MINNESOTA 



3828 



MINNESOTA 



twenty-five per cent are Germans. No other 

 state so far east has as many Indians as has 

 Minnesota, for living on its reservations, which 

 are chiefly in the northern part, are no fewer 

 than 9,050. 



Surface Features. The most pronounced 

 surface feature of this state, which has no tow- 

 ering mountains and no deep valleys, is the 

 ''height of land," as it is called, in the north- 

 central part. Its very highest summit, in the 

 Mesaba range, is but 2,400 feet above sea level, 

 but no "great divide" in the world forms the 

 watershed for greater rivers; for in addition to 

 the Refl River and the streams that feed the 

 Saint Lawrence, there flows from its slopes the 

 Mississippi, which, with the Missouri, is the 

 longest system in the world. Not far from this 

 highest land in the state is the lowest land, the 

 coastal region about Lake Superior, which has 

 an elevation of only 600 feet above sea level. 



South and west, stretching across the state 

 to the valley of the Red River, are rolling prai- 

 ries, but these differ in some ways from the 

 prairies of Illinois or of Kansas, for instance. 

 Here and there they are interspersed with groves 

 of hardwood trees, and in the southwest they 

 are broken by the rounded hills which Long- 

 fellow in his Hiawatha calls "mountains of the 

 prairie." 



Waters. The greatest river system is that of 

 the Mississippi, the "Father of Waters," which, 

 with its tributaries, the Minnesota, the Saint 

 Croix and various smaller streams, drains over 

 half of the state, carrying the waters from this 

 northerly region south to the Gulf of Mexico. 

 The northwestern part of the state is drained 

 by the Red River of the North and its tribu- 

 taries, while the northeastern portion sends its 

 waters through numerous short streams into 

 Rainy River, or through the Saint Louis River 

 into Lake Superior, and so on to the Saint 

 Lawrence. 



A glance at a map of Minnesota shows one 

 striking peculiarity its vast number of lakes. 

 For the most part these are the result of the 

 action of glaciers which long ago covered most 

 of the northern part of the United States (see 

 GLACIAL PERIOD) ; but some, as Traverse Lake, 

 Big Stone Lake, Rainy Lake and Lake Pepin, 

 are but widenings of river courses. In the north 

 many of the lakes are deep, with rugged, rocky 

 shores, but most of the southern lakes are com- . 

 paratively broad and shallow. Whether in the 

 north or in the south, however, many of the 

 lakes are very beautiful, with their timbered 

 shores and their clear, "sky-tinted" waters. The 



most famous of all is Lake Minnetonka, not 

 far from Minneapolis, but the largest is Red 

 Lake, in the northern part, which has an area 

 of 340 square miles. Once upon a time there 

 existed in the valley of the Red River a huge 

 lake which at first drained southward toward 

 the Gulf of Mexico and later northward into 

 Hudson Bay, and it is the bottom of this old 

 Lake Agassiz, as it is called, which constitutes 

 the most fertile land in the state and which 

 contain many of the smaller lakes of the pres- 

 ent day. 



Climate. The great advantage of the climate 

 of Minnesota is the clear, dry air which makes 

 endurable the extremes of temperature. The 

 comparatively short summers often have very 



A FEW OF MINNESOTA'S LAKES 



hot days, and the long winters not infrequently 

 show a temperature of thirty degrees below 

 zero. It is not, however, mere local pride on 

 the part of the people which makes them de- 

 clare that the heat and cold are not felt as they 

 are in regions of greater humidity. In fact, the 

 climate on the whole is so healthful and so 

 bracing that Minnesota is one of the favorite 

 resort states in the Union. 



Everywhere there is enough rain for success- 

 ful agriculture, for while the average rainfall is 

 but twenty inches in the northwest and thirty 

 in the southeast, most of it occurs in the sea- 

 son when it is most needed. The northern part 

 of the state has usually a sufficient snowfall to 

 cover that section with snow during the greater 

 part of the winter, and tobogganing is a fa- 

 vorite sport. 



