138 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. 



[Timber distribution. 



ward from Mankato it sends fingers of timbered land along the streams 

 through the Undine region to the Iowa state line, and turns eastward along 

 the Le Sueur river in Waseca county, and, with a tortuous course, reaches 

 Faribault. It ascends the Cannon valley to Owatonna, with a width of 

 timber on the east side of about three miles, returning abruptly from Owa- 

 tonna nearly due north through Rice and Dakota counties. At fifteen miles 

 south of St. Paul it turns east and southeast, crossing the Mississippi about 

 five miles above Hastings. This includes the whole of Washington and 

 Ramsey counties within the timber belt, but they are timbered in about 

 the same manner as several of the southeastern border counties, with gen- 

 erally small trees and numerous openings of prairie. 



As to the nature of the forests of Minnesota, the northern portion of 

 the timbered tract is largely coniferous. The most southern area of mer- 

 chantable pine was in Chisago county south of Taylor's Falls, in the 

 valley of Lawrence creek.* Yet pine trees are scatteringly found along 

 the bluffs of the Mississippi as far as the Iowa state line, and on some of 

 its tributaries in Fillmore and Olmsted counties. This species is known as 

 the white pine (Pinus Strobus). It is the most broadly extended, and the 

 most valuable of all the coniferous trees of the state. The Norway pine 

 (P. resinosa) does not reach so far south, but constitutes a large and impor- 

 tant part of the pine-supply in the central and northeastern portions of 

 the state. The southern limit of the characteristically pine forest, or of 

 merchantable pine, passes north and northwestward from Lawrence creek, 

 in Chisago county, to the southwestern corner of Pine county, where it 

 turns southwestwardly, running a few miles north of Cambridge, and along 

 the north side of Rum river above Cambridge to Princeton, and thence nearly 

 in a right line till it strikes the Mississippi about ten miles below the 

 mouth of the Crow Wing river. On the immediate west bank of the Missis- 

 sippi pine is found further south. The same line starts from the Mississippi 

 about two miles south of the mouth of Swan river, and with a bend north- 

 ward where it crosses the western boundary of Morrison county, it enters 

 Todd county northeast of Long Prairie village, but passes north of Long 

 Prairie about six miles ; and thence continues northwestward to Rush lake 



This creek was named from Mr. Sam. Lawrence, who had a winter's lumber-camp in its valley and cut most of 

 the pine then standing. 



