HISTOEICAL SKETCH. 65 



1837, Catlin.] 







St. Peter's river and the Coteau, over which we passed, presents innumerable specimens of the 

 kind, and near the base of the Coteau, they are strewed over the prairie in countless numbers, 

 presenting almost an incredible variety of rich and beautiful colors, and undoubtedly traceable 

 (if they can be traced,) to separate and distinct beds. Amongst these beautiful groups it was 

 sometimes a very easy matter to sit on my horse and count within my sight some twenty or thirty 

 different varieties of quartz and granite in rounded boulders, of every hue and color, from snow 

 white to intense red and yellow and blue, and almost to a jet black, each one well characterized 

 and evidently from a distinct quarry. With the beautiful hues and almost endless characters of 

 these blocks, I became completely surprised and charmed, and I resolved to procure specimens of 

 every variety, which I did with success by dismounting from my horse and breaking small bits 

 from them with my hammer, until I had something like a hundred different varieties containing 

 all the tints and colors of the painter's pallet. These I at length threw away, as I had on several 

 former occasions other minerals and fossils, which I had collected and lugged along from day to 

 day, and sometimes from week to week. 



Whether these varieties of quartz and granite can all be traced to their native beds, or 

 whether they all have originals at this time exposed above the earth's surface, are generally matters 

 of much doubt in my mind. I believe that the geologist may take the varieties which he may gather 

 at the base of the Coteau in one hour, and travel the continent of North America all over without 

 being able to put them all in place ; coming at last to the unavoidable conclusion that numerous 

 chains or beds of primitive rocks have reared their heads on this continent, the summits of which 

 have been swept away by the force of the diluvial currents; and their fragments jostled together 

 and strewed about, like foreigners in a strange land, over the great valleys of the Mississippi and 

 Missouri, where they will ever remain and be gazed upon by the traveler as the only remaining 

 evidence of their native ledges, which have again been submerged or covered with diluvial deposits. 



There seems not to be, either on the Coteau, or in the great valleys on either side, so fai as I 

 have traveled, any slaty or other formation exposed above the surface, on which grooves or 

 scratches can be seen, to establish the direction of the diluvial currents in those regions; yet I 

 think the fact is pretty clearly established by the general shapes of the valleys, and the courses of 

 the mountain ridges which wall them in on their sides. 



The Coteau des Prairies is the dividing ridge between the St. Peter's and the Missouri rivers; 

 its southern termination or slope is about in the latitude of the falls of St. Anthony, and it 

 stands equi-distant between the two rivers, its general course bearing two or three degrees west of 

 north, for the distance of two or three hundred miles, when it gradually slopes again to the north, 

 throwing out from its base the headwaters and tributaries of the St. Peter's on the east ; the Red 

 river and other streams which empty into the Hudson's bay on the north ; " La Eiviere Jacques " 

 and several tributaries to the Missouri on the west ; and the Red Cedar, the loway and the Des 

 Moines on the south. 



This wonderful anomaly in nature, which is several hundred miles in length, and varying 

 from fifty to an hundred in width, is undoubtedly the noblest mound of its kind in the world. It 

 gradually and gracefully rises on each side, by swell after swell, without tree, or bush, or rocks 

 (save what are to be seen at the pipestone quarry), and is everywhere covered with green grass, 

 affording the traveler, from its highest elevations, the most unbounded and sublime views of 

 nothing at all, save the blue and boundless ocean of prairies that lie beneath and all around him, 

 vanishing into azure in the distance, without a speck or spot to break their softness. 



The direction of this ridge clearly establishes the course of the diluvial current in this 

 region, and the erratic stones which are distributed along the base I attribute to an origin several 

 hundred miles northwest from the Coteau. I have not myself traced the Coteau to its highest 

 points, nor to its northern extremity, but on this subject I have closely questioned a number of 

 travelers who have traversed every mile of it with their carts, and from thence to lake Winnipec 

 on the north, who uniformly tell me that there is no range of primitive rocks to be crossed in 

 traveling the whole distance, which is one connected and continuous prairie. 



The surface of the sides and the top of the Coteau is everywhere strewed over with granitic 

 sand and pebbles, which, together with the fact of five boulders resting at the pipestone quarry, 

 shows clearly that every part of the ridge has been subject to the action of these currents, which 

 could not have run counter to it without having disfigured or deranged its beautiful symmetry. 



