HISTORICAL SKETCH. 97 



1865, Hall.] 



miles above its point of union with the Mississippi, where he notes an uplift 

 of igneous and metamorphosed rocks, consisting of granite, coarse and fine, 

 "quartzyte or Potsdam sandstone," and iron ore, the water falling from 

 twelve to fifteen feet. This iron ore occurs also on the west side of the 

 river. At several places above these falls the same rocks are noted in place, 

 particularly at the second falls and in a ridge near the head of the lake 

 about a sixth of a mile from the south shore. The iron ores here seen, he 

 found to afford from fifty to sixty per cent, metallic iron. He reports the 

 same kind of drift limestone fragments on the upper Mississippi, about 

 Pokegama falls, and on the St. Louis river, as in Otter Tail county and the 

 Red river valley. 



Mr. Richard M. Eames, his assistant, makes further statements concern- 

 ing the quartz veins at Vermilion lake and their ramifications through the 

 talcose slates, concluding with the statement that he belives that the "hid- 

 den sources of wealth, lying buried in the strata, would justify the invest- 

 ment of capital." 



Mr. Eames' survey soon fell into disrepute, and further appropriations 

 were not made by the legislature. 



JAMES HALL IN MINNESOTA. 



In 1865 the state legislature appropriated two thousand dollars to Mr. 

 N. C. D. Taylor for the exploration of the mineral lands in the valley of the 

 St. Croix river, lying in the state of Minnesota. A report of this work 

 was rendered to the governor January 27th, 1866. It consists of about 

 one page octavo, and states that he had found indications of copper on 

 what is known as the " Kettle river trap range," having expended a con- 

 siderable sum in examinations sufficient to show it to be " very promising 

 for a rich paying vein." He also mentions a copper vein crossing the St. 

 Croix river below the mouth of Kettle river, and one on Snake river ; also 

 one at Taylor's Falls, on which he had sunk a shaft, about forty feet in 

 depth, and a second one three or four hundred feet from the first about 

 twenty-two feet in depth. The most of the rock of the St. Croix valley 

 above Taylor's Falls, he found to consist of different kinds of trap rocks, 

 with belts of conglomerate running through them from northeast to south- 



