4, 
Mineralogy and Geology. 271 
ters flowing into the St. Peter’s and the Mississippi from those of the 
Missouri. 
“Under the 44th degree of latitude, the breadth of the Coteau is 
about forty miles, and its mean elevation is here reduced to fourteen 
hundred and fifty feet above the sea. Within this space its two slopes 
are rather abrupt, crowned with verdure, and scolloped by deep ravines 
thickly shaded with bushes, forming the beds of rivulets that water the 
‘subjacent plains. 
_ The Coteau itself is isolated, in the midst of boundless and fertile 
prairies, extending to the west, to the north, and into the valley of the 
St. Peter’s. 
whc® The plain at its northern extremity is a most beautiful, tract of 
~ land, diversified by hills, dales, woodland, and lakes; the latter abound- 
_ ing in fish. This region of country is probably the most elevated be- 
tween the Gulf of Mexico and Hudson’s Bay. . From its summit, pro- 
ceeding from its western to its eastern limits, grand views are afforded. 
At its eastern border particularly, the prospect is magnificent beyond 
description, extending over the immense green turf that forms the basin 
of the Red River of the north, the forest-capped summits of the hau- 
teurs des terres that surround the sources of the Mississippi, the granitic 
valley of the Upper St. Peter’s, and the depressions in which are Lake 
Travers and the Big Stone lake. There can be no doubt that in future 
times this region will be the summer resort of the wealthy of the land.” 
14. Paleozoic deposits of Scandinavia; (Quar. Jour. Geol. Soe., 
No. 4.)—The great extent of the crystalline rocks in Scandinavia, is 
described by Mr. Murcutson, as one of its most remarkable features. 
They occupy the great part of Sweden, rising into mountains and 
forming the flanks of troughs, containing paleozoic strata, which have 
in their turn been invaded by granitic, porphyritic, and trappean rocks 
of another epoch. The lowest fossiliferous rocks are Silurian. Above 
them are shales and coral limestones, corresponding to the Wenlock 
limestone of England, and flagstones and schists, which probably rep- 
resent the Ludlow rocks. Many instances of metamorphic changes are 
instanced by Mr. Murchison. A. few miles north of Drammen, a 
limestone, containing the Pentamerus oblongus, is changed to marble, 
near granite, and-some portions were thickly impregnated with garnets, 
or-even changed to a garnet rock. On receding from the granite, the 
strata resume their natural characters, and Pentameri appear again. 
At Christiana, on the east side of the bay, the greenstones and por- 
phyries have changed a fucoid shale to a rock closely resembling gneiss, 
The alteration is gradual, from the stratified schists to the highly con- 
torted and metamorphosed masses. Forchhammer supposes that the 
fusion of the gneiss, which the change is believed to have required, 
