Feather stonhaugVs Geological Report. 123 



with numerous islands and sandbars. The low alluvial banks 

 are sand, with seams of red oxyde, showing that they are de- 

 rived from the old sandstone beds. These banks are always 

 well wooded, and pine, as in all sandy countries, is of frequent 

 occurrence. The sandstone strata soon occur after getting 

 upon the swift current of this river, in banks about sixty feet 

 high, which become loftier as the stream deepens its bed. 

 One of these localities, where the escarpment is near two hun- 

 dred feet high, is an isolated ridge, a little in the rear of the 

 left bank, with a crest resembling, in an obscure manner, walls 

 and batteries, and has obtained the appellation of Fortification 

 rock. Great quantities of the valves of unios and anodontas 

 are found all the way from Green bay to the mouth of the 

 Wisconsin, at the edge of the stream, left there by the musk- 

 rats and otters. About forty-five miles from the portage, ano- 

 ther picturesque mass of horizontal sandstone presents itself, 

 called Petit rocher. There is a remarkably fine view from a 

 lofty hill at a place called Helena, where a shot-tower has 

 been sunk near two hundred feet in the sandstone : the 

 i iver is seen for a great distance winding through the rich flat 

 lands of the valley, which is bordered on both sides by high 

 rounded hills, with occasional escarpments, separated by well- 

 wooded coves or vales, called by the French coulees. Boul- 

 ders and fragments of limestone are found in the vicinity, 

 resembling the Missouri galeniferouslimstone, with occasional 

 narrow seams of sulphate of barytes in it. A little lower 

 down, the river has undermined the strata, and a mass of 

 sandstone, about thirty feet high and two hundred feet long, 

 has scaled off from the body of the rocks, leaving a smooth 

 face. This place is called the Fallen rocks. The nature of 

 the scenery is much the same to the mouth of the Wisconsin : 

 rich flat lands are of frequent occurrence, the slopes, somewhat 

 more sparsely wooded, are covered with high grass, except 

 where broad spaces of escarpment (so soft that the swallows 

 in great numbers have been able to pick holes in it and 



