318 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. 



[Fuel. Iron. 



the alluvial land between the rock-bluffs, is the river channel, and a still 

 lower flood-plain about twenty feet above the river at low stage. This 

 terraced condition of the valleys of Root river and of the Mississippi, is 

 confined, so far as observed, to the loam-covered area, which nearly coin- 

 cides with the "driftless area", as defined and described by Prof. J. D. 

 Whitney. 



MATERIAL RESOURCES. 



Fuel. In addition to the products of the soil, which will always be the 

 chief source of material wealth, Fillmore county cannot expect any impor- 

 tant mineral discoveries to augment her material prosperity. She has a 

 good supply of forest for purposes of common fuel, and will not sutter from 

 the absence of coal, as some of the counties farther west have suffered. 

 She will have to depend on her native forest trees, or on those that are 

 being propagated succesfully, for the most of her home fuel supply. There 

 is a marked absence of peat in this county as well as in Mower, but a single 

 locality being noted. That occurs on S. E. ^ sec. 26, Spring Valley, land 

 of John Kleckler and David Broxlem, and is said to be about 'four feet 

 thick, covering four or five acres. There is no doubt that other, isolated, 

 small areas, of a turf-peat, also exist in the county, but the circumstances 

 which promoted the production of so large a surface of peat in a belt far- 

 ther west, including Freeborn county, were certainly wanting in Fillmore 

 county. The frequency of lakes and swamps, and abundance of peat coin- 

 ciding as they do in Freeborn county, taken with the absence of both in 

 Mower and Fillmore, point to the existence of a common cause for these 

 surface features. 



Iron. Throughout the western portion of the county there is a great 

 deal of surface iron, manifesting itself generally in the form of a cement in 

 gravel, forming a dark-colored crag. There is also much evidence of the ex- 

 istence of a heavy, continuous layer, or deposit, of limonite iron ore a few 

 feet below the surface, in Bloomfield and Beaver townships. The details 

 of these localities, and of the evidence of iron so far as ascertainable, have 

 been given under the heads of Cretaceous and Drift. Should this bed prove 

 to be extensive, its actual value for commercial purposes may vary greatly 

 from its intrinsic value. It consists of a loose-textured hydrated peroxide, 







