BLUE EARTH COUNTY. 445 



Modified drift.] 



At and opposite New Ulra. and four to eight miles farther down the valley, in Courtland, 

 which adjoins Cambria, are conspicuous terraces of sand and gravel belonging to this formation, 

 having bights from 100 to 150 feet above tbe river. Opposite to the southeast end of the Court- 

 land terrace, a remnant of the same deposit lies in section 22 and the N. E. } of section 21, Cam- 

 bria, between the Minnesota river and the lower part of Morgan creek, having a hight of 100 

 feet or more and a length of about a mile. 



Between Judson and Mankato, close southeast from the unnamed waterfall formed by the 

 Jordan sandstone in section 12. Judson, the road rises about 75 feet higher, to a terrace composed 

 mainly at its surface of coarse gravel and sand, irregularly and obliquely interstratified, upon 

 which the road runs one and one-fourth miles southeast to the wind-mill in the N. E. } of section 

 18, South Bend, where it is called the "Wind-mill bluff." This terrace of modified drift is two 

 and a half miles long, reaching from the N. W. i of section 12, Judson, to the S. E. J of section 

 17, South Bend; its greatest width is about a third of a mile; its hight is estimated at from 170 

 to 150 feet above the river, declining toward the southeast, the bluffs of till at its southwest side 

 being 30 to 50 feet higher, or 200 feet above the river. 



In the farther descent of the valley, no other remains of this great deposit of stratified drift 

 are found in the next ten miles; but, beginning again one mile beyond the north line of Blue 

 Earth county, they are found thence commonly on one or the other side of the valley through its 

 lower sixty miles, from Kasota and Saint Peter to its mouth. The depth of this valley drift, 

 consisting of horizontally stratified gravel and sand, sometimes with thick beds of clay, is found 

 by wells to be from 50 to 100 feet. This is at the side of the valley, in which this formation ap- 

 pears to have been a continuous flood-plain, gradually raised by the deposition of sediment, till 

 its thickness along the middle of the valley, from which it has now been eroded, was from 75 to 

 150 or 175 feet, having a slope down-stream of about two feet per mile. The floods which brought 

 this deposit and flowed over its broad plain were supplied from glacial melting. 



The comparatively thin deposits of similar stratified gravel and sand, which cover the ter- 

 races of the Shakopee limestone and Jordan sandstone within the Minnesota valley, in this coun- 

 ty and below, and the alluvium of the bottomlands, which are composed of fine silt, sand and 

 occasional beds of gravel, have been worn and assorted by water nearly like the modified drift; 

 but their origin seems attributable to the ordinary action of the river in the processes of excava- 

 tion and sedimentation, and may be accounted for without reference to glacial conditions. 



MATERIAL RESOURCES. 



The principal resources of Blue Earth county are the products of its 

 invariably fertile soil, and the water-powers afforded by many of its 

 streams, which, by using their lakes for reservoirs, may be made nearly 

 uniform in flow throughout the year. The valuable areas of timber and 

 the prairies of natural grassland in this county both possess rich, deep, 

 and well drained soil, bountiful and never-failing in its productiveness. 

 Besides the agricultural capabilities of Blue Earth county, which have 

 been before noticed, we have to enumerate here its water-powers, its quar- 

 ries of building stone, the manufacture of lime, hydraulic cement, bricks, 

 drain tiles and pottery, and artesian wells and fountains. 



Water-powers in Blue Earth county. . 



The following water-powers are utilized in this county, all being employed for the manu- 

 facture of flour, excepting two saw-mills, of which one is situated on the Le Sueur river, in the 

 southeast part of Mankato township, and the other in Le Ray on the outlet of Eagle lake. 



Blue Earth river. Champion mills; V. II. Thompson; in the north part of sec. IB, Shelby; 

 fall or head, seven feet; three run of stone. 



