HISTORICAL SKETCH. 105 



1871, A. Winchell.] 



Belle Plaine, where indications of brine were said to exist, to the depth of 

 several hundred feet, were complied with by the company, and the six sec- 

 tions of land were conveyed to the company. The following year, on the 

 passage of another law to further aid in the development of the same salt 

 springs, the conveyance was conditioned on a favorable report, after a geo- 

 logical survey of the vicinity of Belle Plaine by a competent geologist. 

 Prof. A. Winchell of Ann Arbor, Michigan, having been designated by gov- 

 ernor Austin, made the necessary examination, and reported in June, 1871. 

 His report was transmitted to the senate in January, 1872, and was ordered 

 printed. It is an octavo pamphlet of sixteen pages.* After stating the general 

 facts and principles which guided the geologist in coming to a conclusion, 

 the report" gives some local geological observations in which the section of 

 the exposed sand-rock along Sand creek, at Jordan, is for the first time care- 

 fully made out. It is regarded as of the Potsdam age, and placed beneath 

 the Lower Magnesian limestone of Owen. No distinction is made between 

 the stratigraphical horizon of the limestone at Kasota and that at St. Law- 

 rence, and the sand-rock at Jordan is supposed to lie beneath both ; the strata 

 at Kasota being supposed to dip down the river so as to bring them at St. 

 Lawrence about sixty feet nearer the water than at Kasota. From all the 

 facts considered, the conclusion was reached that the prospect of obtaining 

 brine at Belle Plaine was not encouraging ; that the horizon of the rocks 

 penetrated is below all known saliferous formations, and that even if the 

 shales of the Trenton group should prove to be saliferous, the product is 

 likely to accumulate under a region far to the south. 



Notwithstanding the unfavorable report of the geologist, which ren- 

 dered the appropriation of 1871 inoperative, the legislature of 1872 appro- 

 priated six sections more of the salt spring lands to the same company for 

 the same purpose. Not only has no brine in workable quantities ever been 

 obtained from this well, but the analyses of the present survey have failed 

 to establish the alleged briny character of the water of the spring at Belle 

 Plaine on which the expenditure was at first undertaken. 



The same legislature (1872) enacted the law which initiated the present 

 survey. 



Report of a geological survey of the vicinity of Belle Plaine, Scott county, Minnesota. By A. Winchell. 



