FAR1BAULT COUNTY. 465 



Pebbles and boulders. Wells,] 



represented. Only a few pieces of the red Potsdam quartzyte, which out- 

 crops near New Ulm and southwestward, were seen, the largest being one 

 foot long. ISTo conglomerate was found. It is noticeable that a considerable 

 proportion of the pebbles upon these hills of till are water-rounded, and 

 that some have the flattened, discoid form which is characteristic of the 

 stones of a shingle beach, worn by sliding with the rise and fall of the 

 waves, rather than by being rolled in the channel of streams, which gives 

 more commonly a somewhat spheroidal shape. These water-worn stones 

 are evidence that the ice-sheet gathered much of its drift from pre-glacial 

 valleys and lake shores, lifted these gravels of ancient rivers and beaches 

 into its mass, and at its border and during its final melting deposited them 

 as constituents of the till and modified drift. 



Wells in Faribuult county. 



The following records of common wells afford further illustrations of the composition and 

 order of the drift deposits. 



Clark. The sections before described in Wells and its vicinity are in this township. 



Foster. John Shequen; sec. 14: well, 18 feet; all sand; plenty of water. 



M. Butler; S. E. } of sec. 15: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 26; gravel and sand, with 

 small amount of water, 2 feet; blue till below. 



R. D. Taylor; N. E. J of sec 21: well, 22; soil, 2; yellow till, 12; gravel and sand, 8. 



Kiester. John Harvey; S. W. J of sec. 31: well, 45; soil, 2; yellow till, with gravelly streaks, 

 12; gravel and sand, J foot; blue till, very hard at top for one foot, then moist and soft below, 31. 

 This well has only seep water from the lower part of the yellow till. 



A copious spring, much resorted to by cattle, slightly chalybeate, issues near the middle of 

 sec. 14, upon land twenty-five feet higher than neighboring depressions and a hundred feet below 

 the highest hills near at the northeast and northwest. 



Mr. E. Porter, well-maker, of Lake Mills, Iowa, states that in the south part of Kiester the 

 upper till, yellowish in color, is usually 8 to 10 feet thick; \inderlain by sand, 1 to 8 feet in thick- 

 ness; succeeded by dark bluish till, called "hardpan", much harder than the uppertill. Generally, 

 however, it has been his experience that the yellow till is more stony and harder to bore or dig in 

 than the underlying blue till, which is moist and sticky. The greatest thickness of yellow till 

 found by him is twenty-five feet. He has frequently found fragments of lignite, but no unchanged 

 wood nor shells. 



Seely. 1. M. Riker; N. E. J of sec. 10: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 8; blue till, soft and 

 sticky, 20; water rose ten feet from gravel and sand at the bottom. 



A. B. Brant's well in sec. 4, reaching to the bed -rock, has-been described on page 458. II. W. 

 Everett, well-maker, states that the yellow upper till of this region almost always contains sandy 

 streaks and seep water, while these occur less frequently in the blue till, which is moister and 

 softer, and has fewer rock-fragments, than the till above. The greatest thickness of the yellow 

 till, found in boring fifty wells, is 20 feet; and the greatest depth bored by him in the blue till is 

 70 feet. A dark " hardpan", much harder than either of these tills, is frequently found, varying 

 from one to five feet in thickness, always lying under a considerable depth of the soft and moist 

 blue till. Mr. P. Morse, of Wells, and W. Z. Haight, of Winnebago City, well-makers, agree with 

 the foregoing as to the characters and order of the three distinct kinds of till generally met in deep 

 wells throughout this county. Mr. Morse reports the maximum thickness of the dark hardpan, as 

 found by him, to be 12 feet. Mr. Haight has found the yellow color of the till extending deepest 

 on swells; while it is thin or wanting in depressions. Its maximum depth found by him is 50 feet; 

 the greatest thickness of the soft, blue till, 50 or very rarely 75 feet; and of the darker till or hard- 

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