232 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



through the assistance of officers of the United States Lake 

 Survey. 



Detailed G;eolo2;ical surveys have been made in 1877 in 

 Ramsey, Rice, Pipestone, and Rock counties; and prelimi- 

 nary surveys in Goodhue, Wright, and Morrison counties, as 

 well as along the line of the Northern Pacific and St. Paul 

 and Duluth railways. A careful investigation lias been 

 made of the domestic water-supply in the Red River valley. 

 The famous pipe-stone quarry has been described and map- 

 ped. Paleontological and chemical studies have been car- 

 ried on in the laboratory, and the ornithologist and entomol- 

 ogist have been active in the field. The latter lias made val- 

 uable observations on the ravages of the destructive locust. 



The following are the most important results of the year: 

 Evidence lias been obtained by Professor N. H. Winchell, the 

 geologist in charge of the survey, indicating the presence of 

 Upper Trenton strata in Ramsey County, where its litho- 

 logical and paleontological characters bear so close a resem- 

 blance to those of the typical Cincinnati group as to sug- 

 gest that the term Cincinnati may elsewhere have been 

 wrongly applied to true Trenton limestones. The shaly 

 condition of the rocks is believed to be due to the greater 

 proximity of the old azoic axis of the continent, causing 

 coarser sedimentation. 



A study of the more recent deposits shows that in the 

 southwestern part of Minnesota the loess loam enters the 

 state from the south, becoming gradually coarser in going 

 north, with gravel-stones and pebbles, until it passes into a 

 stony clay and at last into a true boulder clay, apparently 

 continuous with the later boulder clay of the drift period. 

 This would show the loam of the great rivers and lake val- 

 leys of the West to be simply the drainage from the vast 

 drift accumulations formed further north at the time of the 

 last glacial epoch. 



The investigation of the drinking-water in the Red River 

 valley was made because it had been feared that the noxious 

 odors which prevail in wells sunk in this district, and which 

 had proved disastrous to the health of the inhabitants, were 

 due to the nature of the soil itself, and would alwavs render 

 the region unhealthy. It was found that the trouble extend- 

 ed over the whole western-prairie portion of the state, and 



