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MINNESOTA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
William H. Emmons, Director

N cooperation with the united states geological survey
BULLETIN NO. 13

SURFACE FORMATIONS
AND AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS OF
NORTHEASTERN MINNESOTA

FRANK LEVERETT

AND

FREDERICK W. SARDESON
WITH A CHAPTER ON

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF MINNESOTA

U. G. PURSSELL

MINNEAPOLIS
The University of Minnesota

Hmwrattg of lUtttttPHDta

MINNESOTA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
William H. Emmons, Director

IN cooperation with the united states geological survey
BULLETIN NO. 13

SURFACE FORMATIONS
AND AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS OF
NORTHEASTERN MINNESOTA

FRANK LEVERETT
and

FREDERICK W. SARDESON
WITH A CHAPTER ON

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF MINNESOTA

U. G. PURSSELL

MINNEAPOLIS
The University of Minnesota
1917

CONTENTS

Introduction 1-4

Field work and acknowledgments 5

Chapter 1. Physical features of Minnesota 6-23

Topography of Minnesota 6-1 1

General statement 6

Altitude 7

Relief 7

Drainage 10

Lakes 11

Surface geology 11-19

Rock areas 11

The earthy mantle 12

General statement 12

Residuary material 12

Wind deposits 12

Loess 12

Wind-blown sand 13

Glacial deposits 13

Stream deposits 15

Lake deposits 15

The glacial features and their history 16

Glacial lake features 17

General soil conditions 19-23

Vegetation 20

Weathering 20

Lime 22

Effects of fires 22

Chapter 11. Climatic conditions of Minnesota 24-44

Introduction 24

General climatic conditions 25

Temperature 25

Frosts 32

Precipitation 37

Snowfall 40

Winds 40

Relative humidity 40

Number of rainy days 41

Sunshine 41

Tables showing winds and humidity 42-43

iii

iv COX TEXTS

Chapter III. Agricultural conditions and land classification 45-6/

General statement 45-49

Descriptions of counties 49-67

Cook County 49

Lake County 51

St. Louis County 55

Koochiching County 58

Itasca County 61

Eastern Cass County 63

Northeastern Crow Wing County 63

Aitkin County 64

Carlton County 67

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Plate 1. Map of surface formations of Minnesota (Sheet II)

in pocket

11. A. Superior red drift over Patrician red drift near
Cloquet

B. Clayey Keewatin drift over stony Patrician drift

at Biwabik 12

III. A. Gravel Outwash in Lake County

B. Gravel in beach of Lake Agassiz 16

IV. A. Esker between lakes in eastern Lake County

B. Interior structure of an esker in Lake County. . . 18
V. A. Garden plot of Anthony Gasco on Lake Harriet,
Lake County

B. Farm on shore of Lake Superior at Lutzen, Cook

County 46

VI. A. Shores and islands of Vermilion Lake

B. Cross River meandering through a spruce swamp

in its headwaters 48

VII. A. Field of oats on Keewatin till plain in St. Louis
County

B. Dairy farm, St. Louis County 50

VIII. A. Breaking ground at Meadowlands

B. Stock farm at Meadowlands

C. Farm premises at Meadowlands 52

IX. A. Fertile valley north of Vermilion Lake at ''Half-
Way House"

B, Farm on the stony Patrician drift at Tower 54

X. A. Farm on clayey Keewatin drift east of Cook

B. Pioneer marketing at Cook 56

XI. A. Clearing in poplar forest on Little Fork River,
St. Louis County

B. Ditching a muskeg in St. Louis County

C. Jack pine over 100 feet high at Sturgeon Lake,

St. Louis County 58

XII. A. First crop on land stumped the previous year at
Experiment Farm, Duluth

B. Heavy steel disk used in preparing new soil

C. Winter view at Duluth Experiment Farm 60

vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Plate XIII. A. Com with good sized maturing ear, at Duluth Ex-
periment Farm
B. Com suitable for ensilage at Duluth Experiment

Farm 62

XIV. A. Spruce and poplar on bed of Lake Agassiz west ui
Cook

B. Muskeg in bed of Lake Agassiz near Big Falls . . 64
XV. A. Very bowldery land on Mesabi Range near Rib-
bing

B. Rocky areas in northeastem Minnesota 66

TEXT FIGURES

Fig. I. Altitude map of Minnesota 8

2. Map showing glacial drifts, loess, and glacial lakes in

Minnesota 14

3. Map of Minnesota showing distribution of forest and

prairie 21

4. Map showing mean annual temperatures of Minnesota

(degrees Fahrenheit) 26

5. Map showing mean temperatures of Minnesota for Janu-

a.ry (degrees Fahrenheit) 28

6. Map showing mean temperatures of Minnesota for July

(degrees Fahrenheit) 29

7. Map showing highest known temperatures in Minnesota

(degrees Fahrenheit) 30

8. Map showing lowest known temperatures in Minnesota

(degrees Fahrenheit) 31

9. Map showing average date of the last killing frost in spring

in Minnesota 33

10. Map showing average date of first killing frost in autumn

in Minnesota 34

11. Map showing number of days of the average crop-growing

season in Minnesota 35

12. Map showing the average annual precipitation for Minne-

sota 36

13. Diagram showing comparative monthly distribution of pre-

cipitation in Minnesota 38

14. Diagram showing mean monthly rainfall and mean monthly

temperature at several stations in Minnesota 38

15. Diagram showing rainfall and temperatures (degrees

Fahrenheit) at St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1837-1913.. 39

INTRODUCTION

By W. H. Emmons

Soil is the loose unconsolidated material which nearly everywhere
covers the surface of the earth and in which plant life may be maintained.
It is made up of finely divided rock in which decaying vegetable matter
and animal matter are mingled. A soil is generally in a state of change.
It is being washed little by little to the creeks and rivers which carry it
to the sea, where it often forms delta deposits ; if no new soil formed,
hard rock would finally be exposed instead of the loose plant-producing
soil. But rocks at and near the surface are continually changing and
new soil is being formed from the underlying rock or from loose clayey
or gravelly material that may constitute the subsoil, or from bowldery
material that at many places in Minnesota lies between the hard rock
and the soil.

Water and air attack rock matter and break it down. Heat and cold,
freezing and thawing, shatter the rocks and give plants an opportunity
to send roots into the cracks that are formed, and these, prying the rocks
apart, reduce them to particles of still smaller size. Even the hard, solid
rocks are ultimately broken down; a building of good solid stone may
crumble in a few hundred years, particularly in a moist climate.

Some of the rocky matter is dissolved by the water and carried to the
sea in solution. It is such dissolved material that makes water "hard"
and that gathers in the bottom of a vessel when water is boiled. But
not all of the soluble substances are dissolved and carried away; some
remain in the soil and the character of the soil depends largely upon
these. Some soils are acid because they have not enough lime. Some
are deficient in potash or phosphates, which are necessary if soil is to
produce certain crops satisfactorily.

Because it forms the soil, the composition of the underlying material
is of great importance. In Minnesota most of the soil is the weathered
portion of glacial drift or of lake beds and other features connected with
the deposition of the drift. Long ago nearly all of what is now the state
of Minnesota was covered over with a great ice sheet hundreds of feet
thick that slowly moved down from the Canadian highland carrying with
it rocky material which it had gathered in the north. When the ice
melted it left large quantities of rock and soil that had mingled with
the ice and this material is the loose drift that lies between the hard
rock and the surface. At many places where it is not yet disintegrated
it appears as large groups of bowlders mixed with clay. Although the

ISTRODVCTION

ice sheet moved very slowly, perhaps not more than a few rods a year
or even less, it was active for a long period and locally it scoured the
country clean of soil and loose material which on melting it piled up
somewhere else.

This statement of the origin of the loose material or drift is not
speculation, but is substantiated by the most convincing facts. The de-
posits and all of the features of the country formerly covered with ice
are like those that may now be observed in Greenland or Antarctica,
where the slowly moving ice fields or glaciers still cover bodies of land
of continental proportions. Glacial bowlders, bowlder clay, scratches on
the rocks, morainal hills and kettles, all ordered with respect to definite
features of the former ice sheet, may be seen at thousands of places in
Vlinnesota.

In the northern parts of Cook, I^ke, and St. Louis counties the ice
sheet removed the soil and subsoil, laying bare the underlying hard rock.
Before the ice melted in this region it had carried the loose material
away. Since that time there has been some weathering of the rock,
but at most places not enough to give a good workable soil. Many of
these areas are in the Superior National Forest and are well suited for
growing forests although they have little or no value for farming. In the
southern parts of these counties near the lake there are areas with loose
sandy soil well suited to growing garden truck.

The last great ice sheet that covered the area melted ver>' slowly and
the southern part was melted long before the northern part. The ice
that still remained in the north formed a great dam which held back
the drainage of the Red River basin and formed a large lake which is
called the glacial Lake Agassiz. This extended from the Red River
Valley and plains of Manitoba as far east as the western part of the area
herein described, covering nearly all of Koochiching County and the
northwestern part of St. Louis County. When the ice retreated and
this lake was drained, there were left the old beach ridges which now
supply building sites and road material. Extensive beds of lake sediments
were left also, and when these are suitably drained they make good soil.
Other lakes smaller than Lake Agassiz, but yet extensive, were formed
also. When they were drained, their beds likewise became available for
plant growth and where properly drained they generally make good soil,
especially where the soil contains sufficient clay.

Swamps are very numerous in the northeast quarter of the state.
They are portions of the old lake beds and other poorly drained areas and
are of little value for agriculture until drained. Since the ice melted a
growth of vegetation has been established on them and great thicknesses
of partially decayed vegetation have accumulated in them. This forms

INTRODUCTION

the peat which is found in so many of the swamps. Some of it is very
thick and will doubtless become a valuable asset in the future when other
fuels shall have become more costly.

The great productivity of Minnesota soils is due, not only to their
recent origin by reason of which nearly all of them still contain the
soluble mineral foods for plants, but also to a favorable climate. The
low temperatures which frequently prevail during certain periods in
winter make for healthful conditions for animal hfe and they also benefit
plant life. The rainfall, though not excessively great, is sufficient and,
since most of it occurs during the growing period, drouths are rare and
crop failures almost unknown except in the more sandy soils, which are,
however, adapted to quick-growing crops like potatoes. As shown herein,
the length of the crop-growing season, that is, the time between late spring
frosts and early autumn frosts, is ^between lOO and 170 days for all ex-
cept the extreme northeast corner of the state. The long days, high
proportion of sunshine, and the moderate humidity are all favorable to
plant growth.

This bulletin is a preliminary paper which treats the soils of only
the northeast quarter of Minnesota. It will be followed by a report on
the entire state, the field work for which already has been completed.
The work has been done in accordance with the agreement for coopera-
tion between the United States Geological Survey and the Minnesota
Geological Survey, entered into, March, 191 2. By this agreement the
services of Mr. Frank Leverett were secured for surveying the surface
formations and soils. Mr. Leverett has been engaged since 1886, or
thirty years, in studying the surface geology of the Great Lakes region
and because of his large experience in the greater area he was particularly
well prepared to undertake the studies in Minnesota. He has spent,
moreover, considerable time in the state studying its physiography in con-
nection with the preparation of a monograph for the United States Geol-
ogical Survey. Since the reorganization of the State Survey, the salary
of Mr. Leverett has been met by the United States Geological Survey,
while the greater part of his expenses have been paid by the State Survey.
The State Survey has provided also for this work the services and ex-
penses of Professor F. W. Sardeson, who has assisted in this work for
the past five seasons. For a short period, also, the State has supplied
the services of Dr. Arthur H. Elftman. We wish to acknowledge the
generous assistance of the Division of Soils of the Department of Agri-
culture of the University of Minnesota and of the United States Bureau
of Soils. The valuable contributions to the knowledge of the surface
formations of Minnesota by the Minnesota Geological and Natural His-
tory Survey, under the direction of Professor N. H. Winchell, particu-

INTRODUCTION

larly those of Mr. Warren Upham of that Survey, have aided greatly
in the preparation of this report. The section on dimatic conditions in
Minnesota has been generously contributed without any cost to the Sur-
vey by Mr. U. G. Pursscll, Director of the Minnesota Section of the
United States Weather Bureau. In the preparation of the maps and
other data showing dates of killing frosts, lengths of growing season,
rainfall, etc., Professor C. J. Posey has rendered efficient service.

The cost of preparation of this report has been met by the Minne-
sota Geological Survey and the United States Geological Survey. This
bulletin is printed by the Minnesota Geological Survey. Arrangements
have been made so that land and colonization companies can secure these
reports at actual cost of printing, and it is expected that this arrange-
ment will secure a wide distribution. The maps are not intended to be
used as a basis for the purchase of land; they do not give an accurate
description of each forty-acre tract or each section, but they show the
general classification of the land, its climate, and its surroundings.

SURFACE FORMATIONvS AND AGRICULTURAL
CONDITIONS IN NORTHEASTERN
MINNESOTA

By Frank Leverett and Frederick W. Sardeson

FIELD WORK AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The field embraced in this report on northeastern Minnesota includes
the whole of Cook, Lake, and St. Louis counties, and parts of Koochi-
ching, Itasca, Cass, Crow Wing, Aitkin, and Carlton counties. Its south-
ern limit is the median line of the state, which is near latitude 46° 25',
and its western line is the 94th meridian. It embraces about 17,280 square
miles, a little more than 20 per cent of the state.

Following the plan in Bulletin No. 12, on Northwestern Minnesota,
a brief general description of the surface features and deposits of the
entire state is given, and the climate of the entire state also is discussed.

In addition to the field work by the authors, assistance was rendered
by Earl R. Preston for two months in studies in Cook, Lake, and St. Louis
counties. In the study of these counties assistance was also rendered
by Dr. Arthur H. Elftman for a brief period. Dr. Elftman had, some
years previously, explored a considerable part of Lake and Cook coun-
ties as a member of the Geological Survey under Professor N. H. Win-
chell, and was thus able to supply valuable data in reference to parts of
the county which now are not easily accessible, because of the lack of
roads or trails, and which were then studied by working out from camps
and by canoe trips through the lakes and connecting streams. In the
preparation of this report much aid has been derived from the publica-
tions of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, pre-
pared under the direction of Professor N. H. Winchell. Much use has
been made also of the volume by George A. Ralph, State Drainage Engi-
neer, entitled Topographical and Drainage Survey of Minnesota for ipo6.
Its maps have been especially valuable as a basis for estimating the swamp
land areas, and its lines of levels for drawing the contours which appear
on Plate I of the present report. Aid has been rendered also by numer-
ous residents of the region in supplying information and in guidance
through parts difficult of access, a kind of assistance which is especially
valuable in a region so sparsely inhabited and imperfectly opened to
travel.

CHAPTER I

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF MINNESOTA

TOPOGRAPHY OF MINNESOTA
GENERAL STATEMENT

The position of Minnesota is near the center of the North American
Continent, and the state embraces an area of 84,682 square miles, of
which about 93 per cent is land and 7 per cent water. Its extreme length
is nearly 400 miles, from latitude 43° 30', at the Iowa line, to a point
about 23 miles north of the 49th parallel, in the projection known as the
Northwest Angle, northwest of Lake of the Woods. The greatest width
is 367 miles, but the average width is only about 225 miles, or but little
more than half of the length.

Minnesota presents more variety in surface features than most of
the north central states, yet a great part of its surface is level or only
gently undulating. The flattest portion falls largely in the northwest
quarter, and was once the bed of the glacial Lake Agassiz, a lake held in
on the north, in central Canada, by the great ice sheet. The rough-
est portion is in the northeastern quarter within the area embraced in
this report. This part is composed largely of volcanic formations and
iron-bearing rocks which, though glaciated, were not everywhere buried
beneath the glacial deposits. In the southeastern part of the state deep
erosion valleys along the Mississippi and its tributaries present bold rock
bluffs 300 to 600 feet high. The interior and southern parts of the state
have features due almost entirely to the work of the great ice sheets,
which at successive times, and from different directions, overspread Min-
nesota. The glacial deposits comprise an intricate system of moraines
with undulating to hilly surface, associated with which are level outwash
plains of sand and gravel, and gently undulating intermorainic till plains.
The moraines were formed along the border of the ice at definite lines
where the edge of the ice held its position for a relatively long time. They
consist of sharp knolls and inclosed basins and also of more or less
parallel ridges which, however, interlock in places. These moraines are
distributed in rudely concentric systems which mark successive positions
of the border of each ice sheet as it was melting off from this region.
The outwash plains lie on the outer border of the moraines, where sandy
gravel was spread out by dirt-laden waters escaping from the ice. The
till plains lie along the inner or iceward border of the moraines and rep-
resent areas over which the ice border melted back somewhat rapidly,
forming relatively few knolls and ridges.

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF MINNESOTA

ALTITUDE

The altitude of Minnesota ranges from 602 feet, the level of Lake
Superior, up to 2,230 feet, on high rock hills in the northeast part of the
state, in western Cook County. The small map. Figure i, shows that a
large part of the state falls between 1,000 and 1,500 feet. The average alti-
tude of the state is not far from 1,200 feet. The portions above 1,500
feet lie chiefly in two areas, one at the northeast and one at the southwest
corner of the state, though there is a good sized area around the sources
of the Mississippi River in the western part, and several smaller areas in
that vicinity; one of these in the southern part of Otter Tail County is
known as the Leaf Hills. The altitude of the elevated area in the south-
western part falls short a little of reaching 2,000 feet, but that in the
northeastern part includes several small areas, chiefly in Cook County,
that rise above 2,000 feet. The portions below 1,000 feet fall in two areas
widely separated except for a connecting line along the Minnesota val-
ley, one being on the western edge of the state and the other on the
eastern. There is also a narrow strip bordering Lake Superior. The
100-foot contours which appear on the glacial and soil map of north-
eastern Minnesota (Plate I), show the altitude relations in the district
embraced in the present report, while Figure i sets forth the conditions
for the remainder of the state.

RELIEF

The most conspicuous relief is found in the "Sawtooth Range" and
other prominent ridges that closely border Lake Superior and which
rise abruptly from 500 to 900 feet above the lake. The rock ranges
lying back from the shore, though more elevated than those fronting
on the lake, seldom rise more than from 200 to 300 feet above the
swamps and lakes among them. In fact several of the lakes of Cook
County are above 1,900 feet or within 300 feet of the level of the highest
points in the state. The most prominent part of the Mesabi Iron Range
in St. Louis County rises from 400 to 450 feet above bordering plains.
The Coteau des Prairies rises about 700 feet above the plain northeast
of its border, but in Minnesota the rise is usually spread over a space of
from 12 to 15 miles or more in width, so that the elevation can scarcely
be appreciated by one crossing over it. There is a rather rapid rise of
from 300 to 500 feet to the sharp range of hills in Otter Tail and Becker
counties from the Red River valley. This rise is of especial interest
since it seems to have some influence on the rainfall, the precipitation
being greater in these hills where air currents are forced upward and
cooled than in the bordering lower lands to the north, west, and south.

EXPLANATORY NOTE, FIGURE i

This map shows the great extent of land in Minnesota standing between i,ooo
and 1,500 feet above sea level, as well as the distribution of the higher areas and
of areas standing below 1,000 feet.

It shows also the effect of low areas in favoring the movement of the latest
invasion of ice from the north, that which deposited the young gray Keewatin
drift, as well as the effect of the high areas in checking the movement. The great
axial movement of the :ce was through the low-lying Red River basin, much of
which is below 1,000 feet, and thence down the Minnesota valley to the great bend
at Mankato over a plain much of which is below 1,100 feet. The thumb-like off-
shoot of the ice, in a lobe extending from Wright and Hennepin counties north-
eastward across Anoka, Isanti, and Chisago counties, into the edge of Wisconsin,
was apparently induced by an exceptionally low area, largely below 1,000 feet,
over which it passed. In northern Minnesota the ice passed over the relatively low
land, 1,200 to 1,300 feet, along and near the Mississippi River in Cass and Itasca
counties, into the St. Louis River basin in St. Louis County, and down the Missis-
sippi in Aitkin County ; but it was so checked by higher land, 1,500 to 1,750 feet, in
Clearwater, Becker, and Hubbard counties, that it could there reach only south-
eastern Hubbard and neighboring parts of Cass and Wadena counties. The Mesabi
Range also held the ice border back nearly to the western edge of St. Louis County
while it pushed eastward some distance in St. Louis County, both north and south
of the range.

The topography also influenced ice movement in the northeast part of the
state. There was a strong movement of ice southwestward through the Superior
basin, with its northwest border only a few miles back from the shore on the
high land, much of which stands 1,500 feet or more above the sea. This high
land was largely covered by a southward ice movement from still higher land in
the neighboring part of Canada. The relations of this ice movement to that in
the Superior basin, as well as to that which covered western Minnesota is set
forth in the discussion of the glacial deposits.

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

DRAINAGE

The drainage of Minnesota is widely divergent, part of it leading to
the Gulf of Mexico, part to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and part to Hud-
son Bay. The Gulf of Mexico receives about 57 per cent, the St. Law-
rence less than 9 per cent, and Hudson Bay fully 34 per cent of the drain-
age. There was a time, however, after the glacial ice had melted from
Minnesota but was still occupying the northeast part of the Superior
basin and neighboring parts of Ontario and Manitoba, when all the drain-
age was southward to the Gulf of Mexico. The western Superior basin
then overflowed into the St. Croix River, while the Red River drainage
basin, largely covered by Lake Agassiz, drained southward through Lakes
Traverse and Bigstone into the Minnesota valley.

The drainage to the south, or Gulf of Mexico, has generally a gentle
descent, and waterfalls are rather rare, though the Mississippi has not-
able falls at Minneapolis and there are one or more falls or rapids on
several of the tributaries. The drainage to Lake Superior is generally
rapid and nearly every stream has several cascades. There is, however,
a wide area of the upper St. Louis basin in which that stream and its
tributaries have relatively gentle descent for many miles. The Hudson
Bay drainage has a few rapids and waterfalls in the headwater part of
Rainy River and its tributaries, but Red River and its main Minnesota
affluent, Red Lake River, have no falls since no outcrops of solid rock
occur along them. There is, however, very rapid descent for a few miles
along Red Lake River and its tributary Clearwater River in Red Lake
County. Red River is subject to great freshets because its lower course
often remains frozen after the southern or headwater part has broken
up. Thus ice jams are formed which divert the waters from the channel
over the bordering plain.

Of the 17,280 square miles of the area embraced in the present re-
port, 5,550 square miles drain to Lake Superior, 8,042 square miles to
Rainy River of the Hudson Bay drainage system, and 3,688 square miles
to the Mississippi River and tributaries. The streams of these several
drainage systems are interwoven in the western part of the area, there
being no prominent dividing ridges to separate them. In some cases a
swamp may be drained either to the Hudson Bay or to the Gulf of Mexico
system, while other swamps may be drained either to the Mississippi
system or to Lake Superior. In the northeastern part of the area there
is less interweaving of the drainage, though even there easy canoe port-
ages are made between the Hudson Bay drainage and the drainage to
Lake Superior.

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF MINNESOTA

LAKES

Throughout much of Minnesota, except the northwest, southwest,
and southeast corners, small lakes are a common feature. They usually
occupy basins among the moraine ridges and knolls and on the outwash
plains, but occur to some extent also on the till plains and among rock
knobs. The combined area of the lakes within the state is estimated to
be about 5,650 square miles, or nearly 7 per cent of the entire area. The
largest lake is Red Lake, a very shallow body of water with an area of
440 square miles. Other large lakes are Mille Lacs, also very shallow,
Leech, Winnibigoshish, and Minnetonka. Minnetonka and the southern
part of Leech Lake extend into a network of deep depressions among
morainic ridges, but the other lakes are largely in plains that are slightly
below the neighboring districts, partly morainic and partly plain.

SURFACE GEOLOGY
ROCK AREAS

The areas in which rock is so exposed as to render the land untillable
are largely in the northeast quarter of the state, or along valleys in the
southeast quarter. The northwest quarter is estimated to have less than
ID square miles of bare rock outcrop, and the southwest scarcely 100
square miles. It is doubtful if there is an area of 1,000 square miles
in the entire state in which the plow would generally strike into rock
ledges. The rock areas thus form a much smaller percentage of the
state than the lake areas. The rock areas of the northeast part are chiefly
rock bosses standing above the surrounding land, but the beds of the
streams that lead directly down to Lake Superior are also usually on rock
ledges. Among the rock knobs are some depressions covered only with
moss and peaty material, glacial material being scanty, but ordinarily
some glacial material is present and nearly all the land has soil enough
over the bedrock to support a rich forest growth. Many of the knobs
preserve the smooth surface left by the scouring effect of the ice sheet and
are nearly destitute of vegetation. But certain others have become disin-
tegrated to a depth of several inches or even to several feet from the sur-
face and are supporting growths of vegetation of considerable density.

The rock areas of the southwest part of the state are largely of Sioux
quartzite which in places comes to the surface over areas of several square
miles. The rocks have scarcely enough soil over them to support the
scanty vegetation. There are a few small areas of granite knobs along
the Minnesota Valley from Bigstone Lake down to New Ulm. In the
driftless area and part of the drift-covered area in southeastern Minne-
sota, rock ledges of limestone and sandstone outcrop along the steep

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

slopes of the valleys, often forming walls of considerable height. Rock
is rarely exposed along the stream beds and valley bottoms. The uplands
and the higher parts of the slopes of the valleys even in the driftless area
usually have several feet of residuary clay and also a coating of loess or
wind-deposited silt loam covering the rock formations and rendering the
land tillable.

THE EARTHY MANTLE
GENERAL STATEMENT

The variety of earthy, sandy, and gravelly unconsolidated deposits
which cover the rocky floor of Minnesota were formed or deposited by
different agencies and at different times. They may be grouped as fol-
lows :

First. Residuary material.
Second. Wind deposits.
Third. Glacial- deposits.
Fourth. Stream deposits.
Fifth. Lake deposits.

RESIDUARY MATERIAL

The residuary material, as its name impHes, has been left as a residue
during the breaking down or decay of the surface rocks through weather-
ing and solution. On limestones it is usually a dark, reddish brown,
gummy clay, but on sandstones and crystalline rocks it is usually granu-
lar and loose-textured. There is but a small part of Minnesota, chiefly
in the southeastern counties, where residuary material is within reach
of the plow. It occurs there on the upper part of the slopes of the val-
leys and on the narrow upland strips between valleys, but it is usually cov-
ered by loess.

WIND DEPOSITS

Loess. — The wind-deposited material known as loess is largely a fine
silt loam, which forms the surface in an area in the southeast part of
the state embracing much of Goodhue, Olmsted, Wabasha, Winona, Fill-
more, and Houston counties and parts of Mower, Dodge, Rice, and Da-
kota counties. It covers a small tract in the southwest part of the state
in Rock, southern Pipestone, and western Nobles counties. In the south-
eastern counties it rests in part on glacial drift deposits and in part on
the residuary clay and rock formations of the driftless area. In the
southwestern part it covers glacial deposits. In the southeast district its
border is very irregular, there being long strips of loess-covered land pro-
jecting westward or northwestward into the region free from loess, and

PLATE II

A. SUPERIOR RED DRIFT OVER PATRICIAN RED DRIFT NEAR CLOQUET. THE MAN SITS ON
A BOULDER AT THEIR JUNCTION

B. CLAYEY KEEVVATIN DRIFT OVER STONY PATRICIAN DRIFT AT BIWABIK

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF MINNESOTA

also long strips free from loess extending eastward into the loess-covered
tracts. The condition there is such as might result from the presence or
absence of vegetation giving different degrees of protective power from
the wind ; areas with dense vegetation being able to hold dust that settled
from the atmosphere while bare ones allowed it to be gathered up and
carried on.

Wind-blown sand. — ^Wind-blown sand is also an important deposit. It
embraces a district east of the Mississippi from Minneapolis up to Brain-
erd. It is narrow above St. Cloud, but below that city extends east-
ward to the St. Croix River. The sand does not, however, cover the en-
tire surface in this area. Where present it rests upon glacial deposits.
It has low ridges seldom 20 feet and usually 10 feet or less in height.
There is more or less wind-drifted sand in the sandy parts of the St.
Louis River drainage basin, but it is sparingly developed compared to
that in the district between the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers. Wind-
blown sand occurs also in Aitkin County in the vicinity of McGregor and
also in the northeastern part of the county in island-like tracts that are
surrounded by marshes. There are numerous small areas of such sand
scattered over the state, some of them being along the shores of the glacial
Lake Agassiz.

GLACIAL DEPOSITS

The glacial deposits as shown in Figure 2 extend over the entire state
except eastern Winona County and the greater part of Houston County,
which are in the driftless area of the upper Mississippi. They underlie
the wind-deposited sands and much of the loess area. They also underlie
stream deposits and lake sediments. The glacial deposits are separable
into till or bowlder clay in which stones, clay, and sand are closely com-
mingled; and into sand or gravel beds which show some assorting and
bedding by water action. The percentage of stony material varies greatly
and the matrix also shows variations from compact clay to loose sand.
These variations are to be expected in a deposit that had been formed
from the dirt and stones included in an ice sheet. Every observing farmer
has probably noted and perhaps speculated upon the cause for these varia-
tions in the drift deposits which form the basis for so large a part of the
Minnesota soil. The assorted sand and gravel beds are largely due to
waters escaping from the melting ice and many of them may be traced
up to a moraine which marked the position of the ice border at the time
they were laid down. They show a decrease in coarseness in passing
away from the edge of the moraine, the coarse material having been
dropped close to the edge of the ice and only the fine carried to a great
distance outside.

FICURK 2. MAP OF GLACIAL DRIFTS, LOESS, AND GLACIAL LAKES IN MINNESOTA

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF MINNESOTA

The glacial deposits also show some variations that relate to the kind
of rock formations over which the ice passed. Thus, the northeastern
portion of the state has a rather stony drift from the volcanic and hard
crystalline rocks of that region. This stony material was carried as far
south as Dakota County and forms the red drift of eastern and north-
eastern Minnesota. As indicated below, the red drift is the product of
more than one ice sheet. The western and southern parts of the state
have a large amount of clayey drift material with limestone pebbles im-
bedded. This material was gathered by this ice as it passed across in its
southward course from the shales and limestone of southern Manitoba,
that greatly dominate there over the granite and other crystalline rocks.
These clayey and limy deposits form what is known as the gray drift of
Minnesota, and the ice sheet which formed it, as the Keewatin ice sheet.

STREAM DEPOSITS

The stream deposits, being restricted to the valleys, are of limited
area, though in such valleys as the Minnesota and Mississippi they are
locally several miles in width and form important agricultural belts. On
the Minnesota and the part of the Mississippi below the confluence with
the Minnesota the deposits made by the rivers are sand or silt. On
the Mississippi above the mouth of the Minnesota the deposits range
from sand to coarse cobble and bowlders in correspondence with the
swiftness of the stream. On nearly all the tributaries of the Mississippi
and Minnesota the streams are able to carry coarse as well as fine mate-
rial. Along the Red River a considerable amount of fine clay and clay
loam has been deposited in seasons of flood on the plains outside the
immediate river channel. The deposits made by glacial streams or those
which had their sources at the edge of the ice and were receiving much
of their water from the melting ice, now appear usually as terraces along
the valleys above the limits of floods. From the fact that the glacial
rivers were of greater volume these deposits are generally composed of
sandy and gravelly material somewhat coarser than that carried by the
present rivers.

LAKE DEPOSITS

The lake deposits consist of fine sediments washed into the deep parts
of the lakes, and sandy and pebbly deposits washed up and formed into
beaches along the shores. In parts of the lakes where the glacial deposits
which they covered were pebbly and the water was shallow enough for
wave action, there v/as a concentration of stony material by the washing-
out of the finer material. By this process considerable areas of the bed
of Lake Agassiz were covered by very pebbly beds several inches in
depth. They are classed on the soil maps as "lake-washed till." In the

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

narrow strip along the shore of Lake Superior that was covered by the
waters of a glacial lake known as T^ke Duluth, there is very little fine
sediment; gravelly and cobbly beaches were formed at several succes-
sive levels, while fine material was washed down into the deeper parts of
the basin covered by the present lake. Fine material also covers the old
lake plain in Carlton County and a strip on the south side of Lake Su-
perior.

THE GLACIAL FEATURES AND THEIR HISTORY

It has been found through a study of the deposits in Minnesota and
neighboring states that the glacial deposits which form so extensive a
mantle in Minnesota are the result of more than one invasion of the
ice from the Canadian highlands. At each invasion the ice left a de-
posit of drift gathered partly from Canada and partly from the deposits
over which it passed in Minnesota. The advances were so widely separ-
ated in time that the drift deposits of one invasion had large valleys cut
in them by the action of streams before the next invasion occurred. The
later advances failed to reach the limits of the earlier deposits, so they
are still exposed to view, and the degree of erosion of the surface of the
older can be compared with that on the surface of the younger deposits.
It is found that the older drifts have been so greatly eroded and are so
ramified by drainage lines that no lakes or undrained basins remain on
them, while the younger drift deposits have numerous lakes and un-
drained basins and also large, poorly drained areas which the streams
have not yet reached. It is because they are not covered by the latest
drift that Rock and Pipestone counties in southwestern Minnesota, and
Goodhue, Dodge, Wabasha, Olmsted, Winona, Fillmore, and Mower
counties in southeastern Minnesota have no lakes and basins such as
characterize neighboring counties that were covered by that drift.

The invasions of the ice into Minnesota not only took place at dif-
ferent times, but have come from more than one direction at about the
same time. In the earlier invasions the greater part of the state was
covered by ice coming from Manitoba as shown by limestone fragments
and pebbles derived from rock formations of that country which are im-
bedded in the lower part of the drift over all of the state except its north-
east part. The movements in the closmg stage of the glacial epoch were
more largely from the northeast, but more than half of the state was
invaded from the northwest. The ice sheets were as follows: i. The
Superior lobe of the Labrador ice sheet, an extension of ice southwest-
ward from the Superior basin nearly to Mille Lacs Lake; 2. The Pa-
trician ice sheet, with southward movement from the highlands north of
Lake Superior across eastern Minnesota to points a little beyond St. Paul;

PLATE III

A. A GRAVEL OUTWASH IN LAKE COUNTY

B. GRAVEL IN BEACH OF LAKE AGASSIZ. PHOTOGRAPH BY D. W. JOHNSON

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF MINNESOTA

3. The Keewatin ice sheet, which moved southward through Manitoba
and across western Minnesota. After the melting away of the ice that
came from the northern highlands, the Keewatin ice sheet extended over
some of the ground that ice had vacated. It crossed the Mesabi Range
into the St. Louis basin, and also moved northeastward from near Min-
neapolis into Wisconsin. This advance over earher drift deposits is
known from the presence of a thin deposit of clayey and limy drift con-
taining rock material brought from Manitoba which covers the drift that
was deposited by ice coming from the highlands northwest of Lake Su-
perior. The drift from these highlands together with that from the Lake
Superior basin forms the stony red drift of eastern Minnesota, while that
from Manitoba forms the clayey and limy gray drift which covers almost
all of the remainder of the state.

That the ice mass moved in different directions at different times in
certain parts of the state is further shown by striations or ice markings
on the surfaces of the rock ledges. In the district east and south of the
Lake of the Woods a set of glacial grooves or ice markings bears west
of south, while a newer set crosses them in an eastward or southeast-
ward direction. The older set was formed by ice moving into Minnesota
from the highlands that lie between Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg,
while the younger set was formed by ice moving into the state from
Manitoba. In North Minneapolis there are rock ledges on which the
glacial grooves have three courses; first, a southeastward course at the
time when the old gray drift which came from the northwest was brought
in ; second, a southward course at a time when the red drift which came
from the north was deposited; third, an eastward course at the time
when the ice from the northwest advanced over land that had been
vacated by the ice which deposited the red drift.

GLACIAL LAKE FEATURES

Minnesota contains parts of the beds of two large glacial lakes : Lake
Duluth, which occupied the western part of the Superior basin, and Lake
Agassiz which occupied the Red River basin. Lake Duluth covered a
narrow strip along the shore of Lake Superior and extended a few miles
beyond the west end of Lake Superior into eastern Carlton County, Min-
nesota. Its highest stages were 500 to 700 feet above the present surface
of Lake Superior, there being an increasing height toward the northeast
corner of the state. Lake Agassiz extended as far south as Lake Trav-
erse, and thence it discharged past Brown Valley to the Minnesota.
Its border is only from 20 to 30 miles east from the North Dakota-Minne-
sota line from Lake Traverse northward to Polk County. About 20
miles east-southeast of Crookston it makes an abrupt eastward turn

i8 SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

and continues eastward past the south side of Red Lake and on across
Koochichinp^ County into St. Louis County as far as the valley of Little
Fork River. It then turns northward and enters Canada from north-
eastern St. Louis County. There were several islands in it in northern
St. Louis County.

Preceding the development of the large glacial Lake Agassiz there
was a temporary ponding of waters in front of the ice in Koochiching,
Itasca, and St. Louis counties at a level higher than that of Lake Agassiz,
and a discharge of the waters southward across the Mesabi Iron Range
into the St. Louis basin along the course of the Embarrass River. With
the melting back of the ice border this lake became merged with Lake
Agassiz, and its waters then discharged into the Minnesota valley.

There were also two noteworthy temporary lakes in northeastern
Minnesota which were not held up by ice barriers, but instead by land
barriers along their outlets. When these were cut away the lakes be-
came drained. One of these, named Lake Aitkin by Upham, occupied
the plain bordering the Mississippi in Aitkin County and extended a
short distance into eastern Crow Wing County. It was drained by the
erosion of the Mississippi valley at its lower end just above Brainerd.
The other lake, named Lake Upham by Winchell, occupied a consider-
able part of the St. Louis basin in western St. Louis County. It was
drained by the erosion of the St. Louis valley below Floodwood.

Prominent features of the two great glacial lakes. Lake Agassiz and
Lake Duluth, are the beaches or ridges of sand and gravel washed up
along their shores. The shores of Lake Agassiz stand high and dry above
the flat parts of the lake bed between or below them and form excellent
lines for highways. For this reason much of the pioneer settlement and
travel was along these ridges. They generally stand from 5 to lo feet
above the bordering plains and occasionally from 15 to 20 feet. On the
inner or lakeward side they are generally more prominent than on the
outer or landward side. This is due in part to the original slope toward
the center of the lake, but there is also a tendency for a lake to eat back
into the bordering land and throw its coarser material up on the edge of
the plain outside ; at the same time the fine material is carried in sus-
pension from the shore into the deeper water.

The levels of these glacial lakes were low^ered from time to time,
partly by the cutting-down of the outlets and partly by an uplift of this
region which caused the water to fall away where the land rose. There
was also a change of outlet in Lake Agassiz from the southern end to
the northern and in Lake Duluth from the southward outlet into the
St. Croix River to an eastward outlet into the Lake Huron basin. As
a result shore lines were formed at various levels on the slopes of the

PLATE IV

B. INTERIOR STRUCTURE OF AN ESKER IN LAKE COUNTY. PHOTO BY A. H. ELFTMAN

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF MINNESOTA

old lake beds. Because of the gradual lowering of the water level the
greater part of the beds of these glacial lakes has at some time been
subjected to wave action. This has produced a widespread pebbly coat-
ing which is a concentrate from the washing of the surface of the bowl-
der clay and the carrying-away of its finer material. Where the bowlder
clay was sandy, the sand as well as stones remain, but where it was
clayey there is often a clear bed of pebbles a few inches in depth cover-
ing the clayey till subsoil. The deep part of Lake Agassiz along the
borders of Red River received nearly all the fine sediment which was
washed out from the till at higher levels. This forms the bulk of the
rich black clay and clay loam of the Red River basin. At its eastern
border, fifteen to twenty-five miles from Red River, there is a transition
to sand. This is succeeded within two to five miles east by stony sandy
deposits which seem to be a glacial material worked over by the lake.

GENERAL SOIL CONDITIONS

Soil is composed of materials derived from the subsoil and mixed with
organic matter. Subsoil is the weathered and disintegrated top of the un-
derlying geological formation. For its qualities and composition the
soil of a given region therefore depends quite closely upon the nature
of the geological formations there exposed. In Minnesota the land
mantle of glacial and lake deposits affords a well-mixed and rich supply
of materials suited for soil-making. This is particularly true where it
consists of till or bowlder clay in which all classes of material are loosely
but thoroughly mixed. This contrasts with soils in which there is too
much uniformity and which, when of water-washed sand or gravel, are
often deficient in fine material. On the other hand, the loess and the
lake silts, though of somewhat uniform texture, make rich soils because
of the variety of finely divided minerals which they contain.

The soil and its productiveness depends largely upon the drainage con-
ditions. A soil of clay or clay loam over gravel or loose sand suffers
in time of deficient rainfall, while in wet seasons a soil resting upon heavy
clay may be drowned out unless surface drainage is perfectly adjusted.
For this reason the geologic formation underlying a soil is of great im-
portance. Soil underlaid by limestone, by loess, or by a till consisting of a
light clay, or a heavy loam will stand great variation in rainfall and still be
highly productive. In some parts of the state the surface drainage is
naturally well developed, while in other parts it needs to be greatly supple-
mented by tile draining or surface ditching.

In the Driftless Area the drainage on the uplands is everywhere com-
plete, for nearly every acre slopes toward some drainage line. In the
old drift also there are few undrained areas and tiling or surface ditching

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

is seldom necessary. In the young drift there are many basins, and un-
drained depressions and drainage lines are not well distributed over the
surface. Except, therefore, where the material is loose enough for the
rainfall to be absorbed completely the young drift areas need consider-
able ditching and tiling. In the bed of Lake Agassiz, although basins and
depressions arc rare, there are wide areas where the surface is very flat
and extensive and systematic tiling or ditching is required to keep the
land from being flooded.

VEGETATION

The condition of the soil depends to some degree upon the character
of the vegetation which has covered it. In prairie districts there is a
more uniform exposure to weathering agencies than in forested districts
and consequently a more uniform soil is developed on a given deposit.
On the whole, leaching of lime seems to be less rapid on prairies than
in forests so that in the newer drift limestones are often present at the
surface in prairies, but in the forested areas limestones are usually dis-
solved out to a depth of some inches and often to some feet from the
surface. On the older drift the limestone is generally removed to a
depth of several feet both in prairie and forest, but the leaching is per-
ceptibly deeper in the forested areas. The rate of erosion and removal of
soil is more uniform in prairie than in forested tracts. It takes more
force to dislodge the trees than the grassy vegetation on hillside slopes,
and erosion in the forests is likely to become concentrated in occasional
gullies, whereas on prairies there are many small channels developed on
every hillside which serve to break it down rapidly. On the whole, there-
fore, erosion is greater but leaching is less in prairie than in forested
areas.

The forests occur only on protected slopes in much of southern Min-
nesota and are absent from such slopes in much of the western part of
the state (Figure 3). In the central and northeastern parts they cover
plains or uplands as well as valley slopes. The muskegs, which have
a scanty forest growth, are developed chiefly in the northern half of the
state and chiefly within the forested area.

WEATHERING

There are parts of the newer drift in which fresh material is close
to the surface so that they can scarcely be said to have a subsoil different
from the drift sheet as a whole. There are also places on valley slopes
in the older drift where unweathered material is close to the surface, be-
cause erosion keeps pace with the weathering of the drift. At most
places, howe\er, the older drift has a mantle of weathered material sev-
eral feet in thickness, while that of the younger drift is only one or two

FIGURE 3. MAP OF MINNESOTA SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF FOREST AND PRAIRIE. (aFTER
MAP BY WARREN UPHAM AND BY FREDERIC K. BUTTERS )

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MISSESOTA

feet thick. In this the feldspar and other minerals are disintegrated and
made ready for plant food.

Weathering in the loess-covered areas is moderately deep, as it is in
the older drift. The entire deposit of loess, however, is of fine texture
and is found to be very fertile from top to bottom.

LIME

While most of tlic soils of the northwestern part of the state seem
abundantly supplied with lime, it is probable that some of the more sandy
ones would give a sufficiently greater yield of certain crops to make it
profitable to jnirchase some form of lime if this could be obtained at a
low price. Usually when a soil needs lime, it is advisable to apply one
ton or more of ground limestone or marl per acre. If this has to be
shipped any considerable distance, the freight charges may greatly exceed
the cost of the material on board of the cars at the point of shipment.
For this reason it is important to locate a supply as near as possible to
the place where it is to be used.

Lime occurs abundantly in two forms in Minnesota : as bog-lime or
marl, and as limestone. The marl is unconsolidated and easily pulverized.
It needs no crushing or grinding. Limestone is consolidated and must
be crushed or ground for use on fields.

Marl is found in Minnesota in many lakes and under some bogs that
have been lakes. It is of most frequent occurrence in the central and
north central part of the state. It lies always in low wet ground and
can be found, as a rule, only by boring or ditching. It is a soft, white
or gray, chalky material. Since it needs no crushing or grinding, the
cost of the marl is in the finding, ditching and draining, or drying of it.
Deposits from i to lo feet in thickness and covering from i to lOO acres
are known to be of common occurrence.

Limestone formations outcrop in the blufifs along the Mississippi and
its tributaries in southeastern Minnesota. The formations lie horizon-
tally and are of wide extent, or practically continuous for many miles.
Limestone formations lOO feet or more thick extend along the valleys
from the southeastern corner of the state to Stillwater, Minneapolis, Man-
kato, Austin, and intermediate points. An inexhaustible supply of lime-
stone is easily found in outcrops that are high, so that quarrying, crush-
ing, and loading can all be done in a down-hill direction, the cost of pro-
duction being thereby lessened.

EFFECT OF FIRES

There are large areas in Minnesota which have been swept by forest
fires, and these fires h.ave destroyed much of the accumulated leaf mold.

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF MINNESOTA

In sandy areas the destruction of the leaf mold may have reduced some-
what the productiveness of the land, for the leaf mold acts as a mulch
to prevent the drying out of the soil. But in clayey areas there seems to
have been very little reduction of the fertility. The leaf mold in such
places, however, when turned under has a beneficial effect in loosening
the stiff clay. A large area of clay land in the Little Fork drainage basin
in St. Louis and southeastern Koochiching counties was burned over some
fifty or more years ago, according to statements of the Indians, and the
leaf mold was almost completely destroyed. A heavy growth of poplar
has sprung up on the drier parts instead of the mixed hardwood that had
occupied the land, while the wet areas have a fresh stand of spruce (See
Plate XIVA). This district is being rapidly cleared and is producing
exceptionally good crops. The forest fire near Hinckley in Pine County,
which occurred about twenty-five years ago, swept over an area chiefly
of till much of which is loose-textured. This had a similar effect in
changing the forest from mixed hardwood and pine to poplar. This area
is now one of marked agricultural fertility adapted to a variety of crops.
The principal damage by fire in this state, both past and prospective,
seems to be in the destruction of peat in the bogs. In such cases there is
not only the loss of a valuable fuel, but the land is left in a rough state
ill-suited for cultivation.

CHAPTER II

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF MINNESOTA

BV U. G. PURSSELL

Director of the Minnesota Section of the Uttited States Weather Bureau

INTRODUCTION

The agriculture of any region is controlled by its climate. In some
parts of the world temperature is the main factor in determining the
limits of growth of certain kinds of crops ; in others it is rainfall, and
in still others it is the amount of sunshine. All of these factors are
important in influencing the crop yield even in districts where the gen-
eral climatic conditions are satisfactory for the growth of plants. In
Minnesota these elements are so favorable that a majority of the crops
common to the temperate zone may be successfully grown, and a failure
of all the important crops is very rare even over a small portion of the
state.

Rainfall is an important factor for most crops in the state, because
the proper amount of water in the soil at the critical period of develop-
ment of tfie plant is necessary to produce a large crop. The length of
the growing season also is important and probably no other factor in
the study of climate from the standpoint of the agriculturist should be
given more consideration. This is the key to an actual knowledge as to
the possibilities of success or failure in the production of crops since
in parts of the state crops are menaced by frost at some period of their
growth, whereas sunshine and moisture seldom vary in Minnesota beyond
safe limits.

The factors which determine the climate of any area are the relative
distribution of land and water, the topography of the land surface, and
the situation of the area in question with relation to the general move-
ment of the cyclones and anti-cyclones.

The position of Minnesota at the center of North America gives it
a climate that is largely continental. In continental climates the tem-
perature extremes are greater and the humidity and rainfall generally
less than at places near large bodies of water, such as border on the
Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts of the United States. The efifect of
winds from great bodies of water is to equalize temperatures of lands
near by and to lengthen materially the crop-growing season. This is par-
ticularly true of the country in the vicinity of Lake Superior, where
the influence of that great inland sea in modifying the cold anti-cyclones

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF MINNESOTA

gives to that section a more equable climate than would otherwise obtain
in that portion of the state. The summer temperatures are likewise
modified and people from long distances inland in steadily increasing
numbers are establishing summer homes about the lake, to which they
are attracted during the hot summer months. There are more than
7,000 small lakes scattered throughout the state and these have a mate-
rial local influence in modifying the heat of summer and give comfort
to thousands of residents on their shores.

Monthly and annual reports of temperature, rainfall, snowfall, etc.,
have been published for a- large number of regular and cooperative sta-
tions in Minnesota since 1895. Recently three special section reports
have been issued by the United States Weather "Bureau giving monthly
and annual precipitation totals for all points in the state with a record
of ten years or over, together with average temperatures and other data.
In these reports the more important facts from all portions of the state
are tabulated and the comparative climatic conditions of the different sec-
tions graphically shown.

GENERAL CLIMATIC CONDITIONS

Minnesota is in the path of a large proportion of the low-pressure
areas which move across the United States from west to east. These
areas move at an average speed of 600 miles in twenty-four hours and
are preceded by southerly winds and higher temperature and followed
by northerly winds and lower temperature. They are usually accom-
panied by cloudy weather and precipitation ; each storm causing an aver-
age of from one to two rainy days as it crosses the state.

As there is an average of almost two of these storms each week with
fair weather periods between, it follows that the changes in weather
conditions are rather rapid. One or two days of stormy weather pre-
ceded by fair weather and followed by clearing and lower temperatures
to be repeated in turn, make up the usual routine for the week. How-
ever, Minnesota is so far from the coast that damaging ocean storms
lose much of their severity before reaching its borders.

The northwestern cold waves pass across the state and send their
health-giving winds into all parts, and yet they are frequently not so
severe as they are in some of the plains states in the same latitude or
even farther south.

Temperature. — The average annual temperature of Minnesota for the
period 1895 to 1913 inclusive, is 41.7°, as shown in Table I and graph-
ically by Figure 4. The highest annual mean temperature, 43.9°, oc-
curred in 1900, and the lowest, 39.9°, in 1912. The departure of the
average temperature of any year from the normal may readily be deter-

FIGURE 4. MAP SHOWING MEAN ANNUAL TEMPERATURES OF MINNESOTA
(degrees FAHRENHEIT)

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF MINNESOTA

mined by comparing the yearly average with the mean at the foot of the
column.

Table I. Monthly and Annual Mean Temperature for Minnesota (Degrees Fahrenheit)

189s
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
191 1
1912
1913
1914

Jan.

Mean.

12.3

18.3
9-9
18.4
13.2
15.9
"•3
45
5.6
17.0

16.4
lo.s
II. 8

5.4
—6.7

7.2

10.5

Feb.

17.9

16.4
4.5

5-2
10. c
15.5
10.6

2.3

8.9
13.8

14 8
17.9
13.7

16.6
10.6
8.6
2.8

II. 2

Mar.

21.4
20.7
30.3
14.7
234
27.3
340
29.6
24.8
33-7
20.6
28.7
26.4
26.1
41.7
32.7
19.8
20.4
26.6

April

40.9

44- 5
43-7
43.5
44.0
49-5
46.7
42.6
43-.3
38.8
42.0
47.9
34-7

45- 2
35.8
48.0
42.7
45.5
46.4
41.2

43.8

May June

56.9
60.9
55.2
55.6
55.1
59-9
58.2
57-0
55.7
55.4
52.6
53-7
45.5
53-9
53.2
51.6

64.6
66.5
62.5
67.0
65-4
66.8
65.5
61.3
62.3
63-2
63.0
63.7
63.3
62.5
65.0
67.8

59.8 I 69.7

.';S.9
52.7
57.6

55.3

62.5
67.4
64.6

64.7

Nov.

27.8
18.0
26.6
26.6
39.6
25.4
28.8
33-3
27-3
36.7
33.1
30.7
31.7
33.8
33.8
25-3
20.2
33-9
36.9
33.0

30.1

Dec. Year

18.3
20.3
12.3
11.9
17.9
18.6
130
12.6
9.8
16.7
20.6
15.9
21.3
17.5
10. o
14.7
19.4
20.0
26.1

41.6
41.2
42.3
4i.a
43.9
42.8
42.6
40.3
40.1
41.5
42.0
40.1
43-4
41.0
42.8
41.6
39-9
42.0

417

The coldest month is January, which has a mean temperature of
10.5°, although the average for February is only 0.7° higher. In a great
many instances February has averaged colder than the preceding January.
This condition occurred in the seven successive years from 1898 to 1904
inclusive. Average January temperatures are plotted on Figure 5.

July is the warmest month, with ah average temperature of 69.3°,
although in a few years the mean temperature for June or for August is
higher than for July of the same year. Average July temperatures are
plotted on Figure 6.

The highest summer mean, 70.0°, occurred in 1900 and 1901 (Table
II). The coldest summer was that of 1903, with an average of 64.4°.

The warmest crop-growing season (April to September inclusive)
of the eighteen years under discussion was in 1900, when the average
was 62.9°, and the coldest was in 1907, with an average of 55.6°.

The warmest winter (December to February inclusive) was in 1907-8,
when the mean temperature was 18.5°. The coldest was in 1903-4, with
a mean temperature of 5.5°. Table II shows also the warmest and coldest
spring and autumn.

In Figures 7 and 8 are shown the highest and lowest temperatures
ever recorded in the various counties where records have been kept.
From these figures it can readily be seen that the extreme range of tem-
perature is from 107° at Grand Meadow and Milan, to — 59° at Leech
Lake Dam and Pokegama Falls. Temperatures above 100° have been
recorded in all counties except those about the headwaters of the Missis-

FIGURE 5. MAP SHOWING MEAN TEMPERATURES OF MINNESOTA FOR JANUARY
(degrees FAHRENHEIT)

FIGURE 6. MAP SHOWING MEAN TEMPERATURES OF MINNESOTA FOR JULY
(degrees FAHRENHEIT)

figure 7. map showing highest known temperatures in minnesota
(degrees Fahrenheit)

FIGURE 8. MAP SHOWING LOWEST KNOWN TEMPERATURES IN MINNESOTA
(degrees FAHRENHEIT)

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

sippi River, and in the country immediately bordering on Lake Supe-
rior. Temperatures of — 40° have occurred in nearly all northern and
central counties and in a few southern counties, but these great extremes
do not occur frequently.

Table I!. Seasonal Temperatures for Minnesota (Degrees Fahrenheit)

I 1 April to Sept.

Winter Spring Summer Fall inclusive

Year mean mean mean mean (crop-grow-

ing season)

1895 1 61.4

1896 16.2 42.3 68.1 38.2 60.7

1897 '4.3 39-9 66.1 47-3 i 60.A

1898 15-7 431 67.9 43.4 60.6

1899 8.8 37-9 68.2 48.3 60.0

1900 13.8 44.3 70.0 46.2 62.9

1901 13-9 44-1 70.0 45.1 62.0

1902 14-8 44 5 65.4 45.2 58.5

1903 "-S 42.9 64.4 43.0 57.9

1904 5-5 40.0 64.7 47.2 57.6

1905 10.4 42.8 66.4 46.2 59.3

1906 1 7. 1 40.7 66.9 46.6 60.9

1907 11-5 36.3 65.9 44.3 55.6

1908 18.'; 41.8 65.8 48.3 60.1

1909 13.9 38.4 68.4 45.7 58.8

1910 9.8 47-1 68.1 44.8 60.4

1911 12.2 45.1 67.3 40.1 60.2

191a 7.8 40.4 65.0 46.2 58.9

1913 1 1.9 39.8 68.0 46.1 60.3

1914 15.3 418 67.7 48.5 60.3

Mean 12.8 41.7 67.0 45.3 59.8

Frosts. — Although frosts have occurred in some portions of the state
every month of the year, damaging temperatures are not to be expected
during June, July, and August, and they are comparatively rare in the
last half of May and the first half of September. Records of ten or
more years are available from a large number of places in the state,
of which charts have been constructed showing the average date of the
last killing frost in spring and the first one in autumn. Using these dates
as boundaries, we can mark the average beginning and ending of crop
growth and determine the average length of the growing season. All of
this information is graphically shown in Figures 9, 10, and 11. By refer-
ence to Figure 1 1 the influence of Lake Superior in lengthening the crop-
growing season in its vicinity may be seen ; while in the same latitude
in the highlands of Hubbard, Becker, eastern Mahnomen, and Clearwater
counties the season is twenty to thirty days shorter. The longest season,
160 days, obtains along the Mississippi River from Hennepin County
to the southeastern comer of the state, and the shortest, 100 days or less,
is in the region of the Mesabi and Vermilion Iron ranges.

FIGURE 9. MAP SHOWING AVERAGE DATE OF THE LAST KILLING FROST IN SPRING IN

MINNESOTA

FIGURE 12. MAP SHOWING THE AVERAGE ANNUAL PRECIPITATION FOR MINNESOTA

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF MINNESOTA 37

Table III. Average Monthly and Annual Precipitation for Minnesota (in Inches)

Total

April to

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr,

May

June

July

— —

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Year

Sept.
incl.

1895

1.68

3-30

4-37

3.25

2.27

3.93

0.25

1.22

0.28

18.80

1896

0.76

0.39

1-97

591

5.02

4.07

1.88

2.28

2.49

2.95

2.69

0.61

32.04

21.65

1897

1.77

1. 21

2.07

1. 55

1.38

5-40

6.62

2.54

1.89

1.55

0.53

0.38

27.23

19.38

1898

0.16

1.02

1. 21

1.64

3.26

3.93

2.94

3.22

1.52

3.83

1.02

0.18

24.21

16.51

1899

0.60

0.78

1.5S

1.49

4.46

6.36

2.84

5.35

1.47

3-22

0.63

0.95

30.14

21.97

0.48

0.56

1.3c

1.47

0.90

1. 71

5.48

6.44

6.55

0.62

0.51

29.79

22.55

0.38

0.40

1.68

1-73

1.41

S.81

3.33

2.21

4.34

1.86

0.78

0.57

24.26

18.83

1902

0.44

0.67

0.92

1.67

5.10

3-32

4.76

4.35

2.23

1.93

1.57

1.79

29.46

21.43

1903

0.4S

0.59

I-7S

2.82

5.37

1.96

4.65

5.63

3.13

0.35

0.84

32.8s

1904

0.39

0.02

1. 51

1.72

2.43

4.26

3-90

2.77

3.14

3.50

0.82

29.65

18.28

1905

0.65

0.55

1. 21

1.46

5.54

6.41

4.12

4.36

3.45

2.53

2.64

0.15

33-10

25.34

1906

1. 15

0.27

1.20

1.72

5..S8

4.55

2.93

4.66

3.73

2,28

1.82

0.91

31.66

23.17

1907

1.17

0.58

0.94

1. 01

2.14

4-31

3.57

4.11

3.48

1. 31

0.57

24.03

18.63

0.31

I.I I

1.47

2.55

6.31

6.35

3-21

2.07

2.41

1. 91

1. 18

0.79

29.49

22.90

1909

1.32

I. 31

0.54

1.89

3.36

3.53

3.84

5-54

3.16

1.56

2.68

1.54

29.27

20.32

0.83

0.45

0.27

1.54

1.58

1.39

1.94

2.35

2.45

0.97

0.52

0.44

14.73

11.25

0.81

0.88

0.63

1.88

3.48

3.61

4.27

3.35

3.93

1. 12

1.35

29.10

20.38

0.40

0.21

0.45

2,04

4.13

1.66

4.30

3.97

3.03

0.97

0.36

0.93

22.45

19.13

1913

0.33

0.44

1.27

1.87

3.53

3.08

5.56

2.79

3-33

2.58

0.66

0.05

25.49

20.16

I9I4

0.81

0.44

1. 12

2.41

2.89

8.34'

2.48

3.97

3.08

2.00

0.38

23-77

Mean ....

0.70

0.66

1.22

2.00

3.56

4.18

3.79

3.66

3.23

2.31

1.07

0.71

27.12

20.33

Precipitation. — The annual average precipitation of the state as a
whole for a period of eighteen years, 1896 to 1914 inclusive, is 27.72
inches, and for the crop season, April to September inclusive, for twenty
years, 1895 I9i3» is 20.33 inches. The monthly, seasonal, and
annual averages for this period are shown in Table III. The year with
the greatest annual rainfall was 1905, when the total was 33.10 inches.
The driest year was 1910 with 14.73 inches. In that year the rainfall
during the crop-growing season was 11.25 inches.

Table IV. Average Monthly and Annual Precipitation by Drainage Districts

Watersheds

Jan,

Feb.

Mar.

April

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Year

In.

In,

In.

In,

liT"

In,

In.

"liT"

In,

In.

Lake Superior, .

0,88

0.88

1,41

2,05

3.50

4,19

4,21

3-73

4,18

2.80

1.45

1.13

30.40

Rainy River, , ..

0.94

1.42

1,96

3.10

4.04

3.76

3.32

2,98

2,08

1.46

0.98

26.98

Red River

0.55

0.56

0.98

1,84

2.85

3.83

3-34

3.12

2,32

1. 55

0,72

0.56

22,22

Mississippi (above

2.16

3.61

St. Croix).,..

0.73

0.70

1.23

3.42

4.13

3-57

3.00

2,29

1.05

0.73

26,63

St. Croix and Mis-

sissippi (below

4.46

3.69

1.36

St. Croix).,..

0,92

0,95

1.49

2.37

4.01

3.72

2.73

1.13

30.57

Minnesota River

0.79

0.73

1. 19

2.30

3.52

4.18

3-34

3.44

2.63

2.11

1.02

0.79

26,04

Big Sioux andDes

3.58

Moines Rivers

0.50

0.54

1.13

2.09

4.00

4-39

3.49

2.79

2.07

0,94

0,63

26.15

State

0,76

0.75

1.25

2,18

3.53

4.19

3-55

3.50

3,02

2.24

1.09

0,84

26.90

June is the wettest month with an average rainfall of 4.18 inches,
and July is next with 3.79 inches. The lowest monthly rainfall is that
of February with an average of 0.66 inch. The greatest rainfall in one
month for the state as a whole was 8.34 inches in June, 1914. The low-
est rainfall for any month was .05 inch in December, 1913.

The geographic distribution of annual and monthly precipitation is

i.llllllll.. ..ll

ll.

linn II null

MOSTtWIOCO Z34«-

< S 0 N D

nEA v,\.m 2773-

ST P£T£R 27*3-

mini innnni
mnni II II II II I m

Maw

FIGURE 13. DIAGRAM SHOWING COMPARATnT MONTHLY DISTRIBUTION OF PRECIPITATION
IN MINNESOTA, LETTERS INDICATE MONTHS, BLACK COLUMNS INDICATE
INCHES OF RAINFALL IN EACH MONTH AT STATION NAMED

L£IC« L*K.E DAM

V(/IC./ VIA

rti

^iiiiiiiinn

M I J J A

:OLLf<iEV»Ll.E

i4jJ

Jl f Im Ia

f A I » «0w r

Ilk

FIGURE 14. DIAGRAM SHOWING MEAN MONTHLY RAINFALL AND MEAN MONTHLY
TEMPERATURE AT SEVERAL STATIONS IN MINNESOTA. MONTHS ARE INDICATED BY
THEIR FIRST LETTERS. THE GREATEST RAINFALL IS IN THE GROWING SEASON.

■ =:mean monthly rainfall, 1873-1913.

^ =:nionthIy rainfall of year of greatest rainfall recorded, 1849.
Q =monthly rainfall of year of least rainfall recorded, 1910.
Solid curve=niean monthly temperature, 1871-1913.

Dotted curve=mean monthly temperature for year of lowest annual temperature recordeo, 187s.
Dashed curve=mean monthly temperature for year of highest annual temperature recorded, 1878.
Horizontal dashes show absolute maximum and minimum temperatures recorded.

FIGURE 15.

DIAGRAM SHOWING RAINFALL AND TEMPERATURES (DEGREES FAHRENHEIT)
AT ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA FROM 1837-I9I3. MONTHS ARE
INDICATED BY TUEIR FIRST LETTERS

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

graphically shown in Figures 12 to 14, and for the stations having ten or
more years of record in Table V. Table IV shows the monthly and
annual distribution in the various watersheds. From these illustrations
it may be seen that the precipitation is about one-fourth to one-third
greater along the eastern boundary of the state than along the western
boundary.

TabU V. Avtragt Annual Precipitation in Minnesota by Stations

Sutioni

County

Albert Lea

Alexandria

Angus

Ashbv

Beardsler

Bird Island.......

Blooming Prairie...

Caledonia

Collcgeville

Crookston

Detroit

Duluth

Fairmont (near) . .

Faribault

Farmington

Fergus Falls

Flandreau, S. D. . ..

Fort Ripley

Glencoe

Grand Meadow^ . . .

Grantsburg, Wis

Hallock

Halstad (Ada) ....
International Falls.
La Crosse. Wis....
Leech Lake Dam. .

Long Prairie

Luverne

Lynd

Mankato

Mapleplain

Milaca

Milan

Milbank. S. D

Minneapolis

Freeborn . .
I Douglas . . .
' Polk

Grant

I Bigstone .. .

Renville . . .

Steele

I Houston .. .
I Stearns . . .
I Polk

Becker ....

St. Louis. ..

Martin ....

Rice

Dakota

1 Otter Tail. .

Moody ....

Crow Wing.

McLeod .. .
i Mower ....

Burnett ...
1 Kittson . . .
I Norman .. .
I Koochiching.
I I-a Crosse .

I Cass

1 Todd

I Rock

Lvon

I Blue Earth.
1 Hennepin .
' Mille Lacs.
; Chippewa ..

Grant

I Hennepin ..

Length of
record

Averaare

annual

prccip.

Yrs.

Inches

29.90

23-74

19.00

24-47

23.79

2423

27.45

33-70

22.76

22.41

25.96

29.93

28.20

28.00

29.29

23.24

24.57

25.25

26.64

32.59

33.06

21.37

21.27

25.75

31.17

27.00

25.17

27.60

2543

27.50

31."

27.27

24.49

22.69

29.31

Station

Cotmtj

Montevideo

Moorhead

Morris

New London . . . .

New Richland . . .

New Ulm

Northfield

Osceola, Wis. . . .

Park Rapids

Pembina, N. D.. .
I Pine River Dam.

1 Pipestone

' Pokegama Fails. .

Red Wing

; Redwood Falls . . .

Reeds Landing . .
I St. Charles

St. Cloud

I St. Paul

\ St. Peter

[ Sandy Lake Dam.

Shakopee

I Tonka

Tower (Ely)

i Two Harbors

University, N D. .

Virginia (Mt. Iror

Wabasha

Wahpeton, N. D..

Willmar

Willow River . . .

Winnebago

Winnibigoshish . .

Winona

Worthington ....

Chippewa ..

Clay

Stevens . . .

Kandiyohi. .

Waseca ....

Brown ....

Rice

Polk

Hubbard ...

Pembina . .

Crow Wing.

Pipestone ..

Itasca

Goodhue . .

Redwood . .

Wabasha ..

Winona . . .

Sherburne •

Ramsey . . .

Nicollet . . .

Aitkin

Scott

Hennepin.. .

St. Louis. ..

Lake

Grand Forks

St. Louis. ..

Wabasha . .

Richland . .

Kandiyohi. .

Pine

I Faribault . .

Itasca

I Winona . . .

Nobles ....

F. "

*i *^
iJ >-

<?.^

Yrs.

Inches

23.50

24.9a

23.23

23.62

29.91

27.74

29.92

32.13

25.71

19.79

27.52

24.18

27.62

31.71

24.65

29.31

30.68

27.68

28.68

27.89

26.47

28.85

30.54

28.17

30.56

20.47

30.74

30.54

23.67

25.54

29.98

30.58

25.66

29.63

2S.24

Figure 14 makes an interesting comparison of monthly and annual
values of both temperature and rainfall at certain selected representative
stations.

Snowfall. — The snowfall averages from 24 to 54 inches. It is lightest
in the southwest portion of the state and heaviest on the Mesabi Iron
Range. The monthly and annual averages are shown in Table VI, ar-
ranged according to sections and drainage districts.

Winds. — The prevailing winds are from the northwest over most of
the state. The monthly and annual prevailing directions are shown for
a large group of stations in Table VII. The average hourly wind ve-
locity is shown for six regular Weather Bureau stations and three special
stations in Table VIII.

Relative humidity. — The average annual humidity for the state is

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF MINNESOTA
Table VI. Average Snowfall

Stations

Lake of the Woods

Group —
Eca River Valley Group-
Tower

St. Vincent-Pembina .

Crookston

Moorhead

Upper Mississippi River
Valley Group —

Park Rapids _ . .

Lake Winnibigosish ". .

Sandy Lake Dam

Lake Superior Group —

Mt. Iron

Duluth

Lower Mississippi River
Valley Group —

La Crosse, Wis

Grand Meadow

St. Charles

Red Wing

St. Paul

Lower Minnesota River
Valley Group —

Shakopee

St. Peter

Winnebago

Middle Mississippi River
and St. Croix Valleys
Group —

Minneapolis

Collegeville

Pine River Dam

Osceola, Wis

Grantsburg, Wis

Upper Minnesota River
Valley Group —

New Uim

Bird Island

Milan

Minnesota River Water-
shed Group —

New London

Long Prairie

Morris

Fergus Falls

Southwestern Group—

Fairmont

Worthington

Lynd

Gary, S. D

Length of
record, yrs.

January

February

March

April

May

[ June

|july

1 August

September

October

November

December

Annual

Yrs.

In.

8.6

0.6

0 2

0.4

8 A

0.4

8.2

9.0

10.9

4-2

6 4
"•4

8 4

5 I

6 9

5.2

0.7

0 I

e 7

•JO *

6.7

8.8

3.2

2.0

0.4

5.7

35.8

6 7

8 Q

A 0

0 1

0. 1

1.0

6.8

4o-/

9.0

6.5

5-4

0.9

0.2

1.4

6.3

46.2

8.6

6.5

9.9

3.3

0.8

1.0

7.8

45.7

9.0

9.5

10.6

3.6

0.7

0.2

I.I

7.4

49.4

9.9

7.8

1 1.2

I I

0 I

0.8

8.1

11.6

1 W.J

I I.I

1 .0

01
*

0.3

8 <r
0.7

«1
52.0

8.4

8.7

6.6

1.4

O. I

"J 0

8 0
o.y

37.1

9-9

3.1

0.4

0.3

5-3

9.3

46.1

9.4

9.5

2.4

0.2

0. 1

A 1

42.9

8.0

5.6

4.4

I 8

0.2

0.3

^•5

7' I

28.9

7-7

6.2

8.8

3-6

0.2

4.7

5.7

37.1

7.7

8.1

7.8

1.9

n A

3'0

4 6
4.Q

33.5

5.5

6.1

7.1

0.7

0 A

I A
■'•4

4'0

6.5

7.5

6.3

I.O

0.3

2.3

0.5

30.4

8.3

8.6

9.5

4.0

0 2

ft ■»
0.3

4' 5

ft A

0.4

6.7

5.6

8.5

I 8

0.3

3-5

5.0

9-1

8.4

9.5

2.8

0.1

0.6

5.9

6.8

44.0

9.1

8.J

II. 7

2.8

O.I

6.8

44-4

9.2

9.0

13.2

4.2

0.1

O.I

8.9

52.2

8.9

9-5

1.7

0.2

0.3

4.4

36.0

4.7

6.0

1-5

0.4

0.5

3.5

I'*

25.8

7.5

8.1

II. 2

1.6

0.6

4-1

6. J

39.7

4.6

4.2

7.0

1.7

0.1

0.3

2.7

3.4

24.0

5-7

5.5

2.4

0.4

0.2

3.3

4.4

29.3

5-4

7.8

2.1

0.5

0.6

3.2

4-4

29.2

6.2

5.7

7.6

2.8

0.4

1.0

5.7

5.8

35.*

5.0

10.0

7:6

1.9

0.1

0.2

3.9

5.3

35.2

7.2

1.2

0.3

2.7

3.6

26.7

6.3

5-1

7-4

2.8

0.5

1.2

2.8

5.3

31.4

1 1 '

4-4 1

6.6

12.4

4-5

0.2

1.2

4.2

4.1

37.6

83 per cent at 7 a.m. and 72 per cent at 7 p.m. Table IX gives the monthly
and annual data.

Number of rainy days. — In Table X the number of rainy days dur-
ing each month and the year is given for thirty-three stations well dis-
tributed over the state. The smallest number is 64 at Lynd, Lyon County,
and the largest 132 days at Duluth.

Sunshine. — The sunshine is abundant, averaging from 43 to 53 per
cent of the highest amount possible. The daylight hours are materially
longer during the crop-growing season in the northern portion of the
state than in the southern. The greatest percentage of sunshine is in
the southwestern portion and the least in the northeastern part.

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

TabU VII. Prct aUing Wind Direction

Stations

Length of
record, yrs.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

3
<

September

October

November

December

Year

Lake of the Woods

Tower ^

■

nw.

Rc 1 fciveT l^'alley GtouP —

nw.

Sf. Vincent-Pembina . •

nw.

se.

nw.

8W.

se.

nw.

se.

8e.

se.

nw.

Vpi^cr Mississi*'pi River

Vallev Gfoiip —

Park Rapids

n w.

nw.

I^ke Winnibigoshish . .

nw.

se.

nw.

Lake Superior Group —

nw.

sw.

nw.

ne.

sw.

ne.

Lower Mississippi River

Valley Group —

t e
* 9

nw.

nw.
•

nw.

se.

sw.

nw.

St Charles

nw.

se.

nw.

se.

nw.

se.

nw.

Red Wing

nw.

se.

.sw.

nw.

St Paul

■

nw.

se.

nw.

8e.

Lower Minnesota River

Valley Group —

•4

nw.

se.

nw.

se.

nw.

se.

nw.

Middle Mississippi Ri' er

and St. Croix Valleys

Group —

nw.

ne.

nw.

sw.

nw.

1 1

Grantsburg, Wis

1 1 -

nw.

sw.

se.

ne.

sw.

nw.

Upper Minnesota River

Valley Group —

nw.

^•

nw.

se.

nw.

Minnesota River Water-

shed Group —

nw.

1 se.

se.

is:

se.

nw.

«.

nw.

se.

nw.

se.

nw.

Morris

nw.

»3

nw.

se.

nw.

se.

nw.

Southwestern Group —

nw.

; nw.

nw.

1 s.

nw.

[ nw.

nw.

»4

nw.

hw.

nw.

( nw.

se.

nw.

sw.

nw.

; nw.

sw.

nw.

G'arv. S. D

1 1

nw.

sw.

se.

ne.

sw.

nw.

Table I'lII. Average Hourly Wind Velocity in Miles

Stations

Length of
record, yrs.

January

>»
u
(t
3
k.
X>
w

J3
U
u
rt

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

>
0

I December

Annual

M-3

14.2

15.0

1.S.1

IS-2

11.6

12.0

12.7

13.9

14.I

14.2

13.6

10.3

10.5

"•3

12.0

10.7

lO.O

8.3

8.4

10.4

I O.I

10. 0

10.2

St.Vinc'nt-Pembina

7.7

9.4

10. 0

10.7

10.0

8.7

7-5

7.5

9.1

9-3

9-5

8.9

9.2

Two Harbors....

9.0

8.2

9.7

9-4

7.6

7-3

8.0

8.3

8.7

8.9

8.3

La Crosse, Wis.. .

7.5

8.0

8.5

7-5

6.7

6.0

1:1

6.9

7-5

7-2

7.2

St. Paul

7.8

8.3

8.8

9.3

8.7

7.7

S.o

8.S

8.1

7.8

8.1

II. 5

II. 6

12-3

12.8

1 2. 1

10.3

9-9

II. 6

II. 7

1 1.0

I 1.2

II. 3

9-4

9.1

1 1.0

7.3

5-9

6.4

7.8

.8.8

9.0

9.1

8.5

1 1

9.S

9.6

I I.O

12.2

II. I

1 0.0

9-4

9.4

10.9

9.S

9.9

9-9

10.2

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF MINNESOTA

Tabic IX. Mean Relative Humidity in Degrees

Stations

Length of
record, yrs.

January

February

March

[April

May

June

July

August

September

f October

November

1 December

' Annual

8 a.m.

8 p.m.

( 8 a.m.

8 p.m.

\ 8 a.m.

La Crosse, Wis..

8 p.m.

. 8 a.m.

St. Paul

' 8 a.m.

Minneapolis

8 p.m.

.8 p.m.

Table X. Number of Days with o.ci Inch or More of Precipitation

Stations

Length of
record, yrs.

January

February

March

I April

May

June

July

^ August

September

October

November

December

Annual

Lake of tiie Wooas

Croup —

1 9

Red River Valley Group —

St. Vincent-Pembina. . .

i g

Moorhead

107

Upper Mississippi River

Valley Group —

112

L ake Winnibigoshish. . .

Lake Superior Group —

1 1

132

Loner Mississippi River
Valley Group —

La Crosse, Wis

120

Red Wing

St. Paul

114

Lower Minnesota River

Valley Group —

St. Peter

Middle Mississippi River

and St. Croix Valleys

Group —

107

1 1

Grantsburg, Wis. ......

Upper Minnesota River

Valley Group —

Minnesota River Water-

shed Group —

1 1

123

Southwestern Group —

1 1

0000

Lynd

Gary, S. D

1 1

3 1

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

The precipitation in the area embraced in the present report, as shown
in Fij^iire 12, increases from northwest to southeast, being about 25
inches in the northwest part and over 32 inches in the southeast. Although
there is an increase on approaching I^ke Superior the influence of the
lake in increasing precipitation near its shore seems to be very slight,
for in parts of Minnesota farther south where there is no lake influence
a similar increase in the amount of precipitation is found in passing from
northwest to southeast.

CHAPTER III

AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS AND LAND CLASSIFICATION
IN THE NORTHEAST QUARTER OF MINNESOTA

GENERAL STATEMENT

The northeast quarter of Minnesota lies within the area of mixed
coniferous and deciduous forests (Figure 3), and was heavily wooded,
except in some of the muskeg swam.ps, and in narrow marshy strips bor-
dering lakes and streams. The sandy and loose-textured soils are occu-
pied largely by pine forests, while the clayey or heavier classes of soil
carry usually a mixed growth, embracing deciduous as well as coniferous
trees.

Agricultural development is as yet very limited in all parts of this
area. In most localities farming has begun within the past ten or fifteen
years. The clearing of stumps, draining of swamps, and opening of
roads, each require much labor and thus retard a rapid agricultural de-
velopment. The region is, however, sufficiently well watered, and large
areas of it have a soil productive enough to give adequate returns for
the expenditure of labor required to bring the land under cultivation.
This region is not affected by drouths in late summer such as often cut
short the pasturage in districts farther south and west. Very little feed-
ing is, therefore, required until the pastures become snow-covered.

Railway facilities are good in Carlton and much of Aitkin County
and over the territory lying between the Mesabi Iron Range and Lake
Superior. Koochiching County also has fair railway advantages. There
is urgent need for a railway leading northeastward from Duluth through
Lake and Cook counties. At present the Minnesota and Northeastern,
used largely for lumbering operations, furnishes an outlet for southern
Lake County. Boat service is maintained along the shore of Lake Supe-
rior from May i to November 30, thus furnishing an outlet for the pro-
duce of Cook as well as Lake County.

The larger part of the population of this northeast quarter of Minne-
sota is along the shore of Lake Superior and the mining towns on the
iron ranges and in villages scattered along the railways. Not more than
twenty per cent of the population are engaged in agricultural pursuits.
Of this population a considerable part combine other pursuits with farm-
ing and are employed part of their time in the cities or in logging camps.
Year by year, however, a larger percentage of the farmers are giving
their entire time to farm development.

SURFACE FORMATIONS 01- MLWESOTA

The three counties north of Lake Superior each have large areas with
rock hills which carry only a scanty cover of drift. The scanty soil
combined with the steepness of slope renders them of little or no agri-
cultural value. These rocky lands are largely embraced in the National
Forest and yield better returns from their forests than could be obtained
by farming them. These three counties have, however, certain advan-
tages, because of their frontage on Lake Superior. A narrow strip along
the lake shore should become a profitable one for the growing of vege-
tables and even of hardy fruits, which can be readily marketed by boats
running to Duluth. The loose-textured soil of this belt also adapts it for
the growth of garden truck.

Swamps are numerous in every county in the northeast quarter of the
state, and there are extensive muskegs in western St. Louis, Koochiching,
and Aitkin counties. The drainage surveys have shown, however, that
in the largest swamps as well as in the smaller ones the surface slope
is generally sufficient to insure effective drainage. The soil of the
swamps also is generally of such a nature as to be very productive
when drained. The water courses which have developed in and near
these swamps by natural drainage have in most cases channels of suffi-
cient capacity to carry off all water which would be discharged into them
from the ditches necessary to drain the swamp areas. A considerable
improvement in the drainage and reduction of the area of swamp lands
may easily be effected by removing obstructions from the natural water
courses, such as old beaver dams and the fallen timber and other ob-
structing material. Such obstructions are found in nearly all of the
small stream channels throughout the area. Large areas of these swamp
lands are held by the State, and many projects for their reclamation have
been worked out by the State Drainage Engineer and embodied in his
report for 1906.

There are wide differences in the character of the glacial deposits in
northeastern Minnesota. The cause of some of these differences was
the peculiar relations of the deposits to the melting ice, and some were
caused by differences in the rock material contained in the drift. Drift
laid down under the ice naturally contains a considerable amount of fine
clayey or loamy material along with the coarser rock constituents. But
drift laid down at the edge of the ice has in places had the fine material
largely removed by the waters discharging from the ice border, and the
coarse material is thus concentrated into beds of gravel and cobble. There
are places, however, where lakes were held between the ice and the higher
country outside, or in regions where the escape of the water was inade-
quate. In such places a fine sediment was laid down outside the ice on
the beds of the lakes or ponded waters.

PLATE V

B. FARM ON SHORE OF LAKE SUPERIOR AT LUTZEN, COOK COUNTY
TERRACING MARKS HIGHER LAKE LEVELS

AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS AND LAND CLASSIFICATION 47

The temporary Lake Aitkin, which occupied the district traversed by
the Mississippi in its course through Aitkin County, deposited a fine and
highly productive sediment over much of its bed. The flat land in the
St. Louis basin, covered by Lake Upham, now carries deposits of fine
sand and silt over a wide area in western St. Louis and northeastern
Aitkin County. It embraces the extensive muskeg swamps of that region.

On the bed of Lake Duluth, at its southwest end, in Carlton County
and neighboring parts of Wisconsin, there is considerable clay, but in a
narrow strip exposed on the north side of Lake Superior there has been
in places a removal of the fine material and a concentration of coarse
material in the bars and beaches of the lake.

Lake Agassiz extended from the Red River basin and plains of Mani-
toba as far east as the northwest part of the area herein described (Plate
I). All of Koochiching County except a strip two to eight miles wide
on its southern border was covered by this lake. It also covered about
twenty townships in the northwest part of St. Louis County. The part
in Koochiching County has a nearly plane surface and a considerable
deposit of fine lake sediment except on the immediate borders of Rainy
Lake and small areas in the southeast part of the county where rock
knobs are exposed. The lake deposits with heavy soil extend up Little
Fork valley into St. Louis County and are found in narrow lowland strips
among the rock hills in northwestern St. Louis County. The greater part
of this lake area inside the limits of St. Louis County, however, has a
rocky surface much of which was swept bare by the action of the lake
waves, and thus rendered of little value for agriculture.

The kind of rock material contained in the drift depends to some
extent upon the direction from which the ice invaded this region. As
already indicated the studies of the deposits have brought out the inter-
esting fact that the ice invasions came from three directions, the north-
west, the north, and the east. The invasion from the northwest was
by ice which covered much of Manitoba and spread over a great part
of northern Minnesota. It brought in deposits of drift containing large
amounts of limestone which the ice had gathered in its passage across
limestone formations in Manitoba. This is known as the Keewatin
drift, since the ice started from the region formerly called the Keewatin
district of central Canada (but now largely included in Manitoba). It
is also known as the gray drift, this term having been applied by Winchell
and his associates in their reports in the Minnesota Geological Survey.
The color is gray, however, only in the unoxidized portions, and the sur-
face of the drift, that has been oxidized, has a brown color. There are
also places in the vicinity of the Mesabi Iron Range, where on account
of the introduction of reddish material from the iron formations, it all

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

presents a red color. The color name, therefore, becomes rather con-
fusing when one attempts to apply it widely. For this reason the term
Keewatin drift is used in the present report.

The border of the Keewatin drift is indicated on Plate I and also
on Figure 2. On the northeast it lies only a few miles south of the
Canadian line from the mouth of Rainy Lake eastward to Nameokan
Lake in St. Louis County. It then leads southward to the west end of
Vermilion Lake. Then after a slight eastward turn in the Little Fork
drainage basin it swings southward and comes to the Mesabi Iron Range
near Chisholm. But the high part of the range from there westward
about to the Itasca County line seems to have stood above its limits. On
passing over the range into the basin south of it the Keewatin ice spread
out widely over the St. Louis drainage basin and also down the Missis-
sippi to the edge of Crow Wing County. The southwest limits run
through northwestern Aitkin County and thence westward across Cass
County to the south of Leech Lake, passing beyond the limits of the area
under discussion. In the district covered by the Keewatin drift the
glacial deposits are exceptionally rich and of a less stony character than
in districts to the east and south which were covered by drifts derived
from other sources.

Ice invaded the northeast part of Minnesota also partly by a westward
movement of the Labrador ice sheet through the Superior basin and
partly by a southward movement from the district of Patricia in the
neighboring part of Canada. A part of the drift deposited by these in-
vasions is called the Superior drift and the other part the Patrician drift.
Both of these drifts have a reddish color owing to the large amount of
red rock material incorporated in them, and they embrace what is termed
the red drift of Minnesota in the reports of the Winchell Survey.

The relations of the Patrician ice movement to the Superior and Kee-
watin ice movements are somewhat complex. The Patrician movement
extended over eastern Minnesota southward a little beyond St. Paul
into Scott and Dakota counties, and covered at least one third of the
state. It is found to have done so before the movements from the Kee-
watin and Superior ice fields had reached into northeastern Minnesota,
for territory which it occupied was later invaded to some extent by each
of these ice fields, and the deposits of the Patrician ice are overlain by
the Keewatin and Superior drifts in such regions of overlap. The bor-
ders of the drift of the Superior and of the Keewatin ice approach each
other closely for a few miles in southwestern St. Louis and northwestern
Carlton and the eastern edge of Aitkin County, and the Patrician drift
is there found beneath one or the other of them. (See Plate II A and
II B). Farther south in Aitkin and neighboring counties, as shown in

PLATK VI

B. CROSS RIVER MEANDERING THROUGH A SPRUCE SWAMP IN ITS HEADWATERS

COOK COUNTY

Figure 2, the Patrician drift is at the surface. It is also at the surface
at the northeast in St. Louis, Lake, and Cook counties between the drift
of the Keewatin ice field and that of the Superior lobe of the Labrador
ice field. The precise relations of the Superior lobe and Patrician ice
in the district north of Lake Superior will be taken up in the discussion of
Lake County. Attention is accordingly directed here only to the differ-
ences in the character of their drifts.

In the drift brought in by the Superior lobe there is on the whole a
large proportion of loamy material in which the coarse crystalline rocks
are imbedded. The soil is what might appropriately be termed stony
loam. It becomes more gravelly on its northwest edge in the headwaters
of Cloquet River because of the discharge of water there along the ice
border. The drift deposited by the Patrician ice is generally very stony
because of the derivation of its material from the crystalline rock forma-
tions over which the ice passed, and which do not readily break down
into clayey material. The contrast between it and the drift of the Supe-
rior lobe is, however, less striking than between it and the drift of the
Keewatin ice sheet, and there are places where the drift of the Superior
lobe is fully as stony as that from the Patrician ice. The larger amount
of loam in the Superior drift is due in part to the ponded conditions of
water along the northwest edge of the Superior ice lobe, there having
been ready escape for water along only a part of the border in the head-
waters of Cloquet River. It is thought, however, that the formations
over which the Superior lobe passed, such as the diabase of Beaver Bay
and certain gabbro rocks contributed more material that is easily reduced
to clay than did those formations found in the area over which the Patri-
cian ice sheet passed. It was in connection with the retreat of the Supe-
rior ice and the Keewatin ice that the glacial lakes, Duluth and Agassiz,
noted above were formed.

DESCRIPTIONS OF COUNTIES

In the descriptions of counties which follow the county taken first
is in the northeast corner of Minnesota, and after that counties to the
west and south to the southern border of the area are discussed. A few
data from the census of 1910 are presented in addition to the results of
the land classification on a geologic basis.

COOK COUNTY

The recent studies in Cook County were mainly in the part near the
shore of Lake Superior where farming has been begun and roads opened.
Data concerning the less accessible areas have been obtained from the
geological reports of the earlier Geological Survey and from Dr. Arthur

SURFACE FORM ATI OX S OF MIXXESOTA

H. Elftman, a member of that survey, who also in 1913 assisted in part
of the work in Lake and Cook counties.

Bare rock or rock with a very scanty drift covering occupies about
one third of the area of the county, mainly in the north part, and mainly
within the limits of the National Forest. But there is also a strip of
rugged land known as the "Sawtooth Mountains" which lies near the
Superior shore westward from Grand Marais. Several townships in the
eastern end of the county are also rugged and thinly covered with drift.

The lakes of Cook County, including those along the Canadian bor-
der, are estimated by Mr. George A. Ralph,^ to cover 274 square miles,
while the swamps embrace 135 square miles. Their combined area, 409
square miles, is over one fourth of the county. This, together with the
rough and rocky areas, amounts to nearly 60 per cent of the county. Of
the remaining 40 per cent a considerable part can not be brought under
cultivation except at great expense in clearing of stones and stumps. It
may, therefore, prove to be more profitable in forest than under culti-
vation.

The tracts of hea\'y drift embrace some moraines, the position and
extent of which may be seen by reference to Plate I. Parts of these
moraines have a very rough surface with sharp knolls inclosing small
swamps. More commonly the glacial deposits are gently undulating with
slopes easy to cultivate. The part along the shore which was covered
by the waters of Lake Duluth and lower lake stages down to the present
Lake Superior, includes numerous gravelly ridges or beaches formed at
different levels corresponding to the successive lake levels. The slopes
between these gravel ridges have wave-washed drift consisting largely
of coarse material. Ver^' little fine sediment was deposited by the lake
on this part of the shore. The soil, however, has proved to be productive
in the growth of vegetables and cereals.

The prevailing type of soil in the tracts of heavy drift is a stony loam.
This is true of moraines, till plains, and of the part within the limits of
Lake Duluth. Dr. Elftman reported that there is a strip of hea\y drift
embraced in flat areas among rock hills on the south side of Pigeon River
in Ranges 3, 4, 5, and 6 E. in which a clayey drift is found, which, when
cleared and drained, is likely to become valuable agricultural district.
It lies partly within the limits of Lake Duluth, but at the west the de-
posits are somewhat higher than the level of that lake. They may, how-
ever, have been laid down in ponded waters along the ice border.

Agricultural development is at present mainly in a narrow strip
scarcely five miles wide along the shore of Lake Superior. There is a
belt about ten miles wide lying north of the "Sawtooth Mountains" from

1 G. A. Ralph. Engineer's Report on Topographical and Drainage Survey, Minnesota, 1906.

PLATE VII

A. FIELD OF OATS ON KEEVVATIN TILL PLAIN IN ST. LOUIS COUNTY

B. DAIRY FARM, ST. LOUIS COUNTY

LAKE COUNTY

Cascade River westward to Temperance River and northward to Brule
Lake, in which the drift cover is heavier than to the north. Parts of this
may be suitable for agriculture. The roughness of surface, stony char-
acter of the drift, and the likelihood of frost in this depression back of
the Sawtooth range give the area of thicker drift but little advantage over
the rocky area to the north for crop raising, but it should give good re-
turns in forest. The flat areas of heavy drift along Pigeon River, noted
above, are also as yet undeveloped, and are likely to remain so until a
railway line is constructed which will give an outlet for the produce.

From the census of 19 10 it appears that the number of farms had in-
creased in the preceding decade from 36 to 146. Of these, 115 have an
area of between 100 and 175 acres,. and two have an area over 500 acres.
On many there has been very little cultivation of the soil, the average
acres of improved land per farm in 1910 being only 10.7. Thus far the
market facilities are restricted mainly to the season of boat traffic on Lake
Superior which runs from May i to November 30. The Minnesota and
Northeastern Railroad, however, has now extended its line to the south-
west part of the county and thus opened winter connections with Duluth.
Vegetables are as yet grown more extensively than cereals but the census
returns show that oats, wheat, barley, and rye, have each a good yield
per acre.

LAKE COUNTY

In Lake County a strip several miles wide along the shore of Lake
Superior in which the principal settlement occurs was examined in detail.
Lines of traverse were also carried into the unsettled parts of the county,
lumber camps being used as a base from which to work. Dr. Arthur H.
Elftman, who joined in part of this investigation, also greatly aided by
supplying information concerning the character of soils in several town-
ships in the northern half of the county which he had examined geologi-
cally some years previous under the direction of Professor N. H. Win-
chell. Information concerning the character of land inside the limits of
the National Forest was obtained also from the foresters located there.

The northern part of the county, as far south as Tp. 61, is a very
broken district with rock knobs among which are lakes and swamps. It
carries only a thin coating of glacial drift on the hills, and there is very
little easily tillable land. The greater part of this rocky area is included
in the National Forest. There are other bare rock ridges in the south-
ern part of Lake County within the limits of the glacial Lake Duluth
which owe their bareness in part to the work of the lake waves
in removing the drift covering. These rock outcrops are numerous in the
southern part of the county for several miles back from the present shore

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

and up to an altitude of 800 to 1,000 feet above the level of I^ke Superior.
There are several townships lying between these rock ranges and those
of the northern half of the county in which the drift is so heavy as to
nearly conceal even high rock hills and ridges. There are also flat areas
among the exposed rock ranges near the shore of Lake Superior in which
heavy deposits of drift occur.

The greater part of I^ke County was covered by Patrician ice which
came in from the north, there being only a strip fifteen to twenty miles
wide next to Lake Superior which was covered by the Superior ice field.
Each of these ice fields produced a great system of moraines which be-
come interlocked in the eastern part of Lake County. The system formed
by the Patrician ice field leads westward from Tps. 59 and 60 R. 7 W.
across this county into St. Louis County, covering much of Tp. 59 R. 8W.
and Tp. 60 Rs. 9, 10, and iiW. The several headwater branches of Isa-
bella River start in this morainic system and Stony River has most of its
course among its ridges. Between the constituent morainic ridges there
are narrow strips of gravel plain formed as outwash from the ice border
in the course of the development of the morainic system. The amount of
drift in this morainic system is several times as great, square mile for
square mile, as in the district to the north of it, in the northern half of
Lake County.

A morainic system of the Superior lobe, which joins as a correlative
of that of the Patrician ice field just described, leads from their place
of junction, which is in Tp. 59, Rs. 7 and 8\V, southwestward parallel
to the shore of Lake Superior through Lake County into St. Louis County.
Its inner border is twelve to fourteen miles from the Lake while the outer
border is usually sixteen to eighteen miles. Its position may be seen by
reference to Plate I. The highest land areas in Lake County are at the
junction of the morainic systems, there being a few knolls on the moraines,
which by barometric measurement, exceed 2,000 feet above the sea. Each
of the morainic systems descends in passing westward from there to the
St. Louis County line to an altitude of about 1,700 feet along their crests.
The inner border of the Superior lobe, which is considerably lower than
the crest, is, however, generally above 1,500 feet.

In topography the great morainic systems are rough and approach in
that respect the rock areas of the northern part of the county, there being
numerous hills 50 to 100 feet high with steep 'sides difficult of cultiva-
tion. For this reason settlements in Lake County have thus far avoided
these morainic systems.

There are several townships lying between these two great morainic
systems in western I^ke County which are covered by drift belonging to
the Patrician ice movement, the ice having melted there prior to the de-

PLATE VIII

C. FARM PREMISES AT MEADOWLANDS

LAKE COUNTY

velopment of the morainic systems. Scattered drift knolls and ridges
are found in these townships but they do not appear to form definite
morainic belts. The greater part of the surface is nearly plane and much
of it is swampy. This district was traversed by lines of glacial drainage
which ran away from the great morainic systems toward the southwest.
The headwaters of Cloquet and St. Louis rivers are in channels which
were developed along those lines by the escape of the glacial waters. The
swamps are largely underlaid by sand and gravel deposits brought in by
the glacial drainage.

On the slope toward Lake Superior there are narrow strips of moraine
developed as the ice border halted in its retreat into the Superior basin.
They are far less conspicuous, however, than the great morainic systems
above noted.

From the junction of the two great morainic systems in T. 59, R. 7W.
northeastward into Cook Coimty where the two ice fields were coalesced
they did not form moraines. Instead, the ice fields appear to have blocked
each other's movements almost completely and to have become ramified
near their junction by tunnels through which the water formed by the
melting of the ice flowed and deposited gravel and sand in the tun-
nels. After the ice was all melted these deposits of gravel and sand
settled down on the underlying drift-covered surface, and remained there
' as steep sided gravel ridges called eskers. In Plate IV A one of these
ridges which is 90 feet high is shown and it will be noted that the crest
is barely wide enough for a wagon track. Eskers are found quite com-
monly in the glaciated districts. In this locality they are found at the
junction of two ice fields but such eskers occur frequently inside the area
of a single ice field. They formed when ice movement had practically
ceased and where the ice had become ramified by tunnels. Eskers furnish
good material for road building rather than good soil. They are of great
value for road material, especially in districts where there is a clayey
drift.

The waters of Lake Duluth are found to have extended back to a
distance of four or fi.ve miles from the present shore of Lake Superior
in the region from Knife River as far northeast as Beaver Bay, though
for several miles southwest from Beaver Bay a rock ridge lying back
only about two miles from the shore rose slightly above the lake level.
From Beaver Bay northeastward the waters of Lake Duluth extended
only one and a half to two miles back from the present lake except in
narrow inlets in the valleys of Baptism and Manitou rivers. Rocky ridges
bordering Lake Superior have greater breadth from Beaver Bay north-
eastward than they have to the southwest. The beaches of Lake Duluth
are ill-defined in these rocky areas but are distinctly seen in the form of

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

definite gravel ridges where the shore was of glacial deposits. These
ridges occur at various levels marking the successive lake stages down
to the present shore. The liighest shore is not far from 550 feet above
Lake Superior. It shows a slight rise from southwest to northeast in
its course through the county.

The rough areas of rock ridges and hills are estimated to occupy
about 40 per cent of the area of Lake County. The lakes occupy about
12 per cent and the swamps, as estimated by the State Drainage Engineer,
embrace 297 square miles or 14 per cent of the county. There thus re-
mains only about one third of the area of the county occupied by the
better classes of land. Of this a large part is stony loam with numerous
cobblestones as well as bowlders in the soil and on the surface. A nar-
row strip with heavy clay soil and relatively few stones is found along
and near the shore of Lake Superior in the southwest part of the county
below the level of the highest beach of Lake Duluth. A looser-textured
clay loam with only a moderate number of stones included is found above
the level of Lake Duluth in Tp. 54, R. loW., Tp. 55, Rs. 9 and loW.,
and Tp. 56, R. 9W. This district is traversed by the Minnesota and
Northeastern Railroad, which thus gives it an outlet for the marketing
of products. Both of the great morainic systems are very stony but the
one formed by the Superior lobe appears to contain somewhat more loam
in the soil than that formed by the Patrician ice field. The district lyinj
between these moraines in the western part of Lake County is also very
thickly strewn with stony material, except along lines of glacial drain-
age, where some deposits of gravel and sand occur.

Nearly all the farming settlements in Lake County are in the two
areas of clay and clay loam above noted which lie near the Lake Supe-
rior shore, and principally within ten miles of it. There are, however,
two settlements more remote. One in the western part of the county in
the vicinity of Toimi Post Office has a few settlers. The main settle-
ment of about 75 families is in the adjacent part of St. Louis County.
Another in Tp. 59, R. 8W. just west of the junction of the two great
morainic systems above noted has about 40 settlers. This settlement has
the distinction of being the most elevated one in the state, the altitude
being between 1,800 and 2,000 feet. Notwithstanding the high altitude,
and remoteness from the lake, cereals and vegetables have been grown
with marked success. The soil is a stony loam with considerable sandy
admixture both in this settlement and the one around Toimi. There are
also a few settlers northeast of Ely in Tp. 63, R. iiW., and a few in
Tp. 62, R. loW.

A single farm has been opened on the east shore of Harriet Lake in
Tp. 60, R. 6\\'. by Anthony Gasco, a view of whose premises is given

A. FERTILE VALLEY NORTH OF VERMILION LAKE AT "hALF-W^AY HOUSe"

B. FARM ON THE STONY PATRICIAN DRIFT AT TOWER

ST. LOUIS COUNTY

in Plate V A. This farm is at an altitude of nearly i,8oo feet or but
slightly lower than that of the settlement in Tp. 59, R. 8W. When
visited, on September 15, 191 3, there had been no killing frost. Sweet
corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, lettuce, turnips, cabbage, beets, tomatoes,
and potatoes were all in flourishing condition, as well as cultivated flowers
of many kinds. In the year 1912 Mr. Gasco raised $300 worth of garden
truck on less than five acres.

The census of 1910 reports only 1.7 per cent of the county, or 34.8
square miles, to be in farms, and only 10.7 per cent of the farm lands
to be improved. The crops grown in 1909 were valued at $47,187. Of
this $15,659 were for vegetables, and $18,742 for hay and forage. The
cereal crop is rated at only $323, there being but 15 acres reported. There
has been considerable advance in the development of farms since the
census of 1910 was taken, yet it is still true that only a small part of the
land that is suitable for cultivation in Lake County has been developed.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY

St. Louis County of which Duluth is the county seat, embraces more
than one third of the northeast quarter of Minnesota, its area, according
to the Census of 1910, being 6,503 square miles. It extends from the
west end of Lake Superior northward to Rainy Lake on the Canadian
border, or from T. 48N. to T. 71 N., a distance of fully 130 miles. Its
north and south ends are irregular, but for 88 miles, from T. 52 to T. 66
inclusive, the county has a regular width of 60 miles. It is traversed by
several railway lines radiating from Duluth. Only one of these, the Du-
luth, Winnipeg and Pacific, extends through to Canada. Several lines
have termini in the Mesabi Iron Range.

Nearly all the county is a tableland standing 600 to 900 feet above
Lake Superior, or 1,200 to 1,500 feet above sea level. The Mesabi Iron
Range and the associated rock ridges rise in places to 1,800 feet above
the sea. A prominent moraine in the southeast part of the county is
about 1,700 feet where it enters from Lake County, and the bed-rock
surface there attains an altitude of about 1,600 feet. The rock surface
has an altitude of 1,500 to 1,700 feet along much of the eastern part of
the county. The altitude decreases westward in the district on each side
of the Mesabi range. That range reaches its highest elevation of about
1,800 feet in the central part of the county.

For a distance of 30 to 35 miles south from the Canadian boundary,
or as far south as Pelican, Vermilion, and Birch lakes, the drift is very
scanty on the hills and ridges. The Mesabi Range is very thinly coated
with drift in places, though its south slope and the portion west from
Chisholm carry a relatively heavy coating. Between the Mesabi Range

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

and Vermilion Lake, in the drainage areas of Sturgeon and Little Fork
rivers, there is generally a heavy cover of drift. The drift cover is heav>'
also south of the Mesabi Range, except in a narrow strip fronting on Lake
Superior where bare ledges are conspicuous. These ledges are chiefly in
T. 49, R. 15W., T. 50, R. 14W., and T. 51, R. 13W. The drift of this
county was brought in from the three ice fields discussed in the introduc-
tory statement. The Superior ice lobe covered the county from the
direction of Lake Superior as far northwest as the valley of Cloquet
River. The Keewatin ice field extended into the county from the north-
west covering about twenty townships north of the Mesabi Iron Range,
and a still larger area in the St. Louis basin south of the range. It did
not, however, override the portion of the Mesabi Range in this county,
but came across the range in Itasca County, and then spread eastward
along the south side of the range, in St. Louis County.

The ice from the Patrician district covered the northeastern part of
the county as late as the time when the other two ice fields were occupy-
ing the southern and western portions, as just described. The morainic
system of the Patrician ice sheet, which is correlated w^ith the great mo-
rainic system of the Superior lobe, as indicated in the discussion of Lake
County, continues into St. Louis County to Vermilion Lake. From that
lake northward the Patrician and Keewatin ice fields may have been
nearly confluent along a line lying not far from the Vermilion River.
Extensive areas of Patrician drift in eastern St. Louis County and along
the Mesabi Range are a little older than these great morainic systems,
and, as already stated, the Patrician drift of southwestern St. Louis
County and neighboring districts was encroached upon by the Superior
and Keewatin ice fields and to that extent its drift deposit lies buried
beneath their drifts. (See Plate II A and II B.)

The lakes of St. Louis County are estimated to occupy 365 square
miles, not including those along the Canadian border. The great majority
are less than one square mile in area, but there are a few of considerable
size within the limits of this county. The area of Vermilion Lake is
about 70 square miles, of Lake Kapetogama fully 30 square miles, of
Pelican Lake 20 square miles, and of Trout Lake 11 square miles.

The swamp lands of St. Louis County, as estimated by the State
Drainage Engineer in his report for 1906, occupy 1,862 square miles, of
which 372 are open swamp with little or no forest growth. Much that
is now classed, and which appears in the Land Survey plats as swamp
land, will drain naturally when cleared of brush with but little aid by
ditching. It is estimated that the rock hills and ranges of St. Louis
County embrace an area of nearly 1,700 square miles, or somewhat more

PLATE X

B. PIONEER MARKETING AT COOK

ST. LOUIS COUNTY

than one fourth of the county. The area of dry land with thick drift
cover is, however, still larger than the rock areas, being estimated at
2,600 square miles, or about 40 per cent of the county.

The area covered by Lake Duluth in this county is only about 100
square miles, the highest shore line being in places scarcely a mile back
from the lake. In the eastern part of the county, however, the distance
increases to fully five miles.

The most extensive class of soil in St. Louis County is the stony loam.
This is the dominant type in the great morainic system of the Superior
lobe which runs southwestward across the southern part of the county,
though included among those morainic ridges there are nearly level areas
in which a somewhat heavy clay with comparatively few stones occurs.
(See Plates XII A, XII B.) The Patrician drift in the eastern part of
the county is as a rule exceedingly stony both in the ridges and on the
level areas. On the Mesabi Range the drift is in places so thickly set
with bowlders as to form a literal pavement. (See Plate XV A). In
the district between the Mesabi range and Vermilion Lake there are
rough and stony morainic strips (see Plate IX B) between which are
nearly plane areas part of which are of sand and gravel and part of stony
drift similar to that in the moraines.

In the St. Louis basin, south of the Mesabi Iron Range, there are
several classes of soil. A strip several miles wide immediately south of
the iron range has a clayey till with relatively few stones imbedded in
it, which was deposited by the Keewatin ice sheet. (See Plate II B.)
This kind of drift is also present on the south side of St. Louis River
in several townships lying east of the Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific Rail-
road, and north of White Face River.

Another extensive deposit in the St. Louis basin is a fine sand which
borders the river for most of its course from the crossing of the Duluth
and Iron Range Railroad down to the crossing of the Coleraine branch of
the Duluth, Mesabi and Northern Railroad, and which also spreads west-
ward to within a few miles of the Mesabi range in the drainage basin of
Swan River. This sand apparently underlies a considerable part of the
muskeg in the western part of St. Louis County.

From the crossing of the Coleraine branch of the Duluth, Mesabi and
Northern down the St. Louis and Whiteface valleys there is a deposit
composed more of silt than of sand which seems to have been laid down
in Lake Upham, the lake which once occupied this area and discharged
through the St. Louis River below Floodwood. The same deposit is
exposed along the Floodwood River for many miles above its mouth, and
is found to underlie the muskeg swamps for some distance north and
west of Floodwood. The Meadowlands Experimental Farm in T. 53,
R. 19W. lies within the limits of this silt deposit, (see Plates VIII A,

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

VIII B, and VIII C), and a farming district in the vicinity of Floodwood
is also developed within it.

In the area covered by Lake Duluth fully 80 of its 100 square miles
have a clayey drift in which stones are relatively scarce compared with
their number outside of the lake area. About 10 square miles are em-
braced in rock ranges in which the drift has been nearly all washed away
by lake action. The remaining 10 square miles are occupied by drift of
a stony and sandy character. This kind of drift is found chiefly from
Duluth southwestward.

In the western part of the county on the borders of Little Fork River
(See Plates XA and XI A) and the lower course of Sturgeon River
there is an area of over 200 square miles of clayey deposits in which very
few stones occur, and which is already being developed extensively, as
the soil is productive and easily cultivated. A considerable part of this
area as noted above was swept by a forest fire some fifty years ago. Less
extensive clayey tracts, occupying perhaps 40 square miles (See Plate

IX A), are found along the borders of Vermilion River from T. 65N. to
Crane Lake in T. 67N., R. 17W. These clayey tracts are in the area
once covered by the waters of Lake Agassiz and the material forming
the soils may be in part a lake deposit. A large part also of the area
covered by Lake Agassiz in northwestern St. Louis County is hilly and
many of the hills have little drift coating. There are, however, among
the hills, deposits of the calcareous clayey till of the Keewatin ice field,
which promise to become productive when cleared and brought under
cultivation.

The census of 19 10 shows 426 V2 square miles, or 6.6 per cent of the
area of the county, to be in farms, and of these 15 per cent is improved
land. The amount of improved land has probably more than doubled
in the five years since the census was taken. The crops of 1909 were
valued at $919,360. Of this about one third was in hay and forage. The
value of the vegetables is placed at $220,556, which is about nine times
the value of the cereals of that year ($24,449). The yield of potatoes
averages about 150 bushels per acre for the 2,378 acres planted to that
crop. Within the past five years many residents of Duluth have invested
in small tracts of one to five acres on the hills bordering the city and are
developing them rapidly in truck gardens.

KOOCHICHING COUNTY

Koochiching County, with International Falls as its county seat, oc-
cupies the northwest part of the area under discussion. Rainy Lake and
Rainy River form its northern boundary and separate it from Canada.
It is traversed from southwest to northeast by the Minneapolis and In-

PLATE XI

C. JACK PINE OVER 100 FEET HIGH AT STURGEON LAKE, ST. LOUIS COUNTY

KOOCHICHING COUNTY

ternational Falls Railroad and its northeast corner is crossed by the Du-
luth, Rainy Lake and Winnipeg Railroad. The Minnesota, Dakota and
Western has a passenger line from International Falls to Loman, and a
logging road south from Little Fork into Itasca County. The principal
inhabitation is along the lines of the railways and along Rainy River.
Boat service on Rainy River is maintained from International Falls down
to Lake of the Woods throughout the summer season.

The area of the county is 3,141 square miles which was cut off from
Itasca County in 1906. Three ranges of townships on its western side,
embracing an area of 1,027 square miles, have been described in the re-
port on the northwest quarter of Minnesota, Bulletin 12, Minnesota Geo-
logical Survey, the 94th meridian being the boundary between the area
there described and the portion of the county here discussed.

The greater part of the county falls within the Hmits of the glacial
Lake Agassiz, less than 12 per cent being above the level of the highest
shore of that lake. Of the part lying east of the 94th meridian only 170
square miles of the 2,114 ^re above the level of Lake Agassiz shore lines.
The area covered by the lake is nearly half swamp land. The better
drained areas are chiefly a calcareous bowlder clay composed of the Kee-
watin drift. Thin deposits of lake silt have been laid down over the
flatter portions. These well-drained areas are largely found on the imme-
diate borders of the streams, although in the eastern part of the county
they extend more widely over the interstream areas. In the northeastern
part of the county on the borders of Rainy Lake and southward to Lake
Kabetogama there are rock hills with very thin deposits of drift on their
slopes. South of these rock hills there are ridges of drift which seem
to be composed mainly of Patrician drift but which are coated with the
calcareous Keewatin drift. They appear, therefore, to be overridden
moraines of the former drift. There are other ridges in the vicinity of
the Minnesota and International Railroad from Little Fork southwest-
ward for several miles which have a nucleus of Patrician drift and a
veneer of Keewatin drift. A few miles farther southwest there is a
morainic strip running from northwest to southeast which is crossed by
the Big Fork River just below the mouth of Sturgeon River and which
runs southeastward on the north side of Big Fork River past Big Falls
and thence with slight interruptions to Little Fork River in the east part
of T. 65, R. 25W. The same belt reappears between Little Fork and Net
Lake rivers and continues southeastward into St. Louis County, passing
just south of Net Lake and leading past the south side of Pelican Lake
to the west end of VermiHon Lake. This morainic strip seems to have
been formed in the main by the Patrician ice field but it carries a some-
what heavy deposit of Keewatin drift. For several miles in the vicinity

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

of Big Falls and in much of its course gravel and sand deposits are
abundant, thus distinguishing it from the ridges farther north which are
composed chiefly of bowlder clay.

The highest shore of Lake Agassiz is marked generally by a well-
defined gravel ridge or beach. Numerous gravelly ridges are also de-
veloped at lower levels, some of which appear as narrow strips of dry
land traversing the extensive swamps. These have served as lines for
highways across the swamps.

Systematic surveys are being made for draining the swamps of this
county (see Plate XIV B), under the direction of the County Surveyor,
and roads will be constructed along each of the main ditches thus giving
openings to the market for areas of farming land which are at present
cut off by swamps.

Estimates have been made from field maps of the percentages of each
of the several main classes of land in this part of Koochiching County
east of the 94th meridian. Similar estimates given in Bulletin 12, page
61, show the percentages of the western part of the county.

Percentages of Classes of Land

Square Per cent

miles of county

Moraine with sandy to gravelly loam soil 87 4.1

Overridden morainic ridges with clay loam soil 19 0.9

Till plain with prevailing clay loam soil 125 5.91

Lake washed drift with clay loam soil 731 34-57

Lake washed drift with sandy loam soil 42 2.00

Sandy and gravelly deposits of old lake shores 54 2.55

Hilly land with rock near surface 55 2.60

Interior lakes 16 0.75

Swamp lands 985 46.62

2.114 100.00

The census returns for the entire county show that in 1910 only 3.6
per cent of the land area was in farms, and only 7.5 per cent of the farm
land was improved. The rapid growth of International Falls has given
a good market for farm products in the north end of the county and
farms there are being rapidly developed. The clay loam soil, both in the
till plains above the level of Lake Agassiz and in the till which has been
washed by the lake, may be developed easily into first-class farm land.
It has only a moderate number of bowlders and cobblestones except
locally where the underlying stony Patrician drift comes to the surface
or has been involved with the more clayey Keewatin drift by the read-
vance of the Keewatin ice over it.

PI. ATI: XII

C. WINTER VIEW AT DULUTH EXPERIMENT FARM

ITASCA COUNTY

Itasca County, of which Grand Rapids is the county seat, is in the
western part of the area herein described, and extends also west of the
94th meridian about 20 miles into the area discussed in Bulletin 12, The
cutting off of Koochiching County in 1906 has reduced its area to 2,780
square miles. Of this, 470 square miles are west of the 94th meridian.

A line of the Great Northern Railroad crosses the southern end of the
county. Other railway lines with termini in the Mesabi Iron Range ex-
tend into the southeast part of the county. The Minnesota & Rainy
River Railroad has lines running into the northern part of the county
which are used chiefly for logging purposes. One of these opens a mar-
ket for farming districts around the thriving town of Big Fork. The
Mississippi River has a low rate of fall and a sluggish current from
Grand Rapids to Brainerd, and it is navigated by occasional boats be-
tween these cities.

The eastern half of the county is very diversified in topography and
in soil. The Mesabi Iron Range runs across the southeast part of the
county in a northeast to southwest course and has a moraine or other
thick drift covering superposed on it throughout its course in this county.
Its highest points in the eastern part of the county rise above the 1,600
foot contour, but the greater part of the range falls between 1,300 and
1,500 feet. There are only a few points at which natural exposures of
the rock occur on this range. The large mine pits, however, consider-
ably increase the area of exposure.

There are extensive till plains in the northeast part of the county
from the Mesabi range northward. There are also a few rock hills and
ridges as indicated on Plate I.

The western half of the county has extensive tracts with level to
gently undulating surface, much of which is poorly drained. These areas
may be greatly improved by a moderate amount of ditching after the
fallen timber and obstructions to drainage are cleared away. The ex-
treme southeast part of the county takes in a few square miles of the
great muskeg in the St. Louis River basin. Most of the southern part
of the county, however, drains to the Mississippi River below where it
crosses the Mesabi Range at Grand Rapids. The northern half of the
county is drained to Hudson Bay. A few square miles in the northeast
corner lie in the basin that was once covered by the waters of Lake
Agassiz.

There are a large number of small lakes among the moraines and
in the outwash gravel plains in this county, the combined area of which,
as estimated by Mr. George A. Ralph, is 227 square miles. The swamps
of the entire county are estimated to occupy 845 square miles, but the

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

area of the swamps can be greatly reduced at moderate expense and
chang^ed into fertile till plains. The soil of the till plains is diversi-
fied and ranges from fine clayey loam to a loose-textured stony loam. It
was found impracticable to map with any accuracy the extent of each
kind of soil in these plains. They are accordingly classed in the table
below as till with mixed soil, and represented by the letters TM on the
map.

The moraines are very largely of a loose-textured till with a liberal
admixture of bowlders and smaller stones gathered up apparently from
the Patrician drift which underlies the Keewatin drift throughout this
county. In some cases it is thought that the morainic ridges were formed
by the Patrician ice field, for they seem to have but a thin veneer of Kee-
watin drift. This is especially true of those in the eastern part of the
county.

The outwash plains are composed of sandy gravel. They are inter-
rupted more or less by scattered knolls and gently undulating tracts with
somewhat gravelly material not easily connected into definite morainic
belts.

There are numerous places in the northeast part of the county where
the relief of ridges is due in part to the altitude of the underlying rock,
but there are only a few natural outcrops of rock. The areas in which
rock is near the surface are estimated to amount to not more than 25
square miles in the entire county. This includes the places where rock is
known to be within a few feet of the surface and the places uncovered
by mining, as well as the natural exposures.

The estimates of percentages of different classes of land given in the
table below are for the entire county, since only a small part of it was
embraced in the estimates given in Bulletin 12.

Percentages of Classes of Laud

Square Per cent

miles of county

Moraines chiefly with sandy to stony loam soil 685 24.64

Till plains with variable soil 775 27.88

Gravel plains and other deposits of sandy gravel 225 8.10

Areas with rock near surface 25 .90

Lakes 225 8.08

Swamp lands 845 3040

2,780 100.00

The census of 1910 gives 6.2 per cent of the land area of Itasca County
in farms, and of this only 12.6 per cent was improved farm land. The
farms are developed chiefly along the Mesabi Iron Range in the vicinity
of the mining towns. But there are also farming districts south of Grand
Rapids, and a few farms are developed along the Great Northern Rail-

IlIX 3XVld

CASS AND CROW WING COUNTIES

way lines in the southeastern part of the county in the vicinity of Swan
River, Goodland, AcropoHs, and Bengal. As is natural in this region
in the vicinity of mining towns, vegetables form the principal crops, and
amount, to about 30 per cent of the value, while cereals amount to only
4 per cent. Hay and forage in 1909 constituted 24 per cent of the en-
tire crop values.

EASTERN CASS COUNTY

The part of Cass County west of the 94th meridian has been de-
scribed in Bulletin 12, and an area of about 375 square miles east of that
meridian remains to be described herein. This is a strip a little more
than 10 miles wide and about 36 miles long. It is crossed centrally by
the "Soo" Railroad on which is located the thriving village of Remer, the
only village in this part of Cass County. The land surface is flat to
gently undulating as far south as Remer and much of it is swampy. This
part of the county was covered by the Keewatin ice sheet, and its southern
limit was about five miles south of Remer at Big Rice Lake. The bor-
der of Keewatin drift deposits runs eastward from there to Shovel lake
in Aitkin County. Railway cuts between Remer and Shovel Lake ex-
pose the Patrician drift beneath the Keewatin and show the more stony
character of the former drift. The greater part of the Keewatin drift
has a clayey to sandy loam soil with very few bowlders and cobble stones.

From Big Rice Lake southward past Thunder Lake there is a promi-
nent moraine of the Patrician drift which runs eastward, but becomes
overridden by the Keewatin drift near Shovel Lake. It contains hills 50
to 100 feet high and is very stony as well as rugged. South of this mo-
raine is a till plain several miles in width with gently undulating sur-
face. This also is very stony but has a soil of sufficient strength to make
excellent grazing land. South of this plain is another moraine running
from Crooked Lake northeastward into Aitkin County. This also is
rugged with sharp knolls and deep basins and its soil is very stony. A
few settlers have located on and near it in the vicinity of Mae post office.

NORTHEASTERN CROW WING COUNTY

A small area of scarcely 250 square miles in the northeastern part of
Crow Wing County lies in this quarter of Minnesota. It is a very diver-
sified area, parts of it being strongly morainic, other parts of it gently
undulating, and a strip in the vicinity of the Mississippi River which was
covered by Lake Aitkin is very flat. The Keewatin ice extended a small
lobe down the Mississippi valley into Crow Wing County as far as Rab-
bit Lake north of Cuyuna, but not more than 35 square miles of this
county are covered by that drift. At its southwest end this area of Kee-

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

watin drift encroaches on a prominent moraine of Patrician drift which
crosses the Mississippi River west of Rabbit Lake. The part north of
the Mississippi has its western border along Little Pine River, there
being an extensive gravel plain west of that stream from Emily south-
ward. The moraine becomes diffuse east of Emily but is traceable north-
eastward into Aitkin County. The part south of the Mississippi sweeps
around the west and south sides of Mille Lacs Lake. A till plain with
gently undulating surface and only a moderate number of surface bowl-
ders occupies the district northward from Emily to Outing and thence
eastward through the northern edge of Crow Wing County into Aitkin
County. Parts of this have a rich loose-textured soil. In the morainic
areas there are scattered settlers who have selected the land that has
relatively few bowlders and easily cultivated soil. The area that was
covered by Lake Aitkin lies mainly south of the Mississippi River and
usually has a sandy soil except where covered by peat. The subsoil be-
comes clayey within the depth of a few feet and in places at only a few
inches in depth and the land gives good returns under cultivation.

AITKIN COUNTY

Aitkin County lies mainly in the southwest part of the northeast quar-
ter of Minnesota but extends also a few miles south of the median line
of the state and embraces the north half of Mille Lacs Lake, the second
largest lake in the state. The entire county is included in the present
discussion. Nearly all of it is within the Mississippi River drainage,
only a few square miles in the northeast corner being tributary to Lake
Superior through St. Louis River. The area of the county is about 1,975
square miles, of which about 200 square miles is occupied by lakes. The
area within Mille Lacs Lake is nearly 100 square miles.

A line of the Northern Pacific Railroad running westward from Du-
luth centrally across the county was for many years the only line of
railway in it. But recently three branches of the Soo Line system have
been extended across the county, one through the north half, another
through the southeast part, and another near the line of the Northern
Pacific through the central part. There is also a small railway line run-
ning from the Great Northern at Swan River to the thriving town of
Hill City in the north part of the county.

Except in the vicinity of Aitkin, the county seat, the entire county is
sparsely settled. There is a large amount of swamp land, it being esti-
mated by Ralph that 828 square miles, or about 42 per cent of the county,
is too wet for cultivation under present conditions. There are, however,
large areas of wet land in the southern half of the county which will
need only a slight amount of ditching to get rid of the surplus water after

PLATE XIV

B. MUSKEG IN BED OF LAKE AGASSIZ NEAR BIG FALLS

AITKIN COUNTY

it has been cleared of brush and timber. The subsoil of these wet tracts is
chiefly clay with only a thin cover of peat and muck. The northern part
of the county has extensive muskegs with thick deposits of peat, and
wire grass marshes with a substratum of sand or silt. The place where
these marshes and muskegs are was for some time after the disappear-
ance of the ice occupied by shallow lakes which became drained with
the cutting down of the valleys of the Mississippi and St. Louis rivers.

Each of the three drifts, Superior, Patrician, and Keewatin, are pres-
ent in the county. The Superior drift covers several townships in the
southeast part. The Patrician drift is at the surface in the western part
of the county and underlies the other drifts in the remainder of the
county. The Keewatin drift covers most of the northern half of the
county and extends in places a few miles into the southern half. It does
not, however, cover the Patrician drift in an area of high land in the
northwest part of the county lying south and west of Willow River.

There are several areas of sharply ridged or morainic drift distributed
widely over the county and occupying nearly one fourth of its surface.
Their distribution may be seen by reference to the general map, Plate I.
There are two moraines of the Superior lobe in the eastern part. All
the other moraines were formed by the Patrician ice. Those in the
northern half were also overridden to some extent by the Keewatin ice.
As a result of this overriding the surface has, on the whole, been ren-
dered smoother, but in a few places the later ice movement appears to
have shoved up sharp ridges where the surface before had been less
sharply ridged.

The sharp knolls and ridges of the moraines are usually composed of
gravel and sand and of very stony till. Surface bowlders are also numer-
ous. Such land seems better adapted for grazing than for cultivation,
though some good farms have been developed on hills in the southern
part of the county.

The level or gently undulating tracts in the midst of the morainic
areas, as well as the extensive plains separating the moraines, have usually
a productive clay loam soil adapted for agriculture. This is clearly de-
scribed by Warren Upham who says :

'The areas of till have everywhere a very productive dark soil, a foot or more
in depth, in which the proportion of bowlders and gravel is usually not so great
as to hinder plowing. This soil is readily permeable to rains, and in dry seasons
gradually yields its moisture to growing crops, so that they are rarely or never
harmed by the moderate droughts which occasionally occur in summer. Gentle
slopes and good natural drainage generally permit early sowing and planting, and
the season of growth between the latest frosts of spring and the first in autumn is
usually about four months, permitting a great variety of farm crops to be well
matured and ripened. Only small parts of the till areas, consisting of morainic
ridges and hills, have too abundant boulders and too steep slopes to be available for

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

cultivation : and these tracts, when cleared, are suitable for pasturage. Hay is a
natural product of the district, for portions of many of the streams are bordered
by moist lands from a few rods to a half mile in width, bearing a luxuriant growth
of tall meadow grasses, which make one to two tons of hay per acre. Many of
the swamps now inclosed by higher ground are capable of drainage by ditches and
will then rank as the most valuable farming land."*

There is a sandy plain covering from 50 to 60 square miles lying north
of Mille Lacs Lake in Tps. 45 and 46 N. and Rs. 25, 26, and 27 W. on
which numerous farms have been developed. The water table is very
near the surface so that the crops are seldom seriously affected by drought.
The soil, however, is much lighter than on neighboring till plains to the
east. Another sandy area of a few square miles is found at the extreme
end of the Superior lobe in Tp. 45, Rs. 23 and 24W. Aside from this the
area occupied by the Superior lobe in Aitkin County is nearly all clayey
till; under present conditions much of it is wet and swampy, but may be
largely reclaimed by ditching. Along the borders of the Mississippi,
from the northern end of the county to where the stream leaves it on
the west, farms have been developed. The soil is usually somewhat sandy
but is underlain to some extent by a fine lake silt that was deposited in
the bed of Lake Aitkin. This soil is, on the whole, as productive as the
till areas, and has the advantage of being nearly free from stones. The
extensive swamps bordering the Mississippi are rapidly changed into pro-
ductive farm land when the surplus water has been removed by ditching.

The estimates of percentages of classes of land in the table below are
necessarily only rudely approximate in the present sparsely settled con-
dition of the county, and, as noted above, the percentage of swamp land
will be very greatly reduced with only a moderate amount of ditching

as soon as the land is cleared and the obstructions removed from the

natural drainage.

Percentages of Classes of Land

Square Per cent

miles of county

Moraines chiefly with stony to sandy loam soil 464 2350

Till plains chiefly with clay loam soil 357 18.00

Sandy plains 121 6.10

Lakes 205 10.40

Swamps and marshes and muskegs 828 42.00

1,975 100.00

According to the census of 1910 only 15 per cent of Aitkin County was
in farms, and only one fifth of this, or 3 per cent of the county, was im-
proved land. Corn and oats are the leading cereals and potatoes the

lUpham, W. Aitkin County, Geology of Minnesota 4'34- i899-

A. VERY BOWLDERY LAND ON MESABI RANGE NEAR HIBBING. IT ONCE SUPPORTED A GOOD

HARDWOOD FOREST

B. ROCKY AREAS IN NORTHEASTERN MINNESOTA. AMONG THE ROCK KNOBS TIMBER

THRIVES

CARLTON COUNTY

leading vegetable. Hay and forage form the principal crop on the farms,
and in addition to this there is much wild grass put up as hay. Straw-
berries and raspberries arc important small fruits. Apples and plums
are grown successfully as orchard fruits. The prominent hills and ridges
in the moraines have a topographic condition favorable for the growth of
orchard fruits, since they often escape the frosts that affect the lower
lands around them ; but as yet very Httle use has been made of them for
orchards.

CARLTON COUNTY

Carlton County is located at the southwest end of the Lake Superior
basin, south of the western part of St. Louis County. It has an area of
867 square miles. The eastern portion, comprising less than half of the
county, is tributary to Lake Superior, the western part being tributar)'
to the Mississippi, partly through the Kettle River southward into the St.
Croix and thence to the Mississippi at Hastings, and partly through
Prairie River directly westward into the Mississippi in Aitkin County.
Glacial Lake Duluth, which occupied the western portion of the Superior
basin, covered fully 150 square miles in the southeast part of the county,
chiefly in the basin of the Nemadji River. The St. Louis River enters
the area that was covered by Lake Duluth at Carlton and runs near the
north edge of that lake area to Lake Superior.

This county was covered by the Superior ice lobe, except a few square
miles in the northwest corner in which both the Patrician and Keewatin
drifts are exposed. The moraines of the Superior lobe run from north-
east to southwest across the portion of the county lying north of the axis
of the Superior lobe and the bed of Lake Duluth. The moraines south of
the basin and bed of Lake Duluth have a nearly east to west trend in
southern Carlton and northern Pine counties. The morainic areas oc-
cupy about one third of the surface of the county, not including extensive
areas of outwash associated with them, which, together with the lines
of glacial drainage embrace nearly one eighth of the county. It is thought
that some of the more prominent moraines along the north side of the
Lake Duluth area have a nucleus of Patrician drift of morainic char-
acter. The trend of the moraines of the Patrician ice sheet here is very
similar to that of the moraines of the Superior lobe, but the ice laid on
the northwest side of the Patrician moraines, or directly opposite the
position which the Superior lobe presented to its moraines in this par-
ticular district. The Patrician ice, however, had melted away from its
moraines before the Superior ice advanced over them.

There are extensive till plains in the western half of the county cov-
ering over 200 square miles. There are also extensive swamps in that

SURFACE FORMATIONS OF MINNESOTA

portion, chiefly among the morainic areas, but also to some extent among
the till plains. Rock ledges are exposed chiefly along the valley of St.
Louis River, and along Moose River below Bamum, there being only
occasional outcrops of a few acres in a place elsewhere. There are rela-
tively few lakes and their combined area is estimated to be but 9^ square
miles.

The greater part of this county has a rich soil of clay loam and sandy
loam, and bowlders are seldom so numerous as to greatly interfere with
the cultivation of the land. A compact clay occupies much of the bed
of Lake Duluth.

The United States Bureau of Soils has prepared a map and descrip-
tion of several townships in the northeast part of the county and of
the neighboring part of St. Louis County, Minnesota, and Douglas Coun-
ty, Wisconsin. In this the area covered by Lake Duluth is largely classed
as Superior clay. The sandier portions on the northwest border of the
lake are classed in part as Superior silt loam, in part as Miami sandy
loam, and in part as ^liami fine sand. The morainic areas are classed
chiefly as Miami stony loam, though areas in the vicinit}' of Bamum are
designated as Bamum stony loam, and Barnum loam, and those near
Sawyer as Miami sandy loam. The areas of outwash are largely classed
as Miami sand, but they also embrace parts of the Miami sandy loam.
They include also the Miami gravelly sandy loam found extensively from
Cloquet southward to Otter Creek, and part of the Bamum stony loam
from Atkinson to Mahtowa. The area mapped as Miami gravelly sandy
loam north of Cloquet is very different from that south. It is a morainic
area while that south of Cloquet is outwash. Reference may be made
to the report on this area published as a part of the Annual Report of the
Bureau of Soils for 1905 for descriptions of the soils and their agricul-
tural possibilities.

The following table presents the percentages of classes of land as
determined on the geologic basis. Owing to the lack of roads in certain
parts of the county where settlements have not yet reached the estimates
are necessarily only rudely approximate.

Perccntaocs of Classes of Land in Carlton County

Square Per cent

miles of countj

Morainic areas outside Lake Duluth chiefly sandy and stony

loam 273 31.50

Waterlaid moraines in Lake Duluth 26 3.00

Till plains, clay loam to sandy loam 212 24.40

Gravelly and sandy outwash and glacial drainage 102 11.80

Sandy plains in Lake Duluth 20 2.30

Clayey plains in Lake Duluth in 12.80

CARLTON COUNTY

Rock ledges ,
Lake areas .
Swamp lands

0.40
1. 10
12.70

867

100.00

The waterlaid moraines in the bed of Lake Duluth have considerable
expression for a few miles west from Barker, the topography being nearly
as sharp as that of landlaid moraines. In the remainder of the lake area,
however, waterlaid moraines are very inconspicuous. They determine to
some extent the course of streams tributary to the Nemadji River even
where lacking in surface expression.

The census of 1910 reports 21.7 per cent of Carlton County to be in
farms, of which 22.8 per cent is improved land. Oats, wheat, and bar-
ley are the main cereal crops, rye and corn being grown in less amount.
Potatoes are the main vegetable crop. Apples and plums are successful
orchard fruits, and berries of all kinds are found very productive. In
this county, as well as in other parts of northeastern Minnesota, wild rasp-
berries are very abundant and large numbers of the residents resort to the
unappropriated lands for them in the berrying season.

INDEX

Page

Acknowledgements S

Agassiz Lake 6, 15, 17, 20, 47, 49, 59

Agricultural conditions 45-69

Agriculture, relation to geology i

Aitkin County 64

Altitude 7. 8

Annual Report of the Bureau of Soils. ... 68

Atkinson 68

Baptism River 53

Barker 69

Barnum loam 68

Barnum stony loam 68

Beaver Bay 53

Big Falls 59

Big Fork 61

Big Fork River. 59

Big Rice Lake 63

Brainerd 61

Brule Lake 51

Carlton County 67

Cascade River 51

Cass County, eastern part of 63

Climatic conditions of Minnesota 24-44

Cloquet 68

Cloquet River 53

Birch Lake 55

Cook County 49

Coteau des Prairies 7

County reports 49-69

Crooked Lake 63

Crop-growing season 35

Crow Wing County, northeastern part of. . 63

Drainage 10

Drainage Engineer, State 5, 56, 61

Driftless area.. 19

Duluth, Lake. .16, 17, 47, 49, 50, 58, 67, 68, 69

Earthy mantle 12

Elfman, A. H., work of 3, 5, 51

Emmons, W. H., introduction by i

Eskers 53

Field work 5

Fires, effect of 22-23

Floodwood 57

Forest, National 2, 46, 51

Forests 21

Frosts 32

Geological and Natural History Survey of

Minnesota 5

Glacial deposits 13-15, 46

Glacial features 16-17

Glacial lake features 17-19

Gravel ridges 60

Hastings 67

Hinckley fire 23

Hudson Bay drainage system 10

Humidity 40, 43

Page

International Falls 60

Introduction 1-4

Isabella River 52

Kapetogama, Lake 56

Keewatin drift 47, 48, 59, 62

Keewatin Ice Sheet 17, 56, 65

Kettle River 67

Killing frosts, dates of 33,34

Knife River 53

Koochiching County 58

Labrador Ice Sheet 16

Lake Agassiz 6, 15, 17, 20, 47, 49, 59

Lake Aitkin 18, 47, 66

Lake County 51

Lake deposits 15

Lake Duluth.. 16, 17, 47, 49, 50, 58, 67, 68, 69

Lake Kapetogama 56

Lake of the Woods 59

Lake Traverse 17

Lake Superior, drainage to 10

Lake Superior, level of 7

Lake Upham 18, 47, 57

Lake Vermilion 55,56

Lakes n, 56

Lakes, area 50, 56

Land classification 45-69

Leaf Hills 7

Leech Lake 11

Length of Minnesota 6

Lime 22

Limestone 22

Little Fork 59

Little Fork River 18, 58, 59

Loess 12-13

Mahlowa 68

Manitou River 53

Maps, use of 4

Marl 22

Meadowlands Experiment Farm 57

Mean annual temperature 26

Mesabi Iron Range 55, 57, 61

Miami fine sand 68

Miami sandy loam 68

Mille Lacs 11, 16, 64, 66

Minnetonka 11

Mississippi River, rate of fall 61

Mississippi River drainage system 10

National Forest 2, 46, 51

Nemadji River 67, 69

Net Lake 59

Northwest Angle 6

Otter Creek 68

Patrician drift. .48-49, 52. 56, 57, 59, 62, 65,67

Patrician Ice Sheet 16

Pelican Lake 55

Pigeon River 51

INDEX

Page

Posey, C. J., work of 4

Precipitation 36-40, 43, 44

Purssell, U. G., acknowledgements to 4

chapter on Climate by 24-44

Railway facilities 45, 55, 59, 61, 63, 64

Rainy days, number of 41

Rainy Lake 58

Rainy River 58

Ralph, George A., estimates by.... 5, 56, 61, 64

Red Lake 11

Red River 2

Relief 8

Residuary material 12

Rock areas 11

St. Croix River 67

St. Louis County 55

St. Louis River 53

"Sawtooth Range" 7f 50

Shovel Lake 63

Snowfall 40,41

Soil, general conditions 19-20

Soils, report of Bureau 68

Soils, United States Bureau of 68

Stony River 52

Stream deposits 15

Sunshine, amount of 41

Superior clay 68

Superior ice lobe 49, 65, 66

Superior National Forest 2

Superior silt loam 68

Surface geology 11-19

Swamps 2, 46, 59, 60, 61, 67

Page

Temperance River 51

Temperatures 25, 32, 38, 39

highest 30

in January 28

in July 29

lowest 31

mean annual 26,27

monthly 27

seasonal 32

Till plains 6, 61, 62, 67

Topographical and Drainage Survey of

Minnesota for ;po6 5

Topography of Minnesota 6-7

Trout Lake 56

United States Bureau of Soils 68

United States Geological Survey, co-
operation with 3

Upham, Lake 18, 47, 57

Upham, Warren, acknowledgements to.... 5

Upham, Warren, quotation from 65

Vegetation 20

Vermilion, Lake 55.56

Weather Bureau, acknowledgements to.... 2

work of 25

Weathering 20,22

Wind-blown sand 13

Width of Minnesota 6

Winchell, N. H., acknowledgements to.... 5

Wind deposits 12

Winds 40, 42

Winnebigoshish, Lake n

VVFLLFSl

COLi FGE LIBRARY

3 5002 03596 5206

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