A Recent Visit to Lake Itasca — Upham. 289 



Little Man Trap lake and the southern arms of Itasca. Thence, 

 following the height of land, it bends to the northwest and north 

 between Itasca and the source of the Red river, and continues 

 northward between the Upper and Lower Rice lakes to Clearwater 

 lake, from which it passes westward along the south side of the 

 Clearwater and Lost rivers, entering the area of the glacial lake 

 Agassiz between Maple lake and Red lake. This is the tenth in 

 the series of moraines in Iowa, Minnesota, and South and North 

 Dakota, formed by the last ice-sheet that overspread this region, 

 marking its boundaries in its maximum area, when it reached south 

 to Des Moines, and in successive stages of halt or slight re-advance 

 interrupting its recession. 



The southern border of the Itasca moraine, where it is crossed 

 by our road to Itasca, is called Stony Ridge. It consists of small 

 ridges of till, trending from southeast to northwest, with very 

 plentiful boulders, all Archaean from the northeast and north, 

 chiefly granite and gneiss. No limestone boulders were observed 

 by me in this journey; but in the vicinity of the White Earth 

 Agency and about Red lake they form a considerable proportion 

 of the drift, having been brought by glacial currents from the 

 region of lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba. Very irregularly grouped 

 morainic hills 50 to 100 feet high rise on each side of our road, 

 which winds and climbs and descends over them, along a distance 

 of about eight miles, from Stony Ridge to Mr. Peter Turnbull's 

 claim cabin on the Southeast or Turnbull's arm of Itasca. 



Many empty hollows twenty to forty feet deep are seen be- 

 side our road, being kettle holes, as they are called, well known as 

 characteristic of morainic drift deposits. Several similar hollows, 

 but of larger area and greater depth, contain a series of picturesque 

 little lakes, lying east of our road, in descending order from south to 

 north, the lowest having an outlet to lake Itasca by Mary creek. 

 These small lakes fill depressions of the drift, and lake Itasca 

 doubtless owes its existence to greater thickness of the drift in the 

 valley at the mouth of the lake and for several miles down the 

 Mississippi, rather than to greater prominence of the underlying 

 rock there. But the great valley 100 to 200 feet deep and two to 

 four miles wide, in which lie lake Itasca and the Mississippi north- 

 ward to Craig's crossing and to its rapids over boulders in Section 

 8, Town 145, Range 35, also the similar but smaller valleys of the 

 La Salle, Hennepin and Schoolcraft rivers, successively tributary 



