FREEBORN COUNTY 379 



Surface features.] 



portions is nearly surrounded by a belt of prairie. Small marshes are scattered through the 

 town. Mag. var. 8" 45- to 10 35', in 1854. 



Nunda. This town is also mostly openings, but an area of prairie occurs on sections 4, 5, 9 

 and 3: another lies southwest of Bear lake. Considerable marsh land is embraced within the area 

 of openings. Mag. var. in 1854 10 5' to 12 15', the latter in section 31. 



Pickerel Lake. The west half of this township is prairie, and the eastern is devoted to open- 

 ings with lakes and marshes. Mag. var. 9 45' to 11 50' in 1854. 



Manchester. About one-half of this town is prairie, the remainder being oak openings. The 

 prairie lies in the northwestern and southern portions. Small marshes occur both in the prairies 

 and openings. Mag. var. 10 to 12" 15' in 1854. 



llartland. Ttiis town is almost entirely composed of prairie, the only timber being about 

 Mule or Le Sueur lake, and in the southern portions of sections 34, 35 and 36. There is not 

 much marsli in the town. Mag. var. 9 45' to 12 25' (1854). 



Mniitfield. This town is nearly all prairie, a small patch of oak openings occurring in sec- 

 tions 3, 10 and 15. The northwest part of the township is rolling and the southeast is level and 

 wet with marshes. Mag. var. 11 30' to 13 40' (1858). 



Alden. This town is all prairie, with scattered small marshes. Mag. var. 11 27' to 13 15' 

 (1854). 



Carlston. This town is all prairie except a narrow belt of sparse timber about Freeborn lake. 

 Long narrow marshes spread irregularly over the central and eastern portions of the town. In 

 the southeast quarter of section 36 there is also a small area of sparse timber. Mag. var. 11' 13- 

 to 13 (1854). 



Freeborn. In this town there is a little sparse timber about the north ends of Freeborn and 

 Spicer lakes, and a little adjoining Spicer lake on the east. There are also some openings in sec- 

 tion 26, where the arms of the marsh protect the timber from the prairie fires. The rest is of prai- 

 rie, with spreading marshes. Mag. var. (1854) 11 55' to 12 50'. 



North and west of Albert Lea is a very broken and rolling surface of sparse timber. This 

 tract consists of bold hills and deep valleys wrought in the common drift of the country. On 

 some of these hills are granitic boulders, but the country generally does not show many boulders. 

 The drift is usually in this broken tract, a gravelly clay. In some of the road cuts for grading a 

 gravel is found containing a good deal of limestone. 



A great many of the marshes of the county are surrounded with tracts of oak openings, a 

 fact which indicates that the marshes serve as barriers to the prairie fires. Such marshes are 

 really filled with water and quake with a heavy peat deposit on being trod on. They are very 

 different from those of counties farther west, as in Nobles county, which in the summer are apt 

 to become dried, and are annually clothed with a growth of coarse grass which feeds the fires that 

 pass over the country in the fall. As a general rule but little pr no grass grows on a good peat 

 marsh. 



The contour of the county is further exemplified by the following elevations obtained from 

 lines run for railroad surveys: 



Elevations taken from a preliminary survey made in July, 1870, through Freeborn county, Minnesota, 



by WM. MORIN. 



Commencing on the state line (south) 930 feet east of the quarter stake on the south side of 

 sec. 32, T. 1O1, R. 3O; thence north to Glenville on sec 6, T. 1O1, R. 2O; thence north 

 40 west to Albert Lea on sec. 8, T. IO2, R. 21 ; thence north 40 east to Geneva on sec. 8, 

 T. 1O4, 11. 80. and thence north to the Steele county line. 



Above ocean. 

 Feet. 



Station No. 1, at point 930 ft. east of quarter stake on sec. 32, T. 1O1, R. 8O, 1212 



Station No. 100, 1221 



Station No. 190, 1199 



Station No. 199 + 10. Water in Shell Rock river, east bank, 1197 



Station No. 200+80. Water in Shell Rock River, west bank, 1197 



Station No. 202, 1212 



Station No. 300. Glenville (town plat) 1221 



