WINONA COUNTY. 



Topography.] 



241 



ries toward the southwest. The area of the Trenton rocks in Saratoga and 

 St. Charles, is marked by a conspicuous abrupt elevation of about a hun- 

 dred feet above the surrounding country. This abrupt ascent is followed 

 by a still further gradual ascent of fifty or seventy-five feet within the same 

 area, so that the highest land within the county, reaching about 1325 feet 

 above the ocean, is in the townships of St. Charles and Saratoga. The Missis- 

 sippi river at the north line of the county is about 642 feet above the* sea, 

 and at the south line about 619 feet, these figures representing low water.* 



FIG. 8. LOOKING OVER THE VALLEY TOWARD WINONA. 



Many landscape scenes within the county have great beauty and 

 grandeur. The broad valley of the Mississippi, which is about six hundred 

 feet deep from the tops of the bluffs to the water level, and from three to 

 six miles wide, separating Minnesota from the state of Wisconsin, is itself as 

 great a phenomenon in nature as the Appalachian mountain range, and has 

 a longer and more wonderful history, and one as fruitful in scientific prob- 

 lems. Between the headlands, which outline the valley in its course, are 



*There is a discrepancy of eight feet between these figures and those of the plat of "Winona county, due to a cor- 

 rection by the final report of the U. S. lake survey by Lt.-Col. C. B. Comstock, published in the latter part of the year 1882. 



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