back to the position of the Seventh or Dovre Mo-
raine, after which it quickly disappeared by the drawing off of its waters
to the east and by the changing of the course of the Sheyenne River
so that its waters did not enter this lake. Lake Dakota began at or
before the time of depositing of the Fourth Moraine and had disap-
peared before the beginning of Lake Sargent at the time of the Sixth
Moraine. Lake Agassiz began with the same events which caused the
closing of the existence of Lake Sargent, that is, the withdrawing by
melting of the edge of the ice-sheet farther east than the Dovre
Moraine so that the basin of the Red River of the North began to be
uncovered, and the withdrawing of the waters of the Sheyenne River
from Lake Sargent to that basin and at the same time causing the
drawing aw 7 ay of the waters of Lake Sargent.

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.
THE HISTORY OF DEVILS LAKE.

The history of Devils Lake is interesting not only because it is "The
Great Salt Lake" of North Dakota and the largest lake in the State, but
its history forms an interesting chapter in the geology of the State.

The Cause of the Lake. A line connecting Stump Lake and Devils
Lake and extending northwest through Ibsen, Hurricane, Grass, Island
and Long Lakes probably marks the place of an old river valley which
once extended from near the Turtle Mountains to the Red River. This
old valley was filled or nearly filled with drift. The Blue Hills south-
west of Stump and southeast of Devils Lake, the high and massive hills
south of Devils Lake, Mauvais Butte, or Big Butte, south of Lake
Ibsen, the eastern end of which is about eight miles west of the western
end of Devils Lake, a hill about ten miles long, and the high land
northwest from Mauvais Butte which forms the watershed or divide
between the Mouse Valley and Mauvaise Coulee, which is the highest
point crossed by the Great Northern Railway between Grand Forks
and the Missouri Plateau west of Minot, form a series of highlands
which were probably the southern and western side of this valley.
This it will be understood was a valley upon the landscape of "Old
North Dakota," or the pre-glacial landscape.

When the ice-sheet melted off from the land the valley was nearly
filled with drift. It was not entirely filled for its course is still able to
be traced for 100 miles from the east end of Stump Lake to* Long Lake
south of the Turtle Mountains. All these lakes lie lengthwise of this
valley as we should expect them to do if this were the partially filled
valley of an old river.

The Blue Hills are veneered hills, that is, hills which were there
before the ice-sheet came, and which have been covered with a mantle
of drift. So also the high hills south of Devils Lake were hills before
the ice melted in trying to cross over them and dumped the drift hills
on top of them. Mauvais or Big Butte is also covered with a mantle or
coating of drift, but is not itself made up of drift.

123

124 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

The Blue Hills, which rise from 100 to 200 feet above Stump Lake,
the massive hills south of Devils Lake, the highest of which, Devils
Heart and Sully's Hill, rise 275 to 290 feet above the water of Devils
Lake, and Mauvais Butte, which rises at its higher western end nearly
300 feet above the prairie at its base, are all elevated masses of Cretace-
ous (Fort Pierre) shale, their rough surfaces having been combed off
and smoothed by the ice-sheet passing over them, and leaving a cover-
ing of drift as it melted.

Devils Lake and Stump Lake occupy deep hollows in this old val-
ley where it was less filled with drift. Stump Lake is said to be nearly
100 feet deep in its deepest place, and Devils Lake in the centre of the
widest portion of the eastern end is 75 to 80 feet deep. The drift on the
surrounding prairies is from 10 to 50 feet deep on the general land-
scape and as much as 100 feet deep in the morainic hills. These lakes
thus lie in a trough in the rocks which underlie the drift materials.
They are, in fact, lakes formed by the damming of a river valley. At
least it seems probable that they lie in such a valley. Some of the arms
or bays of Devils Lake are very likely the partially filled valleys which
were 'tributary to the main valley. Some of the bays are caused by
moraines which were dumped into the valley and now form the bluffs
on the north side of the lake, but it does not seem that these gave the.
general form to the outline of the lake. The sides or shores on the
south side seem to be the underlying rock only thinly covered with
drift.

Devils and Stump Lakes were much larger bodies of water during
the time when the ice-sheet was melting north of these lakes and a flood
of ice-waters was being poured into them. There are marks made by
the waves twenty-one to twenty-five feet higher than the present sur-
face of low-water in these lakes. If the water in Devils Lake should
rise sixteen feet above low-water a connection would be made across
from its eastern end near Jerusalem to Stump Lake, and if it should
rise five. to eight feet higher still, Stump Lake would also drain into
the Sheyenne River. An old channel connects Stump Lake with the
valley of the Sheyenne, as also a lower channel which connects Devils
and Stump Lakes, showing that there has in time past been an outflow
to the Sheyenne as well as connection between the two lakes.

If we follow the Chain-of-Lakes and the Mauvaise Coulee to Lac
des Roches near the international boundary, and thence by Badger
Creek to Pelican Lake in Manitoba, and to the Souris River, a natural

THE HISTORY OF DEVILS LAKE. 125

waterway is seen to almost connect the Souris with Devils Lake. This
was the course of the outlet of Lake Souris to Devils Lake and the
Sheyenne River before the ice-sheet had melted off from the northeast
corner of North Dakota.

At the time the waters of Lake Souris flowed by this course, Sweet-
water, Dry, and De Groat Lakes, which are fenced in by the terminal
moraine which lies south of them, were higher than now because of the
flood of ice-water they received from the melting ice-sheet, the edge
of which was but a little north of them at this time, and flowed across
to> the south into Devils Lake.

Fluctuations of Level. The waters of all lakes vary in the height
of their water-level during periods of years. Devils Lake has been
much higher than it is now, as is shown by beach-lines marked by the
waves at levels considerably higher than the present high-water level.
It has also been much lower than the present low-water, as is shown by
forests which are now submerged along the shores below low-water.
Such trees now stand with their roots imbedded in the mud in Stump
Lake, and also in the Washington Lakes a few miles south of Devils
Lake in Eddy county. It is said that the name Stump Lake came from
this fact.

The year 1889 marks a low stage in the waters of Devils and Stump
Lakes, while about sixty years before, in 1830, the waters of these lakes
were sixteen feet higher than in 1889. This was about the time of
the highest known flood of the Red River of the North, when its wa-
ters rose so high that they covered the land on which the City of Win-
nipeg stands to a depth of- five feet. The waters of Devils Lake rise
and fall through a height of four feet in a dozen years. Since Fort
Totten was built, about thirty-five years ago, the lake has fallen ten
feet. At the time of the high water in 1830 the height of the water
in Devils Lake was limited by an overflow into Stump Lake, a channel
about sixteen feet above low-water, as has been stated, connecting the
two lakes. It is likely it has risen high enough to discharge into
Stump Lake many times in the period since the Ice Age.

At the time the melting ice-sheet was pouring its waters into these
lakes their level was twenty-one to twenty-five feef higher than the
low stage in 1889, and Stump Lake then discharged into the Sheyenne
River. The channel from Stump Lake to the Sheyenne has a nearly
flat bottom 150 feet wide, and hills rise on either side fifty to seventy-
five feet high. The bottom of this old channel is higher than the

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126

128 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

beaches which were formed by the waves during the probably quite
long time when the waters were at the high stage of 1830, which are
sixteen feet higher than the low stage of 1889, but these beaches are
higher than the bottom of the channel connecting the east end of
Devils Lake at Jerusalem with the west end of Stump Lake, and these
beaches are marked on the sides of this channel showing that the two
lakes were then united or joined by a strait.

The heavy and older forests which border these lakes extend across
the highest shore-line which marks the height of the waters at the time
of the melting away of the ice-sheet, and down to the beach which
marks the high stage of 1830. Below this shore-line are only smaller
and scattering trees, one of the largest of which is reported to have
been cut by Captain Heerman and to .-have had fifty-seven annual rings
of growth. During the igth century, therefore, these lakes probably
have not stood above the high shore-line of 1830. The old submerged
forests may date back 200 years earlier to the time of the great period
of drought when Pyramid and Winnemucca Lakes in the Great Basin
of Nevada were dried up.

NORTH DAKOTA
Tower Sheet

T.140V.

T. 139N.

T. 138H.

T.137N.

T. 138N.

51 = T 136N,

FIG. 63. The Tower Quadrangle.
129

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.
THE SHEYENNE RIVER.

The Sheyenne River is one of the most interesting of rivers. Some-
thing of its history has been given in the earlier pages of this book.
A brief statement of a few important facts, as illustrating the effect of
the great ice sheet in determining the courses of modern streams, is
given here, though at the risk of repetition. Only the portion of the
River between Valley City and Lisbon is considered.

An Example of a Glacial Valley. The casual observer who has
but little knowledge of geology cannot but be impressed with the very
great size of the Sheyenne Valley when viewed in comparison with the
very small modern stream that occupies it. The valley that has been
excavated by the waters that have passed down this course is as much
as 5 miles in width at Valley City, and the depth of the valley below
its highest floodplain (now known as a terrace) is as much as 200 feet.
The great valley is marked by terraces, often broad, which are remnants
of the floodplains of the river when it flowed at much higher levels than
any reached by the modern stream. These floodplains were left high
above the river as it eroded its channel deeper.

The Lanona Plain. The highest floodplain of the river is known
as the Lanona plain. This plain is nearly 200 feet higher than the bot-
tom lands of the present site of Valley City. When the river flowed
at this stage, and before the present deep valley had been eroded, it was
a stream 5 miles in width in the vicinity of Valley City. The waters
that kept this tremendous stream at flood tide came from the melting of
the great ice sheet. At this time Devils Lake and Stump Lake were
much larger bodies of water than now, and these were joined by a con-
necting channel so that the waters of Devils Lake passed to Stump
Lake, and the waters in turn passed from Stump Lake to the Sheyenne.
Devils Lake was at this time a body of fresh water and not a salt lake
as now.

The waters of this great stream were not at this time discharged in-
to the Red River .of the North, for there was as yet no Red River of the

131

THE SHEYENNE RIVER. 133

North, neither was there yet any Glacial Lake Agassiz occupying the
Red River Valley. On the other hand the Red River Valley was filled
and covered with the ice of the great ice sheet, and the Sheyenne at this
time discharged to the south instead of turning east, as at present, at
Fort Ransom, its waters being mingled with those of the James and
thence passing to the Missouri.

At this time. the edge of the great ice sheet probably lay upon the
Alta Ridge, and southward to Standing Rock in Preston township, the
ice covering the whole course of the present river below Fort Ransom.
Bears Den Hillock, immediately west of Fort Ransom, and the range
of morainic hills that runs southward from this large morainic hill

FIG. 67. Section of Sheyenne Valley at Valley City.

Generalized section from the butte east of city northwest about z l / z miles, through
sections 22, 21, 16, 17, Valley township.

through the townships of range 58 to and beyond the southern boundary
of the state of North Dakota, represent the deposits made at the edge
of the ice at this time.

It will be easily seen therefore that the Sheyenne River could not
have followed its present course east of Fort Ransom, as this whole
region was buried underneath the ice. But it has been stated that the
river at this time was probably 5 miles in width in the neighborhood of
Valley City. Where, then, was the river 20 miles south?

The Sand Prairie Spillway. The nearly level Lanona plain ex-
tends south of Valley City about 8 miles, bordering the moraine on Al-
ta Ridge, the Fergus Falls moraine. Southward from here the moraine
lies close upon the east bank of Sheyenne Valley. Standing Rock and
Bears Den Hillock are regarded as belonging to this moraine, and it
has been stated that the moraine extends many miles to the south.
Evidently then the earliest Sheyenne River was compelled to discharge

134

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

to the south instead of turning to the east at Fort Ransom, as now.
At this time the moraine extended across where is now the deep valley
between Standing Rock and Bears Den Hillock. The edge of the

t e _ -. - ' _zi

FIG. 68. Section of Sheyenne Valley, 3^4 Miles South of Valley City.

great ice sheet and the moraine which had been deposited together
formed a great dam against which the waters could not prevail. The
waters therefore gathered along the edge of the ice till they covered
a broad tract of land, and finally when compelled to go somewhere they
flowed south on the west side of*this moraine, and entered Lake Dako-
ta and the James River. This broad tract where the waters ponded is
now known as Sand Prairie. It was a sort of spillway or lake caused
by this piling in of the waters of the great glacial river.

FlG. 69. Section of Sheyenne Valley, j Miles Below Valley City.

On the map. Figure 64, a broad expanse of water is represented west
of the present site of Fort Ransom. The land here is now an almost
level sandy plain, locally known as Sand Prairie. For several miles
along the west bank of the Sheyenne Valley, in Bear Creek and Oak-
ville townships, this level plain comes up to the edge of the valley, stop-
ping abruptly as though it had been cut off. And this is really what has
happened, for this level plain was once the bottom of the Sheyenne

THE SHEYENNE RIVER. 135

River, and the north end of this flat plain was eroded away as the
river cut its valley deeper.

The River Ransom The river thus far described represents the
earliest stage of the Sheyenne. After a time, we do not know how long,
the ice melted so that the water did not all escape by the Sand Prairie
spillway and southward by the course west of this moraine, but formed a
channel on the east side of the moraine. This means that a passage
had to be cut through the moraine that had been formed during the
time the river was discharging south by the Sand Prairie spillway and
Lake Dakota. This gap or passage through the moraine is now shown
by the steep high morainic hills such as Standing Rock and Bears Den
Hillock, which stand close upon the banks of the valley, and by the rolling
hills in southern Bear Creek township which were partially worn away
and leveled by the action of the river. The narrow canyon-like char-
acter of the valley from Standing Rock southward to Fort Ransom also
shows that the river had a hard time cutting a channel through this re-
gion. The waters could not escape to the eastward, however, even after
they had found a way across the moraine, because the ice had not melted
to the eastward of Fort Ransom.

There was formed at this time a new channel to the south from
Fort Ransom, the bottom of this channel being now about 80 feet
lower than the earlier channel rep-resented by Sand Prairie. The
stream that eroded this ancient channel has been called the River Ran-
som. It extended south from Fort Ransom on the east side o-f the mo-
raine that has been referred to as extending to the state line in range
58, and between this moraine and the ice front. This channel is a
large broad ancient water course that can be easily traced southward to
Englevale and beyond, till it finally broadens out into the plain of the
ancient bottom o>f Glacial Lake Sargent a little south of the northern

EflST WS/E3T

FIG. 70. Section of Sheyenne Valley, 10 Miles Below Valley City,

136

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES

THE SHEYENNE RIVER.

137

boundary line of Sargent County. The River Ransom was half a mile
to 2 or 3 miles in width. The town of Englevale stands in the midst
of this old river, or in other words, the gravelly and sandy plain upon
which Englevale is built is the bottom O'f this old river. This ancient
bottom is called the Big Slough by the people who live in this vicinity.

In sections 12, 13, and 24, Bear Creek township, an old channel lies
about thirty feet below the level of Sand Prairie, showing how much the
Sheyenne River had cut down its channel at this time. This old valley
is as perfect a ditch as could be made with shovels and grading crew.
It is now a dry channel, in part a hay meadow and in part ploughed
fields.

Another channel crosses this same terrace plain about a mile to
the east, and is about 20 feet lower than the channel last described.

EflST

WEST

FIG. 73. Section of Sheyenne Valley, 13 Miles Below Valley City.

FIG. 74. Section of Sheyenne Valley at "The Jaws."
Section 36, Bear Creek Township, 25 Miles Below Valley" City.

138

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

The broad terrace into which these channels were eroded lies in a turn
or bend of the valley, this terrace representing" the floodplain of the
river before the deeper valley had been excavated around the bend.

In sections 35, Bear Creek, and 2 and u, Fort Ransom townships,
terraces of an old river bed can be seen high up on the steep side of the

1200

FlG 75. Section of Sheyenne Valley Above Lisbon.
The cut-off Passes West of Lisbon about z miles.

present valley 70 to 80 feet below the level of Sand Prairie, and nearly
200' feet above the present bottom of the Sheyenne Valley. This old
channel represents a later stage in the development of the valley than
the channels just referred to, being considerably lower, but the waters
were discharged by the channel of the River Ransom during all this
time. \t Fort Ransom this ancient channel hangs on the steep side of

FIG. 76. Railroad Cut East of Kathryn.
Shale shown at right, and the Terrace Floodplain continuous with this at left.

THE SHEYENNE RIVER.

139

the valley 186 feet above the water of the river below. This seems such
a big story that it was determined by leveling, so that no one could say
it was merely guess-work! The bottom of this channel is now a flat
shelf or terrace, its east side having been eroded away, its west side
being the great wall o>f the valley side. From this shelf the leveling
instrument was pointed southward dow 7 n the big channel of the River
Ransom, and this broad flat bottom was found to be at the same level
as this shelf.

FIG. 77 . An Outlier of Shale, West Bank of Sheyenne Valley.

The flat top represents a portion of an Old Floodplain (terrace) ; the channel of the river
has been eroded into the Lower Floodplain (the lowest terrace.)

The Sheyenne Valley East of Fort Ransom In course of time the
great ice sheet grew less, and its margin retreated by melting farther
toward the east and north. Finally the waters could escape eastward
near the present site of the city of Lisbon, and the old channel of the
River Ransom became an abandoned channel.

It was about this time that the Maple system of glacial channels, de-
scribed in the next chapter, began to be formed. When however the
first Maple River discharged its waters southward by the channel of
the South Branch the Sheyenne did not follow its present course by the
city of Lisbon. A large "cut-off" channel crosses the bend about 2
miles west of Lisbon, which is 60 to 80 feet higher than the bottom
of the present valley at Lisbon, the valley not having been yet eroded
to its present depth.

The Hanging Valley of the Maple. The channel of the South
Branch, which joins the Sheyenne Valley about 4 miles above Lisbon,
conveyed the waters of the Maple to the Sheyenne while the Sheyenne

140 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

was yet flowing about 75 feet above the present valley bottom. This
is the reason that the channel of the South Branch is said to enter
the valley of the Sheyenne by a "hanging" valley." The Sheyenne
Valley has been eroded 75 feet deeper since the waters of the Maple
ceased to be discharged into this valley, and so the ancient mouth of
of the South Branch Channel is left hung up 75 feet above the present
Sheyenne Valley bottom. This old mouth has since been dissected by a
recent coulee, but still the bottom of the ancient channel can be easily
seen high above the Sheyenne bottom.

Terraces of the Sheyenne Valley The history of the Sheyenne
River is revealed by the form of its present valley. The high terraces
that mark its sides indicate the former levels at which the stream flowed.
A terrace shelf is a part of what at one time was the floodplain of the
river. True it is that no man was there to write a record of the size
of the river. Nevertheless the width of the river is stated quite con-
fidently to have been as much as 5 miles at Valley City, because the
floodplain of the ancient stream is seen to extend to this distance. The
terrace called the Lanona plain is clearly the one-time bottom of the
ancient river. (Figures 64, 68, 69.) Lower terraces show where the
bottom of the valley was at later stages. The higher the terrace above
the bottom of the present valley the older it is, that is, the farther back
it dates in the history 'of the river.

Old channels that are now far above the bottom of the valley were
at one time the lowest parts of the valley. A valley has been defined as
the excavation made by a stream and its antecedents. The present
Sheyenne River would never erode such a valley as that in which the
river now flows. The river is now a small and sluggish stream. But
its antecedents, the ancient channels which were kept at flood by the
glacial w r aters, did a tremendous work of erosion. When the river was
at the Lanona stage the great valley had not yet been cut. Where are
now the towns of Valley City, Fort Ransom, and Lisbon were then the
firm solid earth. (Figures 66, 71, 78.) This remained to be excavated
during the long time that the river has been working at the task of
eroding* its valley.

The terraces at Valley City, shown in Figures 65, 66, 67, represent
stages in the down-cutting of the stream at this point. The top of the
butte in Figure 66 was a part of the river's bed at one time. The erosion
by which it has been left as an isolated hill with a fragment of terrace

THE SHEYENNE RIVER.

141

FIG. 78. The Sheyenne Valley at Fort Ransom.
Pliotograph by Rex Willard.

FIG. 79. Banks of Sheyenne River West of Fargo.

142 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

for its top has been accomplished during the time since the river had
excavated its channel to lower levels. The terraces on the opposite side
of the valley represent floodplain levels at later stages of the river.

The hill represented in Figure 77 shows in its flat top the oldest
floodplain and the earliest stage of the river. 'This fragment of the
old floodplain was cut around so as to form an outlying hill by erosion
of main stream and tributaries during later stages. The small hill that
stands above the terrace and which the terrace surrounds, is a small
fragment that was not carried away by the earliest stream.

At one time the Sheyenne River flowed east of the water tank at
Valley City (Figure 65). This of course was long before the great
valley forming the bend around to the westward had been excavated.
Similarly, a cut-off channel shows where the river once flowed many
feet above the town and to the west of the city of Lisbon.

Many such abandoned channels representing the ancient water
courses occur along the Sheyenne Valley. In a general way the higher
these old channels above the bottom of the present valley the more
ancient they are. Many ox-bow cut-offs occur on the alluvial flood-
plain of the present valley. If the stream should erode its valley deeper
and some of these abandoned ox-bows should be left higher up on the
sides of the valley they would be the same kind of relics showing the
former course of the river as those referred to and shown in the cuts.

That the Sheyenne Valley has been excavated by a larger stream
than the modern Sheyenne River is shown by the broad terraces, and
that it has been eroded deeply into the shale underlying the drift is
shown by the shale exposed in the sides of the valley at many points.
(Figures 65, 76, 77.) The sides of the valley are steep and the shale
rock has not been greatly changed by the action of the weathering
agencies. These show that the valley has been excavated in recent
geologic time. That it was eroded by glacial waters forming a large
stream is shown by the long course of the stream, the few branches,
and the deep and large character of the valley.

R 5 (, W

R 55 W

FIG 80. Map Showing the Glacial Channels of the Maple River.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.
THE HISTORY OF MAPLE RIVER.

The history of the Maple River is closely associated with the progress
of recession of the great ice sheet. The region traversed by this stream
and its branches so well illustrates the close relationship between the
present drainage and that established by the streams of ice water from
the great ice sheet that a study may well be. made of this as a typical
region. The modern Maple is a small stream, but like the Sheyenne, it
occupies a very large valley in comparison. The main stream and its
branches comprise a small system, but for this very reason it can be
more readily studied. The same principles of ice movement and melting
that determined the positions of these small streams have also deter-
mined many large streams.

The drainage of the greater part of North Dakota east of the Mis-
souri River has been determined in much the same manner as has that
of the Maple basin. This means that the streams have* been located upon
the land in a very different manner from that of drainage streams gen-
erally. In regions untouched by the ice sheet the river valleys have
been formed by the run-off from rainfall and melting snows. In the
case of this region the channels were formed by water delivered in
relatively large quantities at the edge of the melting glacier. As a
result the rivers are long, their channels are large, and there are very
few tributaries. This is another way of saying that the land at the
present time is not drained at all. The land is crossed by stream chan-
nels that have no relation to modern drainage. This is why it is possi-
ble to have large river valleys and yet have almost no drainage. It is
as though systems of valleys had been superimposed or let down upon
the landscape fully developed. And this is really about the fact. The
vast floods of water that came from the melting of the great continental
ice sheet had to get away somewhere, and they stood not on the order
of their going. They just went wherever they could go most easily.
On the comparatively level plain in front of the glacier the accumulating
waters found no ready means of escape. There were no channels

143

144 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

already established, for such as had been excavated had all been filled
up during the passage of the great ice sheet over the land. Now as this
tremendous mass of ice melted the waters had to escape as best they
could, and therefore many large channels were eroded by the ice waters
as they passed.

Once these channels were established they had to stay. Now when
the rains fall upon the land behold here are these old channels ready
made. There is not half enough rain to make streams for all of them.
The result is that here are the large channels or valleys with little water,
and during much of the year often with none at all.

The Beginnings of the Maple River. At the time that the edge
of the great continental glacier lay upon the Alta Ridge and the Fergus
Falls moraine was being formed, there was as yet no Maple River. The
region now occupied by this system of channels was buried underneath
the vast mass of the great ice sheet. The Sheyenne was then being"
flooded by the waters that came from the melting of the ice along its
edge and upon its top. The channels of the Maple system began to be
eroded after the ice had melted back toward the east so that its edge
was somewhere along an irregular line extending from the vicinity of
Buttzville north and west to Fingal and Oriska. It is not thought, how-
ever, that the edge of the ice was anything like as nearly uniform as
would be suggested by even a crooked line from Buttzville to Fingal
and northward. It seems more likely ^that the ice border was very
irregular, and not only this but it probably melted back and then ad-
vanced again locally. When the edge of the ice was at Buttzville it was
probably as far west as Fingal, the morainic hills in Raritan Township,
and those north of Fingal in Binghampton and Springvale Townships,
and also those north and west of Oriska, being thought to have been
formed at this time. The accompanying map, Figure 80, shows some-
thing of the supposed relation of the development of the channels to
the retreating ice front. This sketch map is not claimed to be strictly
correct, but a careful study of the relations of the channels to the
morainic hills and ridges in the field lends assurance that the map sug-
gests an approximation at least to the true history of the events.

A broad channel having a gravelly bottom, with gravel exposed in
its banks, takes its origin north and west of Fingal and extends to the
south and east along what was probably the edge of the ice to the south-
west corner of Pontiac Township. Here it entered the channel of what

THE HISTORY OF MAPLE RIVER. 145

is now the modern South Branch of the Maple. In Section 26, Raritan,
a channel from the west joins the Fingal Branch. This channel takes
its origin five or six miles west in Thordenskjold Township. Before
the ice had melted so as to uncover the region later occupied by the
Fingal channel this stream flowed in a southeasterly direction from
Section 27, Raritan, entering the channel of the South Branch in Sec-
tion 14, Moore Township. This channel now contains no water except
in standing pools during time of heavy rains and melting snows. It

FIG. 81. Section of Glacial Channel (Branch of Maple).

Section 32, Binghamton Township. Bottom of Valley is a hay meadow; no modern stream

channel; sand and gravel exposed in sides; gravel probably under the

soil of the bottom.

was the earliest channel of the Maple system to be formed. It was the
water escaping by this course that first begun the task of eroding the
large channel of the South Branch.

The earliest Maple River therefore was a glacial stream emerging
from the ice border in eastern Thordenskjold Township, and having a
southeasterly course to Section 14, Moore Township, and thence south
southwest to the Sheyenne River. (See i-i, Figure 80.) This was soon
reinforced, however, by the Fingal branch, after another recession of
the ice front, the two uniting in Section 26, Raritan, and flowing near
to the ice border to Section 31, Pontiac Township, about four miles

Drijf

FIG. 82. Section of Glacial Channel (Branch of Maple).

Section 34, Weimer Township. Gravelly banks; no modern stream channel;
a little water in pools. (See pp. 37, 51-54).

north and west of Enderlin, where it was forced by the wall of ice
to turn southward. It pushed its way to the eastward by an irregular
channel for a distance of about two miles, thence turning west and

146 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

south till this stream entered the channel already eroded south and west
to the Sheyenne from Section 14, Moore.

An Embayment in the Ice Margin When the ice had melted
back still farther a channel was formed extending a mile east, but again
turned south into the South Branch. The channel from Springvale and
eastern Binghampton Townships, which enters the main valley in Sec-
tion 1 6, Pontiac, was probably opened while that part of the main val-

PIG. 83. Section of Glacial Channel (Branch of Maple).

Section 36, Oriska Township. Channel eroded in drift; no modern stream;

a little water in pools.

ley where Enderlin now stands was yet buried beneath the great mass
of ice. When the ice had melted back sufficiently so that the Thor-
denskjold and Fingal branches occupied the more eastern of the two
channels in southwestern Pontiac, the ice margin is thought to have
been far enough east so that the branch from Springvale and Binghamp-
ton was developed, the present main channel being thus opened for a
distance of about two miles in Pbntiac Township, but the waters of this
stream were deflected to the west sharply by the barrier of ice in Sec-
tion 28, Pontiac. The waters of this branch probably joined with those

SOrcls,.

FIG. 84. Section of Glacial Channel (Maple River Valley).

Section n, Tower Township. Very small modern channel with a little water standing
in pools; bottom of valley a hay meadow.

of Thordenskjold-Fingal branch and passed to the South Branch through
Sections 32, Pontiac, and 6, Liberty.

At a later time the waters of these combined streams seem to have
passed still farther to the east by the large channel in Sections 32, 33
and 34, Pontiac, and thence passed south by the present site of the city
of Enderlin, only to again turn sharply to the westward to join the
channel already developed to the Sheyenne.

THE HISTORY OF MAPLE RIVER. 147

That the ice still lay to the south of this sharp bend in the ancient
stream is suggested not only by the character of the channel, but also
by the broad belt of morainic hills in western Liberty and Casey and
eastern Moore and Fuller townships, and it was clearly impossible for
the waters to escape eastward by the present Maple Valley, or by any
eastward course, since the great ice sheet lay upon all the land to the
east. That the main channel of the Maple was not yet open north of
Enderlin, and that the waters made the longer journey around by the
course indicated seems to be shown by the deep 'and broad character of
these channels and the smaller and narrower channel of the main valley
north of Enderlin.

Before the deep embayment into the ice front at Enderlin was formed
the edge of the ice probably lay over and west of the city of Enderlin,

FlG. 85. Section of Glacial Channel (Maple River Valley).

Section 10, Clinton Township. Modern stream channel 10 feet deep, dividing the old
floodplain into terraces; old floodplain 20 feet below general prairie level.

a lobe or tongue of ice lingering north of the city where the main chan-
nel was later opened, and the morainic knobs and rounded hills in
western Clinton were probably being formed. It seems likely also that the
knobs west of Tower City were also formed in the marginal portion of
the ice sheet at this time.

The Main Channel Opened The next important recession of the
ice sheet uncovered the region of the upper course of the main channel

FIG. 86. Section of Glacial Channel (Maple River Valley.)

Section 33, Clinton Township. Hay meadow on bottom underlain by 18 feet of gravel and

sand; several old channels on the flood plain; rolling topography of prairie

along the sides of the valley shows that there is no relation

between the prairie and the valley.

148

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

of the Maple as far south as the present city of Enderlin. The halting
place of the ice edge is probably represented by the hills in eastern Casey
and Liberty Townships, the rolling morainic hills in the region of the
Alice Chain-of-Lakes in eastern Pontiac and Clinton Townships, and the
round symmetrical knobs in western Tower and Cornell Townships.

The main channel of the Maple from the vicinity of Tower City
southward to Enderlin, together with the western branches (it will be
observed that all the branches of the Maple join the main stream from

----_=_- -^T--^f ^'^^^.4 : - t 'r.* V;;.y ( . ; ;'.V> :' v. ^'-^/^C-^Vx^v^V, <>.'' -"

FIG. 87. Section of Glacial Channel (Maple River Valley).

City of Enderlin, section 4, Liberty Township. Showing terraces, and gravel

underlying valley.

the west) was now open. The ice sheet still formed a dam just east of the
present site of the city of Enderlin, and the waters were compelled to
turn westward away from the ice wall, and were conveyed by the present
course of the South Branch to the Sheyenne.

Lake Agassiz Opened It was not until another recession of the
ice border had occurred and the valley which subsequently came to be
occupied by the waters of Glacial Lake Agassiz had begun to be relieved
of its burden of ice that the Maple finally became free to discharge its
waters eastward by the present course into Lake Agassiz in Section 32,
Highland Township.

At the time of the opening of the main channel east of Enderlin the

Sords.

*$$$

;0.f-<\"i-.->B-

FIG. 88. Section of Glacial Channel (South Branch of Maple).

Section 27, Moore Township. Valley bottom 90 rods in width; hay meadow on bottom; sides
30 to 40 feet high, with very small modern stream channel; no water except in pools.

THE HISTORY OF MAPLE RIVER 149

great channel now occupied by the South Branch, which had been car-
rying the waters brought away from the ice border during a long period
of recession of the ice, and had been a part of the trunk or main line
of the Maple during this time, now ceased to be a part of the course of
the main stream and became what it now is, a reversed water-way occu-
pied by a small intermittent modern stream.

The South Branch now enters the main valley at Enderlin. It is an
interesting example of a great river from which its glory has departed.
It used to carry vast floods of water from Enderlin to the Sheyenne. Now
it brings a little water (very little during most of the year) from within
a mile or two of the valley of the Sheyenne in the opposite direction to
the Maple. The channel is a large, well defined valley, having steep
sides thirty to forty feet high in northeastern Moore township, and from
fifteen to thirty feet high in southern Moore and Fuller Townships.
(See Figures 88 and 89.) Very little water passes through the chan-

FIG. 89. Valley of South Branch of Maple River. A Glacial Channel.
Photograph by Rex IVillard.

nel now except during the spring season. In fact, throughout much of
its course the channel bottom is a fine level hay meadow. Gravel shoul-
ders occur along its course, showing the action of a large stream at
flood tide. This old channel is a marked landscape feature, and can be
easily followed from Enderlin to Section 20, Fuller Township, where
it joins the Sheyenne Valley by a hanging valley about seventy-five feet
above the present Sheyenne River. It is called a hanging valley because
it is literally "hung up" above the present river, the present valley having
been eroded since this channel was formed.

150

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

It was not, therefore, till the ice had melted off from the entire
region occupied by the Maple system, with the possible exception of the
extreme northern headwaters, that the full Maple system became estab-
lished in its present course. By this time Glacial Lake Agassiz had
begun to be formed by the enlargement of the Sheyenne River in the
vicinity of the present town of Milnor, the waters of the Sheyenne being
discharged between the wall of the retreating ice sheet on the east and
the higher land on the west, ten miles south of the southeast corner of the
area shown on the map (Figure So).

FIG. 90. Section of Glacial Channel (Maple River Valley).
Sections 2 and 3, Liberty Township. One mile east (below) City of Enderlin.

The rolling morainic topography in the region of the more eastern
headwaters of the Maple system has a north-northwest trend in the
alignment of the hills and ridges, which is considered evidence that
the region of the eastern branch of the head streams of the Maple sys-
tem had not yet been uncovered, this region being the latest to be freed
from the burden of ice.

FIG. 91. A Kame. One mile west of Sheldon. Photograph by C. M. Hall.

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.
THE LAKES OF NORTH DAKOTA.

The Kinds of Lakes. If we glance at a map of North Dakota it will
be seen that all that portion of the State west of the Red River Valley
and east of the Missouri River, except the Mouse River Valley, is dotted
with lakes, and there are hundreds, yes, thousands, of small lakes not
shown on even the largest maps. These are "glacial lakes" that is, lakes
which occupy basins or hollows amongst drift hills. They are more com-
mon among the hills of terminal moraines, and hence are often called
"morainic lakes."

Lake Agassiz, which covered the Red River Valley, Lake Souris,
which covered the lower Mouse River Valley, and Lake Dakota, which
occupied the Valley of the Lower James River, a small part of which
lake extended into North Dakota, and Lake Sargent, covering most
of Sargent County, were glacial lakes; but these owed their existence
to the presence of the melting ice-sheet, and they lasted only so long
as the ice-sheet remained to fill their basins with water, and at the same
time to dam the northern drainage courses, except in the case of Lake
Dakota, which, as we have seen, was dammed at its southern end by
a ridge of hard rock. These lakes disappeared with the final melting
of the ice-sheet; they are therefore called extinct lakes.

The Cause of Existing Lakes. All existing lakes in North Dakota
owe their being to the fact that the rainfall is greater than the evapora-
tion, and the hemming in of their waters by morainic hills or other land
barriers which form the sides of their basins. They are "glacial lakes,"
therefore, not because their waters come from the melting of the ice of
a glacier, but because the glacier which was once here caused their
basins to be formed among the heaps and ridges of earth left where it
melted.

A good deal of the drift is clay, and this holds water about as well
as a porcelain dish. Wherever there is a hollow in which more water

151

152 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

falls or collects than disappears by evaporation or soaking into the
ground there will be a lake, and it is called a "glacial lake" if its basin
was formed by the action of the ice of the great ice-sheet. All the lakes
in North Dakota are glacial lakes.

It is not necessary that the land forming the basin of a glacial lake
should be entirely in drift deposited from the melting ice in order for
it to be a glacial lake. The materials from the glacier may cause a
lake to be formed without the entire rim of the lake being of drift. A
river valley may be partly filled with drift so as to dam the stream and
thus cause a lake above the dam. Such a lake would owe its existence
to ice action and hence would be a glacial lake. It is likely that Devils
and Stump Lakes were formed in this manner. Jim Lake and Arrow
Wood Lake in Stutsman County were formed by the partial filling of
the channel of the James River by the drift so that the river is com-
pelled to spread out above the obstructions till the water rises high
enough to flow over.

The lakes of North Dakota vary in size from tiny ponds only a few
rods across to those several miles in diameter. Devils Lake, the Lake
Superior of North Dakota, is forty miles in length, measured in a direct
line, and it is more than three hundred miles around its shore. Des
Lacs Lake in Ward County is nearly thirty miles long, while only from
a quarter to a half mile wide.

Sometimes the depths of glacial lakes are very great in proportion
to their sizes and sometimes they are large and shallow, broad, flat clay-
pans filled with water. Sometimes the bottom drops suddenly to a
great depth, and sometimes there is a gradual slope of the bottom from
the shore toward the centre.

In a similar manner, on "glaciated" land surfaces hollows are some-
times deep with their sides abrupt and steep, and sometimes a broad
"flat" merges gradually into surrounding hills. The deeper and
steeper sided hollows in glaciated regions have been called "pots
and kettles." The broad and more shallow ones might as properly be
called "pans." "Pots and kettles" are very common in terminal mo-
raines, and "pans" are common on rolling prairies between moraines.

Exactly the counterpart or opposite of the "pots and kettles" are
the steep, rounded knobs or knobby hills of terminal moraines. Pots
and kettles and knobby hills wherever seen are a pretty certain indica-
tion of a terminal moraine. A gently undulating prairie with shallow
depressions generally indicates a ground-moraine.

THE LAKES OF NORTH DAKOTA. 153

The great irregularity of the shores of many lakes in North Dakota
is due to the fact that they are hemmed in by knobby hills, and if the
lake is large there may be several ''pots" covered by the water of one
lake, the water being very deep where are the pots and quite shallow
between them, or knobs may rise up, forming islands.

Lakes may diminish in amount of water they contain during dry,
hot seasons, or they may dry up entirely during the driest part of the
summer. Such are often called "dry" lakes. Lakes may also be "dry"
for a period of years when the summers are seasons of unusual drought,
and become lakes again during a series of rainy seasons. If a hollow
is not deep enough to hold sufficient water to form a lake but rushes
and marsh grasses grow upon its bottom it will be a slough or bog.
There are thousands of such sloughs in North Dakota, and they afford
some of the most valuable "hay-meadows" in the State. Sometimes a
stream flows from higher land onto a tract of land so nearly level that
the water is unable to cross it and so spreads out and forms a marsh
or sw r amp. Such marshes, also often making valuable hay-meadows,
occur upon the bottoms of old glacial stream channels. Good ex^
amples of this kind are the flat bottoms of the old outlets of Lake
Souris west of Balfour, and the Big Coulee, and very many over
the great Missouri Plateau where glacial channels were cut by the
waters from the melting Glacier flowing across to the Missouri River.

Since the walls which hem in the waters of glacial lakes are the
materials dumped from the melting ice, and since these materials are
often left in very irregular piles and ridges, the outlines or shores of
glacial lakes are often very irregular, the shore-line of the lake winding
around all the irregularities of the hills which hem in the waters of the
lake. Sweetwater Lake, in Ramsey County, is a good example of such
a lake having very irregular shore, though there are many hundreds
of smaller lakes in the State which are equally good examples.

In the case of a lake formed by the damming of a river valley by the
drift the shore-line will follow not only the windings of the stream
course and the curves around the hills dumped into the valley, but
will reach out into the tributary valleys forming bays. The very irregu-
lar shore-line of Devils Lake is probably due to all three of these
causes.

CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.
SALT AND ALKALINE WATERS IN LAKES.

The Salts in Lake Waters. The waters of many lakes are not only
"salt," but they are often bitter. This is because there are bitter "salts"
in the water. Our common table salt is what the chemist calls Sodium
Chloride. This gives the "salt" taste to the w^ater. There is also
Sodium Sulphate and Magnesium Sulphate in the water of many lakes,
and this is bitter to the taste and affects the digestive organs of animals
that drink it. There are also other salts such as the Sulphates of Potas-
sium and Calcium (lime), and the Carbonates of Magnesium, Potas-
sium and Calcium. If common salt or Sodium Chloride is present in
the water in larger quantity than any of the others the water is called
"salt" water. If it contains a larger quantity of some salt which is
bitter to the taste it is apt to be spoken of as "bitter" or "alkali" water.

Waters which are "hard" contain some kind of salt, usually Calcium
Carbonate or Calcium Sulphate (gypsum). Rain water is "soft" be-
cause when water is evaporated the mineral salt is left behind, and
when the vapor condenses into clouds and falls as rain it is free from
any salt. Not all waters which contain salts are "hard," nor are all
"soft" waters free from salts. The waters from the artesian wells at
Jamestown and Devils Lake are "soft," but they contain a large
amount of salts. These waters are not hard because the salts in them
are not such as to give the water the character of "hardness." Hard
water is not good for washing because the salt in it forms a chemical
combination with the soap and a new "soap" is formed which will not
dissolve in water. The soap thus formed floats on the surface of the
water, forming a greasy "scum."

Hard waters are agreeable to the taste and are generally good for
drinking if not too hard. Water which is hard from the presence in it
of Calcium Carbonate can be "softened" or "purified" by boiling, which
causes the limestone to fall to the bottom as a fine, white powder, or to

154

SALT AND ALKALINE WATERS IN LAKES. 155

collect in scales on the sides of the vessel in which it is boiled. This is
called "temporary" hardness. Water which contains Calcium Sulphate
or gypsum is "permanently" hard for it is not affected by boiling.

The Sources of the Salts and Alkalies. The explanation of the origin
of the salts in "alkali" waters lies in the fact that these minerals are in
the rocks of the earth. The Cretaceous shales contain them, for they
were present in the sea-waters at the time these rocks were deposited
on the bottom of the ocean. We shall see in a later chapter that a
great arm of the ocean once covered North Dakota and the rocks
which underlie the drift were deposited as sediments on its bottom.
The ice of the Great Ice-Sheet ploughed up these rocks and ground
them into the fine soil, sand and clay which now covers the old land
surface. What has been called in a former chapter "New North Da-
kota" has been made from the broken and pulverized top of "Old
North Dakota." The till or drift earth which was thus ploughed up
from the Cretaceous shales has given to the soil its alkaline character.
The salts, Sodium Sulphate and Magnesium Sulphate, are among the
minerals in the soil, but other salts which dissolve in water, such as
Potassium Sulphate and Sodium Carbonate, also occur, and altogether
make up the "alkali" which distinguishes the soils and the waters of
this region from those of the northern states farther east.

The minerals or salts which make the water "hard" are Calcium
Carbonate (limestone) and Calcium Sulphate (gypsum). These have
been derived also from the Cretaceous shales. Pure limestone is the
mineral Calcium Carbonate, and the drift which has come from a lime-
stone region contains this rock pulverized in the soil, and so this be-
comes a cause of hardness of the waters. In the Red River Valley and
also farther West the drift contains a large amount of this rock which
has been ground to powder, and this adds greatly to the productive-
ness of the soil.

These salts are therefore seen to be in the soil and when the rain
falls upon the ground it dissolves them and becomes "hard" or "salt"
again, and as the waters flow down the coulees or streams into the
lakes and there again are evaporated the lakes become "salt" or "al-
kali." If the lakes have outlets then the salt is carried on in the water
which flows out of the lakes and away to the ocean, and as the ocean
cannot have an "outlet" the waters of the seas become salt.

Salt Beds on Dry Lake Bottoms. Sometimes a large inland lake be-
comes so salt from the long continued evaporation of the waters, a little

156 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

salt being generally present in the waters of the earth's surface, that
the lake becomes a great tank of brine, and after a while becomes so
"strong" that it cannot hold any more salt in solution, and finally salt
begins to fall to the bottom. Or if the lake is small so that it frequently
becomes dry the salt left by evaporation upon the bottom may not all
be re-dissolved when the waters again fill the basin. If but little mud
or fine earth is carried into the lake by streams and the "salt" in the
water is mostly "common salt," beds of salt will accumulate on the
bottom of the lake. These may become of considerable thickness and
may be almost pure salt.

Now, if for any reason a lake where this process has been going on
for a long time should permanently dry up here might be salt beds of
great value. Such salt beds occur in some of the Western States,
where the dry salt can be shoveled from the ground in great quantities.
It is said that salt has been shoveled up and hauled away in wagons for
stock purposes from such salt lakes.

CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH.

MAP STUDIES: DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAKES UPON THE

LANDSCAPE.

Map Studies; The Lakes of North Dakota. A map ought to mean
more than dots and lines and shaded areas. We ought to be able to
see in a map of the State a picture of the landscape. The "map stud-
ies" in our geographies do not sometimes mean as much as they ought
to. Let us notice the distribution of the lakes of our State and see if
we can make these have a meaning as landscape features.

In the light of the studies we have made in the preceding pages it
will not be difficult to see that all the lakes in the State, while they
are all "glacial" lakes and hence all belong in one great class, yet they
fall into about a dozen groups, in each of which groups there is a
meaning as a landscape feature.

The McLean County Group. Look first at the group of lakes in
McLean county. Does their position strike you as having any sug-
gestion in it? Look at the Map. Figure i, and you see that the great
Altamont Moraine, the one called the First, or the outer one formed
at the edge of the great Dakota Glacier of the ice-sheet, makes a turn
or loop toward the big elbow where the Missouri River turns south-
ward. Some of the highest and most rugged and stony drift hills in
the State are here. You notice that these lakes are in chains or sort
of crooked rows. This is more than accident. When the ice of the
great ice-sheet had its edge here great glacial streams poured from it
into the Missouri River, and cut large valleys in the drift which had
been left from the melting ice. Some of them also \vere probably val-
leys before the ice came and were not entirely filled by the drift. These
streams did not last long because the ice melted back so that the water
ceased to flow through them. A short time though as used in geol-
ogy is usually a good many years. Their bottoms were not in many
cases made smooth by the streams, and when the ice had melted and
the water was no longer compelled to flow through these channels the

ii 157

158 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

hollows remained and became filled with water and formed lakes.
When the water is high in the spring it often overflows from one to
another and may even pass to the Missouri River in some of these
old channels. It may escape from Strawberry Lake near Dog Den
Butte across by a long series of lakes and sloughs to the river, and in
a similar manner from Brush and Pelican Lakes to the Missouri River.

About forty miles west of Fessenden is Pony Gulch, a broad val-
ley extending for many miles across the great Missouri Plateau, the
Coteau du Missouri. This is a valley in which probably a stream
flowed eastward before the drainage systems were changed by the ice
filling them, but when the ice-sheet lay over all the eastern part of
the State, filling all the river valleys, a glacial river probably flowed west-
ward into the Missouri River, which you will remember was not cov-
ered by the ice. The waters from Lake Souris were very likely car-
ried across by this channel to the Missouri for a time, as we saw in
another chapter. The hollow places along the bottom of this old chan -
nel are now beset with lakes.

The Kidder and Logan County Group. In northern Burleigh, Kidder,
western Stutsman, Logan, and northern Mclntosh Counties is another
group of lakes some of which also mark old glacial channels where the
ice-waters surged over into the Missouri River. These lie in hollows
among the hills of the First and Second or Altamont and Gary Mo-
raines. These are all upon the top of the great Coteau, or Plateau
of the Missouri, and hence are on the "Missouri Slope."

It is probable that the James River flowed across by the Hawk's
Nest in southeastern Wells County by this group of lakes in Kidder
County to the Missouri River at the time of the formation of the Third
or Antelope Moraine, for at this time the ice-sheet covered the land
as far west as Carrington, and its edge lay upon the plateau to the
south, so that the river could not follow its present course southward.

The Chains of Lakes Another group consists of the lakes in Foster,
eastern Stutsman, and western Barnes Counties. The James River
flows for nearly thirty miles along the course of the Fourth or Kiester
Moraine. The river probably begun to cut its channel here when the
moraine was being deposited from the melting ice and the river flowed
along the edge of the ice. Sometimes the materials from the moraine
were dumped into the channel of the river so< that its waters were
dammed up and lakes were formed. Such lakes are the Jim and the
Arrow Wood, in northern Stutsman.

MAP STUDIES. 159

The Spiritwood Chain of Lakes and four other chains of lakes
which cross or lie near to the Northern Pacific Railway between Valley
City and Spiritwood station, lie in deep channels which were the places
of large glacial streams during the time the ice-sheet was melting back
from the position of the Fourth or Kiester to the Seventh or Dovre
Moraine. Lake Eckelson lies in one of these old channels which is
five miles long extending south to Walker Lake. Another lies about
two miles west, and the old channel is six miles long. Another also
about six miles in length is just east of Sanborn, and there is still
another extending south from Hobart.

These lakes are along the bottoms of channels forty feet below the
general land surface. These channels may mark the places of old val-
leys on the pre-glaeial landscape which were not filled by the drift so
but that the flood waters from the melting ice flowed in their courses
and cut these channels in the soft drift which partly filled them.

A Picturesque Group in Griggs County. One of the prettiest groups
of lakes in the State and surrounded by the most picturesque morainic
hills is that in Griggs County, and extending also north into Eddy
County. The group consists of Lakes Jessie, Addie, Sibley, Clear, and
Red Willow, besides many small ones, and also the North and South
Washington Lakes in Eiddy County, and Free People's Lake, on the
Indian Reservation north of the Sheyenne River. From Devils Heart
Hill across the Sheyenne at the Morris ford to McHenry and Coopers-
town is a continuous series of lakes and hills. West of Cooperstown
are the high, steep, rounded knobs of the Dovre Moraine, rising sev-
enty-five to one hundred and fifty feet above the surrounding prairie,
covered often thickly with large granite and limestone boulders, and
among these hills are the silvery sheets of water of the lakes named.
The Washington Lakes in Eddy County are walled in between the hills
of the Elysian and the Waconia (Fifth and Sixth) Moraines. These
lakes are interesting as having old forests with their stumps still stand-
ing below the water along shore, showing that the water has been
much lower in them at some time. The cut banks or cliffs on the sides
of these and others of the group show that the water has also been
considerably higher than it is now.

The Devils Lake Group. The long series of lakes extending from the
small sheets east of Stump Lake for more than 100 miles northwest
nearly to the Turtle Mountains, including from the east the two small
lakes east of Stump Lake, Stump, Devils, Ibsen, Hurricane, Grass,

160 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

Island, and Long Lakes, as has been explained before, probably were
all formed in the valley of an old or pre-glacial river by the partial
filling of this valley with drift. These lakes, therefore, have a quite
different meaning as landscape features from those in the Griggs
County group just described, which are "morainic lakes" pure and
simple.

The Group North of Devils Lake North of Devils Lake is a group
of lakes which are cut off from draining into Devils Lake by the range
of morainic hills which lies between it and them. These lie in broad
flat hollows or "pans." This range of hills, which belongs to the
Itasca (Tenth) Moraine, lies close along their southern shores and
holds their waters from escaping into- Devils Lake, their waters pushing
up into the hollows between the hills forming many small bays.

Quite a large area to the north is drained into these lakes, and in
times of high water or during periods of years when the amount of
rainfall is greater, these lakes increase in size, rising and spreading out
in area, and become connected by sluggish streams. They may thus
at times become connected with the Mauvaise Coulee and so drain for
a time into Devils Lake. Sweetwater Lake has sometimes risen high
enough so that its waters overflowed the rim of its basin and dis-
charged directly across to the south into Devils Lake.

If the position of these lakes in relation to Devils Lake is noticed
it will be seen that the three larger, Sweetwater, Dry, and the Twin
Lakes (Lake Irwin and Lac aux Morts or Lake of Death), lie directly
north of the three large bays or arms of Devils Lake. It has been
suggested already that Devils Lake probably lies in the hollow of an
old partially filled valley and that its larger bays or arms may be due
to tributary valleys entering the old main valley. The position of these
lakes, with the moraine forming a barrier to prevent their draining
into Devils Lake, suggests that they may lie in the same tributary
valleys in which the three large arms of Devils Lake lie, and that the
moraine which crosses these tributary valleys in an east and' west
direction dammed their courses and so caused the lakes to gather
above where the valleys are filled.

This suggestion of valleys in the old or pre-glacial landscape of
this region is further strengthened by the fact that wells which are dug
or drilled about the City of Devils Lake and in the surrounding country
vary very much in depth within short distances, but all penetrating
clown below the drift to the old land surface, the Cretaceous shale.

MAP STUDIES. 161

Along the International Boundary. A number of lakes lying near the
International Boundary and east of the Turtle Mountains are good
examples of a class of lakes which owe their existence to the action of
the ice-sheet, and hence are ''glacial" lakes, but which are not mo-
rainic. They lie in shallow 7 pan-like depressions in the region between
moraines. Their basins often have their bottoms and sides in glacial
clay of till, but they may also lie in hollows which were scooped out
in the Cretaceous shales by the moving ice. There are many such
lakes in the State. Those here described lie between the ranges or belts
of hills of the Itasca (Tenth) Moraine.

It has been before explained that the Itasca Moraine extends across
the northeast corner of the State in a northwest and southeast direc-
tion. It is a compound moraine, being made up of several ranges
or belts lying between Devils Lake and Pembina Mountain. Lying
between the belt or wide range of hills which extends from the shore
of Lake Agassiz west of Inkster northwest to the International Boun-
dary in the northeast corner of Towner county, and the moraine lying
upon the top of Pembina Mountain which was formed on the east side
of the Dakota Lobe or Glacier, are Rose Lake, six miles east of Lang-
don, Rush Lake, near Hannah, a small lake near Mt. Carmel, east of
Hannah, and a fourth about five miles north of Osnabrock. Between
the range which lies west of these lakes and the next large range still
farther west, which extends from north of Lakota to the east of Cando
and to the Turtle Mountains, lie Lac des Roches, near the Interna-
tional Boundary in Towner county, which has been before spoken of
as lying in the line of outlet of old Lake Souris, and Rock Lake, about
four miles west of Lac des Roches.

All these lakes have inflowing streams or small coulees feeding
them. The four first named are drained by outlet streams, Rose Lake
being drained by the Tongue River, Rush by the Pembina River, Mt.
Carmel by the Little Pembina River, and Osnabrock by Park River.
All these streams have cut deep channels into the Pembina Mountain
highland, for in flowing down its steep front their currents become
swift. They have worked back and "tapped" these lakes since the
ice-sheet melted, that is, since the close of the Glacial Period. In a
short time short as time is measured in geology these lakes will
have been drained and become meadows, for their outlets will be cut
down and their waters will be drawn off.

But with Lac des Roches and Rock Lake the case is different. No

162

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES,

stream has worked back so as to tap them. Streams have worked
back from their basins into the higher land which surrounds them and
now bring water to them but this only makes them spread out the
more. The old channel along the course of Mauvaise Coulee is almost
up grade till after it crosses the belt of morainic hills to the south.
When the flood waters of Lake Souris came this way it forced a pas-
sage over the moraine after Lac des Roches had spread out so that it
and Rock Lake were probably united into one large lake.

The Turtle Mountain Group. When it is remembered that this plateau
rises about 600 feet above the surrounding prairie it will seem

FIG. 92. Township 163, Range 74. Top of Turtle Mountain, showing the great number of small

Morainic Lakes.

the more surprising that there are so many lakes on its top, for there
are probably not less than 200 large enough to be shown on a map.
Fish Lake, twelve miles north of Bbttineau, its north end extending a
little across the International Boundary, is one of the prettiest
sheets of water in the State. Other lakes worthy of note are Kippax,
Constance, Butte, Magog, Waukastian, Nemo and many others.

It will be seen from Figure i that a broad belt of the Itasca Mo-
raine crosses the Turtle Mountains, and many of the lakes are "mo-

MAP STUDIES. 163

rainic" lakes scattered amongst the rounded hills in little round and
irregular hollows.

The Turtle Mountain Plateau is about forty miles long and twenty-
five miles wide in its widest part, lying mostly in North Dakota. Its
top is forest covered, and very much broken and rolling due to the drift
hills of the moraine just spoken of, and also to the fact that the plateau
was cut up by creeks and coulees before the ice-sheet pushed across it,
and many of these hills were too large to be entirely leveled down. In
the hollows among the old, that is, the pre-glacial, hills, which are often
only partially rilled with drift, occur many of the lakes.

The Big Coulee Group. Buffalo and Girard Lakes and a series of
small lakes in Pierce county lie in the valley which was the outlet of
Lake Souris before the time of the outlet by Lac des Roches. These
lakes differ in character from the great number of small lakes which
are scattered among the hills in that neighborhood which are morainic
lakes. These which lie along the bottom of the old channel are formed
by the water which collects there from rains, and which cannot escape
because there is not enough water to flood the old channel so as to
cause a current. The water, therefore, stands upon the bottom in the
low places, forming lakes and sloughs. "Big Coulee" Creek is a small
stream lying in the valley, one of the head streams of the Sheyenne
River, but it is a mere little pool which soaks along the bottom of the
great wide valley. As the Sheyenne cuts its channel deeper and low-
ers the mouth of the Big Coulee Creek this creek will become more
swift at its mouth and drain the lakes which lie upon the bottom of the
old channel.

A Group of Typical Morainic Lakes. The great number of lakes in
western Benson, Pierce, and eastern McHenry Counties are morainic
lakes, small and larger basins, or "pots and kettles," of water hemmed
in by the steep, irregular, and knobby rounded morainic hills.

Many of these hills are sandy, from the ground-up sand-rock of
the Fox Hills Sandstone (one of the Cretaceous formations) which is
the underlying rock south of the Turtle Mountains. Some of the lakes
in this group lie among the sand blown hills (dunes) of the Lake Souris
bottom. These hills, which were dumped into the lake as moraines,
were not entirely leveled by the waves of the lake, but the sand of the
hills on its southeastern shore was washed and assorted by the waves,
and this is now blown by the winds into dunes, sometimes filling the

164 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

lakes which lie in the hollows. The lakes are sometimes entirely filled,
just as trees are buried by the drifting sand.

The "Alkali Flats." South and west of Balfour, Anamoose, and
Harvey, lying along the foot of the high front of the great Missouri
Plateau, are what are known as the "Alkali Flats." Many broad flat
bottoms are occupied by shallow lakes or sloughs. The water is
strong of alkali, as are all the lakes farther west which have no outlets.
The headwaters of the Sheyenne River have a sluggish beginning in
this region, but there is almost no fall toward the Sheyenne in the
flat surface from Dog Den Butte to western Wells County. A coulee
from Pony Gulch and others from off the high front of the plateau
flow out upon the "flats" and spread out as lakes. The shores and
dry bottoms of the lakes are white from the "alkali" salt left by evapo-
ration during the dry season of summer. These salts dissolve again in
the water when the wet season returns.

When either a natural or an artificial system of drainage shall carry
away the surface waters from these regions "the flats" will become
valuable lands. They are rendered nearly valueless now by the ac-
cumulation of alkali by evaporation of the waters.

The "Alkali" Lakes in the Far West. The lakes in western Ward and
Williams Counties which lie upon the top of the high northern portion
of the great Missouri Plateau, are among the most strongly alkaline, if
not the most so, of any in the State. This is because the rock strata
of which the plateau is composed, known as the Laramie formation
(Cretaceous), are even more alkaline than those rocks which underlie
the drift in the central and eastern portions of the State. Many of these
alkali lakes lie in hollows in the underlying rock, which is covered by
only a thin mantle of drift. The water of some of these lakes is a
bitter brine.

The River of Lakes. Another group of lakes in Ward County is of
more than usual interest. This is a group nearly forty miles in length
which lies in the old glacial river valley which once brought the waters
of Lake Saskatchewan from far north in Canada, and also the waters
from the edge of the melting ice all along its course, to Lake Souris.

There are three lakes in this series, the one farthest east and south
being a small, pretty sheet of water one or two miles long. This is
followed by a marsh and low meadow which separate this from the next
lake, which is about three miles long. Then a marsh and a meadow
again follow for a mile or two, and then a continuous and beautiful

MAP STUDIES. 165

sheet, or silvery ribbon, of water extends to the northwest for thirty
miles, having a width of about half a mile, its northern end extend-
ing about two miles into Canada. Des Lacs River, which drains (?)
these lakes is a small, narrow ditch winding back and forth across the
flat bottom of the broad and deep valley, and enters the Mouse River at
Burlington, about five miles west of Minot.

Salt Lakes From Artesian Springs. A remarkable group of lakes lies
upon the level prairies in Grand Forks and Walsh Counties, between
the city of Grand Forks and Grafton and north of Graf-
ton. These are salt lakes which owe their origin and the saltness of
their waters to the same causes as those which produce artesian wells
in the Red River Valley. Springs which furnish salt water burst out
upon the level prairie, the water having the same source far west of
the Red River Valley as the water which is obtained by drilling artesian
wells on the Red River bottom lands. In fact, these springs are natural
artesian wells, the water being forced up through gravelly veins in the
drift or till which fills the valley, and having its "head" or source in the
high lands which flank the Rocky Mountains. These springs make
the streams which start upon the highlands which formed the western
shore of Lake Agassiz streams of salt water. There being not enough
fall to the almost level prairie to cause drainage into the Red River
their waters spread out into marshes and lakes, and the water which
comes to the surface in the region of the lakes in springs adds to their
volume, and hence the salt marshes.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.
LAKES AS A LANDSCAPE FEATURE.

The Meaning of Lakes on a Landscape. Lakes as a landscape feature
mean "youth," that is, the landscape is young in the sense that there
has not been time for river systems such as were described in the first
chapter to be developed. The landscape is as yet largely undrained by
streams. A comparison of that portion of the State lying west of the
Missouri River with the great portion east of it will show the difference
between an "older" and a "younger" landscape.

We have noticed already the many lakes scattered over that part of
the State which is east of the Missouri River. West of the river we see
none marked on the map, for there are none. If there were once lakes
there they have been drained. All of the hollows have outlets, and are
valleys. East of the river most of the hollows do not have outlets, and
are basins. The landscape west is therefore "older;" that east is
"younger." West of the river drainage systems have become estab-
lished, and streams have cut the landscape into hills, and these hills are
being worn down and carried to the sea. East of the river few streams
mark the landscape, and the cutting of the prairies into hills has just
begun. West of the river the hills have been carved upon the face of
the landscape. East of the river the hills are mostly "dumped" hills,
or heaps and irregular ridges piled upon the landscape.

What has been the cause of these marked differences we have al-
ready seen. It was the great ice-plow which leveled down the hills
and filled the valleys of the original landscape and piled these hills on
the surface as it melted away. As this great ice-sheet reached only to
the Missouri River the region west of this river has not been ploughed
down and leveled and covered with dumped hills. There the landscape
is "older" because the processes which carve and fashion all landscapes
have been going on longer than east of the river, where they had to
begin all over again after the Glacial Period.

LAKES AS A LANDSCAPE FEATURE. 167

The rocks are not any older in years west of the river than they are
east of it; in fact, the oldest rocks in the State, as to the time they have
been in existence as rocks, are in the eastern part of the State, as we
shall see in a later chapter. It is the form of the landscape which is
older. When the hills west of the Missouri River have all been washed
away, or nearly so>, so that there are no high, steep, flat-topped hills,
and the whole region is worn down to base-level, then the landscape
will have reached its old age.

In all the State east of the Missouri River drainage systems are just
getting started. These are the "coulees" which, starting from the river
valleys, old channels and lakes, have pushed back upon the landscape.
Wherever there is a low place water collects from the falling rain and lit-
tle streams begin to work back into the surrounding land. In time larger
streams will become established and their heads will work back into
the surrounding land and tap the lakes. The lakes will be drained by
the cutting down of their outlets, and so in time there will cease to be
any lakes, and the prairies will have been cut up into hills.

The rapidity with which river systems get started in any particular
region depends upon the mouths of the streams. If the streams pour
their waters into a deep basin, or if they fall suddenly down from a
highland or plateau upon a considerably lower plain, they will cut their
channels down and push their heads back rapidly, and the highland
will become soon dissected into hills. The landscape may be said to
"grow old" rapidly. But if the whole region is low, that is, if there is
no place which is quite a good deal lower into which the waters can
discharge, then streams will push back upon the landscape and cut
their channels very slowly, and the rain which falls upon the land will
lie upon its surface and in the soil till evaporation removes it.

Nearly perfect examples of landscapes which are "growing old"
rapidly are the plateau top of Pembina Mountain, and the top of the
Turtle Mountain Plateau. Of those which are lingering long in the
youthful stage are the almost perfectly flat plain of the Red River Val-
ley, and the region of the group of lakes north of Devils Lake. To the
latter class, however, belongs most of the State east of the Missouri
River.

All these regions began their "infancy" nearly at the same time,
which was after the close of the Ice Age, or the Glacial Period. But
the region of eastern Cavalier and western Walsh Counties, and the
top of the Turtle Mountains, will be cut up into hilly landscapes and be

168 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

reaching "middle age" while yet the plain of the Red River Valley
and the region north of Devils Lake, as also much of the State else-
where, will still be in the age of youth.

This is because the Reel River has so little fall that it cannot deepen
its channel, and so the coulees upon the prairies cannot lower their
mouths, and the water which falls upon the broad level prairies stands
in sheets until removed by evaporation. In the Devils Lake region
the fall in any direction is so slight that only the faintest beginnings
of drainage have been developed. Mauvaise Coulee enters Devils
Lake from the north, but it cannot be said to drain the lakes with which
it is connected. It is itself a long-drawn-out slough or pool which is
broader at those places where it spreads out into lakes.

In the case of the Pembina Mountain top all the streams which fall
down its steep front have cut deep channels. The Pembina River, the
Little Pembina, the Tongue, the head streams or coulees of the Park,
the Forest and the Turtle, have all cut deep channels down through
the drift into the underlying shales. This is because of the fall from
the top of the high plateau down to the low prairie. These same
streams all become sluggish pools after they get upon the valley plain
and their channels become long, puddling ponds. The high prairie
upon the plateau top of Pembina Mountain will become cut up into
hills while the Red River Valley still remains almost undrained. All
the larger lakes upon this plateau have already been tapped by the
head coulees of the streams named.

The Turtle Mountain Plateau is being cut into by the coulees which
push their heads back from the prairie up the steep slope of the high
front. All around the mountain on any good map streams are shown
which are pushing their heads back onto the higher land. The old
valleys which were partially filled with drift, many of which were
dammed, forming the small lakes, will be cut out anew, and the lakes
which are scattered among the hills in the hollows will be drained.
Fish Lake and the series of lakes lying near it are in an old valley
which was partly filled by drift. Oak Creek has cut a deep coulee into
the side of the mountain and already draws away water from several
small lakes in the series. When these have been drained by the deep-
ening of the channel it will later draw off the water of Fish Lake, and
finally the whole valley will be re-opened something as it was before
the great ice-plow moved across the mountain's top.

A good illustration of the tapping of a lake by the cutting down of

LAKES AS A LANDSCAPE FEATURE.

169

a coulee channel and the pushing back of its head is furnished by Rush
Lake, on the Pembina Mountain highland near Hannah.

It will be seen in Figure 93 that it has two outlets. The lake is
a shallow clay-pan of water only a few feet deep. The north outlet is
the old outlet, one which was established when the water from the
melting ice-sheet made the lake larger than it is now. Pembina River,

FIG. 93. Map of Rush Lake, Cavalier County, showing two outlets.
From a Drawing by W. A. Hillier.

which is only a few miles away, flows in its old, or pre-glacial, channel.
This was partially filled with drift, which has been mostly carried away
by the river, and the river has cut its valley still deeper. Snowflake
Creek has cut back from the Pembina Valley as a tributary, and it, too,
has cut a deep gorge or channel, because its mouth is made low by the
deep gorge of the Pembina into which it empties.

Now, it chanced that a low place in the land surface caused a small
tributary, /, to cut back from Snowflake Creek at the fork where the two
outlets now meet. Snowflake Creek at first had its source in Rush
Lake through the north outlet. But this little tributary has cut down
more rapidly than the north outlet owing to the fact that more water
falls over its sides, it being in a slight depression, and so it has pushed
its head rapidly back.

170 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

It happened that a coulee, c, leading into the lake at o marked
a little valley. This had its head about where the bend in the south
outlet is now. At length the little tributary coulee from Snowflake
Creek pushed back and began to draw the water of the little coulee
the other way. So the little coulee which at first flowed into the lake
was reversed and its channel became a part of the new south outlet.

This is just about the stage in which the two outlets are now. The
north outlet is still the main outlet of the lake, that is, it carries a little
more water from Rush Lake to Snowflake Creek than does the newer
south outlet. But the south outlet at t has a deep gorge and it is
rapidly cutting this gorge back so that it will soon lower the channel of
c, and this will then become the principal outlet, and soon the north
outlet will cease to carry away water from the lake entirely. Because
the channel of Pembina River is deep Snowflake Creek is able to cut
deeply its channel, and soon the rim of Rush Lake at o will be cut
down and the waters of the lake will be drawn away, and its bottom
will become a meadow.

172

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.
THE BAD LANDS.

Bad Lands to Travel Through. No part of North Dakota is perhaps
more widely known or less understood than that part of the State styled
the "Bad Lands." Probably about no part of the State are there more
mistaken notions than about this region.

In the first place the lands are not "bad" for the purposes for which
nature has fitted them, viz., for stock-raising. This is claimed by those
who ought to know to be one of the best parts of all the State for profit-
able cattle- and horse-ranching. The region was called by the early
French travelers who crossed the country in wagons "Bad Lands to
Travel Through," which is a very fitting and appropriate title. The
lands are not, in fact, so "bad," but they are bad to travel through. The
whole region is so much cut up by deep valleys with steep sides that it
is almost impossible to travel there with wagons. And the tourist who
attempts to travel on horseback without a guide is very likely to "get
lost."

Mistaken Notions About the Cause of the Bad Lands. Many
strange stories have been invented by travelers to explain how
the lands of this region came to be so very rough. They are often
described as having been made rough and jagged by great volcanic up-
heavals or earthquake shocks ! There is scoria in the hills or "buttes,"
and this has given color to the notion that great volcanic fires have
raged here, and the high crags and rugged hillsides with deep, narrow
valleys appear to those who have keen imaginations like great rents
or fissures in the rocks caused by earthquakes. Then there are many
veins or beds of coal in the region and some of these are burning, and
this has given rise to the idea that great fires have burned out the
chasms, or that the coal has burned out underneath and the rocks over-
lying have then fallen in, causing the steep-sided, ragged gullies.

But careful observation and study will show that none of these
causes is the true one. The earth has not been formed in the way we
now see it by sudden changes. Great upheavals of the earth's crust

173

174 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

forming mountain ranges and volcanic outbursts causing floods of lava
to pour out upon the surface from the depths of the earth, have occurred
in many parts of the earth, and the form and appearance of the earth
have been greatly changed by such processes. But these are not the
causes which have made the landscape features of the Bad Lands, nor
of any part of North Dakota.

The Real Cause of the "Bad Lands." The agent which has fashioned
the landscape in the "Bad Lands" is the same as that which has been
working ever since the solid crust of the earth first appeared above the
seas, and dry land began to receive rainfall and to be worn away by it. The
"Bad Lands" have been cut up into "Bad Lands to Travel Through"
by the action of running water, just as the plateau top of Pembina
Mountain is being cut up into hills by the action of streams. The
buttes or flat-topped hills of this remarkable region, the deep valleys
or gorges which surround the buttes, often so steep that neither man,
horse nor wild beast can cross them, have been made by the eroding
action of running water. The same processes of valley cutting which
were studied in Chapter One are the explanation of the "Bad Lands."

The "Bad Land" Region. A belt of country from ten to twenty miles
wide in North Dakota along the course of the Little Missouri River is
deeply intersected or cut into by this river and its tributary streams.
The channel of the Little Missouri has been cut by the river deeply
into the landscape so that the streams which flow into this river have
steep bottoms, that is, they descend rapidly, and this causes them to
erode or cut down their beds rapidly. Their sides, therefore, be-
come steep and rugged. These tributary streams push back their
heads into the land, as has been explained before, and often their heads
work back into the plain so that they meet, and so a portion of the
prairie becomes cut around by the streams forming a table-land. If
this bit of land thus surrounded by deep valleys is large it is called a
plateau or a "mesa." If it is a small area so that it is simply a flat-
topped hill it is called a "butte."

Buttes and mesas are flat on top because the original plain or
prairie was flat. The sides of the valleys or coulees are steep and
rugged because the streams which form them cut down rapidly,
and we have seen before that swiftly flowing streams erode their bot-
toms much more rapidly than do streams having slow currents.

In the spring when the snows are melting, and during seasons of
heavy rainfall these streams are swollen and flow very swiftly. The

THE BAD LANDS.

175

FIG. 95. View South of Missouri River near Williston. Photograph by Rex Willard.

FIG. 96. Naked Clay Butte with Fluted Side. McKenzie County.
Photograph by Rex Willard.

176

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

rocks which make up the landscape are clay and sandstone and shale,
and such rocks erode very easily under the cutting action of swift cur-
rents of running water. During the hot months of summer the coulees
become mostly dry, the clays become "baked" and cracked by the sun's
heat, and the sandstones and shales become crumbled. Then when
the rains come and the snows melt the rocks are easily broken and car-
ried away by the waters. Grass and other vegetation do not have
time to get much foothold on the steep sides of the buttes because the
earth wears away too rapidly, and so the sides of the buttes are gen-
erally naked of vegetation, except in crevices where the washing is less.
The layers of clay, sandstone, shale, and. often of lignite coal, are seen
in parallel series one above the other just as they were laid down on the
bottom of the ocean.

Different Forms of Buttes. The sides of the buttes are worn away
year by year as the rains continue to wash their sides, and the sun shin-

FIG. 97. Pyramid Butte. Photograph by Prof. W. E.Johnson.

ing upon their unprotected sides, and the frosts of winter, crack the clay
and crumble the sandstone and shales, and the areas of the flat tops
become smaller and smaller. By and by the flat top is
entirely worn away and the butte "comes to a peak," and then the peak
becomes lower and lower as the wearing process goes on. Thus there
may be large mesas and small mesas, the small mesas grading in size

THE BAD LANDS.

177

into large buttes, and large buttes differ from small buttes only in the
lesser areas of their tops. A large mesa may be cut up into smaller
mesas or large buttes, and larger buttes may be cut into smaller buttes,
by coulees pushing back and cutting up their tops. Finally the flat
tops become rounded tops, and then the buttes begin to get lower, so
that there are higher and lower buttes, and as the low, rounded buttes
become still lower and smaller they in time wear away and become
mere little naked, rounded hillocks or "bee-hives."

If there should be a harder layer of sandstone running through the
butte the edges of this harder layer will not be worn away as fast as
the rest of the softer materials, and so this layer will come to project
out of the sides of the butte as a shelf. If the shelf is at or near the
top of the butte then the butte will become a "table rock" or "capped
butte." Sometimes a harder part of a sandstone layer or of lava form-
ing a crag or jutting mass, stands out on the side or at the top of a
butte, and so a "pinnacled" butte is formed.

FIG.

The Butte becomes a "Table Rock " or "Capped Butte."
Pltotograph by Miss Nellie T. Cruden.

Outside the Bad Lands. The landscape about Dickinson, forty miles
east of the Little Missouri River, is that of a broken prairie. The val-
leys are not so deep because the headwaters of the Heart River have
to go a long way to the Big Missouri at Mandan, and this means that
the "fall" is not so rapid so that the streams cannot cut their channels
down so rapidly. If the headwaters of the Heart River did not have

178 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES,

to travel the long journey of about 100 miles to the Missouri River,
that is, if there were a place as low as the Missouri River at Mandan,
only say ten miles east of Dickinson, the country about Dickinson
would rapidly become "bad lands," for the streams would quickly cut
down their channel bottoms and the prairie surface would soon become
the tops of buttes.

This is what has happened thirty miles west of Dickinson at Fry-
burg, where the streams flow west into the Little Missouri, descending
530 feet in a distance of about ten miles.

About twenty miles north of Dickinson are what are called "the
breaks." Here the gently rolling and grass-covered prairie changes
suddenly to a much broken and rugged landscape with narrow valleys
and buttes with naked sides. Here a stream with a deep valley and
many tributary coulees, the Knife River, has pushed back into the
landscape from the Missouri River at Stanton in Mercer County, and
the development of "bad lands" has well begun. Farther north, after
crossing the region drained by the Knife, there is rolling prairie again.

At a distance of about sixty miles north of Dickinson the prairie
suddenly drops off, as abruptly as off the end of a bridge, into the val-
ley of the lower Little Missouri at the bend where it turns east to enter
the Big Missouri. Here the Little Missouri has cut its valley down
like a great trough 400 to 500 feet into the prairie, and tlie side streams
have cut the landscape on each side of the river into the most striking
and majestic buttes anywhere to be seen in the North Dakota Bad
Lands. The change from the grass-covered prairie to the steep and
naked jagged buttes of the Bad Lands of the side of the valley-trough
is as marked as stepping off from the edge of a plank platform. The
traveler often has to go along the edge of the prairie for many miles
before finding a coulee he can descend to the river, although the dis-
tance to the river in a direct line is less than four miles. There are
only one or two places in a distance of thirty miles where it is practi-
cable to get down to the river, ford the stream with its treacherous
quick-sands, and get up again upon the prairie on the other side of
the valley. Yet it is possible on a clear day to see across from the
prairie on one side to the grass-covered prairie on the other, the dis-
tance across, which in this region represents the whole width of the
"Bad Lands," being from seven to ten miles.

But the journey down from the prairie to the river is a most diffi-
cult one. Jagged, rough and steep, down into holes cut out by tor-

THE BAD LANDS.

179

rents of water, around slippery clay buttes, down deep and steep
gorges, over hard crags of sandstone which have resisted the wearing
action of sun, frost and y/ater, passing sometimes a butte in the sides
of which glisten countless crystals, passing with caution over a ledge
under which burns a vast natural furnace of coal, till at length the bot-
tom of the valley is reached, where roll the waters of the Little Mis-
souri, yellow with their burden of sand and clay.

Halting at the hospitable door of a ranchman's log "schack," glad
to rest and hear again the sound of a human voice, one may well gaze

FIG. 99. " Halting at the Hospitable Door of a Ranchman's Log 'Schack.' "

back in awe and wonder at the lofty gray precipices which have been
passed. "Bad Lands to Travel Through" indeed! But there is never
a lack of a cordial welcome at the humble, thatched cottage of one of
these ranchmen "cattle kings." True, there is nothing to drink but
the warm water of the river, and this is so muddy from its sediment-
laden current even in mid-summer that it is impossible to see the bot-
tom of a spoon which is filled with it. But anything is good enough,
and the best the ranchman has he deems none too good for the welcome
traveler.

Here rolls the swift-flowing and sediment-laden Little Missouri, at
once the cause and the explanation of the "Bad Lands." Its bed de-
scends rapidly so that its waters flow swiftly, carrying a great burden of
sand and clay, in some places little else than a great moving stream of
quicksand creeping down the valley. Rolling on and on, bearing its
mighty burden of sand and clay down its steep course to the Big Mis-
souri, it adds to the muddiness of that great dirty river this pudding of

180

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

rock, its waters stirred to a soup with clay, a burden which it has
brought from all the coulees which girdle the buttes of all the "Bad
Lands" from its long course in South and North Dakota.

The Structure of the Buttes. One of the most striking things which
the traveler observes in the Bad Lands is the arrangement of the rocks
in the naked buttes in horizontal layers. So far from the region being
one which has been rent and broken and upheaved by volcanic or earth-
quake action, so far from the rugged form of the hills being due to
heat from eruptions of the earth, as has sometimes been said in
descriptions of this region, the rocks are all horizontal in position and

FIG. ioo. "One Layer above another like Boards in a Lumber Pile." Pyramid Park.
Photograph by Prof. W. E.Jshnson.

one layer or stratum above another in as systematic order as boards in
a lumber pile.

Rocks which have been upheaved and crumpled and melted in the
processes of mountain making are upturned, broken, and bent, and the
character of the rocks themselves changed, so that what had been soft
clay or shale has been changed into slate, and sandstone into quartzite
in which the grains of sand cannot now be distinguished. But no such-
changes have occurred in the Bad Lands. The rock-layers are in
horizontal position just as they were laid down as sediments on the

THE BAD LANDS. 181

bottom of the sea long ages ago. The layers of clay are still clay, and
the sandstone strata are sandstone now, made up of the same grains
of sand as they were when the waves of the sea washed them.

All these layers of rock belong in what is called the Laramie forma-
tion, the highest in the series, or latest formed, of the Cretaceous rocks.

That these layers of rock, these sandstones, shales, and clays, were
formed on the bottom of a great body of water there can hardly be
doubt, for nothing but water can form clay or fine sand into such
layers.

Follow along any particular layer in the side of a butte and then-
look across to the other side of the valley and the same layer occurs
there at the same height. Follow It on and it has the same position in
all the buttes. There are the same layers above it in all its course,
and those layers which are below it can be seen below it in all the buttes.
The edge of a particular layer as it is seen in the side of the hill is like
a great ribbon stretched along the side of the valley. It keeps just
the same thickness from one butte side to another as far as it is fol-
lowed, till it finally plunges into the ground below the level of the
stream bottom, if it is followed up-stream, or rises, a little toward the
surface or top of the side of the valley if it is followed down-stream.
This is what would be expected if the layer itself is horizontal, for the
stream bed at the bottom is not horizontal but rises up-stream, and so
the layer seems to come down to meet the bottom of the valley, though
really the stream bottom rises to meet the layer. The Rat land at the
top of the buttes has a slope down-stream or else the stream would
not have been started, and so the layer tends to rise more and more
toward the top when followed down-stream.

The only explanation of layers of rock so extensively horizontal is
that they have been deposited in water upon the bottom of an ocean.

Veins, or beds, of lignite coal occur along with the layers of clay,
sandstone and shale. They are of various thicknesses from less than
an inch to eight feet or more, and these can be followed along the
naked sides of the hills or buttes like the other rock layers. Now if
lignite coal, while under the great pressure of the weight of the rocks
above it were to be greatly heated, as it would be if volcanic action or
earthquakes had caused great upheavals and rents in the earth, it would
be changed to anthracite coal and cease to be lignite. The fact that
there are beds of lignite coal all through the Bad Lands, therefore, is a

182

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

proof that heat from earth eruptions was not the cause of the Bad
Lands.

In many places in this region clay has been heated by the burning
coal mines so that it has been baked into brick, and sometimes also it
has been melted so that it looks much like lava. Where the sides of
the buttes have crags of this melted rock projecting in great masses the
region has sometimes the appearance of having been rent by volcanic
eruptions.

Natural brick, which has been baked by the heat of burning coal mines
that have smouldered in the bosom of the hills during centuries, and

FIG. 101. "Masses of Scoria lie upon the Surface, forming Crags and Pinnacles."
Photograph by Miss Nellie T. Cruden.

scoria, which is melted clay, are extensively used on the Northern Pacific
Railway as ballast for the road-bed, and also at many of the ranches for
making walks and the floors of stables.

Six miles east of Medora at Scoria the buttes look as though they had
been deluged with blood, and immense masses of the hard scoria lie
upon the surface crowning the buttes, and forming huge ragged crags
and pinnacles. Many outcroppings of scoria and burned-clay brick
occur also south of Medora in the buttes along Custer Creek and other
small streams entering the Little Missouri River, shown by the red

THE BAD LANDS.

183

color which extends down over the lower rock layers, having washed
from the red layers above.

Some Places of Interest. The Northern Pacific Railway crosses the
Little Missouri River at Medora. This is often spoken of as "the heart
of the Bad Lands," though it is not in fact so "bad" here as at the point
described farther down the river, for, as the valley is deeper farther
toward its mouth, the buttes are higher and the chasms deeper. Me-
dora is an interesting spot, and the traveler who wishes to see and study
the Bad Lands will find no more favorable place so easily accessible.

It was at Medora that the French nobleman, the Marquis de
Mores established his once famous stockyards and slaughtering houses,
intending to make this a shipping point for dressed beef from this great
cattle-raising district. The name Medora was given to the town in
honor of his wife, who was an American lady. The baronial residence,
the Mores Castle, still stands on a beautiful bluff overlooking the river
and the town. The buildings which were intended to be used for the
slaughtering and packing industry are still standing.

About two miles south of Medora is the old trail by which the ill-
fated General Custer led his army across the Bad Lands in the famous

FIG. 102. " Custer Trail Ranche " is a good place from which to see the " Bad Lands."
Photograph byj. J. Freeman.

184 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

campaign against Sitting Bull in 1876. The buttes on which the
picket guards were stationed while the army was encamped here are
pointed out, and the marks of the trail made by the wagon wheels, and
also the marks of the tent-pins at the camping place, are still visible.

Custer Trail Ranche, two miles south of Medora, named from its
location on the line of the old Custer trail, is an unique place, and worth
the tourists' time to visit, both because it is a typically ideal ranche, and
because it is a good place from which to see the "Bad Lands." The
ranche buildings, mostly made of logs, constitute a picturesque villa
standing upon the plain where Custer Creek enters the Little Mis-
souri, and surrounded by an amphitheater of buttes. The proprietors,
the Eaton Brothers, are three gentlemen, and tourists will find here
everything needed for their convenience for study or recreation. A
carload of saddles and riding equipage, and all the things which go to
made up the accessories of an ideal ranche headquarters, comfortable
quarters, good food, congenial company, in fact, everything except the
unpurchasable ability to ride a "broncho," are at the service of guests.
A herd of riding horses of all degrees of docility, from the wild and
unbridled broncho to the placid "old stager," which is suited to the
novice, who may wish to see the Bad Lands, are "rounded up" early
each morning from a pasture which is enclosed by twenty-eight miles
of ware fence, into a corral built of logs so high and strong that the
wildest deer, buffalo, or untamed broncho could neither scale it nor
break through it.

A few miles farther up the river stands the log "schack" which was
once the headquarters and home of President Roosevelt.

It has been stated before that the Northern Pacific Railway crosses
the Little Missouri River at Medora. The railroad descends from the
divide, or watershed, between the Heart and the Little Missouri Rivers
at Fryburg, creeping down the steep bottom and between the jagged
sides of Sully's Creek. The brakes upon the wheels of the great roll-
ing city of parlor cars creak and grind as the train follows the curves
of the track down the steep grade of more than fifty feet to the mile.

At .length the porter calls out the poetic name of Medora. Step-
ping upon the platform of the little station the great nearly perpendicu-
lar wall of a large butte meets the gaze, its ribbon-marked side standing
like a great curtain 300 feet high behind the town. The top of the
butte appears to be perfectly flat, as though the upper part of a great
mountain had been sawed off and taken away and this great massive

.. . . * /.^^^i&:. ..-.- .* - * .
FIG. 103. The Bad Lands, Little Missouri Valley.

FIG. 104. "The Palisades," Medora, Billings County.
185

186 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

base left. The ribbon-like marks across the steep side are the hori-
zontal layers of the outcropping clay, sandstone, shales, and coal, of
which the butte is composed.

After crossing the river the railroad suddenly bends northward or
down the river, hugging closely against the bank at the foot of the
overhanging buttes till the mouth of a coulee is reached, when it winds
its laborious way up the steep path of the coulee to the prairie beyond
the Bad Lands, that is, to the level of the tops of the buttes at Meclora.

A View from the Top If the tourist secures a saddle-horse, and
there is nothing else, for there is little use in this country for wheeled
vehicles, he may go by a winding course around to the top of a butte.
There he finds a level grass-covered prairie, as fine a field for a base-
ball ground as college student could desire. Away down there in
the valley not away off there but away down there is the muddy
Little Missouri, houses, the railroad, the bridge! He is now on the
top of the same butte which was first seen from the depot platform.
Now he is looking clown the face of the same wall from the upper edge,
and not looking against it from near its base.

Look off toward the horizon and the scene is that of a great prairie
cut up by little grooves or scratches, for. the eye cannot see down into
the valleys, and only the edges of the flat tops of the buttes tell where
the valleys are. The other buttes are like this one, they are all little
segments or blocks of prairie separated by deep and jagged valleys.
Looking away across the distant landscape there spreads out over the
tops of the buttes the vast prairie, the great Plateau which embraces
all of western North Dakota and extends west to the Rocky Moun-
tains. But look at the nearer landscape and it is deeply cut up by
valleys. Go down into* a valley and the traveler is lost to the world.
He sees only the edges of the little prairies which are on the tops of the
buttes. It is not the butte tops which are high, it is the valley bot-
toms which are low. They have been sunken down into the earth.
They are furrows or troughs cut deeply into the bosom of the prairie.

Let us look off once more to the far distant horizon. Away to the
south rises a huge dark mass higher than the general level. To the
southwest is another dark mass, and against the western sky two other
great blocks can be seen above the general horizon. These are higher
buttes, buttes standing on the shoulders of buttes, as it were. They are
so far away that they do not appear so very high upon the horizon, but
when we approach nearer to them they are seen to stand 400 to 600

THE BAD LANDS. 187

feet above the surrounding landscape, that is, higher than the tops of
the buttes on the shoulders of which they stand.

On the Map of the State (Figure i) it will be noticed that there
are buttes or hills scattered over the southwestern portion of the State.
These are higher buttes standing considerably above all the surround-
ing landscape. The Killdeer Mountains, forty miles north of Dickin-
son, are high buttes of this class. They are more than 700 feet above
the surrounding prairie, their sides steep and ruffled with crags, their
top a broad level meadow.

These higher buttes, the Killdeer Mountains, Camel's Hump, Sen-
tinel Butte, Square Butte T Round Butte, and the many in the south-
western corner of the State which are higher than the surrounding
landscape, tell an important story of the history of this region. West-
ward in Montana are many such high buttes. The story in brief is
that the whole vast region extending west to the Rocky Mountains
was once lower than it is now, that is, its elevation above sea-level was
not as great. The land had been worn away by erosion till there were
left only scattered patches of upland. The region had all been reduced
to base-level except these few remaining parts.

"Base-level" means that the general level of the landscape has been
lowered by the streams till it is so little above sea-level that erosion
has practically ceased. The high hills, these highest buttes, are, there-
fore, vestiges of a former landscape, higher places which were not worn
away, just as the Turtle Mountain Plateau was left during the long ages
preceding the Glacial Period as a fragment of an older landscape which
was nearly all carried away. The general level of the tops of the buttes
in the Bad Lands is the old base-leveled plain, such a plain as was the
great region of the Mouse Valley, and the central part of the State
which is now crossed by the James and Sheyenne Rivers,- before the ice-
sheet swept over the landscape.

Now, this whole region was uplifted. This is what is called an
epeirogenic movement of the crust of the earth. When the uplifting of
this region occurred erosion began actively again, and then began to be
formed the coulees by which the Bad Lands are dissected into buttes.
All the "Bad Lands" along the Little Missouri River, therefore are the
result of erosion since the region was uplifted. It is this uplift which
gives the steep gradient to the Little Missouri and so makes the deep
cutting of its channel and those of its tributaries possible.

Thus the Bad Lands are a new feature. They represent the "sec-

188 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

ond childhood," or a beginning of the development of a new land-
scape from one which had become old. They have not always been
"Bad Lands to Travel Through!" The region was once a great broad
prairie lowland. The level meadows which are now left in patches on
the tops -of the buttes are fragments of the old base-leveled plain of a
former time.

It should be said that the "Bad Lands" are not really so bad after
all. They are, indeed, "bad to travel through," but it would be diffi-
cult to convince the ranchmen who have become wealthy grazing herds
of cattle and horses here that they are "b^d." They claim that these
lands are better for grazing, area for area, than the smooth and un-
broken prairie. The coulee bottoms yield excellent pasturage, for
here the grass grows abundantly, and the deep valleys furnish protec-
tion for the animals in winter, and the snows which gather in the win-
ter protect the grass so that more grows than there are cattle enough
to eat. The burning coal mines also have their advantage, for these
act as great furnaces warming the air near by them, and the cattle
congregate about them in the cold weather to enjoy the warmth.

The Petrified Forests Another chapter in the history of the past is
revealed in the "Petrified Forests," the remains of which are scattered
over the landscape, or still stand as stumps in the places where they
grew. Huge logs, looking so much like natural wood as to be easily
mistaken for it, occur in great numbers. Many stumps still stand with
their "roots" buried in the earth just where they grew.

We have seen before that beds of lignite coal occur in the rocks of
the region. These were formed from the forests which grew during
the times when these rocks were being formed. The "petrified for-
ests" are trees which grew upon the landscape but which were not
buried under such conditions as to form coal. They have become
"petrified," or "stone trees."

When a tree dies in the forest, but remains standing, it does not
become dry or "seasoned," but takes up water from the ground and
becomes "sap-soaked." Such trees dry out by the action of the sun
and wind, as do all trees, but they continually take up more water from
the earth and so do not become dry or seasoned. The water which
was taken up by the trees which become "petrified trees" contained
mineral matter in solution. This mineral matter cannot evaporate
from the tree with the water and so it is left behind in the pores or
cavities of the wood. As this process went on for a long time the tree

THE BAD LANDS. 189

trunk, and sometimes the larger limbs also, became slowly filled with
the mineral matter. Logs which lay upon the ground or became bu-
ried in the soil absorbed water which contained mineral matter, and
these became "petrified" also.

The wood did not change into stone; this is not what is meant
when it is said that the trees became "stone trees" or the log became
a "petrified log." The wood decayed and particles of mineral matter
were left in place of the wood, and so the tree trunk or log came to be
replaced by stone having exactly the form and the structure of the
original tree trunk or log. It thus happens that a log or piece of "pet-
rified wood" can sometimes hardly be told from actual wood till it is
examined closely. It is no joke that travelers on the western plains
where no trees now grow, have been deceived by the petrified logs into
thinking that they had found fuel ; for such logs, falling to pieces under
the action of frost and sun, so closely resemble slivers and pieces of a
log of wood that only handling shows them to be stone.

When a block of petrified wood has been polished, or when a thin
slice is examined with a microscope, the grain of the wood or the cell-
structure can be seen just as it was in the original tree. In this way
it is possible to tell what kinds of trees grew on the landscape long ages
ago. And in the same way the kinds of trees which make up the coal
in the coal beds can be found out.

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.
THE COAL BEDS OF NORTH DAKOTA.

The Early Landscape. One of the great sources of wealth with which
North Dakota has been endowed by Nature lies beneath the surface, and
so is not exactly a landscape feature, yet it is so directly related to the
landscape, and to the resources which belong to the surface, that it can
hardly be omitted from a study of the landscape geology of the State.
Its bearing upon the development of the wealth of the soil is so direct that
it becomes a part of our subject. This is the great wealth of coal which
lies buried beneath the surface of the western half of the State.

To understand the formation of the great deposits of coal we need
to go back to an earlier chapter in the story of the rock formations of
our State, to a time long before the present landscape was formed, and
before the landscape which has been called "Old North Dakota," or
the pre-glacial landscape, was formed, back to a period whose history
is only known to us through the rocks which were then deposited. In
fact the "date" of the history we now study goes away back to the great
Middle Time of the progress of the North American Continent, and
of the World, to a time when a great Inland Sea or arm of the ocean
covered nearly half of the continent, and the rocks which are now the
shales and sandstones underlying the drift formations were being de-
posited. This is the period in the earth's history known as the Creta-
ceous Era, the closing part of the great Mesozoic, or Middle Life,
Period of the earth's history, known also as the Age of Reptiles.

The beginning of the landscape of North Dakota, as of all land-
scapes, was beneath the sea. The continents were first sea-bottoms
and afterward became the dry land. The rock layers which are passed
through in drilling an artesian well are the old mud-floors of the ancient
oceans, and the different kinds of rock in these layers and the plant and
animal remains they contain tell the history of the time in which they
were formed. The Map, Figure 112, shows the portion of North

190

THE COAL BEDS OF NORTH DAKOTA.

191

OS <S
O v

" S

a
ca ^j
2^

192

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

America in which North Dakota is embraced, and the shaded parts show
the regions covered by the sea during the Cretaceous Era.

The sea was shallow and the crust of the earth underneath, as also
the land areas of the continent, rose and sank. When an uplifting of
the region of the sea occurred the waters withdrew and the mud at the
bottom became the soil in which great forests grew. When the region
sank again these forests were submerged and were in turn buried in the
sediments deposited over them. It is to this rising and sinking of the
crust of the earth, the elevation and subsidence of large areas, that we
owe the fact of our great coal beds. When a region was elevated a
little above the level of the sea this then became a great marsh, or moist
lowland, and trees grew rapidly, forming dense forests. Then when
the region became low enough so that the sea covered it again muds
were deposited on top of the fallen trees and vegetable matter. In
the clay-beds under the coal are sometimes found the stumps of trees
standing apparently where they grew, and the trunks from such stumps
have been found above in the coal seam as coal, though still in the form
of the original tree trunk.

The fossil stumps of trees have been found in the rocks of the coal
formations of Pennsylvania in the clay under the coal, their trunks
running into the coal bed where this part has been formed into coal,
and the top extending up into the rocks over the coal as fossil or "pet-

FlG. 106. Old Sims Mining Company's Mine. A Clay and gravel. B Thin layer of coal. C Clay

and gravel. D Coal, one-half foot thick. Probably 30 feet above the thick layer I. E Clay.

F Coal, about one foot thick. Probably 10 feet above the thick layer I. G Sand and

clay. H Compact clay. I Thick layer of coal the one worked.

State Geological Survey of North Dakota,

rifled" wood. In the clays or rocks which are under and over the coal
beds logs and leaves of fern plants such as grew during that time are
sometimes found in such abundance as to make up a large part of the
mass of the rock.

The coal beds of North Dakota have a layer of clay below, and very

THE COAL BEDS OF NORTH DAKOTA. 193

commonly one above also. These clays are often called fire-clays, be-
cause some of them are valuable for pottery and earthenware, and the
manufacture of fire-brick.

How the Coal Beds Were Formed. When the sea covered any part
of the earth this region received deposits of mud and other sediments.
If the lands next to the sea were not very high the streams flowing
from them would not carry very coarse materials to the sea. Clay and
shale are composed of very fine sediments. The waves of the sea
caused by the winds and the tides would wear the bottom and shores,
and the materials so worn would become spread over the sea-bottom
as sandstones. The finer materials brought in by the rivers and the
finest parts, worn by the waves, would be carried farther out and depos-
ited as clay or shale.

Now the changes from below sea-level to above sea-level, or the
changes by which the land became covered by the sea, or the sea-bot-
tom was lifted up so as to become dry land, went on very slowly. A
change of a few inches may have occupied hundreds of years. When
the region became j.ust a little above the level of the sea and was cov-
ered with a forest of trees together with a great variety of smaller
plants, we should think of these growing and shedding their leaves
season after season, some of them falling over by storms and their
trunks becoming covered with leaves and debris, and this as going
on for a very great length of time, as we measure time in years. But
if during all this time the land was sinking slowly, so slowly that the
tree trunks and leaves added to the land just about as fast as it sank,
and the soaking of these with water prevented them from decaying,
then after a great lapse of time there would be a layer of vegetable
matter of considerable thickness all over this region, a layer of tree
trunks, stems, and leaves. If in time the sea crept in and covered this
region again, that is, if the sinking down, or subsidence, became great
enough so that the sea came in and covered it, and streams from the ad-
joining lands brought their waters and sediments into it, then all this
accumulation of vegetable material would be covered with mud or
sediments. It might be covered with such sediments as form clay or
shale, and the waves and currents might wash in more sandy materials
forming a sandstone deposit. Coal beds are found to be made up of
vegetable matter such as we have imagined in the case just described.
Logs and stumps and leaves are found in the coal beds, changed from
wood into coal; and pieces of coal which show no likeness to wood to

194 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

the naked eye, when viewed with a microscope in very thin sections,
show the structure of wood.

How the Wood Was Changed into Coal We shall now try to see how,
in the long lapse of ages since it was covered by the mud and water,
the accumulation of vegetable matter became changed into a coal bed.

Wood is composed principally of three substances, known as ele-
ments, and it may help us to better understand coal if we remember
their names. They are Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen. When wood
is burned, or when it rots in the forest, the elements of which it is com-
posed are separated, or, as the chemist would say, it is decomposed.
When it is burned in our stoves the hydrogen and oxygen are sepa-
rated from the carbon, and the former go up the chimney as water in
the form of steam. This is a part of the "smoke." Oxygen from the
air combines with the carbon and forms what is known as carbonic acid
gas. This gas goes up the chimney also as smoke.

When a tree decays in the forest it "burns up" in the same way as
in the stove except that the process is very slow. But the same
amount of heat is given off, and the water and carbonic acid gas are
formed by this slow burning, just as in the stove, the gases escaping
into the air. But when wood is buried under a great weight of mud
and water it is kept from decaying or burning up the way it would if it
were lying on the top of the ground. It is in this condition of being
entombed deep under the water and mud, shut away from the air,
under the pressure of the overlying mud (which in time has become
hardened into solid rock), and heated by the heat from the depths of the
earth, that the wood becomes transformed into coal.

By a slow process the hydrogen and oxygen are driven off from the
wood leaving most of the carbon. This carbon is the coal which w r e
obtain from the mines. Not that all of the hydrogen and oxygen are
driven off and all the carbon is left, for this is not exactly the case.
Some of the carbon is driven off in combination with some of the hyd-
rogen, in the form of oils or gases, but the carbon which remains is the
black coal. Petroleum or "coal-oil," from which kerosene and gaso-
line are obtained, is carbon and hydrogen which have been driven off
under similar conditions from animal remains entombed in the rocks.

The Different Kinds of Coal Different kinds of coal are formed ac-
cording to the conditions under which the wood is changed. In the
purest and hardest anthracite coal all the hydrogen and oxygen have
been driven off and there is left the pure carbon, except such "impuri-

THE COAL BEDS OF NORTH DAKOTA. 195

ties" as were in the wood in the form of mineral substances, for there
is some mineral in wood which forms the "ashes" when wood is burned
in the stove. Bituminous coal, or "soft coal," such as is used in steam
engines and in blacksmith shops, contains a good deal of hydrogen in
combination with carbon in the form of oils. This is what makes it
so "dirty" to handle and causes the black sooty smoke in burning.
Lignite coal (from Lignum, meaning wood) is a good deal more like
the original wood. It has been changed much less than has bituminous
coal, and peat has been changed still less.

There are all stages or degrees in the process of change in the coals
found in the different parts of the world. Peat is dead vegetable mat-
ter which has become water-soaked and buried away from the air at the
bottom of a slough or "bog." Lignite may be so little changed that
fibers of the wood can still be seen, and knots and branches remain in
the form in which they grew. There is also lignite which is more like
bituminous coal, more oily, and not showing very clear traces of the
woody fiber. Bituminous, or soft coals, have many degrees o-f "soft-
ness," that is, some contain more and some less of the volatile oils of
carbon and hydrogen. (Volatile means flying away, because these oils
quickly pass off in the form of gas when heated.) Those which con-
tain less oil are more like anthracite, and so also there are grades of
anthracite ranging all the w^ay from the harder bituminous grades,
which contain a little oil, to the hardest "diamond anthracite," which
is nearly pure carbon.

The essential difference, therefore, between the various grades of
lignite, bituminous, and anthracite coal lies in the extent to which the
processes of change by which the volatile oils have been driven off have
gone. Peat might be transformed into lignite, lignite into bituminous,
and bituminous into anthracite, if the proper conditions of heat and
pressure, away from air, could be supplied. The anthracite coal de-
posits are in the regions w r here mountain upheavals have occurred.
The heat, which attends the upheaval of mountains, produces the
change in the coal which is deeply buried beneath a great weight of over-
lying rocks. There is no anthracite coal in North Dakota because no
mountain-making upheavals have occurred within the region of this
State.

Thus we see that there is a long series of varieties, or kinds, of coal,
all formed from vegetable matter which has been changed from its
original condition as wood by a slow transforming process of decompo-

196

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

sition under heat and pressure, and sealed up from the air. The wood\
stems and leaves falling upon the ground and becoming water-soaked,
or carried upon ponds as "floating islands" and finally sinking as peat
in bogs, forests building up accumulations of trunks and twigs many
feet in thickness over the surface of the low marshy ground, these are
the beginnings of the long series of coal formations in which North
Dakota lignite represents one of the stages, and following this the
many varieties of bituminous coal which include all degrees from the
higher grades of lignite to bituminous and semi-bituminous, and the
lower grades of anthracite, and finally the hardest diamond anthracite.
The "Western Coal Measures." The rock formations in which the
great western coal fields of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana,

FIG. 107. An Outcropping of Coal on the Missouri River.
State Geological Survey of Nortli Dakota.

Wyoming, and Colorado occur have been called the "Western Coal
Measures" to distinguish them from the older "Coal Measures" of
Pennsylvania and the eastern states, which belong to an earlier Time
in Geological History. The rocks in which the western coal deposits
occur belong mostly to the Cretaceous Era, whereas the eastern coal
fields belong in the rock formations of the Carboniferous Era.

There is some question whether the North Dakota coal beds are
buried in rocks which were deposited during the closing portion of the
Cretaceous Era, the Age of Reptiles, or whether they belong to the
earlier part of the next later era, the Tertiary, or Age of Mammals.
The rocks are known as the Laramie Formation, and this is generally
considered to belong with the Cretaceous, though the Laramie Forma-

THE COAL BEDS OF NORTH DAKOTA. 197

tion seems to mark the transition, or crossing over r between the Creta-
ceous and the Tertiary Eras.

The highland in the western part of the State, the great Missouri
Plateau, the Coteau du Missouri, embracing the western one-third of
the State, is composed of the strata or rock layers of the Laramie group.
Just how far these rocks extend east of the foot of the great plateau
front into the basin of the James River we do not know with certainty,
for they are mostly covered with drift so as not to be easily seen, but
they probably extend east nearly to a line dividing the State into east and
west halves.

Coal beds which are profitable for mining occur in the Turtle Moun-
tains, and very extensive mines are worked on the upper Mouse River
at Burlington and on the Des Lacs River at Kenmare, in the great
valley which lies between the Turtle Mountains and the eastern edge
of the Missouri Plateau. The Mouse and Des Lacs Valleys are cut
down considerably below the drift, and the tunnels to the mines are
made from the hillsides along the valleys.

The occurrence of mines in these valleys would seem to show that
the "Coal Measures" extend across the broad valley from the Missouri
Plateau to the Turtle Mountains. The opening of profitable mines
near Harvey, in Wells county, indicates that the rocks in which the
coal beds occur extend as far east as the upper James River.

Lignite coal has been found in some of the lower groups of rocks
of the Cretaceous. The Fort Benton formation has furnished coal in
some of the states farther west, but this formation is deeply buried in
North Dakota. The formations lying next above the Fort Benton and
below the Laramie, are the Niobrara, the Fort Pierre, and the Fox Hills.
These formations are marine or sea-bottom formations, for fossils of
sea-animals are found in the rocks. It seems, therefore, that North
Dakota was covered by water too deep for the formation of coal beds
from the accumulation of vegetable matter during the time these rocks
were being deposited.

The Laramie rocks at the top of the Cretaceous series are mostly
fresh water formations, with beds of coal, formed when North Dakota,
or at least its western half, was just emerging from its long burial un-
der the sea during the time in which the marine, or salt-sea forma-
tions, the Fort Benton, the Niobrara, the Fort Pierre, and the Fox
Hills, were being formed. The beds of coal were formed when the
land was being alternately lifted a little above and then sinking a little

198

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

THE COAL BEDS OF NORTH DAKOTA.

199

below sea-level. The conditions for the gathering" of thick layers of
wood, and leaves, and stems of small plants, were favorable during" the
Laramie epoch (an epoch is the time during which a formation is being
deposited). The marshes remained marshes for a long time, and the
peat-bogs continued to gather woody materials during long periods,
before being buried beneath sediments. The gathering of the woody
matter in broad shallow lakes, forming peat-bogs, explains why beds
of coal are often not continuous for long distances, but occur in beds
which are thicker toward the center and thin out toward the edges.

F --

FIG. iog. Mouse River Lignite Coal Company's Mine. A Prairie boulders, sand and yellow clay, 30 to

60 feet. B Coal, one foot. C Sand and clay, D Sandstone, E Sand and clay, about 20

teet. F Coal, one and one-half feet. G Sand and yellow clay, about 15 feet.

H Gray clay, 20 feet. I Blue clay, 13 feet. J Coal, 10 feet.

State Geological Survey of North Dakota.

This also explains why there may not be the same series of coal
beds one above another in different regions. The beds run out hori-
zontally, and so there may be more or fewer seams or beds in a vertical
section in one place than another. It explains also why there may be
differences in the quality of coal from different sections, and from dif-
ferent seams, or beds, in the same section. It would seem likely that

200

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

not only higher and lower beds would be struck in different parts of
the State, as well as in the same section, but different beds might be at
nearly or quite the same level, though many miles apart. Fifteen to
twenty seams or beds varying from an inch to twenty-six feet in thick-
ness have been found to occur in a vertical distance of 1,000 feet in
this formation in the states farther west. The thickness of the Laramie
formation is much greater farther west than in North Dakota, but it
is estimated to be about 1,000 feet in thickness in this State.

Sections showing the coal beds and rock layers above and below
at several mines are given in the accompanying figures.

E
F

FlG. no. Section at Lehigh Mine. A About 25 feet clay and gravel. B About one foot coal,

C About 25 feet, clay, etc. D About two feet coal. E About 30 feet clay, etc.

F About three to five feet compact (gray) clay. G About 10 to 15 feet coal.

State Geological Survey of North Dakota.

The following table shows the elevations above sea-level of railroad
stations nearest to several mines in different parts of the State, These
figures do not show the exact elevations of the coal beds, but they give
some suggestions of the vertical range of the coal beds of the State.
The openings leading into the mines are in most cases near the stations.

THE COAL BEDS OF NORTH DAKOTA. 201

Elevations Above
Stations. Sea-Level.

Harvey i ,596 feet.

Davis (near Minot) !>573 "

Burlington 1,590 "

Kenmare I >799 "

Williston 1,859 "

Bismarck 1,668 "

Wilton 2,158 "

Sims T 958 "

Lehigh (near Dickinson) 2,342 "

The accompanying Map of the State shows the area where coal has
been mined, and where there is not much doubt but that it can be found
wherever ?. stream cuts deeply into the rock layers, or wherever a shaft
may be sunk.

In the Bad Lands In the Bad Lands where the streams have cut
deeply into the strata, coal beds are frequently seen in the sides of the
buttes. They range in thickness from an inch or less to six or eight
feet, or even more. It is a common thing for the ranchmen in this
part of the State to have coal mines on their own lands or within short
distances of their houses, so that they haul their fuel supply directly
from the mines, shoveling it at first hand into wagons, just as in the
eastern states farmers go to the woodlands on their own farms for loads
of wood. Sometimes a coal bed is cut across by a small stream on the
bank of which stands the house, so that coal is brought directly from
the mine in the coal-pail and put into the stove! The writer has
stopped at a ranche for dinner while traveling in this part of the State,
and when fuel was wanted for the kitchen stove a small boy was de-
spatched to the coal mine in the back yard to get the coal! It is not a
joke that in digging a cellar for a house a coal bed may be dug into
only a little below the surface, so that in the winter the owner of the
house may go to the coal mine after a scuttle of coal without even
going out of his own house!

A point of advantage the western farmer has over his eastern cousin
lies in the fact that in the west the fuel comes from a forest which lived
and flourished thousands of years ago, and the land at the surface, over
the coal bed, may be cultivated, or used for grazing, while at the same
time the coal forest underneath furnishes the supply of fuel. But in
the east the woodland occupies a special preserve so that the land can-
not be used for farming purposes!

CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.

THE BEGINNINGS OF NORTH DAKOTA.

The Sea Bottom on Which the Rocks Were Deposited The great In-
land Sea in which the rock formations of North Dakota were laid down
as sediments extended from eastern Minnesota over North Dakota
and Montana to Idaho and Washington, and south to northern Texas.

FIG. in Generalized Section across Northern Portion of North Dakota, showing the Formations.

From a Crayon Drawing by Miss Bessie M. Willis and the Author.

Re-drawn by Prof. Thomas H. Grosvenor.

Into this great sea were borne the sediments from the surrounding
land areas, and the waves of the great shallow sea beat upon the shores
and eroded the rocks into sand and mud and distributed them over its
bottom, forming the rocks which now make up the sandstones and
shales of the Cretaceous series, or system. North Dakota was then
all under water.

The Cretaceous system, or series of rocks, is divided into Lower

THE BEGINNINGS OF NORTH DAKOTA. 203

and Upper, the basis of this separation being the different conditions of
the sea bottom during the earlier and later times of the Cretaceous
Era. The Lower Cretaceous rocks do not, so far as we know, occur
in North Dakota. The division into Lower and Upper is, therefore,
made from the rocks in other states. The Upper Cretaceous, or what
will here be called simply the "Cretaceous" series of rocks, is subdivided
into several formations, each distinguished by certain characteristics
which separate it from the others. The lowest of these formations,
the Dakota Sandstone, is at the bottom of the series, so far as we have
got down to the "bottom" in North Dakota. The other formations
follow in the order in which they were deposited from below up, each
formation being described as "shale" or "sandstone," etc., according
to the kind of rock most common in that formation. A "shale" forma-
tion often contains some sandstone, however, and a "sandstone" forma-
tion often has layers of shale. Clays occur also in nearly all the
formations. The thickness so far as it is known is given for each
formatioi

The Geological Formations. Thickness.
6. Laramie Sandstone, Shale, and Clay, with

Lignite Coal 1,000 feet.

5. Fox Hills Sandstone 100 "

4. Fort Pierre Shale, with Beds of Clay 600 "

3. Niobrara Shale, Calcareous (Lime) 150-200 "

2. Fort Benton Shale 200 "

i. Dakota Sandstone, with Lignite Beds 600 "

The Fort Benton and Niobrara formations are together called the
Colorado formation, and the Fort Pierre and Fox Hills formations
are together called the Montana formation, in the western states, but
in North Dakota it seems more convenient to use the names and
divisions here given.

The total thickness of all the Cretaceous series in North Dakota
is thus seen to be nearly 3,000 feet. These formations, however, are
thinner to\vard the east. The artesian wells at Devils Lake and James-
town passed through about i ,400 feet from the upper layers of the Fort
Pierre Shale to the Dakota Sandstone.

When, in speaking of the rocks which come to the surface, or out-
crop, at any place, any one of these names is given to the rocks, it
shows in what part of the Cretaceous series it belongs, and hence
whether it is older or more recent than some other of the series. The

204 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

lowest was deposited first, and, therefore, is the oldest, and so on up
through the series.

The lowest and oldest, the Dakota Sandstone, and the highest and
most recent, the Laramie Sandstone, are fresh-water or brackish
formations, that is, they were deposited as sediments either in ponds
and pools of fresh water, of else upon the bottom of a very shallow
sea in which the water was only slightly salt, or brackish. The land
now embraced in North Dakota was slowly sinking, and the sea was
creeping upon the land when the Dakota Sandstone was being formed.
The land was rising, and the sea was drying off from the bottom when
the Laramie rocks were deposited and the great forests grew which
formed the coal beds. The other formations, those formed after the
Dakota Sandstone and before the Laramie, are marine or sea forma-
tions deposited when the whole region of North Dakota was a sea
bottom.

It is to the fact that the rocks of the Fort Benton, Niobrara, Fort
Pierre, and Fox Hills formations are salt sea sediments that the \vater
of the lakes and streams of a large part of the State contain so much salt
and alkali. The salt and alkaline substances were in the sea water,
and so, as the sediments were deposited, they were saturated with salt
and alkali water, and when the sea dried off from the mud and sand of
the bottom, and these became the shales and sandstones of these forma-
tions, they contained the salts and alkalies which now dissolve out into
the waters of the lakes and streams.

The highland which formed the western shore of Lake Agassiz,
extending from the Pembina Mountain on the north to the Coteau des
Prairies on the south, called the Manitoba Escarpment, is an outcrop-
ping of the edges of the horizontal layers, mostly of the Fort Pierre
formation. This outcropping was caused by the erosion of the great
pre-glacial valley in which now lie the level prairies of the bottom of
Lake Agassiz.

We have seen how this great valley was filled with the ice of the
Great Ice-Sheet, and how as the ice melted this basin came to be filled
with \vater because the course of the river to the northward was blocked
by the ice, and Lake Agassiz came to occupy the great valley, its
western shore being ^the escarpment, or cut off edges, of the Fort
Pierre, Niobrara, and Fort Benton formations. We are now study-
ing a much earlier period, when the rocks were deposited in which the
valley was afterward cut.

THE BEGINNINGS OF NORTH DAKOTA.

The "Manitoba Escarpment." The great Inland Sea during the Cre-
taceous Era spread over all of North Dakota and a large part of Minne-
sota, although all of Minnesota, and probably a little of the eastern
edge of North Dakota, had before been raised above sea-level so that
it had been dry land. But the Dakota Sandstone was deposited
over a large part of western Minnesota, showing that the sea not only

North.A7n.encd in tKe Cretaceous $rd.
Areas Covered by

FIG. 112. After Dana.

covered North Dakota and the states west to where the Rocky Moun-
tains are now, but extended east, covering much of Minnesota. So
the sea-bottom formations, the Fort Benton, Niobrara, Fort Pierre,
and probably the Fox Hills, were deposited over all of North Dakota
and western Minnesota, but during the long period following the Cre-
taceous Era, known as the Tertiary Era, and before the time of the

206 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

Glacial Period, the great valley of the Old Red River of the North was
eroded, carrying away the sediments which had been deposited over
eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota, so that the outcrop-
ping edges of these formations now occur along the west side of the
Red River Valley. '

The strata, or layers, which are at the top of this highland under-
lying the drift in its northern and higher portion, the Pembina Moun-
tain, and extending south more than half way across the State, and also
the outcropping edges along the northern half of the highland, are Fort
Pierre shales. The Niobrara and Fort Benton formations outcrop lower
down on the old valley wall, but they are deeply buried by the drift so
that we do not readily see them. About ten miles east of Lisbon, be-
low the Big Bend, just after the Sheyenne River enters upon the plain
of the Lake Agassiz bottom, this river has cut a deep gorge in the Fort
Benton shale. This formation is also penetrated in drilling artesian
wells in the southeastern part of the State, lying beneath the drift.

The Dakota Sandstone forms the floor of the old Valley beneath
the great depth of drift in the part of its course lying between Grand
Forks and Larimore and southward to Casselton and Fargo, though
patches of shale, which are probably Fort Benton, were struck by arte-
sian wells at Fargo and Mayville. These probably represent the tops
of higher places or low hills on the old (or pre-glacial) valley bottom.
Farther south in the higher part of the old valley the floor of the valley
is probably the Fort Benton shale. This shale is struck by artesian
wells in the vicinity of Wahpeton. In the lower (northern) portion of
the valley the floor is older rock than the Dakota Sandstone, the arte-
sian well at Grafton passing through the drift into limestone belonging
to the Lower Silurian, which is much older than the Cretaceous. The
section through the formations of the northern part of the State (Figure
74) will make this more clear.

West of the Manitoba Escarpment, in the central portion of the
State, the eroded surface of the Fo-rt Pierre and Fox Hills formations
underlie the drift. The Sheyenne, James, and Mouse Rivers have cut
down their channels in many places so that the strata of these forma-
tions have been cut into. The deep valley of the Sheyenne River has
cut into the Fort Pierre Shale through much of its course from Devils
Lake south to the Big Bend east of Lisbon, and a large amount of shale
was added to the Sheyenne Delta, eroded along the course of this val-
ley during the time of the glacial flood waters. The Valley of the

THE BEGINNINGS OF NORTH DAKOTA. 207

James is not nearly as deep, and is cut through much of its course in
North Dakota in the Fox Hills Sandstone.

The Fox Hills Sandstone extends east underneath the drift prob-
ably nearly to Devils Lake. From the fact of this sandstone being the
surface rock from the vicinity of the Turtle Mountains south across the
State, comes the sandy character of the drift hills, and the tracts of
sand dunes along the eastern side of the old Lake Souris bottom, the
soft sand-rock being easily ploughed up by the moving ice-sheet, and
dumped in the lake by the melting of the ice.

The Missouri Plateau Farther west rises abruptly the great hill-
country known as the Plateau du Coteau du Missouri, or the Plateau
of the Missouri Hills. This highland is composed of Laramie rock-
strata, and the sudden rise from the lower land of the James and Shey-
enne Valleys of 300 to 400 feet is due to the erosion of the eastward
continuation of these rocks, just as the Fort Pierre, and the formations
below it, in the eastern part of the State, were eroded by the pre-glacial
Red River of the North, forming the Manitoba Escarpment.

The Turtle Mountains, on the International Boundary about mid-
way between the Coteau du Missouri and Pembina Mountain, is a
plateau of Laramie strata, surrounded on all sides by great wide-spread-
ing prairies, the old valley bottoms of the rivers which eroded the inte-
rior portion of the State, and carried away the upper part of the Fox
Hills and Fort Pierre formations, in the region east of these moun-
tains, and the Laramie strata west to the highland of the Coteau du
Missouri. Thus the Turtle Mountain Plateau is a fragment of the
great Missouri Plateau which was not carried away by the erosion-
which lowered the whole country round about it.

Dog Den Butte, the Mauvais or Big Butte, south of Church's Ferry
and Leeds, and probably Devils Heart and Sully's Hill south of Devils
Lake, are fragments of the Laramie strata of the great Missouri Plateau
which have not been entirely carried away by erosion.

All the great plateau country to the westward is Laramie. The
Bad Lands along the Little Missouri River, and the Yellowstone in
Montana, are Laramie rocks, made up of sandstones, shales, and clays,
with beds of coal and lava. This great upper part of the Cretaceous
series or system of rocks extends westward to the Rocky Mountains.
It extended once much farther east than now also, and it probably cov-
ered all the State. At least it reached farther east than the Turtle
Mountains, for the form of this plateau shows that the rock layers once

208

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

66V

: C2L

L , I

150 fetf

fir far $tr*1'if't

Chy, {fydnyin

to 71/1 5 flow.

Ml fett

DRIFT

ftfaf
4 f feet

sfafe

Mferf
Red

Jejti(f~

JfCfff

LOWER
BILUmH

UPPER
CAMBRIA

ARCH EM

FlG. 113. Section showing the Rock Formations passed through by the Artesian Well
at Grafton. After Upham.

THE BEGINNINGS OF NORTH DAKOTA. 209

extended farther east. This broad valley between the Turtle Moun-
tains and the Missouri Plateau was eroded during the same time that
the Old Red River Valley was being formed farther east.

The Older Rocks Underlying the Eastern Portion of the State, Below

the Dakota Sandstone in the Red River Valley are still older rock
formations. The Jura-Trias, the Carboniferous, the Devonian, the
Silurian, the Cambrian, and finally the oldest of all, and the oldest in
the world, the Archaean, lie one below another under the rocks of the
State, and their thinner eastern edges extend along the eastern portion
of the State. These are shown by borings for artesian wells. An arte-
sian well at Graf ton, 915 feet deep, after passing through nearly 300
feet of drift penetrates several older formations, into the granite at the
bottom, which may indeed be called "the bottom," for it was the first
formed and hence the oldest of all the solid rocks of the earth.

This oldest Archaean granite comes to the surface in Minnesota
about Lake Superior, and northward in Canada. It was the old, first
beginning of the Continent, being at first an island raised above the sea.
Other formations lie all around it and flank or lap upon its sides. The
ice of the Great Ice-Sheet ploughed its way across it and broke off huge
masses, which are the "hard-head" boulders now scattered over the
prairies.

West of Winnipeg in Canada the Silurian, which is a limestone for-
mation, is the surface rock, and from it were broken off and carried
away limestone fragments by the great ice-plow, and these were ground
up to make the fertile wheat lands of our State. Many of them are
scattered over the prairies, not having been entirely ground up by the
ice-mill. Boulders of the softer and more easily crumbling shales and
sandstones were soon broken and pulverized into clay or ground into
sand.

How Old Is North Dakota ? It is natural to ask how long ago it was
that the great Inland Sea covered North Dakota, and how long it has
been since the forests grew which have become the coal beds. It is a
fair enough question, and one which any thoughtful person is bound
to ask, in his mind at least. But it is one which the most learned scien-
tist cannot answer with accuracy, as time is measured in years. We do
not know how long it is since civilization began upon the earth because
we have not a written record from the beginning. We can only infer
from the marks left in buildings and implements and other things which
show man's handiwork. So we can only infer from the great handi-

210 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

work of Nature how long the time has been that geologic processes
have been fashioning the -earth. We do not know how long the time
has been since the Glacial Period, or Ice Age, but we know that it is
only a little while as compared with the time since the coal beds of
North Dakota were formed.

Many attempts have been made to get a basis of comparison by
which the time since the Ice Age could be measured in years, but no
conclusion which can be considered as fact has been reached. Nothing
more than estimates can be said to have been made. A method of
studying the problem is this: The gorge of the Mississippi River from
Fort Snelling to the Falls of St. Anthony has been formed since the
closing stages of the Ice Age. This is known because the River was
forced out of its old channel by the drift which filled its valley, and
when the river re-entered its old channel at Fort Snelling a "falls" was
formed. The falls have been "moving back," by cutting the rock ledge
over which the water passes, ever since that time. The gorge at
Niagara Falls, New York, has been formed in a similar manner, the
gorge having been cut back from Lewiston to the present cataract.
Now it would seem a simple matter to see how far the falls cut back in
one year, and then by measuring the length of the gorge (from Fort
Snelling to the falls at Minneapolis, or from Lewiston to the Niagara
cataract), divide this distance by the amount of cutting in one year.
This would give the time in years since the close of the Ice Age. But
the problem is not as simple as it may at first appear. Geologists have
reached estimates ranging from 6,000 to 10,000 years (Upham) to more
than 30,000 years (Gilbert). So that the result at best is only an esti-
mate.

But suppose we assume a rather low estimate of 10,000 years for
the time since the close of the Ice Age, then how long has it been since
the coal beds were formed during the closing stages of the Cretaceous
era? How long was North Dakota under the sea after the Dakota
Sandstone had been deposited, while the salt and alkaline sediments,
which now make up the shales and sandstones of the Fort Benton, Nio-
brara, Fort Pierre and Fox Hills formations, were being deposited?
Attempts have been made to estimate the length of geologic periods
by measurements of the rate of accumulation of sediments on the sea
bottom at the present time, but these estimates are quite as variable as
those of the time required for the cutting of the gorges referred to.
Without considering the methods of computing by which the estimates

THE BEGINNINGS OF NORTH DAKOTA. 211

have been made we may think of the time of the Ice Age, that is, the
length of time that the cold of the Glacial Period continued, as five to ten
times as long as the time since the ice finally melted, or the time dur-
ing which the gorge of the Mississippi River below Minneapolis, and
the Niagara gorge from the Falls to Lewiston, were being cut, or 50,000
to 100,000 years (Upham, Prestwich). The time since the formation
of the coal beds in North Dakota would be from fifteen to twenty-five or
thirty times as long as that which has passed since the beginning of the
Glacial Period, or nearly 300 times as long as the time since the ice finally
melted away and Lake Agassiz began to drain toward the north and the
present Red River Valley began to appear as dry land.* This would make
the age of the shales and sandstones and coal beds of North Dakota nearly
3,000,000 years, and the time during which the salt-sea sediments which
occur between the Dakota Sandstone and the Coal Measures, the Fort Ben-
ton, Niobrara, Fort Pierre and Fox Hills formations were being formed,
may have been 1,000,000 years.f Of course, no one knows how long
it has been. These figures are only estimates, but they will at least serve
as a suggestion that time is long. They should not be taken by the
reader as settled facts, for they are not. But that geologic time is im-
mensely long as compared with human standards of years we may safely
admit.

Perhaps a better idea of the great length of geologic time may be
gained from this, that the greater part of the Rocky Mountain region
was under the sea during the Cretaceous era and perhaps till after the
depositing of the rock strata of the Laramie formation with its coal
beds in North Dakota. In fact, it is likely that the great uplift by
which the Laramie rocks in North Dakota were raised so that the
region became dry land was a part of the beginning of the great move-
ment by which the Rocky Mountains were heaved up. And since the
Laramie strata were deposited and the coal beds were buried the region
of the Colorado Canons has been elevated from 10,000 to 11,000 feet,
and erosion has cut down 10,000 feet (Dutton). And in British Col-
umbia it is estimated that an elevation of 32,000 to 35,000 feet has
taken place since Cretaceous time, and canons 5,000 to 6,000 feet deep
have been eroded (G. M. Dawson).

* Based on Walcott's estimate of the length of Caenozoic Time, and Upham's esti-
mate of the length of Glacial and Post-Glacial Time.

f Based on Walcott's estimate of 27,240,000 years for the whole of Mesozoic Time.

212

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.
THE COTEAUS OF THE MISSOURI.

What the Coteaus Are A great region lying east of the Missouri
River was called by the early French explorers "Les Coteaux du Plateau
du Missouri," or The Hills of the Missouri Plateau. In. the popular
mind the hills or "coteaus" and the plateau are often confused, the term
"coteaus" being applied to the great hilly upland, which is really the
plateau, while the coteaus, or hills, are a surface feature of the plateau.

A glance at the accompanying diagram (Figure 114) will assist in
making this relation clear. It will be seen that the plateau is of immense
size as compared with the largest hills of the "coteaus." The plateau
is made up largely of layers or strata of sandstone or shale rock, these
layers or strata being in nearly horizontal position, as they were laid
down upon the bottom of the ancient sea. The sloping front of the
plateau is simply the place where these rock layers come to an end. These
strata of rock once extended farther east, we do not know how far, but
probably a good many miles. The great sea bottom upon which they
were deposited probably extended over nearly or quite all of North
Dakota. The great basin known as the Mouse River Valley and also
the basin of James River, were formed by erosion, or the wearing
away of the rocks by the action of streams and the weathering processes,
long after the sea had disappeared and the sands and muds of the ancient
bottom had become dry land. A great uplift of the crust of the earth
such as that which made the sea bottom dry land, raised the land high
enough so that it is a plateau, an elevated plain instead of simply a plain.

When the front of the plateau is spoken of, by' this is meant the cut-
off edges of the strata of the eastern part of the plateau. Crossing the
State of North Dakota from the northwest corner south and east to
about the middle point of the southern boundary is the edge of the
plateau. The rock layers of which the plateau is composed might pro-
ject out, or come to the surface in an outcropping of rock, only that
a great mantle of drift covers the whole region. The coteaus are the
hills of a terminal moraine, and these are on the plateau, but they are

213

214 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

no part of the plateau proper. Look now at the diagram (Figure 114)
and recall what a terminal moraine is, and if need be re-read Chapter
Five, and it will be clear what is meant by "the coteaus" as distinguished
from the Missouri Plateau.

"Les Coteaux du Plateau du Missouri" may be briefly and for con-
venience styled the coteaus of the Missouri, or the Missouri coteaus:
Les Coteaux des Prairies, commonly called the Coteau des Prairies,
should be carefully distinguished from Les Coteaux du Missouri, or the
Missouri Coteaus. The former is another and quite different feature of
the landscape of the States of North and South Dakota. The Coteau
des Prairies is an immense hill many times larger than any one of the
Missouri coteaus, though not as large as the Missouri Plateau. It lies
mostly in northeastern South Dakota, but extends across the boundary
into North Dakota in Sargent County. The Coteau des Prairies is a
large preglacial hill, having its surface covered with a mantle of drift.
Some of the drift is in the form of morainic hills much like the coteaus
of the Missouri, only not generally as large. The Coteaus of the Mis-
souri are morainic hills. There are also morainic hills on the Coteau
des Prairies.

Le Plateau du Missouri, or the Missouri Plateau, as has been stated,
is a vast upland of preglacial origin. The eastern edge of this upland
extends across North Dakota in a generally northwest and southeast
direction. The front rises quite abruptly from the plain to the east from
300 to 400 feet. This steep slope or front appears west of Ellendale,
Edgeley, Jamestown, Carrington, Fessenden, Minot and P'ortal, distant
from these places twenty to thirty miles.

Lying on the top of the plateau is a great belt or tract of hills,
drift hills, formed by the action of the great ice sheet, which together
make up what is known as a moraine. This moraine in North Dakota
is a portion of the great continental moraine which was formed during
what is known as the Wisconsin stage of the great ice age. This
moraine extends across the continent from the Canadian northwest ter-
ritories to the Atlantic ocean. The moraine in North Dakota is no more
a part of the great Missouri plateau than is this same moraine in Penn-
sylvania a part of the Allegheny Plateau. The moraine is a deposit of
earth materials stones, clay, sand and soil ploughed up and trans-
ported by the great moving ice sheet, and left in heaps and piles or
spread out as rolling prairie, to a depth of thirty to 100 or even 150 feet.

THE COTEAUS OF THE MISSOURI

215

216 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

The continental moraine in North Dakota lies in such relation to the
plateau that it suggests that something more than accident caused the
moraine to lie just upon the edge of the plateau through a distance of
300 miles in North Dakota. The front or edge of the plateau, it has
been stated before, extends across the state in a northwest-southeast
direction. The moraine also extends across the state, lying almost par-
allel to the edge of the plateau, and nowhere more than a few miles
back from the slope which marks the edge of the plateau. Often in
fact the coteaus or hills of the moraine are encountered immediately upon
entering upon the higher lands of the plateau top

The direction of movement of the ice in this part of North America
was probably nearly at right angles to the front of the great plateau so
that when the great ice sheet, in its onward course toward the south and
west, flowed against the edge of the plateau, which, as has been stated,
was 300 to 400 feet high, this, acting as a great wall or barrier, served as
a dam to hold back the ice. Thus it came about that the moraine occurs
along the edge of the plateau, because the ice could not advance beyond
this position.

It will be remembered that a terminal moraine is formed when the
edge of the ice is stationary, that is, when the conditions are such that
the ice melts at the margin as fast as the general mass moves onward.
Because of the fact that the great plateau existed in the western half of
North Dakota, the southwestern portion of the state was not passed over
by the great ice sheet.

It is because of the occurrence of the moraine upon the edge of the
plateau that so much confusion has arisen regarding the true nature of
the coteaus. The term "coteaus" has been applied to the hills in this
region. The altitude of the plateau above the prairie to the eastward
has easily made this seem a part of "the hills," whereas the coteaus are
hills on the top of the plateau and entirely different in their origin.

The extent of territory embraced by this great moraine within the
vState of North Dakota is probably approximately 7,000 square miles.
This region was for many years mostly a grazing range, native grasses
adapted during the ages to the soil conditions of such a landscape grow-
ing in abundance, and eaten by the herds of cattle and horses which
during the last thirty to forty years have succeeded the herds of buf-
falo and antelope that formerly roamed and grazed on these lands. The
agricultural value of the lands was an unknown factor. The ranchman

THE COTEAUS OF THE MISSOURI. 217

was the only settler. Little was known of the character of the lands,
and little question was asked by homeseekers about these lands because
there were other lands open to homestead entry that were thought to be
more desirable.

Within the last few years the desire for free homestead lands has led
to the settlement of these lands by farmers. The region was long
regarded as adapted only to grazing, and no attempt at general farm-
ing was made until quite recent years. The settlement of even a small
portion of the land by farmers overthrows the large ranching enter-
prises where cattle, horses and sheep in great herds wandered at will
over a range unbounded by fences.

An Unique Part of North Dakota. The region known as "the
coteaus" is unlike any other part of North Dakota. There are other
morainic lands in the State, but none that can vie with this region in
rugged character, in abundance of the number of sloughs and lakes, and
in the "everlasting monotony." It is not like the rugged hill-land west
of the Missouri River, for there the hills tend to have flat tops, and the
land is nearly all drained by streams and is often dissected by deep
coulees. The hills west of the Missouri River are for the most part
hills of erosion, and crags of sandstone and hard layers of rock project
in shelves from the tops and sides of the butte-like hills. Among the
coteaus streams are unknown. The hills are all rounded in form, and
never flat on their tops. Rock ledges or shelf rock never project from
the sides or tops of these hills, and their tops and sides are often strewn
with boulders of granite and other rocks unlike any that are native to
this region.

This region is one that marks the halting-place of the great con-
tinental ice sheet in its passage across the northern portion of North
America, and here was deposited the great mass of morainic material
rocks, sand, gravel, clay and soil ; huge boulders so hard that they would
phase the hardest stone-cutter's chisel and weighing many tons side by
side with small rounded pebbles and sand grains; masses of clay and
soil piled in heaps; hollows filled with water or grown up with reeds
and .rushes.

It is truly the region of hills coteaus. They are the coteaus of the
Missouri Plateau because they are on the plateau. They are the high-
est and most rugged of morainic hills in the state because they were

218 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

formed at the edge of the great ice sheet at a stage when the edge
remained stationary for a longer time than at any other stage.

The Region Described The region to which this chapter refers
embraces a somewhat indefinitely limited tract which crosses the State
from the northwest corner east and south to the State boundary in
Emmons and Mclntosh Counties. The tract extends eastward from
the Missouri River, and varies from forty to sixty miles in width, and
erribraces the greater part of Williams County, about one-half of Ward,
nearly all of McLean, a portion of Wells, most of Burleigh, all of Kid-
der, the western half of Stutsman, Emmons, Logan and Mclntosh, and
the western portions of LaMoure and Dickey Counties.

In this region are embraced three types of landscape: (a) The
eastern slope of the edge of the Missouri Plateau, a region which was
passed over by the ice, but which is not marked by moraines; (b) a
region of rugged morainic hills closely set with lakes and sloughs, the
coteaus; and (c) a region marked by broad and deep channels with
little water, known as the "Missouri Slope," which lies outside, or west
of the great moraine or coteaus, a region over which the watery from the
melting ice of the great glacier passed on their way to the Missouri
River.

The first of these regions, the plateau front the region that would
show outcropping ledges of rock if it were not covered with the drift of
ground moraine is dissected by coulees. It has no lakes or sloughs,
or exceedingly few. The coulees are deep, due to the fall from the high
plateau region toward the Mouse and Des Lacs Valleys. This region is
comparatively well drained.

The highland of the Missouri Plateau rises distinctly upon the hori-
zon in the west, and confronts the eye boldly from the vicinity of Ellen-
dale, Edgeley, the prairie outside the valley at Jamestown, from nearly
any point on the Jamestown Northern Branch of the Northern Pacific
from a few miles north of Jamestown to Carrington, and from the car
window nearly all the way along the Soo Line from Carrington to Por-
tal, except in the vicinity of Minot, where the deep valleys of the Mouse
and Des Lacs Rivers cut off the view.

The second, or morainic, type of landscape, the coteaus, embraces an
irregular belt generally from ten to twenty or thirty miles in width, lying
west of the plateau front. Here will be observed an utter absence of
streams or coulees, but many lakes and sloughs. This broad but irregu-

THE COTEAUS OF THE MISSOURI. 219

lar tract of hilly land divides the western portion of North Dakota from
the eastern by a natural division. This hilly region forms the divide or
watershed that parts the drainage of the continent between Hudson's Bay
and the' Gulf of Mexico in the northern part of the State, and that
between the Missouri and the James Rivers in the southern part. In this
belt, however, there is no drainage whatever. The hills and hollows
are scattered in confusion. Many of the hollows contain water, and are
therefore lakes. Others are hay-sloughs only. The lakes often occur
at different levels within short distances, yet with no drainage from one
to the other. There are no streams among the coteaus. East of this

FIG. 116. A Small Lake in Morainic District.

hilly region the land is drained, the waters ultimately becoming a part
of the Hudson Bay drainage. The streams that flow westward from the
coteaus are tributaries of the Missouri River, and so> finally discharge
into* the Gulf of Mexico.

The third type is that of the "Slope" region. This is the region that
lies between the coteaus, or the great moraine, and the Missouri River,
and was, therefore, crossed by the waters that came from the melting
of the great ice sheet during the time that the coteaus were being formed.
It is the eastern drainage area of the Missouri River now as it was in
the time w r hen the ice waters were seeking escape to the river.

220 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

The Eastern Slope It will be observed that there are but few
streams having their heads in the coteaus and flowing eastward. What-
ever stream valleys may have once been there have been filled with drift
so that they no longer appear. East of the plateau front are the large
valleys of the Des Lacs, Mouse, Sheyenne, James and Pipestem Rivers.
These show the tremendous work of erosion that was accomplished by
the waters from the melting ice, for their valleys are broad and deep
beyond all comparison with the rivers now occupying them. They are
glacial channels cut by the flood waters from the melting ice. They
have been eroded 100 to 200 feet into the plain that lies east of the great
Missouri Plateau. Their bottoms are often below the lowest portions of
the mantle of drift, as is shown by the occurrence of shale beds, sand-
stone ledges, and lignite coal seams in their banks.

The plain which is crossed by these channels is the "rolling prairie"
for which the state is- noted, and which makes North Dakota fittingly
called a "prairie State." To the west of the heads of these streams is
the sloping front or edge of the great Missouri Plateau. While the
prairie adjacent to the deep valleys of these streams is from 100 to 200
feet or more above the bottom lands along the immediate stream beds,
still the plateau top 30 miles west is 300 to 400 feet higher than the
plain of the prairie.

FIG. 117. Looking Along a Stony Ridge. In the Coteaus.

THE COTEAUS OF THE MISSOURI.

221

It is this slope from the edge of the plateau toward the deep valleys
of the Mouse and Des Lacs that gives the dissected character to the
plain bordering the plateau in Ward County. A rise of nearly 700 feet
in a distance of forty miles in the railroad grade of the Great Northern
Railway from Minot westward has made possible the erosion of the deep
and narrow V-shaped coulees which characterize the region.

Description of the Moraine The extremely hilly tract of this

region, the coteaus, varies from 10 to 30 or 40 miles in width, including

sometimes mter-morainic tracts that are comparatively level. The hilly

iregion is exceedingly irregular in outline. The term "coteau" means a

hill, and the hills are the most conspicuous thing about this region. But

FIG. 118. A Stony Ridge. In the Coteaus.

hills are not the only feature about a terminal moraine by which it may
be distinguished. This morainic tract is made up of hills, ridges, roll-
ing or even gently undulating- prairie, lakes, sloughs, and hay meadows.
The edge of the moraine is also very irregular, having long- projecting
lobes and being 1 indented by deep sinuses of comparatively level land.
A moraine is thus seen to be a quite complex thing.

The general aspect of the landscape after entering! the morainic re-
gion is distinctly hilly. Many of the hills are high and their sides very
steep and rugged. Often they are so closely set together that there is

222

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

no space between the bases of the hills, but the bottom of one merges
into its nearest neighbors. Occasionally a hill is so decked with stones
large and small that the face of the hill appears like a vast stone heap.

A few years ago, before settlers had occupied the land, travel through
the hills to one unaccustomed to the region was almost impossible, not
only because of the roughness of the landscape and the frequent large

FIG. 119. A Landmark. Such cairns are common on the tops of

the highest hills, placed there for the guidance of

travelers through the coteaus.

rocks, but the hills all have such a resemblance that the inexperienced
traveler easily mistakes the hill he thinks he is traveling toward, another
insidiously substituting itself for the one he started to reach, while the
traveler unconsciously changes his course to go around a hill' or avoid
a slough. Where definite trails do not serve as a guide to the traveler
he is almost helpless, and a journey is well nigh impossible.

THE C.OTEAUS OF THE MISSOURI. 223

The hills are sometimes so stony and steep that progress even on
horseback by one who is not accustomed to "the range" is almost im-
possible. Following a well worn trail one can often see his way but
a few rods ahead, so crooked is the way among the hills. Leave the
beaten path but a few steps and the unaccustomed traveler is as one
adrift on the rolling sea.

One may be lost and pass within a few rods of a ranchman's shack
and not see it, for the shack may be and often is located in a hollow
between the hills so that it cannot often be seen, even from a short
distance. The writer speaks from experience in seeking to find a ranch
house while traveling a stranger and alone in this solitary region. A
miss of a single dim fork in the trail caused him to pass by the last

FIG. 120. Douglas Valley, South of Douglas Postofflce, McLean County.

house in many miles, and as a result he lay down fatigued to the point
of exhaustion upon the hard bosom of Mother Earth, and slept with the
picket rope by which his saddle pony was held tied around his body till
the cold of the small hours of the morning compelled him to travel on
eagerly looking for the dawn which should enable him to find food
and what was more intensely needed, water.

A common custom is to place upon the highest points of the highest
hills piles of rocks with often a pole supported in the midst of the rocks
as a guide to the traveler. Such a landmark is always known to the

224 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

inhabitants of the country, and if lost in fog or storm- and one of these
marks is seen it will indicate quite as accurately as section corners in
the agricultural portions of the state where a ranch house is located.

The Missouri Slope The portion of region known as the "Mis-
souri Slope" included in this chapter embraces southern Williams, south-
western Ward, western McLean, Burleigh, and Emmons Counties.
This region is drained into the Missouri from the east. The region is
marked by deep and broad valleys having extensive gravelly flood-
plains upon their bottoms. It is a region over which the ice did
not pass during the Wisconsin stage of glaciation, the stage dur-
ing which the coteaus were formed, but over which vast floods of
water passed, outwash from the melting of the great ice sheet. It was
by these floods of ice water that the large channels were formed and
extensive deposits of gravel were made. The valleys of Little Muddy
Creek in Williams County, White Earth, Little Knife, and Shell Creeks
in Ward County, Douglas, Snake, and Painted Woods Creeks in Mc-
Lean County, Apple Creek in Burleigh, and Beaver Creek in Emmons
County, are examples of broad and deep valleys, generally with large
flood-plains of sand and gravel, that were formed by the waters from
the melting ice during, or immediately following, the Wisconsin stage
of glaciation.

The Older and the Newer Drift. The great moraine which is known
as the coteaus, and which, as has been stated, was formed at the edge
of the great ice sheet when it had advanced so far south and west
as to lie upon the eastern portion of the great Missouri Plateau, repre-
sents the limits reached by the great flood of ice during this stage of the
Glacial Period. But there is drift farther west than the coteaus. The
drift of the overwash region west of the coteaus does not represent the
most western deposits of drift materials. There are deposits of drift
soil, sand, gravel and large boulders far beyond the Missouri River.
Soil that is thought to be of glacial origin, pebbles that show by their
form and composition that they are drift pebbles, and boulders of gran-
ite which are entirely unlike any rocks of which the hills are composed,
occur over large areas in Morton, Oliver, Mercer, Dunn, and McKenzie
Counties, How then is this to be explained? Does the great range of
hills that has been described really represent the halting-place of the
edge of the ice of the great continental ice sheet ? Yes, the coteaus repre-
sent the great terminal moraine formed at the edge of the ice at the

THE COTEAUS OF THE MISSOURI. 225

time of the greatest advance of the ice sheet at this stage of the Glacial
Period. But the Glacial Period was probably very long, and it was
made up of several stages, each stage representing a long time.

It is as though a great battle between heat and cold had been going
on through long ages. When the cold gained the mastery and the snow
and ice did not melt as fast as they accumulated then the ice sheet grew
larger and deeper, and spread out over more of the land. Then in turn
a warmer condition of climate might have occurred causing the snow
and ice to melt more rapidly than they gathered, and thus the amount
of ice composing the great ice sheet would grow less. Far from the
edges of the great sheet the ice might become less deep from melting,
and great streams of water probably ran off from the ice or down through
cracks or crevasses to the ground, and probably may have formed
streams under the ice. At the edges of the great sheet the melting ice
would cause streams of ice water to form and flow away. If there
continued to be more melting than there was snow-fall then the mass
of the ice would tend to grow smaller, and the edge of the ice would
retreat back toward the center of accumulation or point from which the
ice came.

Now, if these conditions of advance and retreat continued, each for
a long time, these would constitute two stages of the great Glacial
Period. The time when the coteaus were formed at the edge of the
great ice sheet, a time that represents a stage of advance, is known as
the Wisconsin stage of the Glacial Period. The time following this
stage when melting was more rapid than the onward movement, so that
the edge "retreated" and the mass of the ice of the great ice sheet grew
less, is known as an interval or stage of deglaciation or melting. Prob-
ably the climate was warmer during this stage, and the time was probably
very long, as we measure time in centuries. How long it was, or how
warm the climate, or what caused the changes, we do not know. It is
the facts that concern us now rather than the causes, and we may leave
the question of causes till another time. We may not live to learn the
nature of the causes, though these may be ascertained sometime.

There still remains unexplained the drift west of the Missouri River,
and all that drift west of the coteaus which was not washed down (Jirect-
iy from the edge of the ice or from the coteaus themselves after their
deposition. When was the drift deposited here? We say deposited,
for it is evident from the character of the material the soil, sand,

226

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

gravel, and boulders, that it was not formed here, but has been trans-
ported here and deposited. Was there an earlier stage of glaciation
than the Wisconsin? Did the ice of an earlier stage push farther west,
even beyond where the great Missouri River now is? Yes, this is what
is supposed to have occurred.

Let us be reminded again that we are not asking about causes now,
but about facts. Did the ice once extend fifty or a hundred miles west
of the great moraine which has been described? No man was there to
write a history, or if man did exist on the earth at that time (and there
are geologists who think that he did) he did not leave any record of his
observations that have since been discovered. We can therefore only
know of the ice having been farther west than the Missouri River by
the character of the things we can find in the field. This leads often
to long and painstaking investigations to determine. But we may take
the results of many studies made at different times by different -ob-
servers, going into the field ourselves to verify our conclusions. The
peculiar soil, the pebbles, and gravel, the granite boulders, the rocks
with marks on them such as have been recognized in all "glaciated"
regions all tell of something having transported a large amount of earth
materials from some other region and deposited them here, and nearly
all geologists now agree that the agent that did the work was ice.

FIG. 121. Channel of Glacial Drainage.

THE COTEAUS OF THE MISSOURI. 227

We conclude then that there has been in this region an earlier ice
invasion. The stage of the Glacial Period when the continent from
Hudson Bay to this region west of the present Missouri River was all
covered with a vast sheet of ice is known as the Kansan stage of the
Glacial Period. The drift that lies west of the Missouri River, and
much of that lying between the coteaus and the Missouri River, is
Kansan drift. Just how it differs from the drift of the Wisconsin stage,
and just how geologists distinguish between the two deposits we shall
not attempt to discuss at this time. It may be stated merely that the
Kansan drift is thought to be much older than that of the Wisconsin
stage, and differs from it in important respects.

This drift has been in some places 'nearly or quite all washed away
so that but little or none at all remains covering the original land sur-
face. It has been deeply eroded in many places by the streams of ice
water which flowed away from the great glacier during and following
the Wisconsin stage. Little Muddy, White Earth, Little Knife, Shell,
Douglas, Snake, Painted Woods, Apple, and Beaver Creeks are exam-
ples of such channels that were eroded into the older drift in their upper
courses, and further toward the Missouri have cut entirely through the
mantle of older drift into the underlying rock, as is shown by the out-
cropping ledges of sandstone, shale, and lignite coal along the banks of
these streams.

228

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.
THE PLATEAU REGION OF NORTH DAKOTA.

State boundaries are arbitrary lines agreed upon by men. Geographic
districts are regions that have some natural reasons for being separated
from other regions. The state of North Dakota includes within the
arbitrary boundary of its rectangular outline parts of two distinct
geographic districts. The line separating these districts extends in a
northwest-southeast direction in a general way parallel with and about
60 miles east of the course of the Missouri River. More accurately
described it crosses the state from the extreme northwest corner, south-
eastward through western Ward, eastern McLean and central Stuts-
man Counties, to the southern boundary in the western part of Dickey
county. This line marks very nearly the eastern-facing slope or escarp-
ment of a great westward rising bench of upland, the Missouri Plateau.
The escarpment rises abruptly to an altitude of 300 to 400 feet above the
generally level plain on the east.

The geographic significance of this natural boundary lies in the
fact that here the prairie plains end and the great plateau begins. Ex-
tending north far into British America and south almost to the Gulf
of Mexico, though less conspicuous as a landscape feature farther south,
this great earth bench or escarpment is the continental threshold from
the low prairies of the central west to the Great Plains which rise thence
westward to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Boundary. The southwestern part of North Dakota is thus in-
cluded within the geographic district of the Missouri Plateaus. A brief
review of the principal features of this relatively large physiographic
district is here given in order to set forth more fully the geographic
relations of that part within the state of North Dakota. This plateau-
province extends a short distance across the International Boundary
line as far as the divide between the head waters of the Saskatchewan
river and the southward-flowing tributaries of the upper Missouri River.
Its southern boundary extends through central Wyoming as the divide

229

230 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

between the Platte and Yellowstone rivers, and thence eastward, south-
ward of the Black Hills, to the Missouri Escarpment in central South
Dakota.

Great Plains The region known as the Great Plains extends from
some distance beyond the Rio Grande River in Mexico through the
United States and far in British America. This constitutes what is
called a geographic province, and is one of the natural divisions of the
North American continent. The northern portion of this Great Plains
belt is what is known as the Missouri Plateau district. This is a great
natural district because it is separated from the regions that surround
it by some sort of natural boundaries.

The surface features of this region are simple, but developed on a
grand scale. That is, there is nothing particularly strange or difficult
to understand about the structure of the landscape, only that everything
is big and laid out on a large plan.

General Topography and Structure. A notion of the general struct-
ure and topography of the district may be formed by considering
the plateau a vast earth block two miles in thickness and 500 miles
square, built up of level-bedded rock layers. This seems like a pretty
large thing to talk about in common words, or rather it seems a rather
large thing to grasp in the imagination. But its size is the most awk-
ward thing about it. It is really a simple problem a very large earth
block.

The western border of the plateau, where it merges into the eastern
flanks of the Stony Mountains, has an altitude ranging from 4,500 feet
to 6,000 feet above sea level. The western somewhat ragged edge is
warped up against the mountain slope and beveled off by slow decay of
the rocks and the erosion of mountain streams. The warping of the
layers of rocks on to the mountain slopes is due to the bending of the
strata when the mountains were uplifted. The strata thus lap up on to
the mountain sides. This is because the mountains were upheaved after
these rocks were deposited, and so they were bent up in the upheaval
that produced the mountains. The rocks that were thus bent, and that
now flank the mountains on the east have been beveled off by erosion
and weathering. The upper layers in this western portion of the great
block have been worn away so that the thickness of the rock layers there
from top to bottom of the block is not now as great as it once was.

THE PLATEAU REGION OF NORTH DAKOTA. 231

The eastern margin of the great block has been worn down by ero-
sion during! long ages to a steep slope facing! the prairies on the east,
the slope that rises west of Ellendale, Jamestown, Carrington, Fessen-
den, Balfour, Kenmare, and Portal. The surface of this huge block has
been trenched or cut into by winding streams, and sculptured by weath-
ering. From beneath, that is, in the lower depths of the rocks of which
this great block is composed, the layers in the western half of the block
have been riven and thrust into by plugs and dikes of molten rock, and
in many places the layers above have been pierced entirely through by
the forces from below so that the lavas flowed out upon the surface.
So great was the force from below that the strata were lifted bodily, the
different layers wedged and spread apart, and the upper layers up-
turned.

This means that the rocks have been much broken and pushed out
of their original positions, openings like volcanic necks or throats have
been made through the overlying: strata, and molten rock or lava forced
into these tubes or openings. When the region again became cool these
openings were left "plugged" with lava. Such lava is often hard, and
when the softer rocks surrounding are later worn away these hard
masses are left sticking out as "volcanic plugs." When great cracks
or fractures were made in the rocks by the tremendous forces that built
the mountains these spaces were also filled with moulten rock forced up
from below. These masses of molten lava when cooled are also fre-
quently very hard and resistant to the weathering agencies, and so they
often appear as great solid stone walls projecting out of the earth, and
are known as dikes. When, however, the molten rock or lava was forced
up through these tubes or cracks clear to the very surface and was
poured out in such quantities that it flooded the whole region round
about them this became what is known as a lava-flow, and the result
now is a sheet of lava covering the earth.

Laccolite Mountains Some times the force from below was so
very great that immense masses of lava were forced in between the lay-
ers of rock and pushed them apart like a huge wedge. This resulted in
causing an uplift of the rock layers above, and sometimes the uplift was
so great that the upper layers were turned up into a vertical position, and
even sometimes completely overturned.

These upwellings of molten rock in many cases assumed the form of
vast reservoirs and lakes of lava ; such fluid masses, since hardened into

232

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

solid rock, were so enormous in dimensions that out of them the agen-
cies of rain and rivers have carved whole mountain ranges. The mass
of solidified material out of which the sculpturing agencies have since
formed a mountain is called a laccolite, or laccolith, a term which means
a lake of lava. An example of an upthrusted laccolite mountain is the
Madison Range northwest of Yellowstone Park. a The peaks of this
range now stand at an altitude of a mile above the general level of the
plateau or surface of the earth block.

Lesser Plateaus. The larger streams and their tributaries have
cut deeply into the surface forming wide valleys with steep bluffs bor-

FiG. 123. West Rainy Butte, Billings County. Photograph by A. L. Fellows.

dering their sides. Irregular areas of the great plateau have been thus
cut around by the streams, and when the top layers of rock are hard and
resistant to the action of the weathering agencies of frost, wind, and
rain flat topped table lands or small plateaus are formed.

In the western portion of this district many such blocks of rock that
have been cut around by the streams are large enough to be called moun-
tains. In the eastern part of the region, and along the lower courses
of the rivers erosion has been more effective in broadening the slopes
a Three Forks Folio, Montana, U. S. Geol. Survey.

THE PLATEAU REGION OF NORTH DAKOTA. 233

and removing the original plateau surface. Here therefore such plateaus
are less common, and when they do occur they are generally smaller in
area and less high. Erosion has more completely removed them.

Monadnocks Where the old landscape surface has been nearly
worn away and removed by erosion, but occasional small plateaus or
large buttes are left as hills, these are called monadnocks, a name derived
from Mount Monadnock, a hill in New Hampshire which is of this

FlG. 124. Brow of East Rainy Butte, Billings County. Photograph by A. L. Fellows.

type. Monadnocks are a characteristic feature of the landscape in west-
ern North Dakota. They will be referred to again later in this chapter.
They are referred to in Chapter Eighteen as older buttes standing on the
shoulders of the younger buttes. They sustain the same relation to the
old landscape surface of the plateau before it was eroded that the Turtle
Mountain Plateau does to the present surface of the Missouri Plateau.
Work of Rivers In the eastern portion of the plateau more es-
pecially than elsewhere the Missouri River and its tributaries have been
the controlling agencies in making the landscape what it is today. The
hills, ridges, valleys, and plains make up what is called the topography,
or the form of the landscape. The work of excavation accomplished by

234

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

the streams is represented by v the amount of earth necessary to fill their
valleys up to a level with the highest hill-tops. The hills down to the
level of the lowest streams of the region represent the unfinished work of
the rivers.

This not only means to fill up the stream valleys to the level of the
highest land along the bluffs, but to fill in the whole region till it is all
brought to the level of the highest hilltops of the region. Look up at
the top of the highest hill you know of and imagine a line extending
horizontally from this highest point, and that all the region is filled in
with earth up to this level. On the other hand the work that remains
for the rivers to do yet is represented by the carrying 1 away of all the
earth of which the hills and all the land surrounding them are composed
down to the level of the lowest stream bottoms of the region.

Divisions The Missouri River flowing diagonally across the state
divides the North Dakota plateau region into two parts, viz., a wide
plain sloping eastward to the river and embracing all of the southwest-
ern portion of the state lying between the western boundary line of the
state and the river, and a narrow belt bordering the river on the east
and extending to the edge of the plateau. These two divisions of the

FIG. 125. Alkali Lake, Northern Williams County. The lake bottom is entirely dry, the
surface being covered with alkaline salts. Photograph by Rex Willara.

THE PLATEAU REGION OF NORTH DAKOTA. 235

plateau comprise what is popularly known as the "Missouri Slope" in
North Dakota, and is frequently referred to as "the Slope."

Slopes In the western portion of North Dakota the surface of the
plateau is characterized by slopes, wide and gentle for the most part,
but steep and rugged in the vicinity of streams. They appear at first to
be arranged without order, yet every slope, gentle or steep, leads down-
ward ultimately to the channel of a stream. These slopes were all
formed by running water, except in cases where landslides or other dis-
turbing factors have entered in. Every hillside is a part of trm side of
a valley. The surface of the country is therefore completely drained.
Lakes and marshes do not exist. If they existed once, as they very
likely did, they have all -been drained by the streams. Streams have
formed and are still controlling the features of the landscape plain.

Comparison with Ice Plains. To fully appreciate this type of land-
scape it should be compared with that of the prairies, the ice-made
plains, such as those that extend eastward from the escarpment of the
Missouri Plateau to the valley of the Red River of the North. Wide re-
gions in this part of the State are wholly undrained. Since the melting of
the great ice sheet, by which all former drainage lines were effaced, the
modern streams have not had sufficient time to extend their valleys and
drain the depressions. Here hills exist without valleys. Slopes lead
to hollows, but not to valleys made by streams. Hollows occur without
outlets. Lakes, sloughs and marshes are a common feature of the
landscape.

The Rivers of Western North Dakota The Cannon Ball, the Heart,
the Knife, the Little Missouri and the "Big" Missouri are the prin-
cipal rivers of the plateau district in North Dakota. The Cannon
Ball, Heart and Knife Rivers rise in a narrow divide which runs north
and south parallel with the Little Missouri River. These streams flow
thence eastward in very tortuous channels to the Missouri River. Wide
valleys bordered by steep bluffs have been eroded in the plateau sur-
face. Extensive flood-plains and terraces have been formed in the val-
leys. A remarkable feature about each of these three rivers is its rela-
tively long and narrow drainage basin. The tributaries are short ; they
join the main valleys at nearly right angles, and in nearly every instance
are intermittent streams, i. e., water flows in them only during the sea-
sons of heavy rains or melting snows. The streams flowing in the
main channels during the summer season are exceedingly small when

236 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

compared with the valleys which they occupy. These marked charac-
teristics of the streams, viz., their parallel courses side by side, the long
narrow region which each drains, their winding courses, wide valleys,
extensive flats and terraces, find explanation in three important facts,
viz., the climate of the region, the structure of the rocks, and the slope
of the plateau surface.

The drainage basins of these rivers are narrow and parallel and
approximately equal in extent because the long uniform slope and struc-
ture of the plateau gave to one stream no advantage over the others dur-
ing the process of development, but distributed the run-off equally with-
out showing favor to one valley more than to another.

The small size of the streams during most of the year in comparison
with the large valleys is due to the great variation in the volume of
water carried at different seasons. It is a general truth relating to
streams that by far the greater part of the work done in the erosion of
valleys is done during time of floods. During a single day more work
may be done in eroding the bottom and banks than in all the rest of the
year. During times of high water the current is more swift, and swift
currents erode with an increased power much beyond the simple ratio of
the increase in the velocity of the current. Thus the stream at flood
carries stones much larger than could be moved at ordinary times, and
can carry many small stones rapidly. These latter become implements
for cutting and breaking the banks and bottom. Thus the swift stream
comes to carry an immense burden of earth materials, and when the
current slackens the materials are thrown down, forming flood-plains,
which later often become terraces. The small and gentle stream at low
water does little except to modify the results of its more vigorous work-
ing days. This general law of streams is more especially applicable in
the semi-arid plateau country where the precipitation in violent rain-
falls and rapidly melting snows is carried by the rivers only during
limited seasons of the year.

Another important factor in producing the relatively wide valleys
with their attendant deposits is the long courses of the streams and
the slight fall, together with the soft and easily erodable character of
the rocks in this region. The rivers, laden with earth materials from
the soft rocks of the region, do little downward cutting because of the
slow movement of the current at ordinary times. Any cause that
slackens the speed of the current will result in sediment which was being

THE PLATEAU REGION OF NORTH DAKOTA.

237

carried by the stream being dropped, only to be in turn taken up again
and carried farther whenever the current becomes swift again. Under
such circumstances the streams will swing from one side of their val-
leys to the other, undercutting the banks and widening the valleys.

The low angle at which the tributaries enter the main valleys is also
due to the slight decline of the slope of the main valleys. If the slope
of the plains were more steep the tributaries would not enter the main
streams so nearly at right angles.

FIG. 126. Where the Bad Lands Begin. View looking east.
Photograph by A, L. Fellows.

Rivers are said to pass through three stages in their growth and
development. These three stages are known as youth, maturity and old
age. So also the topographic features of the landscape pass through
three corresponding stages in the development of hills and slopes, viz.,
young, mature and old.

Young rivers have narrow V-shaped valleys with flat-topped hills
between their branches. They are vigorous streams, cutting downward
for the most part, but with large un drained territory surrounding. Much
of their work remains to be done. This is the stage of the streams in
the western part of the Missouri Plateau, in western Montana and
Wyoming.

A mature river has a wide valley; the vigor of down-cutting is
diminished; all the region intervening is carved into valley slopes; none

238

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

of the upland surfaces are flat; the river swings from one side to the
other of its valley, thereby broadening rather than deepening it.

After this stage the river declines in activity until old age, when it
erodes its valley and transports earth no more; the steepness of the
grade of its channel bottom, which gave to it vigor in youth and matur-
ity, is gone; hence it flows slowly; the intervening hills are cut away
mostly to expressionless slopes on a featureless plain. The river's work
is done.

The Cannon Ball, the Heart, and the Knife Rivers have passed the
stage of maturity and are approaching old age. Only in isolated places
does any of the old plateau surface remain. The remnants are the hills
with flat tops, the "old buttes" of the region, the buttes that "stand upon
the shoulders of the younger buttes." They represent the fragments of
the unfinished task of maturity. For the most part the plateau surface
has been cut away and the hills lowered, or worn away altogether.

FIG. 127. Where the Bad Lands Begin. View looking west. Southwestern Stark County.

Figs. 126 and 127 were taken from the same point, the camera being merely

turned on the tripod. Photograph by A. L. Fellows.

The Little Missouri Eiver The Little Missouri River rises near
the junction of the Missouri Plateau with the mountains in northeast-
ern Wyoming. It flows thence north by east to central McKenzie
County, North Dakota, where it swings broadly to the east and enters
the Missouri River. The basin of the Little Missouri, like that of the
other rivers of this region which have been described, is long and nar-
row. It is about 320 miles in length, and in width varies from a maxi-
mum of fifty miles to a minimum of about twenty-five miles. Through-

THE PLATEAU REGION OF NORTH DAKOTA. 239

out much of its course the river drains an area much nearer the latter
figure in width than the former.

Eelation to Other Streams By reference to the map (Figure 122)
it will be seen that the Little Missouri stands in a peculiar relation to
its neighboring streams. It flows toward the north obedient to the long
northward slope of the plateau, but dangerously near the hip, or edge,
where the plateau breaks down to the east-facing slope. It thus crosses
close against the head-waters of the Moreau, Grand, Cannon Ball, Heart
and Knife Rivers, separated from their head valleys only by a very low
and narrow divide. The rivers above mentioned have pushed their
heading valleys westward up the slope, encroaching upon the territory
of the Little Missouri until at several points the ridge parting their
waters is less than six miles from the banks of the latter stream.

FIG. 128. Crown Butte. A remnant of the old landscape which has been protected by the
hard rock forming the crown of the butte. Photograph by A. L. Fellows.

Piracy The Little Missouri is in imminent danger of having its
basin invaded and upper waters "pirated" away by any one of its
unfriendly neighbors on the east. This process of "beheading" a river,
or of diverting the waters of one stream into the valley of another, is
called "piracy." The invading river is, of course, the "pirate." The Lit-
tle Missouri is most unfortunately located in this respect, having such a
threatening number of would-be pirates on its eastern flank. This pro-
cess of robbing the Little Missouri of its waters has already been initi-
ated by the Belle Fourche River, a tributary of the Cheyenne.*

The upper 150' miles of the Belle Fourche, that portion extending
from the sharp bend northwest of the Black Hills, originally belonged to
* Aladdin Folio, U. S. Geol. Atlas.

240 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

the Little Missouri. This cutting up of the Little Missouri's valley
piecemeal and diverting the sections, once begun at its head-waters, is
more likely to be continued by the streams successively heading against
its course lower down; each removal weakens the power to intrench its
channel deep enough to be beyond the reach of its foe.

Bad Lands. The basin drained by the Little Missouri is, through-
out its larger part, the region of the Bad Lands. The river flows
through the center of the Bad Land belt. The tributaries descend to
the deeply intrenched main stream by steep gradients; these short
branches fed by storm waters have cut deep into the soft clay beds. The

FIG. 129. Buttes South of Williston. Photograph by Rex Wtilard.

heading coulees extend out most intricately in all directions. There is
little weathering, no soil except in the valley bottoms, and erosion in
its most vigorous phase is the controlling factor. The result is a jum-
ble of topograghic forms that beggar description. There is no beauty
here. Steep hills with ugly bulging flanks stand foot to foot, corru-
gated up and down their naked sides with rain gutters. Sharp-crested
ridges wind in and out forming cirques and amphitheatres at the heads
of streamless valleys below. The divides between tributary valleys are
often sharp-crested ridges not inappropriately called knife edges. Ver-
tical pillars and walls of clay, veritable mud fences, stand along the
sides of deeply worn channels. From within the valleys no extended
view can be obtained; the observer is surrounded by vertical or steep-
rising slopes on all sides. From the top of a lofty butte the landscape

THE PLATEAU REGION OF NORTH DAKOTA. 241

appears a myriad of hilltops closely set together and massed back of each
other until they blend far away in a level sky line.

Structure In this region where the streams have deeply dissected
the plateau the structure and composition of the rocks are readily seen.
The formations are built up of horizontal strata, "one layer above
another like boards in a lumber pile." The materials of which they are
composed is fine sediment, beds of clay and sand for the greater part
alternating with each other.

Name The Bad Lands were so named by the early French explor-
ers because they found them lands difficult to travel through. The
country seems to have sustained that reputation ever since. No one
who has ever traveled through this region will question the propriety of

FIG. 130. Sentinel Butte. Photograph by H. V. Hibbard.

the name. There is practically no direction of traversing the region
except by way of the waters. Roads, when roads there are, follow the
courses of winding streams.

A Burning Mine. In a few places in the Bad Lands country the
outcropping beds of coal have become ignited and are now burning back
under the hills. As the fire advances beneath the surface the baked earth
above opens in great crevices, admitting a down draft of air and main-
taining further combustion. Such a "burning mine" is at present located
close to the tracks of the Northern Pacific Railway near Sully Springs.
Here a crater-like depression, about 500 feet in diameter, has been
formed above the burning coal. The sides of wide fissures opening

242

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

deep into the earth glow white hot and red from the fires of the sub-
terranean furnace. Great volumes of gases^ with stifling and sulphur-
ous odors, arise from the crater, but no smoke or flame; the combustion
is complete. The fires advance slowly but with great persistence against
the bed of coal. The vein at Sully Springs is known to have been burn-
ing during the past twenty-five years. In that time the crater has moved
perhaps 100 feet northward. The advancing fire leaves behind it a trail
of red-baked clay and earth fused into scoriaceous masses. This process
if extensive enough in the past ages would account for the red strata
so widely shown outcropping on the hillsides of the Bad Lands.

FIG. 131. Crest of Hill in Ragged Buttes, McKenzie County. Showing cross- bedded
structure. Photograph by Rex Willard.

Sentinel Butte -Throughout the southern part of the plateau,
standing back from the streams, usually on or near their divides, are
sharp hills, serrated ridges, and flat-topped buttes. Their summits,
capped with resistant sandstone, mark the level of the old plateau sur-
face upon which the streams began their work of valley development.
They are remnants of the unfinished work of the streams at the stage of
maturity, and are termed by geographers monadnocks. Such a monad-
nock is Sentinel Butte, located three miles south of a village of the

THE PLATEAU REGION OF NORTH DAKOTA.

243

same name on the Northern Pacific Railway. From its flat top, 600
feet above the surrounding undulating and rolling-hilly plain, the land-
scape beneath appears as a great map in midsummer, hills showing
the gray of range lands, and valleys the green and yellow of wheat and
forage crops. The hill was used in the early Indian fighting days of the
northwest by the United States troops as a vantage point of observation ;
hence the name Sentinel Butte. Two of Custer's scouts, killed by the
Indians, are buried near the top of the hill. Their grave is marked by a
little cairn and a rough slab of sandstone.

A vein of lignite coal ten feet in thickness underlies apparently
the entire base of the butte. From an outcrop of the vein on the north
side of the hill a coal mine has been developed and furnishes a good
grade of fuel at the cost of mining only.

Other monadnocks, or remnants of the old plateau, whose tops rep-
resent the original surface of the plateau, are : Camel's Hump, White
Butte, Red Butte, East and West Rainy Buttes, Square Butte, the H. T.
Butte, Buillon Butte (pronounced Bool-yong), in Billings County; Kill

FIG. 132. The Great Stone Face, McKenzie County. Photograph by Rex Willard.

244 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

Deer Mountains, in Dunn County; Brenchaud's Butte and Ragged
Buttes in McKenzie County; Short Medicine Pole Hills, Pommes
Blanches Hills, in Bowman County ; Black Butte, Tepee Buttes, Whet-
Stone Buttes, Wolf Butte, in Hettinger County ; Hailstone Hill, Heart
Butte, Dogsteeth Buttes, in Morton County. These buttes do not all
have the same elevation above the adjacent plain by which they are
surrounded. In some cases the tops have been lowered by erosion and
weathering, but generally their tops may be said to represent fragments
of the original plain of the plateau surface.

The Plateau East of the Missouri Eiver That part of the Missouri
Plateau extending east from the Missouri River to the escarpment
joining the prairies, differs in its topographic features and drainage
from the section to the west of the river. During that time in the
earth's history known as the glacial period the front of a great continen-
tal glacier lay along the crest of the Missouri escarpment. The south-
westward advance of the ice over the prairie region from the enormous
snow fields of Labrador was doubtless stopped by the rising margin of
the plateau. The debris carried by the glacier, as fragments of rock,
clay and boulders, was lodged in the form of a broad hilly belt at the
edge of the melting ice. This belt of hilly topography, with its accom-
panying marshes, lakes and undrained depressions, constitutes the first
and outermost moraine of the continental glacier. The region is known
as "The Hill Country of the Missouri Plateau." From the melting ice
front there flowed to the Missouri river glacial streams carrying great
quantities of sand and gravel. The valleys of these short rivers, built
up with extensive terraces, are prominent features of the topography
between the hill country and the Missouri River. Both the hill country
and the valley region are excellent grazing lands, and large tracts are
being rapidly brought under cultivation. Wells from twenty to seventy
feet in depth yield abundant water.

Industries All the plateau country of North Dakota is compara-
tively new, but settlers are moving in and land values are rapidly ris-
ing. Stock raising is at present and will probably continue to be the
leading industry. Fine herds of cattle, horses and sheep feed on the
nutritious grasses of the plains. Ranchmen have introduced the better
breeds of stock and realize large profits on this branch of industry.
When crops adapted to the soil and climate are introduced fanning will
become a larger element of industry than at present.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.
AGRICULTURE WEST OF THE MISSOURI RIVER.

West of the Missouri River in North Dakota is a vast region about
which many erroneous opinions have been held by people living in
other States and in the eastern portion of our own State. North Dakota
is so large in extent that it is not surprising that there should be many
people who have lived two decades in the State and yet have no definite
knowledge of the character of many parts of the State. Many persons
who have lived and prospered during a goodly period of their lives in
the Red River Valley, or other eastern portions of the State, have never
been west of the Missouri River. It is not strange, therefore, that the
idea has gained wide acceptance that the country west of the Missouri
River is "Bad Lands."

This vast domain has but recently been recognized as an agricultural
region. So much success has been attained in the grazing of horses,
cattle, and sheep, and so little attention has been given to general agri-
culture that until recently the whole country west of the Missouri River
has been generally regarded as a vast grazing domain.

Within the past few years a great influx of settlers whose purpose
has been general farming rather than exclusive grazing, has largely
changed the sentiment regarding this country, as it has also changed the
character of the pursuits of the residents in this part of the State.
Ranching, by which is meant that phase of agriculture in which the
grazing of large herds of horses, cattle, and sheep is the principal indus-
try, has largely given place to the more intensified methods of diversified
farming except in those localities where, clue to the natural roughness
of the land and its consequent unadaptability to> diversified farming,
stock-raising is still the dominant industry. The quest of homeseekers,
both from the older and more thickly settled States and from foreign
lands, for free government lands has made the region a mecca for immi-
gration. Farmers now live where but one, two or three years ago was
the open range and the unbroken sod.

245

246

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

Questions about the climate, rainfall, soils, water supply, available
fuel, and means of transportation are frequently asked by the prospective
homeseeker or the newly settled homemaker, and an effort will be
made in this chapter to give a brief and simple statement regarding the
questions indicated.

Climate The climate of the western part of North Dakota is of
the healthful and invigorating kind that characterizes the whole State,
though there may be said to be a little odds in favor of the western
portion as compared with the eastern. Warmer currents of air from
the Pacific Ocean flow southeastward after crossing the great mountain

FIG. 133. Family and Ranch Home of E. Paulson, Knife River.
Photograph by A. L. Fellows.

axis in the Canadian northwest, and these warmer winds influence the
climate. On the whole the climate is wholesome and satisfactory, and
few States afford more healthful and invigorating conditions. The
winters are cold, and there are times of extreme severity, as indeed there
are in any of the northern States. The weather is not more trying, how-
ever, than that of northern Illinois, Iowa, southern Minnesota, or west-
ern New York. Extravagant reports of temperatures are given wide
circulation and are often accepted as true without verification.

AGRICULTURE WEST OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 247

The error, it may be explained, grows out of the common use of
cheap and unreliable thermometers. These thermometers have not been
tested and vary from one to two degrees to as much as ten or twelve
degrees. Thus a thermometer that hangs at the "corner store" may
register minus 46, 48, or minus 50 degrees or even more, while a reg-
istered thermometer at the same moment and in the same locality reg-
isters minus 34 or 36, or rarely minus 39 degrees. Temperatures lower
than minus 39 degrees F. are very seldom experienced in North Dakota.

An agreeable feature of the climate in this region is its uniformity.
The greater evenness and continuity of the conditions in North Dakota
than in many states farther east saves much of the trying character of
winter.

Rainfall The question of the annual rainfall of this region is
one about which there is no little misconception. It has long been cur-
rently accepted that the rainfall west of the Missouri River is not suf-
ficient to make general farming safe and successful, and therefore profit-
able. This generally accepted opinion, though requiring evidence to
remove, is not, in the opinion of the write*, a true verdict. The fact
of the amount of the annual rainfall is one that cannot be readily, deter-
mined by the average person from general observation, nor yet by the
closer observation of the frequency and severity of storms. Even if
one were to keep a written record of the days when rain fell, a thing
that is very rarely done, still he would not have a reliable record of the
rainfall. It is only by the daily reading of a scientifically constructed
gauge that a correct record can be obtained. Within recent years a
considerable number of gauge stations have been established, and these
give a reliable basis for estimating' the rainfall for any particular local-
ity.

Probably one reason for the unfavorable impression regarding the
sufficiency of the rainfall in this region has been that during the time
since this part of the state has been occupied by white settlers almost no
attempt at cultivation of the soil has been made, and when such attempts
were made no particular attention was paid to the matter of cultivation
or the adaptation of seed to the conditions of this region. Stock-rais-
ing was the principal industry, and general agriculture was not con-
sidered at all. When, therefore, an occasional small area was ploughed,
seeded, and neglected, and no satisfactory crop harvested it was as-
sumed that the trouble was due to lack of moisture. It might be said

248

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

in this connection that if similar methods of farming were used in
Illinois or Iowa loss in quality and quantity of crops and financial fail-
ure would most certainly follow.

Systematic records of rainfall covering any considerable number of
years have been kept at only a few stations in this newer part of North
Dakota. Comparison of the average rainfall, as recorded at these
stations, with the records of stations in other parts of the state where
no question has ever been raised as to the sufficiency of the rainfall to
produce profitable crops, furnishes a basis for an opinion which at least
would seem to contain the elements of fairness.

FIG.

134-

Cuskelly Ranch and Killdeer Mountains, Dunn County.
Photograph by A. L. Fellows.

The annual precipitation* for four stations located at points either
on the Missouri River or west of it are given below, these records being
for the period of fourteen years, from 1892 to 1905 inclusive. These
are the only stations in this portion of the state for which complete rec-
ords are available for this period.**

1892

1893

1894

1895

1896

1897

1898

1899

1900

1901

1892

1903

1904

1905

Bismarck

18.17

13.74

14.32

16.92

16.63

14.33

13.67

15.47

17.88

15.59

15.95

17.96

14.17

17.19

Dickinson
Fort Yates ....
Williston

***
21.23
14.26

11.64
16.30
15.45

***
12.20
17.76

***
12.96
17.07

18.48
20.08
22.04

***
18.32
12.19

11.92
19.55
14.44

17.27
17.71
12.61

11.78
16.80
15.81

12 92
13.42
18.36

16.49
16.85

15.00
17.69

15.19
17.30
9.44

16.55
***

10.66

* By precipitation is meant rain, snow, hail, sleet, or any form of moisture that is "precipitated"
or falls from the clouds. All frozen forms of water are reduced to equivalent amounts in the liquid form.
** Compiled from the records of the United States Weather Bureau, Bismarck, N. D.
*** Records wanting for certain months, so that the correct amount for the year could not be given.

AGRICULTURE WEST OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 249

Soils. The soils of a great part of the region lying west of the
Missouri river are different in origin from the soils of most of the
state, and differ very considerably in character from those of other parts
of the State.

The soils of any region are determined by the geological conditions
that have prevailed in the region. The soils of this region therefore
differ from those of other portions of the State because of a different
set of geological conditions through which the region has passed.

Most of the State of North Dakota falls within that great portion
of North America which was covered by the ice of the great ice sheet dur-
ing what is known as the Glacial Period. The surface formation in
the region over which this great sheet of ice passed is often spoken of as
"drift." This drift formation is made up of the broken and pulverized
fragments of the rocks of the land surfaces over which the ice passed
together with the original soil that covered the face of the landscape
before the invasion of the ice. In those regions, on the other hand,
where the ice sheet did not extend the soils have not been modified by
this agency, and consist of the residual material arising from the dis-
integrating or weathering of the rocks which form the foundation of
the landscape. The soils in such a region are spoken of as residual
soils, as distinguished from the drift soils just referred to.

The soils of any particular locality in a region where the great ice
sheet has never been will therefore be made up of the same materials
that composed the rocks in that locality, minus whatever has been re-
moved by the process of erosion.

The rocks of the great Missouri plateau, of which the region west
of the Missouri river is a part, are mostly shales, sandstones, and clays.
The soils are residual formations derived directly from the disintegra-
tion of these rocks, and consist generally of an admixture of sand and
clay, with organic matter added, principally from the decomposition of
vegetable matter such as has grown upon the landscape during long
ages.

Among the most widely distributed types of soil in the northern
states are those belonging to the classes of loams and clays. There are
sandy, stony, gravelly, silt, clay, etc., loams, and stony, gravelly, sandy
etc., clays. These terms have to do with the character of the soil as to
texture, structure, and quality. The character of soils has generally

250 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

speaking been determined by the processes through which the rocks of
the region have passed.

Sandy soils are derived, directly or indirectly, from sandstone rocks
or from rocks which when broken up by weathering yield sand fragments.

Clay soils are derived from rocks that contain argillaceous or clayey
materials, such as shales, slates, and clay-rock. Loams are soils that
contain some clay and some sand, and these are further described as
sandy loams or clay loams according to the relative amounts of clay and
sand. Sandy soils are often spoken of as "light," and clay soils as
"heavy." Not that one is lighter or heavier so far as actual weight is
concerned, or lighter or darker as to color, but looser or more compact
in texture. Light soils may be dark in color, and heavy soils may be
light in color, but light soils are generally sandy and porous, and heavy
soils are clayey and compact in texture.

Subsoil is that portion of the surface formation which lies below
the superficial few inches, and differs from the soil proper in color,
texture, and amount of organic matter contained.

In the classification of soils the subsoil as well as the surface por-
tion is considered, inasmuch as the character of the soil, so far as
agricultural conditions are concerned, is determined by the subsoil as
well as by the character of the soil proper.

The soils of Oliver, Mercer, McKenzie, northern Dunn, and east-
ern Morton Counties are in part glacial soils, that is, the soils are not
entirely residual (derived from the rocks in the localities where they
occur), but have been in part transported from some distance by the
great moving ice sheet. A belt having an indefinite edge to the west-
ward lies along the west side of the Missouri river, which belt repre-
sents the western limits of the glaciated area of North Dakota, and of
the continent of North America. This "belt" of land along the west
side of the river shows by the character of the soils and the rocks that
lie upon or near the surface that the great continental glacier was once
here. Toward the west the belt fades out and becomes indistinguish-
able from the land farther west over which the ice did not pass, but the
eastern part of the belt is sufficiently modified as to the soils and the
landscape features to be readily recognized.

For a distance of 15 to 30 miles west of the river the soils are con-
siderably modified by the presence of drift. Farther from the river the
presence of drift, and therefore the presence of the one-time ice sheet,

AGRICULTURE WEST OF THE MISSOURI RIVER.

251

is shown by the occurrence of scattering boulders of granite and other
hard rocks. Where only a few boulders occur, and these scattered
widely so that the traveler sees only an occasional specimen, and these
only at intervals of many rods or even miles as the western limit of the
drift is approached, the soil does not appear to have been greatly modi-
fied by the presence of the drift, but is largely residual in its origin. In
the region nearer the river the occurrence of boulders is common, and
the soils show evidence of the influence of drift sands and gravels, silts
and clays.

FlG. 135. Jack Williams' Ranch, near Little Missouri River, McKenzie County.
Photograph by Rex Willard,

The soils nearer the river resemble the soils on the east side of the
river and the interior portion of the state. The soils in the region far-
ther west than any boulders of granite occur constitute a different series
of soils. These last, as indicated before, are residual soils formed from
the rocks of the region. Along the western portion of the indefinite
belt of drift west of the river the soils are influenced less and less by the
drift toward the west and more and more toward the east.

The soils, therefore, in the belt bordering the Missouri River on
the west constitute a transition type from the glacial soils of the eastern

252 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

portion of the State to the non-glaciated or residual soils of the south-
western portion of the State.

The soils in any region are an expression of the geological processes
that have occurred there. The soils in the regions beyond the limits
of the great continental glacier have had a different geological history
from the soils where the action of the great ice sheet affected the whole
land surface.

In western Morton, southern Dunn, Hettinger, Stark, Billings and
Bowman Counties the soils are residual in character, that is, they have
been derived from the layers of rock which underlie the landscape.
These rocks were originally deposited on the bottom of a shallow sea,
and when first thrown down as sediments were in the form of muds
and sands. During the long lapse of time they became solidified into
more or less compacted rock. The layers or shelves of rock that jut
from the sides of buttes, and the crags and pinnacles that project from
the crests, are eroded and broken edges of the rock layers that were
once the muddy or sandy bottoms of the sea. All the rock that used to
be between the hills, that is, the material that once filled the present
valleys, has been removed by erosion and carried away by the land
waters that have flowed off from the land.

The result of the erosion processes upon the rocks, weathering,
transportation, and deposition, is the soils as they exist today. In
places where there was sandstone rock the soils are generally sandy,
because the sandstone is merely sea sand compacted into stone. When
the stone breaks up by the action of the weathering agencies of heat,
frost, air, and water the rock becomes sand again. If a good deal of
water flows over any region the soluble and finer clayey parts are carried
away by the water, and the heavier particles of sand are left. It is this
process of disintegrating and carrying away the finer parts of the soil
that makes the flood waters of the streams roilly or muddy.

The soils in the region west of the drift covered belt, have been
determined in character by the kind of rock in the particular region
and the character of the destructive work of erosion that has taken place.
The soils west of the Missouri River may for the purposes of this study
be divided into six groups, though this classification will be quite gen-
eral in its application. These are : ( i ) the soils that have been de-
posited by the great ice sheet, or which have been largely modified by it.
These may be called for convenience glacial soils; (2) the heavy lands

AGRICULTURE WEST OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 253

occupying the lower places, often called "gumbo;" (3) the sandy loam
of the rolling lands; (4) the sandy or stony areas of the higher ridges
and hills; (5) the eroded and broken regions, called ''bad lands;" and,
(6) the bench and bottom lands along the stream courses.

The glacial or drift soils are described in other parts of this book
and need not be again described here. Their occurrence in low broad
hills, often small, and distributed in the irregular fashion of drift hills
in the eastern portion of the State may be recognized by any one who
has studied drift deposits anywhere. They have been so far modified
in this region by the erosion of the streams that their true character
may not always be readily recognized. The presence of boulders of
granite is, however, always an indication of drift, and gravelly deposits
composed of pebbles of granite and other rocks not native to this region
are pretty sure indicators of drift, and of the glacial origin of the soil.

In this connection it may be observed that in Bowman, Billings, and
western Hettinger Counties pebbles occur in great abundance which at
first appear much like glacial or drift pebbles, both in their petrologic
or rock character and in their rounded and often smoothed form. These
rocks, however, occur most abundantly in the extreme southwestern
part of the state, and only scatteringly toward the Missouri River. They
will not be mistaken for drift pebbles after a little experience.

The "gumbo" soils in the valleys are often in nearly level tracts.
In fact it is not infrequently the case that the land is so nearly level
that drainage is difficult. The texture and -character of the soil in these
places is that of a fine grained and compact clay, and is not infrequently
somewhat alkaline. The clay appears to have been derived from a shale-
clay formation which is one of the rock formations of this region. In
this shale-clay are some alkaline mineral substances which were depos-
ited with the muds upon the ancient sea bottom. These mineral sub-
stances accumulate in the low places where there is not drainage suffi-
cient to carry them away.

The sandy-loam soils, when underlaid with a clay subsoil, are the
best soils of this region for general agricultural purposes. And this
type of soil embraces by far the greater part of the agricultural lands*
throughout this region.

The soil is described as a sandy loam. This means that in texture
the soil is more light and porous than the heavier clay soils of the low

* By agricultural lands is meant all those lands that are in any reasonable sense fit for general farm-
ing, and the term includes all the land that might reasonably be ploughed, but does not include rocky
hill crests or "bad lands."

254

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES

places described above, and yet contain enough clay to give body and
firmness to the soil. It is usually dark in color due to the presence of
organic matter. When underlaid with a clay subsoil this gives support
to the soil by holding the soil moisture from draining away tco rapidly
and furnishes a supply of moisture from below to the soil above dur-
ing the warm summer months when crops are growing.

In the third type of soil referred to, if indeed it may be called a
soil type, the surface formation of the hills and ridges, is included
the high or stony parts of the hills or buttes, and the higher ridges
which are capped with sand derived from a sandstone rock layer j but

FIG. 136. Valley of Cherry Creek, McKenzie County. Photograph by Rex Willard.

still covered with grass or other vegetation. This type is such as will
furnish pasturage, but will not generally be of much value for other
fanning purposes.

The fourth or "bad lands" type is that characteristic kind of land-
scape which is widely known as "bad lands," but which in reality should
be called, as first named by the early French explorers "bad lands to
travel through." These lands are not adapted to general farming, and
are not included in the general classification of agricultural lands. They
are lands well adapted to grazing, but are inaccessible to general farm-

AGRICULTURE WEST OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 255

ing. The hillsides are often naked of any vegetation, the layers of
shale, shale-clay, and sandstone extending to the surface without cover-
ing of any trace of soil. Soils derived directly from the erosion or wash-
ing and disintegration of these naked rocks accumulate in the valley
bottoms, and these soils support nutritious and valuable varieties of
grasses, and produce large crops of alfalfa, timothy, oats, barley, and
garden crops when cultivated. The areas that are available for cultiva-
tion are, however, usually limited, so that the general fact remains as
stated, that these lands are best adapted to grazing and not to general
farming.

The soils of the stream bottoms and benches comprise a group of
soil types falling in a class by themselves, and differing from those
above described. The flats and benches along the stream courses rep-
resent deposits made during the flood stages of these streams. By flood
stages is here meant those times in the past when vastly larger streams
flowed down these water courses than any that ever flow in them now
even during the highest freshets.

It is not necessary to give here a geological history of these streams,
but merely to refer to the facts that have a bearing on the present char-
acter of the soils.

The soils of the broad level benches that border most of the larger
streams frequently have a gravelly subsoil. This renders the problem
of their successful use for farming lands a somewhat difficult one, since
the gravelly subsoil permits of ready under-drainage, and does not
sufficiently conserve the moisture of the soil for the grain crops during
the drier seasons.

No general rule can be laid down however for all these lands. The
soils and subsoils represent floodplain deposits of streams heavily laden
with sediment. Such streams deposit their burden of earth materials
whenever the current is slackened. The soils will differ therefore in
different places, and often within short distances, according to the con-
ditions which affected the rate or flow of the waters of the stream.

The particular consideration of these stream deposited soils must
await the more detailed investigation of a systematic soil survey before
they can be correctly mapped and the types defined.

In many instances the flats or bottom lands constituting the lowest
extensive floodplain are sufficiently heavy to make valuable farming
lands, and fine hay-meadows may be developed on these lands. On the

256 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

other hand, some of the bench lands, while level and beautiful to look
upon, are too sandy in texture and the subsoil too loose and porous to
make farming by the ordinary methods profitable.

Water Supply The supply of water from streams and springs in
the region of North Dakota west of the Missouri River is much greater
than that in many parts of the State east of the river. None of the
streams west of the Missouri are large except during the rainy seasons
and times of melting snows. However, there is a constant supply of
water for stock during the entire year in the larger streams. Streams
and springs have furnished the water supply for the stock of the ranges
during the past, but with the settlement of the country by farmers this
supply will be insufficient, and owing 1 to the distances it would be im-
practicable for the settlers generally to depend upon the water of the
streams. Some fine springs furnish excellent water and an abundant
supply, but this supply can be only made available to the few who are
so fortunately situated as to have access to a spring.

Obviously, therefore, the question of a water supply from wells is
soon bound to become a practical question.

So far as this problem has been solved by the practical test of
experience the results seem very favorable and satisfactory. Few tests
for artesian water have been made, and the question of artesian or
flowing wells is therefore largely an open one, though there seems to be
ground to doubt if artesian water will prove to be available in this region
generally. However, the sandstone layers underlying the country should,
and probably do, contain abundant supplies of water, so far as geological
deduction gives a clue. Experience in digging wells wherever observa-
tions have been made seem to substantiate this view. Good supplies of
water are obtained in wells from 25 to 70 feet in depth, so far as records
are at hand to show. Nothing like a complete summary of the records
of the known diggings has been made as yet, and the knowledge at
hand is limited to the occasional observations made in various parts of
the region. These observations lead to the tentative conclusion that
there is probably an abundance of water of good quality to be had at
depths, as before indicated, of 25 to 70 feet, though it may be found
necessary to go to greater depths in some cases. The water should be
good, based on geological evidence, for it is almost always the case that
water that is derived from sand or gravel beds is of good quality, often

AGRICULTURE WEST OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 257

soft, and generally free from alkaline or other undesirable mineral sub-
stances.

Fuel Western North Dakota is abundantly blessed in the matter
of natural fuel supply. It is probably not an overestimate to say that
there is reasonable assurance, based upon geological data, that coal
seams underlie practically all of the region west of the Missouri river
and, not only this, but it is so situated that mines can be operated almost
anywhere. There are scores and hundreds of outcroppings of lignite
coal of good quality that have never been touched by way of develop-
ment, simply because there are so many accessible openings, so many
workable mines distributed wherever there is a demand for coal. Many
farmers own their own coal mines, just as in the eastern states farmers
own a "wood lot."

Coal can be had in hundreds of places for the mere labor of mining.
In other cases farmers drive to the mine, have their wagons filled, and
then haul home their supply, paying perhaps $1.00 per ton for the coal
loaded at the mine. Or it can be purchased delivered for a price that
merely pays for the mining and hauling.

Lignite coal burns without the smoke, soot, and disagreeable black-
ening that accompanies the use of the bituminous coals of the Mississippi
valley. A supply of fuel for a North Dakota winter costs not to exceed
one-fifth of what it costs for southern Minnesota, Iowa or Wisconsin.

Transportation One of the most serious hindrances to the agri-
cultural development of the great domain west of the Missouri River in
the past has been the problem of transportation of farm products and
the inaccessibility of local markets. At the present time the counties
of Hettinger, Oliver, Mercer, Dunn, and McKenzie are without rail-
road facilities, and the result is a long and tedious journey to and from
local markets.

There is reason to believe that in the near future better railroad
facilities will be afforded. As soon as there are products to be trans-
ported and supplies to be brought in, as demanded by an increased popu-
lation, a natural result would be that railroads would seek these avenues
of business. Already several surveys have been made in various parts
of the vast region west of the Missouri River, and it may confidently be
predicted that soon there will be lines of railroad traversing* these broad
and fertile lands.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

THE WATER SUPPLY.

Conditions Necessary for Artesian Wells. In a prairie country more
than in a broken or hilly country the water supply for men and animals
comes from wells. In a prairie country there are generally few streams
and these are apt to be small and often sluggish so that their waters
are not good for drinking, and there are not usually many springs. In
North Dakota a large part of the water supply for towns and cities as
well as farms comes largely from wells. This condition makes the pos-
sibility of obtaining artesian wells over a large part of the State a very
fortunate thing. An immense saving to the people of North Dakota
results each year from the fact that the water flows from the depths of.
the earth without being pumped.

Artesian wells have been in use^for hundreds of years, but the fact
that they have been long known does not make it possible to obtain
them in every place. It is only where the structure of the earth deep
below the surface is such as to cause an upward pressure of the water
that an artesian well can be obtained.

The word "artesian" is borrowed from France from the province
of Artois, because such wells were first known there. When flowing
wells began to be found in other parts of the world they were called
Artois wells or Artois-ian wells, and by usage the word has become
"artesian."

Artesian wells differ irom common wells in that the water flows
from them naturally, that is, without being pumped. They are often
deep, but there are many wells not artesian which are much deeper
than some artesian wells. Sometimes artesian wells are a mile or more
in depth, and there are many in North Dakota which are less than fifty
feet in depth. There are even natural artesian wells, in which the
water rises to the surface as springs, but yet the flowing of the water is
due to the same causes as those which make the flow from a boring.

The reader will be able to understand the conditions which are
necessary for an artesian well from Figure 137. The section shows the

THE WATER SUPPLY. 259

relation of the underlying rocks from the Red River Valley westward
to the Rocky Mountains. The source of the water supply is the region
along the base of the Rocky Mountains where the rain which falls upon
the ground soaks into the soil and travels underground along the
porous gravel and sand of the Dakota Sandstone. The water follows
this layer at first for the same reason that it flows down hill on the sur-
face. It fills all the little cavities or spaces in the loose rock because
of the pressure due to the weight of the water.

Now, if a boring is made from the surface down through the over-
lying rock layers the water will rise in this opening and there will be

FIG. 137. Section showing Water Supply of Deep Artesian Wells. After Upham.

a flowing well. How rapidly the water will rise above the ground and
flow out at the surface or how high it will rise depends upon the pressure
or "head" which the water has, for the same reason that the height of
the tower on which the water tank stands in a city determines how
rapid a stream of water can be poured from a hose in time of fire, or
how high a stream can be thrown, or how high it can be made to run
in pipes in the houses.

Not taking into account the friction of the water in its passage in
the rocks it will rise as high as the source or collecting ground along
the foot of the mountains from whence it comes. But it will not ac-
tually rise nearly as high because of the friction, but we may think of
the flow from an artesian well being determined by the "head" or
height of the land where the rainwater soaks into the ground, and if
this is a good deal higher than the surface where the well is the water
will flow out with considerable force, but if it is not much higher and is
a long distance away then the water may rise only part way in the bor-
ing and not flow out at all.

There must be a layer of clay or shale or some rock through which
water does not pass readily both above and below the gravel and sand
layer or else the water would soak away into the other layers of rock

260 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

and so would not rise in the boring and flow out at the surface. There
are, therefore, certain conditions necessary for an artesian well; there
must be, firstly, a collecting ground higher than the surface where the
boring is made; secondly, there must be a layer of rock both above and
below the layer from which the water flows through which water can-
not readily pass; and, thirdly, there must be enough difference between
the height of the collecting ground and the place where the boring is
made to overcome the friction or resistance to the passage of the water.

Deep Artesian Wells West of the Red River Valley. The artesian wells
at Devils Lake, Jamestown, Ellendale and Oakes, and a large number
in South Dakota, obtain their water supply from the Dakota Sandstone
by deep borings through the overlying formations. The borings vary
in depth from less than one-fifth of a mile at Oakes to more than one-
third of a mile at Devils Lake and Jamestown. These pierce through
the Fort Pierre, Niobrara and Fort Benton formations, which are
mostly shale and through which water does not readily pass.

From the section showing the formations of the State (Figure in)
it will be seen that the top of the Dakota Sandstone in the northern
portion of the State is nearly at sea-level. The depot at Devils Lake
is 1,468 feet above the level of the sea, and the surface about the well
is six or eight feet higher. The depth of the well is 1,511 feet. The
boring penetrates eighty feet into fine white sand. The top of the
Dakota Sandstone is, therefore, at this point about forty-five feet above
sea-level.

The depot at Jamestown is 1,395 feet above sea-level, and the well
reaches a depth of 1,476 feet, penetrating into the top of the sand-
stone. The surface about the well is about eight feet below the depot.
The upper part of the Dakota Sandstone beneath Jamestown is there-
fore about eighty-nine feet below sea-level.

Ellendale is 1,449 ^ eet above the sea and the well penetrates the
Dakota Sandstone at a depth of 1,087 f eet > so tnat the upper portion
of the Dakota Sandstone at this place is 362 feet above sea-level. At
Oakes the elevation is 1,322 feet and the Dakota Sandstone is reached
at a depth of 944 feet, so that the Dakota Sandstone beneath the sur-
face at Oakes is 378 feet above the sea. Farther south in South Da-
kota the sandstone is reached at still less depths, showing that its upper
portion is nearer the surface southward. At Vermilion in the south-
east corner of South Dakota the sandstone is reached at 323 feet below
the surface, or 818 feet above sea-level.

THE WATER SUPPLY.

261

It would, therefore, seem that artesian wells may be expected to
be obtained anywhere over the central and eastern portion of the State,
and much farther west, by penetrating to the depth necessary to reach
the Dakota Sandstone. It is not always possible, however, to get a
flow of water even when the general conditions are such as to warrant,
the expectation. Sometimes the sandstone is pierced in a place where
from some local cause, such as an unusually hard place in the sandstone
rock, the water is not able to pass readily through the rock and so
cannot rise in the boring with force enough to cause a flow.

The artesian well at Grafton penetrates through the drift to a depth
of 298 feet, but instead of entering the Dakota Sandstone passes next
through 137 feet of limestone belonging to the Lower Silurian forma-

TI^T^^

204

FIG. 138. Section showing the Series of Artesian Wells from Devils Lake and Jamestown southward
to Yankton and Vermilion. Horizontal scale, 90 miles to an inch. U. S. Geological Survey.

tion, and obtains its flow of water from a sandstone layer still lower
in the Lower Silurian series. The well had a depth of 915 feet when
first drilled, a small flow of very salt water being obtained at a depth
of 898 feet, from a sandstone layer next to the Archaean Granite. The
boring was filled, however, below the sandstone layer which yields the
very large flow of brackish water.

A section of the rocks passed through by the boring is shown in
Figure 76. It is interesting to note that the Dakota Sandstone was
not struck at all, showing that this sandstone does not, in this part of
the Red River Valley, extend as far east as this.

Artesian Wells in the Red River Valley. In the Red River Valley
there are many artesian wells which range in depth from 250 feet to
400 feet, and which, 'like the deep wells at Devils Lake, Jamestown,
Tower City, Oakes and Ellendale, derive their water supply from the
far-distant foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

From Blanchard north to southern Manitoba most of the artesian
wells are of this class. The source of the water is the same as that of

262 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

the deep wells farther west, that is, the Dakota Sandstone. To obtain
an artesian well, therefore, it is needful to penetrate through the mass
of drift. The greater part of the material of the deeper portion
of the floor of Lake Agassiz consists of boulder-clay or till. Water
cannot pass through clay much more readily than through a porcelain
dish. The glacial clay has, therefore, to be drilled through, and when
the sandstone is reached a flow of water usually results. This is not
always the case, for sometimes the sandstone is hard and compact, so
that the water is not able to soak through it readily, and so it is not
always possible to obtain an artesian well.

The drill penetrates through a few feet of soil and fine silt and soon
enters blue clay. Occasionally there are layers of sand and gravel, and
large boulders are sometimes struck. But always a harder layer of
clay known to the driller as "hard-pan" is found at the bottom of the
clay, and then beyond this is the water-bearing sandstone. This bot-
tom "hard-pan" is the part of the drift which is next to the underlying
rock, and is always passed through in drilling or digging wells either
in the Red River Valley or west of it wherever the drift lies upon the
surface. Several wells in the vicinity of Mayville and Blanchard, and
northward, range in depth from 300 to 400 feet, water being obtained
from white sandstone just below the hard-pan.

Mineral Substances in the Water of Artesian Wells. The water from
artesian wells in North Dakota generally contains some mineral matter.
That from some wells is very salt, that is, it contains the kind of salt
we use in our food, or "common salt." . Other wells contain a greater
amount of salt, but do not taste "salty" or like brine; they contain other
kinds of salt. Some of these give a bitter taste to the water, and some-
times the water is a bitter brine, and still other salts give a sparkling
and pleasant taste such as those of "hard" waters in limestone regions.
Hard limestone waters are sometimes called "pure" because of their
clear and sparkling character. Such waters are far from pure though
they may be good for drinking and general uses. Some wells furnish
water that is soft so that it is good for washing. It is "soft" because
it does not contain those salts which make it "hard," though it may
contain more salts of other kinds. The water from the deep well at
Devils Lake contains seven times as much common salt (Sodium Chlo-
ride) and three and a half times as much Glauber's salt (Sodium Sul-
phate) as the water from the Jamestown well, and yet the water from
the Devils Lake well is called "soft."

THE WATER SUPPLY. 263

The salts which are in the lake water of Devils Lake are much the
same as those which are in the water of the artesian well at Devils
Lake city. The waters, therefore, which soak into the ground and
become the source of the artesian well 600 or 700 miles away dissolve
the salts from the rocks through which they pass, in a similar manner
as the rains falling upon the ground dissolve the salts from the soil and
carry them into the lake.

It should be remembered that the rocks in North Dakota, the Cre-
taceous formations, were deposited in a great inland sea or ocean, and
ocean waters are always salt. Our artesian waters are, therefore, much
like the sea water of the ancient oceans.

The water from all the wells is not the same because it does not all
pass through the same kind of rock. Wells, therefore, in different
localities furnish water differing in quality. Different rock layers con-
tain some more and some less of a certain kind of salt. The rain water
soaking into the ground and passing slowly through it dissolves out
different kinds of salt.

Another Class of Artesian Wells. There is another class of artesian
wells in the Red River Valley in which the source of the water supply
is probably not the same as that of the deep wells west of the valley
and the wells which yield salt water in the valley. They are obtained at
depths of even less than forty feet and from this up to 250 feet. Some-
times within a distance of only a few rods flowing wells are obtained
at depths varying greatly, and the water in the wells of this class is gen-

Lt-oel o$La.l<eAqa.Si

""'

FIG. 139. Section showing Water Supply of Fresh Artesian Wells. After Upham.

erally fresh. These three facts distinguish this class of wells from those
we have been studying: they are not as deep as those just described;
they vary much in depth within short distances; and the water contains
generally very little of any kind of salt.

These wells do not derive their water supply from, the Dakota Sand-

264

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

FIG. 140. Flowing Well and Tanks, Red River Valley.

FIG. 141. Flowing Well, One-half Mile North of Mooreton, Richland County.

THE WATER SUPPLY.

265

FIG. 142 Flowing Well, Chaffee Farm, Casselton Quadrangle. (Depth 434 feet; i.ooo
barrels; Section 33, Township 138, Range 53.)

FIG. 143. Flowing well One-half Mile North of Woods, Cass County.

266

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

stone, but from layers of sand or gravel in the. drift. The mantle of
drift, as we have seen, covers the underlying rocks over most of the
State like a great blanket, but much thicker or deeper in some places
than in others. Upon a large part of the Red River Valley it is 300 or
more feet deep, while on the higher lands outside the valley it is often
not more than fifteen to twenty-five feet deep. We have seen before
that the drift is made up of a variety of materials boulders, gravel,
sand and clay. Wherever the surface is sandy the rainwater soaks in
readily. If sandy and gravelly layers extend for long distances beneath
the surface then water soaking into these loose beds may follow along
them for long distances. Thus it happens that water which falls upon
the sandy hills and rolling prairies may be carried along belts of gravel

teo-

600

>i -V-..".'i'. : 'r.'>;: : : ; ''ic < -:t

S^S /?-:%

. 'SAND, -

PIG. 144. Diagram indicating the probable Relationship of Sources of Artesian Water at Grandin.

U. S. Geological Survey.

and sand to lower levels in the Red River Valley. Beds of gravel and
sand serve as underground water courses much like stream beds on the
surface.

In Figure 80 four artesian wells located at Grandin, Cass County,
are represented which have depths of 105 feet, 158 feet, 187 feet and
248 feet. These wells are only a few rods apart, and the water from
them is fresh, containing but little of any kind of salt. It is good for
drinking or for any purpose. The water of these wells, as of many
other shallow artesian wells in the Reel River Valley, has probably
come from the higher land west of the valley not so very far away
where the soil is sandy or gravelly, and it has followed the loose layers
of sand and gravel which extend between beds of clay, down to the

THE WATER SUPPLY. 267

lower valley, and thus a head is given which causes the flow when these
"veins" are tapped by the drill. These veins are probably long, nar-
row beds of gravel or sand, but in some parts of the valley wells are
obtained at about the same depths, showing that the beds are in some
places not long, narrow strips of gravel or sand, but wide sheets. Such
shallow artesian wells yielding plenty of good water are found over a
large part of the southern and eastern part of the Red River Valley
south of Blanchard, and north to Crookston in Minnesota.

The waters are fresh because they have not passed through salty
rock layers for any great distance. Waters which flow underground for
long distances and through different kinds of rocks which contain salts
are salty or alkaline because there are many salts and alkaline sub-
stances in the Cretaceous formations, and the waters in passing
through these slowly dissolve the mineral substances from them.

Common Wells. On the whole, North Dakota has an abundant sup-
ply of good, wholesome water. Almost anywhere west of the Red
River Valley, which means nearly the whole State west of the eastern
tier of counties, the supply of water from surface wells is abundant and
of good quality. The mantle of drift over the underlying shales is not
so deep but that it is an easy matter to dig or drill through it, and
plenty of water is generally obtained as soon as the overlying drift is
passed through at depths of fifteen to seventy-five feet. The writer
thought on a hot afternoon that he had never tasted better water than
the clear, sparkling liquid which he drew from an old-fashioned chain
pump at a rancher's cottage in the hill country south of Dog Den Butte
in McLean County, and many such wells dot the prairies in the great
interior portion of the State.

268

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

FIG. 145. Flowing Well, Just Struck, Trott Farm, Casselton Quadrangle. (Depth 418
feet. Flow at first, 4,000 barrels per day. Section 10, Township 140, Range 53.)

FIG. 146. Old Farm Machinery Buried by Sand Thrown Out of Budke Artesian Well,

South of Wheatland.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.
A STUDY OF THE SOILS.

What is soil? How have our soils been formed? What is the dif-
ference between good soil and poor soil? What is it that makes one
farm worth more than, another only a short distance away? Why are
some soils naturally rich and productive while others are in their natural
condition poor and can be made to produce crops only by great care in
cultivation and often by considerable expense in fertilizing? These are
questions of vital importance to the practical farmer. They are all
questions that he can answer, and upon his answer to them may depend
much of his success in farming.

A farmer does not have to be a labeled geologist in order to under-
stand something of the geology of soils. Indeed he may think that he
does not understand geology at all, but still think that he knows some-
thing about soils, their structure, texture, and qualities, good or bad. It
may very likely be the case that he does know a good deal about soils,
and in this knowledge he probably possesses more skill in geologic
observation than he has supposed, for the knowledge of soils that has
most to do with their productiveness, and hence with their value, is,
after all, principally geologic knowledge.

We may, therefore, address ourselves to the study of the geology of
soils with the understanding that this study will deal with those facts
and principles that have to do with the character of soils in their rela-
tion to the growth of plants. The structure, texture, and composition
of soils are three important considerations. Upon these depend the fer-
tility and productiveness of the land. No one of these considerations
can be unfavorable and still have the best soil. It will be seen that
these are all geological considerations, as they are all the result of
geologic processes. The best method of treatment of any soil is, there-
fore, often revealed through a study of the geological factors concerned
in the production of the soil.

Definition What then is soil? Geologically it is rock. Prac-
tically it is material in which plants will grow. Let us look at a hand-
is 269

270 THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

ful of soil from a field where crops have been grown for many years.
It is sometimes spoken of as dirt, rich dirt, poor dirt, black dirt, yellow
dirt, brown dirt, etc. Then it may be heavy or light, hard or mellow,
cold or quick. These are all terms that are in common use in describing
the qualities of soils. A little study of a sample of soil from the field
will show that these qualities are all determined by the geologic con-
ditions under which the soil was formed.

Before inquiring as to the causes by which the soil has come to be
what it is let us note carefully what this sample contains, or in other
words, let us see of what it is composed. As soon as it is examined
closely it is seen that a large part of it consists of small particles of
stone, tiny rock fragments, that are just like large boulders that we have
seen except in the matter of size. Here are many bits that look like
particles of broken glass. Then there are other particles that are black
or dark, some rounded in form, others flat like thin scales. If the par-
ticles are examined with a microscope or hand magnifying glass they
will appear much like the boulders that lie in the fields, only small. If
a hundred small bits are picked out and compared with the same num-
ber of pebbles from a gravel or sand-pit they will look much like these
except that the soil grains are smaller. Put a handful of soil in a tumbler
of water and stir it up. What happens? In a few i minutes most of
the soil has settled to the bottom. The water, however, remains roilly
for some time. Let it stand 24 hours and then carefully pour off this
water into another dish. Put in more clean water and stir again. Allow
to settle and pour off as before. The same result follows. Repeat the
process several times. After the soil has been thus thoroughly rinsed
what remains ? Just such particles as those that were picked out at first.
This simple experiment shows that the greater part of the soil is made
up of small bits of rock.

Now take all the "dirty" water that was saved from the washing
and let it stand several hours in a glass tumbler or bottle. What finally
gathers on the bottom? Fine mud. Now put a little of this mud on
a glass and look at it with a good microscope. What is the mud made
of?

If this experiment has been conducted carefully and all the materials
that settled to the bottom are weighed, it will be found that the amount
of material that has been carried off in the water is indeed very small.

A STUDY OF THE SOILS. 271

What then do you conclude that the soil, as you see it in the field, is
principally made of?

From this simple study of a handful of soil it appears that > the
greater part of the soil is small particles of rock. And we may now
ask again what is the difference in soils that makes some worth so much
more than others, if after all the soil is largely made up of small bits of
rock? A little further study of soils in the field will help to make this
matter clear. Every one has seen gravelly soil, and sandy soil, and soil
that is neither gravelly nor sandy but just good every day soil. Such a
sample was that we studied when the experiment was made. Then there
are also soils that are heavy and compact, called clayey soils. Of these
classes of soils those that are gravelly or sandy are not considered the
best for farming pursuits. They are too much affected by drought,
among other things. The clayey soil is too compact, becoming hard in
the sun, and unsuited to the growth of plants. In one case the rock
particles of which the soil is composed are too coarse, and in the other
they are too fine. The one lets the water soak in and disappear too
rapidly; the other holds the water too long. The latter class of soils is
too heavy; the former class is too light. Just the right mixture of the
clayey and sandy materials would make the best soil, and this in fact
is the most valuable class of soils in the world, the mixture of clay and
sand, called loam.

Origin of Soils Since the small particles of rock of which the
soils are so largely composed are seen to be just like the larger stones
in the field except that they differ in size, it may very naturally be asked
where these tiny bits of rock have come from that make up the soils of
the field. This is an important question, and in order to understand it,
it will be necessary to know something of the processes by which soils
have been formed. This means that it will be needful to inquire how
the rocks become broken up into small fragments.

We may consider now two ways by which the rocks are broken up.
One is by the actiori of frost, wind, heat, and rain. This is called the
process of weathering. The other is that of mechanical breaking, in
which the rocks are broken by some mechanical force that strikes one
rock against another, or some substance strikes the rocks so as to break
them.

Both these processes have been at work in forming the soils of
our prairies and fields. The weathering of rocks is going on all the

272

THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

time all around us, slowly it may be, but it is going on. New soil is
being formed all the time from the rocks. All the streams are working
away carrying fine particles of soil down stream from the lands toward
the sea. The finer parts of the soil are continually being carried away,
and if it were not that more soil is being formed to take the place of
that which is carried away the fields would by and by become very
thinly covered with soil, and in time there would be only bare rock
left.

The mechanical processes, by which rocks are broken, crushed, and

FIG. 147. Clay Butte, Capped with Sandstone. Yields soil containing stones. ^Township
149, Range 96.) Photograph by Rex Willard.

ground to fine powder, are closely related to rock weathering, and are
among the most important soil forming processes. One of the most
stupendous things that has ever occurred to chan'ge the face of the
landscape is that known as glaciation, or the movement of a great ice
sheet over the land, by which rocks were broken, crushed, and ground
to fine powder. At the same time they were often carried long dis-
tances and so were mixed and stirred, so that when the ice finally melted
the material was left in piles large or small, and scattered over large
areas. By this process a great variety of soils was deposited upon the

A STUDY OF THE SOILS.

273

landscape, and this transported material, broken, crushed, and ground
up to all degrees of fineness frorii large boulders to fine sand and clay,
now makes up the great body of soil of many of our northern states.

This work done by ice in fashioning and changing the landscape
and modifying its soils belongs to that part of the earth's history which
is known as the Glacial Period. The work that was done by the ice
during this period, and the forms in which the landscape was left after
the ice had melted, has been described in the earlier chapters of this
book. Re-read chapters three and five, having in mind the effect of the

FIG. 148. Clay Butte. Yields soil free from stones. (Township 149, Range 96.)
Photograph by Rex Willard.

things described upon the soil, and you will probably be convinced that
this has been one of the greatest factors in making North Dakota soils
what they are.

Kinds of Rock from which Soils are Derived From what has

been said it will be apparent that the particular kind of soil is determ-
ined in considerable measure by the kind of rock that was weathered
or mechanically broken up to form the soil. The chemist finds that soils
differ very much in composition, or the kind of substances of which
they are composed. For example, limestone rock when weathered or

274

,THE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.

broken and ground up will form a soil which will be composed of very
different substances from soil formed by weathering or grinding up of
shale, or of quartz rock. And since these kinds of rock differ very
greatly in hardness the texture of the soil, by which is meant the
coarseness or fineness of the grain, will differ very much. Soil formed
from limestone will be very different from soil formed from shale or
quartz rock not only in the sizes of the little grains or particles of rock
of which it is made up but it will differ also in chemical composition.
So also soil formed from shale will differ from that formed from lime-
stone or quartz, and soil formed from quartz will differ from the others

FIG. 149. Morainic Lake Filling with Vegetable Matter. (Muskrat house in center.)

both in texture and in chemical composition. And since both the chemi-
cal composition and the texture of the soil makes a difference in the
fertility, or in the value of the soil for plant growth, the amount of each
kind of rock that entered into its formation becomes a very important
matter.

Thus we shall find ourselves driven back to the geology of the orig-
inal rocks from which our soils have been formed in order to find out
their nature. In the Seventh and Twentieth chapters something is said
about the ages of the rocks in North Dakota, and the conditions under
which these rocks were formed. Not all limestones, nor all shales, nor

A STUDY OF THE SOILS. 275

all quartzites, are alike in their manner of formation, and all are not
made of the same substances. The soils that are formed from the
weathering or the mechanical breaking and grinding of these rocks
therefore are not the same. Whether a particular farm is good for the
raising of wheat, or whether or not the soil contains alkali, may depend
upon the conditions that existed in the ancient seas upon the bottom
of which these rocks were originally laid down as sediments.

The materials that lie at or near the surface in North Dakota east
of the Missouri River are often spoken of as drift. The shale or clay
or sandstone that lies beneath the drift is called the underlying rock.
The story of the drift has been told in earlier pages of this book. The
history of the underlying rock also has been given in Chapters Seven
and Twenty. The drift has been explained to have been derived
largely from the underlying rock in the vicinity where the drift occurs.
This means that the drift is rock that has been mechanically broken,
pulverized, and mixed by the action of the great ice sheet.

Soluble Salts or Alkali Let us first consider the materials of the
soil which may be dissolved in water. These are often spoken of a