Houston County, Minnesota - Chapter 44, 1882

Chapter 44

Houston county is situated in the southeastern corner of the state of Minnesota, and has for neighbors, Winona county on the north, the Mississippi, with Wisconsin beyond, on the east, Allamakee county in Iowa, on the south, and Fillmore county on the west.

The county is about twenty-four miles square, and subdivided into seventeen townships, most of them corresponding with a township of government survey in form, and none of them varying widely in size. It has 334,120 acres of land.

The Mississippi, which flows along the eastern line, has several sloughs winding through a swampy belt of varying width, which is broader near the southern boundary of the county.

The largest local river is the Boot, which rises seventy -five miles or so west of the county, and runs in an easterly direction through the southern border of the northern tier of towns. Thompson's Creek, coming from the south, enters this river at Hokah, and the South Fork of Boot Biver joins the main stream at Houston. From the north there are three good sized streams emptying into the Boot Biver, the larger of which are Money Creek and Silver Creek. Diagonally across the northeastern corner of the county, in La Crescent township, runs Pine Creek finding an outlet in the Mississippi. Crooked Creek is in the second tier of towns above the Iowa state line, and running east enters the Mississippi Six miles or so south of this stream is Winnebago Creek running in a like easterly di- rection. While there are many mills on these streams, there are yet a large number of unimproved water privileges awaiting the coming enterprise which will create the necessity for their early occupancy. The portion of the county along the Mississippi and other rivers has a very rugged and somewhat forbidding appearance, with the irregular bluffs and oval hills with rockcapped summits. These, with alternating hills and valleys, extend back into the country several miles, and then gradually assume the form of a rolling prairie with considerable timber, and still further on in the interior it becomes, in many places, a level prairie. The soil in the valleys between the hills is remarkably good for farming purposes, with numerous springs gushing out from the hillsides, but really the best farms are on the high lands which have been largely used for raising wheat. A general view of the county in an agricultural point, would divide it in this way One-eighth of theoounty would be hills and bluffs, perhaps a little less than this estimate would be correct. About one-fourth would be timber, and the remaining portion would be adapted to the raising of all crops grown in a like latitude, including stock raising.

The character of the soil in its average quality, is that rich, quick responding, warm sandy loam, peculiar to southern Minnesota, which first gave, and has sustained, the reputation of the farming lands of this region which produced, in years when wheat was the staple product of the soil, more than 1,500,000 bushels in the county in a single season.

and Minneapolis line, mns through the county north and south near the Mississippi River. Another road runs in the valley of the Root River east and west, connecting with the Mississippi road at the river. The third railroad in the county is the "Caledonia and Mississippi," which*, from the junction on the river, follows up the Crooked Creek in a northerly direction to Caledonia, the shire town, where it deflects toward the south, and passes through Spring Grove, and thence on to Preston, its present terminus. This line was undertaken by local enterprise and is of the standard narrow gauge. A complete description of these roads, which are now in the hands of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul company, will be found under the appropriate head.

Political Subdivisions. - The county averages four townships square, but the divisions are such that on the river there are five of them, which gives the odd number of seventeen towns in the county. The first town on the northwest corner is Money Creek, which has an irregular southern boundary, with Root River and the Southern Minnesota railroad near the line. The next town going east is Houston, with a tongue of land extending west between Money Creek and Yucatan, with the Root River and railroad a few miles from the southern boundary. Then comes Mound Prairie nearly evenly bisected between north and south by the railroad and river. The last of the northern tier is La Crescent, which lies north of Root River, and perhaps Hokah, between this and through which the Root River runs, should also be included in the first tier. The next tier of townships beginning on the west are Yucatan, Sheldon, Union, and Brownsville on the Mississippi.

In the next row we find Black Hammer, Caledonia, the county seat, Mayville, and Crooked Creek. The southern towns, along the Iowa state line, are Spring Grove, with the Caledonia railroad running diagonally through it from northeast to southwest, Wilmington, Winnebago, and Jefferson. These towns are specifically treated under their respective names.

Taken all together it is produced by the same causes. The strata cover the same geological horizons, at least the same as the non-drift-covered portions of Fillmore county. It varies from undulating to rough and hilly. The surface of the rook was gorged by numerous canons, each with its tributary gorges, prior to the spreading of the loam. These gorges are not so narrow as in much of the western and central parts of Fillmore county, but are of the same character as those in the Shakopee and St. Croix areas - broader and smoother, allowing the loam, when deposited, to enter their deepest recesses and to spread itself evenly over the whole. While the loam itself becomes thicker and more clayey toward the Mississippi River, it has so effectually and so deeply covered the whole country that generally a rolling or undulating surface has resulted which is almost free from the peculiar sink -holes so common in the Trenton area, but is characterized by deep, wide valleys, and long ridges. The bluffs that enclose the valleys are sometimes tillable, or at least turfed over from top to bottom. They are of all heights from the more shallow depression sufficient for ready drainage, to valley lines over five hundred feet deep. The whole of Root River valley, which is in the St. Croix sandstone, is over five hundred feet in depth, with limestone capping the bluffs. Some of its tributary valleys are equally deep and wide, but the smaller tributary valleys become shallow and more rocky as the gorges ascend in the Lower Magnesian - the whole system making a series of deep valleys along the river, and of alternating vales and ridges at greater distance from the main valley. The county is nowhere destitute of excellent natural drainage. There are very few of the characteristic sink -holes of Trenton, that formation having but a small superficies in the county, and that not within the reach of important drainage causes which were capable of producing the pre-glaciai gorges. Within the Shakopee area have been seen three or four similar sink-holes, but they differ from the Trenton sink-holes in being more plainly a part of continuous ravines, and in being broader in comparison to their depth.

If the valleys excavated by drainage were filled up, the county would be very nearly flat, the highest part being in the southwestern corner, in the area of the Trenton limestone. The great diversity of surface that appears arises entirely from the effect of erosion by streams and atmospheric forces, on the rooks, which consists of alternating sandstones and limestones. This effect would be still greater, or rather would be still more apparent, were it not that the loess loam, which is very thick in this part of the State, tones down, with its overspreading canopy, the roughness which the rocky surface really possesses, leaving it actually one of an undulating or rolling character except along the immediate river bluffs, where the rocks frequently appear in craggy bluffs, and cause precipitous or. steep hillsides. The valleys excavated by the streams are remarkable and instructive. Not only have the larger streams cut out gorges of enormous depth in the rocky floors on which they run, but every little creek and tributary runs in a gorge which shows the same rock-sculpture. Even the freshet creeks, and the rivulets born after every summer shower, dry entirely the greater part of the year, find their way to the main valleys through rock-bound, canon-like valleys. This makes the county present the usual characters of southern latitudes where the northern drift sheet has not been spread. There is nothing more evident than that these valleys antedate the great ice age. In other portions of the northwest where the drift does prevail, larger streams than those found in Houston county have generally worn their channels only through'the drift sheet. The Mississippi River itself, above the Falls of St. Anthony, has no rocky bluffs. It very rarely even strikesjjhe rock. It is occupied still Lin dissolving and removing the materials of the drift which covers that portion of the State. It would require jl great many inter- glacial periods, or preglacial periods, to 'excavate it as deeply as the same valley is wrought in the southeastern portion^ofjihe State. In the limestone areas the valley s^are narrow and more generally ^rook-bound; they widen out so as to enclose good farm lands on the bottoms in the^ sandstone areas. This distinction,' however, is less evident than in Fillmore county, where the St. Peter sandstone plays a more important part in bringing about the present topography. It J is, however, well illustrated in the upper portion of manyaof the tributaries of Boot River. [In descending one of these valleys from the upland, the first descent is very rocky and very impracticable. This is caused at first by the cut through the Shakopee limestone. The Jordan sandstone that ^underlies the Shakopee sometimes relieves this ruggedness a little, but its thickness is so small compared to that of the whole Lower Magnesian that it is barely observable in this way. Through the underlying St. Lawrence limestone the descent is also rough, and the vallev narrow, with little or no arable land in the valley. On reaching the horizon of the top of the St. Croix sandstone, the change introduced into the aspect of the valley is very noticeable. It widens, the rock is seen exposed in a nearly continuous escarpment along the tops of the now more distant bluffs, the descent is easy, the stream flows with a winding course, and is perhaps fringed with a small shrubby growth, the lower slopes of the bluffs on either side are turf-covered, and finally a rich alluvial soil, spreading out over the bottoms show here and there a spot that has been cleared and cultivated. This character then extends 'to, and follows the whole course of Root River to its mouth, the valley constantly increasing in width and showing a terraced condition, where ancient floods or periods of high water have stood, and whence, after vast accumulations of alluvium, have retired, reducing the river at last to its present insignificant dimensions. This is the general character of the valley tributary to Root River, but this succession of changes can be seen within Houston .county, only in 'hose tributary valleys on the south side of Root River. Those on the north side enter on the St. Croix sandstone before reaching Houston. The best agricultural portion of the county is in the centre and southwest quarter. The valleys throughout the county are generally wooded, and in the eastern part of the county a great deal of the upland is also wooded. Taken altogether the county may be denominated rolling, broken and hilly, though there are also some fine prairies that are simply undulating. All the farms are well drained naturally.

Section seventeen, Caledonia, three milles south of Sheldon. Beaver Creek, at the great spring, is 230 feet below the tops of the bluffs, which embrace the Shakopee limestone, Jordan sandstone and a part of the St. Lawrence sandstone.

On section eleven, Union, the ridge between Thompson's Creek and the railroad, at the sculptured rock, rises 355 feet above the highway directly south of the ridge.

At Brownsville, the height of the bluff above the flood plain of the Mississippi is 495 feet. Mr. Fred. Gluck, of Brownsville, measured the same by triangulation in the winter season, and obtained 486 feet as the height above the ice. Railroad surveyors are said to have obtained 483 feet as the height of the same bluff. The most of this height is made up of sandstone, there being but 105 feet ol limestone in the upper part of the bluff belonging to the St. Lawrence formation.

Notes on the Plats of the United States Survey in Houston County, on record in the Register's Office at Caledonia. {The county was surveyed in 1852-3-4.)

East Part Of Jefferson

This is embraced wholly within the river bottoms of the Mississippi. It is timbered but low, with some marsh and standing water. Acreage, 3,169.76.

The Mississippi bluffe run north and south across the east end of this town, which embraces some marsh and slough land in the eastern tier of sections. These bluffs, which unite with those of Winnebago Creek from the west, in the southeastern corner of the town, introduce in that portion a very rough and rocky character of surface. The town is nearly covered with timber. Acreage, 22,546.52.

Town 101 N., Range 5 W. Winnebago

This is crossed by Winnebago Creek, which receives several tributaries from the north and south. There is a tract of prairie in the southwest corner of the town, and another in the northwest corner. The remainder is either timbered or shrubby, with oaks and aspens. The creek valley is deep and rocky. Area, 23,045.05 acres.

Town8Hip 101 N., Range 6 W. Wilmington

This town is about equally divided between prairie and timber, which are irregularly intermingled. Waterloo Creek, in sections twentynine, thirty -two, and thirty-three, runs in a deep valley, with steep and rocky banks. Area, 23,- 037.13 acres.

Along the northwest edge of this town the South Fork of Root River causes a deep valley, which is rough, timbered, and rocky. The rest of the town is variously overspread with mingled prairie and timber or oak bushes, with gently undulating and sometimes rolling surface. Area, 23,045.12 acres.

And South Part Of Brownsville

This town is named from the creek which crosses it from west to east, south of the center. This creek, with its branches, causes a rough and rocky surface, with deep gorges over a considerable area. The town has no natural prairie. Area, 20,403.73 acres.

West Part Of Crooked Creek

In the central portion of tliis town are the sources of Crooked Creek, which leaves the town towards the southeast, in section twenty-five. With the exception of small portions of sections thirty-one and thirty-two, this town has no prairie, but the heaviest timber is along the creek and its tributaries. The surface is undulating to rough. Ares, 22,976.20 acres.

Beaver Creek is the only stream in this town. It causes a rough and bluffy surface in sections nineteen, eighteen, seven, six, five, eight, and seventeen, flowing northward. A little more than one-half is of prairie, the timber being along the creek and in the eastern side of the town. Area, 23,063.95 acres.

The South Fork of Root River crosses the western portion of this town in a northerly direction, accompanied by a heavily timbered and rocky tract affecting nearly one-half of the town. There is an irregular strip of prairie which enters the town from the southeast and runs northwest past the center. Area, 23,042.34 acres.

Brownsville And South Part Of Hokah

This is a border town along the Mississippi, and in the north has some bottom land east of the bluffs. No prairie is shown. The Wild Oat Creek joins the Mississippi at Brownsville, section twenty -six, and Thompson Creek flows across the northwest corner. These streams, like others in the county, run in deep, rocky valleys, and cause a great diversity of surface some distance on either side from the immediate valley. They have a great many tributary valleys which do not contain streams, but which are equally deep and bluffy. Area, 20,912.18 acres.

Part Of Mound Prairie

Root River, with its tributaries, the Crystal, Bear, and Thompson Creeks, causes a rolling and even a rough surface over much of this town, with frequent rock exposure. There is a small area of prairie covering section four, with adjoining parts of five, eight, nine, and three; but the greater part of the town is represented as timbered, or overgrown with small oaks and aspens and with hazel. Area, 22,951.16 acres.

Part Of Houston

The South Fork of Boot River, with its tributaries from the south, Beaver, Crystal, and Badger Creeks, covers this town with a network of deep valleys, in many places very rough. In the eastern portion of the town the surface is more uniform and open. Area, 22,854.31 acres.

Town8Hip 103 N., Range 7 W. South Part Of

The South Fork of Root River crosses the southeastern quarter of this town. The whole town is rough and wooded, except a narrow prairie belt occupying the river bottoms. Area, 23,045.67 acres.

This is a Mississippi River town, and between the line of the river bluffs and the channel of the river is a belt of bottom land, much of it marshy, from two to four miles wide. The Root River cuts a deep gorge across the southern part of the town,

West Part Of La Orescent

This town is crossed by Root River, along the southern two tiers of sections. It has a belt of prairie within the rocky bluffs, covering sections thirty-three, thirty-four, and thirty-five, and a marsh in sections thirty and thirty-one, but the rest is more or less wooded. Pine Creek also crosses the north-eastern portion of the town. Area, 23,045.07 acres.

Part Of Monet Creek

This town is broken by Root River and Money Creek. It also has Silver Creek in the eastern portion. There is a belt of prairie land along the south side of Root River, within the rock bluffs, and in the western portion of the town in Money Creek valley, but the most of its area is wooded and broken. Area, 22,984.56 acres.

Yucatan And West Part Of Monet Greek

This town has prairie bottom-land along Root River, which crosses it from west to east in the southern half, and along Money Creek in sections one, two, and twelve, The rest of the town is more or less wooded, with a rolling surface. Area, 23,- 179.03 acres.

The soil of the county is formed by the loess loam. It is very fertile, and apparently very enduring. It is mainly a clayey deposit, without stones or gravel, but yet in some places becomes arenaceous, the sand grains being very fine. The loess is hardly pervious to water. In the scarcity and costliness of common wells, many farmers resort to the expedient of retaining the surface water, after rains, in open reservoirs produced by throwing a low dam across some of the shallow drainage valleys that intersect their farms, thus forming with the common loam a small pool or lake for the use of their stock. Except on the brows of the bluffs which enoloee the valleys this loam is thick enough to make a reliable subsoil as well as suf ace soil. In some of the valleys it is very thick, but here it is apt to be influenced by the causes that produced the river terraces, and to mingle with the ordinary alluvium. On the uplands, generally, where it may not have been reduced by wash, its average thickness might reach thirty feet, but in some of the valleys material of the same aspect is sometimes encountered to the depth of over one hundred feet.

In the valley of Boot River, and also along the Mississippi, the soil of the alluvial terraces, greatly resembling that of the loam in the uplands, is apt to be more sandy, and sometimes becomes very light and very poor. These materials are generally seen to be in obliquely stratified layers, and to embrace, in the Mississippi valley, small gravel stones of northern origin. The immediate flood plain of these rivers presents still another variety of soiL While it is generally sandy, and often very light, it is also p very rich soil, and is apt to be enduring by reason of the Nile-like overflows to which it is subjected, and the decomposition of large quantities of vegetation. This variety of soil sustains pome of the heaviest forests to be found in the county.

It is noticeable that many of the valleys, particularly those running east and west, as Crooked Creek valley, have the bluffs along the north side of the creek, destitute, or nearly so, of timber, but are heavily timbered along the opposite bluffs, on the south side. This may be due to warm days in winter or early spring, when the sap may have started in the trees on the north bluffs, followed by severely cold weather, before the actual setting in of steady warm weather. Of course the sun's heat would be quickest felt on the bluffs facing south. This process repeated for a good many years, would injure and at last destroy the timber on the north bluffs, if it were ever possible for trees to have come to maturity there, while timber on the south bluffs would escape these sudden changes, owing to the shaded condition of the bluffs during the warmest portion of the day, and would only experience a steady increase of warmth due to the progress of the season.

The Geological Structure The Trenton Limestone

The greater portion of this formation, which is found within the county, is of the Lower Trenton, so-called, and produces the same topographical features as in Fillmore county. The reader is referred to the report of progress for 1875, where the geology of that county is given, and the effect of the Lower Trenton on the surface features is discussed and illustrated by diagrams.

This formation is found in Spring Grove and Wilmington townships. It runs also in a narrow, but interrupted belt, nearly to Caledonia, where it may be distinctly seen, in its peculiar features, and its flat-topped mounds, or tables, a mile west of that village. There is reason to suppose that it formerly extended much further east than it does now, covering the most, perhaps the whole, of the county, and being continuous with the horizon of the same formation on the east of the Mississippi, in Wisconsin.

The usual characters of the Lower Trenton, both lithological and palseontological, were the only ones noticed in Houston county. It has been opened for quarries only in the vicinity of Spring Grove. It generally presents a stained and longweathered aspect, as if split and dissolved by the action of water. The layers are at first about an inch in thickness, but become thicker, by adhering to each other, on being wrought to some depth, and possess a blue color.

St. Peter Sandstone

This lies next below the Trenton. Its area embraces not only the slope from the high table-land of the Trenton area, but also a belt extending in width from the foot of that slope over the more level county surrounding, so that its irregular area is often a mile or two in width. As already remarked, while its upper limit has a very easily recognized location, by reason of the terrace-like topography of the Lower Trenton, its lower horizon is often very uncertain on account of the very easy and gradual destruction of its layers, and the prevalence of the loess loam.

Geological

very satisfactorily ascertained on the southwest quarter of section seventeen, Wilmington. The well of Mr. O. A. Bye is situated near the Trenton bluff, and by uniting the known depth drilled in the Bandsone with aneroid measurement of the bluff, the St. Peter was found to be between seventy-five and eighty feet thick, the Shakopee below having a thickness of sixty-four feet

The Shakopee Limestone

The continuity of this formation from the Minnesota valley to the Mississippi, and its identity with the limestone at Shakopee, where it was first recognized as a distinct member of the Lower Magnesian in Minnesota, was fully established in the survey of Houston county. It is everywhere distinct as the uppermost portion of the Lower Magnesian, and is everywhere separated from the other great calcareous member of the same formation by a sandstone as distinct and continuous, and as clearly recognizable, as the St. Peter sandstone. There can be no further question of its existence and its great extent. There seems every reason to believe also that it exists across the Mississippi, in the state of Wisconsin, but at this time there is no distinct published notice of its occurrence there. The Lower Magnesian in Wisconsin has been divided by Prof. R. Irving, of the Geological Survey of Wisconsin, into three parts, as exemplified near Madison, (American Journal of Science and Arts, June, 1875,) but there is much reason to believe that his proposed subdivisions do not include the Shakopee limestone at all, and that the distinctions in the Lower Magnesian which he mentions are wholly confined to the St. Lawrence limestone of Minnesota. This subject was discussed by the writer in the Bulletin of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, for 1875, when this hypothesis was first published. It is rendered still more plausible, in the absence of further facts in Wisconsin, from the fact that even in Houston county the St. Lawrence exhibits variations of composition and lithology which are comparable to those Prof. Irving describes.

The characters of the Shakopee in Houston county are not noticeably different from those mentioned in the reports of progress for 1873 and 1875. Its bedding is much less regular than that of the St. Lawrence. It is apt, indeed, to be disturbed by cherty, or concretionary masses, whioh, on the weathering away of the bluffs, become detached and fall into the bottom of the valley, where they lie long after the non-silicious 'portions of the rock have dissolved and disappeared. Such cherty lumps are often a foot, or even two or three feet in diameter. They are roughened by cavities opening on the surface, by m dissolution of the most calcareous parts, and by the ^natural openings and pores they acquired in the act of formation. They are the only portions of the formation in whioh fossils have been found in Houston county. These masses sometimes show surfaces of drusy quartz crystals, also amethyst crystals, and great quantities of pyrites, oxydized and hydrated so as to produce a limonite, the form of the crystal alone remaining to indicate the original mineral. A careful study of these fossils has not yet been [made, but there is some evidence, from the handling to which some of them have been subjected in the examination of the Trenton fossils now going on, that the Shakopee limestone is the equivalent of the Chazy of New York, a formation which has not been recognized in the State, though the St. Peter has been regarded by Prof. Hall as its equivalent.

This formation does not appear in the bluffs of the Mississippi River, in Houston county, nor in those of Boot River generally; but its line of strike is some miles back in the country away from the immediate bluffs. This is due to the crumbling nature of the Jordan sandstone whioh underlies it, and which operates, in that respect, to tear down the Shakopee in the same manner, and for the same causes, as the St Peter on the Trenton. To this fact, and to its general resemblance to the St Lawrence limestone, may be attributed the non-discovery of this limestone by the United States geologists who have reported on the geology of the State, or by others, whose examinations were largely confined to the main water courses, before the general settlement of the State, and the construction of good roads.

This limestone may be seen frequently in the central portion of the county, in the upper reaches of the ravines which radiate in all directions from the vicinity of Caledonia. It is seldom quarried, or used for any purpose, for the St Lawrence limestone is generally accessible in the immediate neighborhood, and that is much more desirable for building-stone, or for lime-making. In descending the ravine toward the quarries east of Caledonia, the Shakopee is the first limestone seen exposed. The quarries are much lower - in the

St. Lawrence. It may be seen also in the upper tributary valleys that feed Badger, Beaver, Cryssal, and Thompson Greeks. It causes the first rugged or rooky portion of those valleys. It is exposed in the tops of the bluffs at the great spring, section seventeen, Caledonia, three miles south of Sheldon. Its thickness at Mr. O. A. Bye's, section seventeen, Wilmington, when drilled through, was found to be sixty-four feet, which is probably about its average thickness throughout the county.

The Jordan Sandstone

The lithologioal features of this sandstone are nearly the same as those of the St Peter, but it has only about one-half the thickness of the St. Peter. Its area of outcrop is quite small, and its exposures are few. As it lies between two hard limestones, which are apt to form perpendicular, walled bluffs, its line of outcrop is known by a belt of non-exposure of rock separating the Shakopee from the St. Lawrence, which is less steep in the ascent, and perhaps turfed over. It often becomes rusty and firm from a cement of iron, when it endures longer exposure, and is seen as detached blocks in the valleys. Some blocks of this kind are visible by the roadside in the ravine that descends to the quarries of Aiken and Molitor, a mile east of Caledonia.

This is the most important formation in the county. It not only occupies a greater superficial area of outcrop than any other, but it takes the most prominent part in causing the varied topography of the oounty. It surmounts the St. Croix sandstone, an easily eroded rock, into which the valleys are deeply and rapidly cut, and maintains a bold and sharp outline along their tops. It is the immediate cause of a great many hills and ridges. It confronts the observer in every nook and on every promontory along the whole course of the Boot River, and down the Mississippi bluffs as far as the State line, and it is especially conspicuous in the little valleys that ascend from the streams, and that often are more rocky than the larger valleys.

The thickness of the St. Lawrence in Houston oounty is about 200 feet, though other geologists have reported it as 250 feet thick at La Crosse. It is a dolomite, or magnesian limestone. Its layers, while generally regular and useful as a buildingstone, are also sometimes very much breccia ted, rendering it at once more firm, but also more refractory. It furnishes more stone for building than all the other formations of the county combined. It is of a light, lively color, and endures the weather perfectly, showing not the least change in the oldest buildings in which it has been used.

The St. Croix Sandstone

This name was applied, in the first annual report, provisionally to the light-colored, and often friable, sandstones whioh occur along the Mississippi River in Minnesota, and which have by some been regarded as the stratigrapical equivalent of the Potsdam sandstone of New York. This was done because, in the existence of another formation, of different lithology, affirmed also to be the equivalent of the New York Potsdam, it was necessary to have some designation for each of them. It seemed from considerations there given, that the lower of these two sandstones was the probable equivalent of that formation in New York, and in subsequent reports, while no facts have been gathered that confirm that view, the survey not having been carried on where these rocks are exposed, the provisional name has been continued. It is only in the oounty of Houston that any opportunity has been afforded for an examination of this formation, since the season of 1872.

It is not intended here to enter upon an examination of the evidences of the parallelism of this sandstone with any eastern formation, nor to cite or compare authorities one way or the other. Considerable has been written on the sandstone of the Lake Superior region as developed in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Canada, tending to show the existence of two distinct sandstone formations. Prof. Irving (American Journal, 3d Series, Vol. Vill, p. 46) reports three different sandstones existing in the North-west involved in this disputed horizon, as exemplified in his study of north-western Wisoonsion, viz. : (1) Copper-bearing, highly tilted sandstones, conglomerates, and shales, associated with trap. (2) Horizontal, aluminous, red sandstones, lighter than those associated with the trap, which "appear to dip underneath the lightcolored Lower Silurian sandstones of the Mississippi valley," and (3) the light-colored sandstones of the Mississippi valley. In this he agrees with Dr. C. Rominger (Vol. I, p. 95, Palaeozoic Rocks, Geological Survey of Michigan,) who makes them

- (1) Copper-bearing rooks, (2) Lower Division of the Lake Superior sandstone, and (3) the upper division of the Lake Superior sandstone. Brooks and Pumpelly, however, do not make mention of but two series of sandstones in the Lake Superior region, viz.: (1) The copper- bearing series, and (2) the Silurian sandstones. (Michigan Geological Survey. Vol. I, Part I, pp. 75 and 185; and Part II, p. 1.) Foster and Whitney, in 1851, referred all the sandstones in question to the Potsdam of N. Y., regarding them as deposited over an uneven surface, producing local cross-stratification and unconformability. (Report on the Geology of the Lake Superior Land District. Part II, p. 120.) In this they were seconded by Prof. James Hall, and followed by Prof. J. D. Dana in his Geological Manual, First Edition. More lately, in 1862, Prot. Hall parallelized the uppermost of these sandstones with the New York Potsdam, (16th Regents' Report, p. 119,) with the cautionary remark that "it may not yet be regarded as proved that the sandstone from which I have described these fossils is in all respects the equivalent of the Potsdam sandstone of New York, Vermont, and Canada. It may represent more, or it may represent less than that formation. The lower accessible beds of the Mississippi valley may represent the Potsdam of one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet in thickness in the typical localities in New York, while the middle and upper beds of the West may be of epochs not represented in that part of the series studied in New York/' As long as the Potsdam sandstone at the typical localities in New York was accepted as the base of the fossiliferous primordial strata, while at the West there are two recognized sedimentary sandstones, though not yet proved fossiliferous, lying below the sandstones of the Mississippi valley, it seems quite presumptious to affirm the horizontally of the light-colored sandstones with the Hew York Potsdam, especially when, as admitted by Prof. Hall, "there are no species of fossils in the western sandstones which are positively identical with those of New York." It would be more in keeping with the recognized stratigraphical laws, to allow that formation which in New York begins with the top of the "azoic" to begin there also in Minnesota.

In this state of the question concerning these sandstones it seems justifiable to retain for the present the term St. Croix, inasmuch as there can be no misunderstanding of the horizon under consideration. It is perfectly legitimate, in the further investigation of this question, for the geologists of States further east to inquire which of the sandstones lying below these beds may be the equivalent of the New York Potsdam, for it -seems as if on ascertained stratigraphies! evidence, as well as on lithological and paheontological facts that are undisputed, these beds occupy a much higher horizon. They seem rather to be embraced in the great calcif erous or Canadian epoch.

Although these sandstone beds occupy the river bluffs along the Mississippi and the Root River throughout the county, they afford but very few opportunities for satisfactory examination. They are in the lowest part of the bluffs, and are generally hid by a sloping talus that is usually turfed over. The only point at which a useful section of their composition could be had was at Hokah. The general section at this place, as nearly as it could be made out, is as follows, in descending order:

2. Shale bed, greenish, with remains of trilobites 1 8. Tough, persistent layers, like an indurated, arenaceous shale, with green sand, in thin layers. ... 12

Rock very similar to No. 8 extends downward, covering the horizon of an old quarry east of Hokah, now abandoned as worthless embracing a thickness, that

At an old quarry east of Hokah, and across Thompson's Creek, now abandoned because the rock is worthless for all purposes, the general aspect of the layers is much like that at Whitman's quarry, but the sand is less f rmly cemented, making a stone not so good. It is a shaly and arenaceous sandstone, of course and fine grain, marked with fucoids and abundant greensand, and i* be low the stratigraphioal level of Whitman's. In the same bluff, about twenty-five feet higher, is a blind shoulder or terrace, which is more likely to contain the layers of Whitman's quarry. This stone is taken from Whitman's quarry, although very shaly, becomes firm and enduring on exposure.

At Houston, the bluffs north of the village are 520 feet in height, and of this the lower 420 feet at least belong to the St. Croix sandstone. They probably contain the St Croix twenty feet further up, shown by the toppling over of huge blocks of St. Lawrence limestone, from the crumbling out of friable sandrock along the salient angles of the bluffs. The intervals of the sandstone layers is mainly turfed over so as to render an inspection of their contents imposible, except at points near the top and near the bottom. There is a line of nearly constant exposure about forty feet below the top of the St Croix, occupying an interval of thirty or forty feet, which is particularly noticeable along the north side of the river. There is another exposure of these beds near the level of the river at the dam at Houston. The former consists of a hard, firm sandrock, and the latter is soft and crumbling, with cross stratification. Above the line of constant exposure, about twentyfive feet, is a blind terrace which occasionally reveals the rock which causes it It is a sandstone, and is included in the foregoing thickness of 420 feet.

At one mile north of Sheldon there is an apparent dip in the outcropping upper edge of the St Croix, as it strikes across the bluffs. Its direction is perhaps a little west of south, and amounts to two or three .degrees. It is entirely local, and the corresponding upward dip in the opposite direction is invisible. The bluffs south and north have their usual height * No such dip was noticed in any other part of Houston county, but it is very likely this is on the strike of the noticeable dip in these formations which has been mentioned by Dr. Owen, and by the geologists of Iowa as occurring in the bluffs of the Mississippi River at McGregor and Lansing, in the state of Iowa.

Section Covering The Junction Between The St. Croix And The St. Lawrence

The line of constant exposure mentioned as occurring at Houston, near the top of the St. Croix sandstone, lies below this section. This line is more evident in the north than on the south bluffs - due, probably, to the erosive action of the prevailing winds, which are from the southwest, and to the greater scarcity of timber on the north blufls, as already noted under the head of Soil and Timber.

On section eleven, Union township, the sandstone which has been mentioned as having a nearly constant line of exposure, is sculptured, along the north bluffs, into isolated columns and tables, with some rounded buttresses which present a very conspicuous and highly interesting instance of atmospheric erosion. There can be no doubt that the blufls themselves are the result of the erosion of the valley by water by a process that began thousands of years before the glacial epoch, but the present condition of most of the curious forms, like that of the "sculptured bluffs," is certainly due to the effect of wind in conjunction with moisture and frost There are also cavities and sheltered nooks, and deep, crooked passages and sharp niches in which the wind could barely enter, and from which there could not have been any wind exit sufficient to have maintained a current capable of producing the most of this sculpture, which, moreover, are lichen-covered, and bear an aspect of age and roughness that forbids their reference to any present atmospheric forces. These can be explained only by the solvent action of water in agitation, and are comparable to the purgatories that are often seen about the rocky shores of lakes or of the ocean. But when the rock shows a recent, fresh erosion, and is soft and crumbling, the present forms are due to

The Drift

The true northern drift is not spread over this county. It contains no drift clay, nor boulders of foreign origin. There is a thin deposit of foreign gravel at Rioef ord, in the extreme southwestern part of the county, and there is a terrace along the Mississippi River that is made up of gravel and sand of northern origin, but this county wholly escaped the operation of those forces which spread the well-known drift clay and boulders over the most of the State. Whether any former glacial era caused it to be covered with the ice of the northern glaciers cannot be determined, since the materials left by that era, if any there were, may have been decomposed, and may have entered into the stratified clays and the soils of the Mississippi valley further south under the combined influence of time, and the intense activity of the destructive forces of the latest glacial era.

There is to be seen occasionally a local drift, or debris, .derived from the rock of the country round about, and this sometimes has a deceitful resemblance to true northern drift, yet it can always be distinguished from it on examination. On the northwest quarter of section twenty-five, Caledonia, along the road, near the brow of the Shakopee limestone, there is a bank of such loose material There is a out of about three feet which consists mainly of rusty loam, rather sandy, embracing large masses of black quartzite, which also vary to a lighter color but show very little, if any, lime. Other lumps consist of pyrite crystals, now converted to limonite, and of rusty, hardened sandstone, perhaps from the St Peter. These last, indeed, comprise, perhaps a majority of the stony masses. There are also large quantities of ordinary chert, and an occasional piece of water-worn limestone. The bank shows no stratification, but consists of these materials simply mingled with the loam. The whole appears red and rusty, but discloses not a single piece but can be referred to the Lower Magnesian formation.

As to the cause of this exemption of a part of southwestern Minnesota, and portions of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois adjacent, from the forces of the northern drift epoch, there has been but one opinion advanced, so far as the writer is aware. It is that of Prof. J. D. Whitney, who attributes it to the rum-submergence of this region since the deposit of the Silurian rocks and their elevation above the ocean. If it were demonstrated or generally believed that the prevalence of the drift in other parts of the Northwest in the same latitude, is due to the submergence of the continent beneath the ocean since the Tertiary age, this assumed cause would be apropos. But, on the contrary, it is pretty generally agreedjby geologists both in America and Europe, that the drift is due to the former existence of glaciers that covered the surface of the country, and, moving generally southward, not only brought from the northern regions the foreign substances that constitute the drift, but required, for their existence, that the land surface should be raised several hundred feet at least above the ocean during their prevalence.* Again there is every reason to suppose this region has been submerged since the age of the Silurian. It is difficult to conceive what could have produced the horizontal lamination of the loess loam, unless it be attributed to the action of standing or slightly agitated water. This loam not only exists along the immediate river valley, but is spread widely over the highlands of the whole district. It is true there is no evidence of its having been the product of marine depositions, on the contraary it is evidently of fresh water origin; but that the country has been deeply submerged and remained so for a long period within recent geological time can hardly be questioned. There is also reason to believe that some portions of it were buried beneath the waters of the Cretaceous ocean.

In the light af the more recent investigations of geologists, it is safe to take for granted the following conclusions respecting the drift, so far as they bear on this question.

1st. That the earth suffers such changes of climate that, after the lapse of long periods, the temperate latitudes become frigid, and are covered with continental ice-fields or glaciers, which have a slow movement southward.

2d. That between these periods conditions of more genial climate prevail, when vegetation and animal life return slowly to inhabit the countries from which they had been driven by the rigors of the previous cold.

-Those interested in this subject will find it exhaustively treated in James Geikie*s Great Ic* Age, and its relation to the antiquity of Man. Second Edition, 1877.

3d. That the severity of the cold during the successive glacial epochs is not always the same; but that the ice-fields are more extensive during some than during others.

These continental ice-fields, while conforming in general to the laws and conditions of a solid, yet exhibited, as glaciers do now, many of the characteristics of a plastic body, warped and moved by the force of gravity, and hence exemplified many of the principles of running water. The tendency for them was to seek the low lands, and avoid the natural obstructions presented by mountains or by hills.

In examining the topography and the geological structure of the country lying to the north of this so-called driftless tract, it is evident that the great valley of the Lake Superior region, once occupied by glacial ice, would overflow, both first and last, along the lines of the lowest outlet, and that perhaps the higher and less passable parts along its southern barrier-shore would never be entirely surmounted. The continental glacier, in this region, would flow toward the southwest or south, guided by the main topographical features. In north-central Wisconsin is an isolated area of granitic and metamorphic rook, which not only extends to the shore of Lake Superior, but wedges out northeastwardly in the form of a long, high, and persistent point or spur, in the southern part of Lake Superior, known as Kewenaw Point, in the state of Michigan. It is plain to see that this point would act on a crowding but somewhat flexible mass of ice as an entering wedge to split it into two main masses, and that the widening of the wedge, in the granitic region of northern Wisconsin, would perpetuate the division so as to cause, if other topography were favorable, a constant flow along the northwest side, and another in a more southerly direction, that would spread over northern Michigan and find its easiest exit through the valleys of Lakes Michigan and Huron. According to Prof. R, Irving and Messrs. Foster & Whitney,* the western end of Lake Superior lies in an Archaean synclinal trough running southwesterly. This again would divert the flowing ice over the northeastern portions of Minnesota to the expense of northern Wisconsin. Glacial scratches on the rocks of Duluth, at the western

Now it is a striking coincidence that this driftless tract lies nearly south and in the lee of this wedge-like area of metamorphic rock, and would be protected from the ice-flow by it. It is hence reasonable to infer that the absence of the drift in this region is due to the existence of this protecting barrier lying to the north of it in Wisconsin, while further to the south the two main branches of the ice-flow again united and spread, before their final retirement, a continuous sheet of drift over central Illinois and southern Iowa.

It is very evident, from the fact that the remains of an older drift sheet are found under the loam in some of the western parts of this tract, while the latest drift sheet does not spread so far nor so wide, that the last period of cold was far less intense than some former one had been. This last drift sheet is spread over the ancient soil, containing vegetation in a nearly continuous layer, the remains of a forest which flourished between the two glacial periods, along the margin of the last ice-field. This belt, characterized by buried soils and wood, crosses Fillmore and Olmsted counties, and it is probably true, that wherever such remains are found, in a flat country like southern Minnesota, lying under glacial drift, they mark the point where glacial ice ceased to act powerfully enough to disrupt the old soik. Such ancient soils may have existed on the top of older glacial drift, or on any other surface. It is probable that it was during the prevalence of the last glacial period, or just as the ice began to recede so as to produce copious waters, that the loess loam of the Mississippi valley was deposited over this region, and that at the same time the waters of the Minnesota were augmented by the drainage of the entire Winnepeg and Ked River valleys through its channel, some of them at first reaching the Mississippi and through the Gannon and the Vermillion River valleys. At first these waters spread irregularly and widely, fluctuating with the seasons, so as to leave no recognizable beach lines; but at length, when the most of the State had been left by the retreating glacier, they became more uniform in their volume and were confined to the actual river gorge. They seem to have maintained, for a long period, a pretty uniform stage at this point, for when, on the drainage of the Winnepeg basin toward the north, consequent on the final retreat of the ice beyond the month of the Nelson River, in British America, the Minnesota was reduced to about its present dimensions, a high terrace was left along the Mississippi, through all this driftless region and also further south. The high water in the Mississippi ascended the gorges of the tributary streams, retarding their flow and causing similar terraces along their lower reaches.

There is a marked alluvial terrace that accompanies the Mississippi and Boot Rivers, and ascends their lower tributaries, but it does not seem to be true that all the streams are terraced before reaching the level of this terrace. This indicates that the high water which produced that terrace was due to backing up from the Mississippi, and that possibly the country itself in general was not more wet than at present; in other words, that the amount of surface drainage that passed down the valleys was no grrater than now. Root River was simply wider and deeper, with a sluggish current, due to the greater volume of the Mississippi. The highest point at which the terraced condition of the Root River has been observed is Preston, in Fillmore county, but it must certainly extend several miles further up that valley. By aneroid measurements, united with the levels of the Southern Minnesota railroad, the height of this terrace at Preston is found to be about 300 feet above the Grand Crossing of the Southern Minnesota railroad near the mouth of Root River, while the same terrace at Hokah, likewise near the mouth of Root River, is only about 100 feet above the flood plain. It is also probable that the loam terrace, as seen at La Crescent, is the same continued to and coalesoent with the Mississippi terrace; and there it is ninety feet above the Mississippi flood plian. This would necessitate a fall of about 200 feet in the Root River at its highest stage, in a distance of fifty miles in a right line. If this fall can be explained consistently with the assumed back-water condition of the Root River, at that time, it will further confirm the hypothesis that the Mississippi then drained the Red River and Winnipeg regions, receiving their waters from the Minnesota. It seems further that this explanation is necessary to the maintenance of that hypothesis; for if the Root River was maintained at that high level by the demands of its own drainage area, tben much more the Mississippi could also have been kept there without the aid of the Winnipeg waters. Root River valley, between the rock bluffs, has an average width, through Houston county of about two miles, and that would have been the width of the stream, with a depth of over 100 feet.

There is, besides this high, loam- terrace, a second terrace level, visible specially at La Crescent, on the Mississippi, which there rises fifty feet above the flood plain of the river and spreads out in a pleant plateau on which the village has been located. This terrace is made of gravel and pebbles of northern origin and was identified only along the Mississipi. The largest stones it contains are three inches in longest diameter. It is passed through in wells and seems to be entirely pervious to water, as all wells on it get water at about the level of the flood plain of the river. This material is used for grading and road-bed, on the Chicago, Dubuque & Minnesota railroad and elsewhere. It consists entirely of rounded waterworn materials, the main part being the usual parti-colored quartzite pebbles, granitic, hornblendic, amyglaloidal, and lamellar, as well as uniform and massive. A great many of them have a red color, or some shade varying from red. The coarsest pieces are rare, found only in the upper portions of the debris of alluvial fans.

The following more special observations were made on these terraces in Houston county. At Sheldon, six miles from Root River, in the valley of Beaver Creek, the terrace on which the Newberry House stands is thirty feet above the water of the creek below the dam. The materials of the terrace at this place are sandy loam, horizontally stratified, with more clay near the top, and less evident stratification.

At Houston the only observable terrace, measured about a mile west of the city, is sixty five feet above the flood plain. The track of the railroad is about one foot above the flood plain of the river, which is eighteen feet higher than the water below the mill-dam.

At Money Creek the terrace rises thirty feet above the flood plain which is twenty feet above low water below the mill-dam. The contents of the terrace are stratified. On section thirty in this town the contents of the Root River terrace, and their arrangement are as follows :

The full height of the bank is about twenty feet where the section is taken. At a point further to the right a couple of bones were found, but in the confused and broken uppermost layer. They were where that layer comes down to the river, and about three feet below the surface, or five feet above the water of the dam, the surface of the bank sloping about 45 ° .

At Hokah, the village is on a terrace sixty-five feet above the flood-plain of Root River, and there is a distribution of loam about the blufls at a higher level, (as well as at many other points along Root River valley) reaching to a hundred feet, or a little more, above the flood-plain. This loam appears in indistinct benches or terrace-levels or patches of terrace, rising often with a slope, far up the rock-bluffs. It very rarely appears level, as a well-marked terrace. It suggests rather a worn-out terraoe-level, the upper surface of which has suffered erosion by being gullied out and smoothed off toward the river. It is generally cultivated for farms, and has good wheat fields, consisting of the same materials as the lower terrace. Its actual height is difficult to ascertain.

Southwest quarter of section twenty -two, La Crescent. By the roadside appears a terrace rising about fifty feet, which at the top consists of the fine loam of which the foregoing terrace is composed, showing at least eight feet of such material, while its lower twenty feet are of driftgravel, which is course and obliquely stratified, the coarsest pebbles being one or two inches in diameter. This occurs on the rounded point of the rock-bluff which faces both valleys.

The village of La Crescent stands on a beautiterrace of drift-gravel, generously laid out, with wide streets and alleys, fifty feet above the flood-plain of the Mississippi This terrace slopes gradually toward the high rock-bluffs. It is surmounted along the bluffs by another terrace, rising forty feet higher, which consists of loam.

This drift- gravel must be attributed to the agency of the river. It has every feature of a water- worn alluvial deposit. It is not found in Houston county in any of the valleys of the other streams, back from the Mississippi. It ante- dates the loess loam, as that is terraced above it, and probably bears the same relation to an earlier glacier epoch as the terraced loam does to the last.

At Yucatan, the terrace flat is forty feet above the present flood-plain of the South Fork of Root River. The flood-plain is six feet above low water.

A few wells situated in the valley of the Root River have disclosed vegetable remains at about the level of the flood-plain, and probably the terraces generally cover a layer of vegetable remains that was caused by the decay and burial of preglacial plants. This has only been detected, so far as known, at Hokah, and at La Crescent. At the former place the well of Isaac West was filled again because the "muck-bed" rendered the water unfit for use. The same is true of William WykofFs and W. F. Weber's, and an amber of others. Probably the characters of Mr. Pidge's, as given bolow, are those common to most of them.

B. F. Pidge'8 Well At Hokah

The water of this well tastes rather peculiar, and at first it was not fit for use. Sometimes still it comes up black like dye, but by use it becomes clearer, and is used for all domestic purposes, without injurious effects. Sugar of lead causes it to become milky white. Acetate of potassa produces no change; sulphate of zinc, no change. When it rises in the bucket it is not clear, but somewhat cloudy, as if with clay.

The well of Mr. Thomas Fairbanks, at Mound Prairie, disclosed a bone, now said to be in the possesion of Dr. Armstrong, at Hokah. Efforts that have been made to secure facts in reference to this discovery, and further account of the bone, have been unsuccessful.

Throughout the county are numerous springs, some of which are very large, and gush out along the valleys. They seem to be the outlets of subterranean streams. Those above Rioeford furnish the water for the flouring mills at that place. There is also a large one on section seventeen, Caledonia, three miles south of Sheldon. They seem to frequent the horizon of about eighty feet below the top of the St. Lawrence limestone, and indicate a shaly, or otherwise impervious layer there in that formation.

Material Resources

The rocks of the county do not contain any valuable minerals. They are everywhere abundantly exposed, and are quarried at many places for ordinary building-stone and quicklime.

Building Stone

At Spring Grove, the Lutheran society have built a large church of brick, the basement being from the Lower Trenton, in layers of four to six inches, taken from quarries near the village. The heavy trimmings are from the St. Lawrence limestone. The quarries are owned by George Timanson and Ole Tostenson.

At Caledonia, the St. Lawrence is extensively used for building, quarried about a mile east of the village. The German Catholic church is the principal building made of it, being also the largest building in the place. The county jail is a fine building of the same, the courses being about ten inches thick, rubble dressed, with trimmings of the same. The business blocks of Nicholas Koob, J. J. Belden, John Krantz, Joseph Vossen, Jacob Bouquet, and Nix Erstine are also constructed of the same stone. The quarries are owned by John Molitor, John Dorsh, Anton Molitor, Widow Cunningham, and John Aiken.

that furnishes good stone for building, though much of that which is used is taken from the surface near the tops of the bluffs, having been loosened and broken up by the weather.

Mr. J. Kline has a fine farm-house of stone taken from the St. Lawrence, on section nineteen, Union. Near Mr. Kline's quarry is another owned by Henry Snure. There is another on section twentynine, Union, owned by Michael Wilhelm. L. Svenson's is on section two, (southeast) Houston.

The principal quarries at Hokah, now worked, are those of Nath. Whiteman, in the St Croix sandstone, and Widow Prindle. The stone of Mr. Whiteman's quarry is a harsh, argillaceous -sandrock, in layers a few inches thick, which becomes firmer on exposure. The beet building stone lies higher up in the bluffs, and was opened in Mt. Tom by the Southern Minnesota railroad, for the construction of their shops. It is from the St. Lawrence.

At. La Crescentj the public school-house was built of stone from Potter & Taylor's quarry, likewise in the St. Lawrence, north of La Crescent, in the edge of Winona county.

There is also a fine stone farm-house owned by Wm. Splitter, on section twenty-one, La Crescent, in Boot Biver valley. The Nunnery, on section twenty-eight, La Crescent, was constructed of stone got from the bluffs near, including also that used for quicklime. These are all from the St. Lawrence.

O. T. West has a limestone quarry at Browsville, which supplied heavy stone for the railroad and for other uses. Mr. Job Brown's, at the same place, furnished the limestone foundation for the public school-house.

The foregoing are a few of the stone buildings in the county, but there are several others which, though noticed in the progress of the survey, were not carefully located, and cannot be referred to. The St. Lawrence supplies by far the greater portion of the building-stone used in the county.

There is not a single known workable quarry in the Shakopee, though exposed as favorably as the St. Lawrence. It is uniformly ignored. It is harder to work, has cherfcy lumps and siliceous concretions which not only disturb the bedding but renders it difficult to cut into desired shapes, and is generally in thinner layers. The color is much the same as that of the St. Lawrence, being buff, or slightly salmon-colored, but the St. Lawrence is, where most used for building, also somewhat open or vesicular in texture. Thus, mortar sets firmly upon it, and forms a sutured attachment. When the St. Lawrence stone is first taken out it cuts more easily than after exposure for a few weeks, a fact which seems to be true of nearly all good building stone.

Strength Op Minnesota Building-Stones

A series of experiments have been carried on by Gen. Q. A. Gilmore, under the direction of Gen. A. A. Humphreys, Chief of Engineers, U. S. A., during several years, on the strength of various bnilding-stones in the United States. The tests that have been made are conducted with great care and precision, and demonstrate the compressive strength, specific gravity, and ratio of absorption, of the stone tested. In the report of the Chief of Engineers for 1875, is a general table giving results, and in that table are named the following building stones from Minnesota:

The St. Peter formation is excavated for mortarsand by Jesse Sohofield, section fourteen, Caledonia, and by John Burns on section twenty-six. This white sand is delivered at Caledonia village for $1.25 per load, or occasionally for $1.50.

The St. Croix furnishes a similar sand near Mr. Kline's, section sixteen, Union. These formations will supply a similar sand in any part of the county where they are accessible, the layers in the St. Croix, however, are about 200 feet below the top of the formation.

At Mr. Schofield's sand quarry, about a mile west of Caledonia, is a large mass of "lamellar calcite," lying on the slope of the St. Peter, and I nearly covered by the loam. In that respect it is like a similar mass seen near St. Charles, in Winona county, in 1872, but it seems more firm than that This appears like a firm, very compact rook, consisting of almost pure carbonate of lime, but somewhat colored. It is mainly massive, and striated, or laminated, but shows some crystalline grains. It weathers into undulating, or wavy, smooth surfaces. There is another, much larger mass, weighing many tons, on the land of Mr. Willard, a short distance west These masses can be burnt into a purely white quicklime of great strength.

The age and origin of this oalcite involves an interesting problem. When that piece was found in Winona county, in 1872, if was referred, hypothetically, to the Trenton Green Shales, or to the worn-out Cretaceous that may have covered that country, making it of rock origin, either Lower Silurian or Mesozoic, bat there is much reason to believe these calcite masses are not referable to the rock in situ, but are of atmospheric origin, being, in short, the remains of immense travertine deposits from limy water running down the St Peter slope from springs that once existed but are now dry. They lie on the slope of the outcropping edge of the St. Peter, just below the Green Shales which shed all the water that works downward through the Upper Trenton limestene; but they are also, so far as discovered, in regions where the Upper Trenton does not now exist, the only remaining portion of the Trenton being that which lies below the Green Shales. This is strikingly the case near Caledonia, where the Trenton is reduced to mounds and tables, capping the St Peter sandstone, very far isolated from the main area of the Trenton. To suppose this calcite is due to springs caused by the Green Shales, a common phenomenon now in Fillmore county, is to require the former existence of the Upper Trenton, with a considerable thickness of strata, over all the region of Caledonia, and extending far enough north and east to furnish drainage surface sufficient to maintain such springs. This is not inconsistent with the history of geological changes, nor with the lapse of time since the Trenton was elevated to the condition of dry land. The present existence of isolated patches of the Lower Trenton, both in Minnesota and Wisconsin, can only be explained on the theory that the whole formation was once more largely spread in horizontal strata over those States, than at present. Then an extension of the Lower Trenton so as to embrace in one sheet of layers these isolated patches, is no more than enough to bring also the Upper Trenton into the region of these oalcite masses. The present outlines, shape and position of the areas of the Lower Trenton, demonstrate that they are only the relics of once greater areas wliich have been eroded and removed slowly, and left as they are because they have been better protected against destructive agents. While Boot River has been excavating the gorge in which it runs, 500 feet deep and two miles wide, the Trenton limestone, which at first may have extended as far north-east as to Hokah, has been slowly receding under the operation of denudation and surface drainage. These oalcite masses, then, are relics of pre- glacial time, and perhaps of early pre- glacial time, since the last glacial epoch did not operate in Houston county so as to disturb the older surface.

Brick

The Trenton and the St. Lawrence furnish all the quicklime made in Houston county. There are no extensive manufacturers, but the common pot-kiln is found at a number of points, by which enough is made to satisfy the local demands.

Lead

It is a common belief at La Crescent, held by Mr. Knapp, Mr. Day and others, that the lead enterprise at Dresbach, mentioned by Dr. Owen in his final report on the geology of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, was a speculating job, got up for the purpose of creating an excitement and selling land. The reputed discoverers were men from Galena, HI., and the lead found is believed to have been brought from that place. The excitement soon died out, and all operations ceased the same season they began, and have never been revived. Whether this be true or not, the rook, though not the same as that at Galena, is about the same as that in which are the lead mines in Missouri.

At La Orescent are a great many so-called Indian Mound*. Many have been graded away, but a good many still exist. They are on the brow of the drift-terrace, or lower bench, and none are known on the upper, loam terrace. They are, as usual, in rude rows, and about three feet high, some of them being four feet. When opened they have been found to contain human remains of men of large stature, and it is said that in grading for the railroad, a copper skillet and other trinkets were found at the depth of eighteen feet below the surface.

Pbe-H1Storio

Houston county is not particularly rich in evidences of the existence of races previous to the Indian. The extent of their civilization did not reach to the building of dwellings, or tepees, or structures of any material more indestructible than wood; and as they did not mark the metals, except perhaps copper to a limited extent, the relics they left of their presence have long since been resolved into their original elements. At La Orescent there is a chain of mounds which indicate the existence of a* race with characteristics quite distinct from, and unlike the Indians. The conformation of the skulls which have been found reveals them as having more of an animal nature than their exterminators; one striking peculiarity being in the size of the jaws, the lower one especially. It is true it was a human jaw and not an animal's, because it had a chin, which no mere animal has. If it is true, as is asserted by geologists, that this continent is older than what is called the "old world" itself, there is no limit to the speculation that may be indulged in, as to the races that may have lived and passed away, to give place to another, to also vanish in its turn. In peering into the past our vision is limited to a comtemplation of the great cabinet of the rocks and fossils, and un destroyed works of art, scattered around by ancient races. We have no chronological telescope to assist in extending or enlarging the view. That there have been pre-historic races, we all know, because they have left their foot-prints more or less distinct, and that they lived generation after generation, but what manner of people they were, whether they loved most to cultivate the arts of peace, or of war, must forever remain more or less of a mystery. What we do know is that :

The roaming banter tribe*, war-like and fierce, And the mound-builderB vanished from the earth. The solitude of centuries untold Has *ettted where they dwelt.11