518 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. 



[Natural drainage! 



to south is forty-eight miles. Murray county has an area of 721.56 square 

 miles, or 461,801.20 acres, of which 16,909.93 acres are covered by water. 

 The area of Nobles county is 727.66 square miles, or 465,704.16 acres, of 

 which 10,827.04 acres are covered by water. 



SURFACE FEATURES. 



Natural drainage. The Des Moines river rises at the west side of Mur- 

 ray county, and flows east and southeast across this county. Springs and 

 two or three lakelets on the east side of the highest ridge of the Coteau 

 des Prairies, partly lying beyond the west line of Murray county in the east 

 edge of Mkna, and Rock townships in Pipestone county, are the heads of the 

 Des Moines river. The greater part of Murray county is drained by this 

 stream. Its most important tributary in this county is the outlet of lake 

 Shetek, which unites with it about a mile west of Currie. The Des Moines 

 river above this affluent is commonly known as Oksida or Beaver creek. 

 About a mile east of Currie, nearly at the center of Murray township, the 

 Des Moines turns southeast, and holds this course to the east line of the 

 county. Its length in Murray county, not including small bends, is forty 

 miles. 



The portions of Murray county which lie outside the Des Moines basin, are in its northwest, 

 northeast and southwest corners. At the northwest, the head-stream of Redwood river, rising in 

 .<33tna, the northeast township of Pipestone county, flows to the east and north through Ellsbo- 

 rough, receiving the drainage of some thirty square miles in this township. The northwest part 

 of Skandia, the township next to the east, sends its waters into the head-stream of the Cotton- 

 wood river. 



Holly, the most northeast township of this county, and the northeast half of Shetek town- 

 ship on the west, and of Dovray on the south, and the northeast corner of Des Moines River town- 

 ship, are tributary to the Cottonwood river by Plum creek, and in small part by Dutch Charley's 

 and Highwater creeks. 



Southwest of the Des Moines basin, Moulton, nearly all of Chanararr.bie, and portions of the 

 townships east of these, are drained by the head-streams of Chanarambie and Champepadan 

 creeks, sending their waters into the Rock river, and by that to the Big Sioux and Missouri. 



The areas of Murray county thus belonging to four river basins are approximately as follows: 

 within the basin of the Des Moines river, 520 square miles; of the Redwood river, 30 square miles; 

 of the Cottonwood river, 80 square miles; and of the Rock river, 90 square miles. 



The most noteworthy lakes in Murray county are the following: lake Shetek, the largest, 

 about seven miles long from north to south, and varying from a quarter of a mile to one and a 

 half miles in width, quite irregular in outline with numerous bays and headlands, and containing 

 islands (accidentally omitted from plate 22), its northwestern part being an arm or bay nearly 

 three miles long and an eighth to a third of a mile wide, known as the Inlet; lake Sarah, two 

 miles long from northwest to southeast and about a mile wide, at the center of Lake Sarah town- 

 ship, about two miles west of the Inlet of lake Shetek; lake Maria, extending northwest from lake 

 Sarah, two miles long and a half mile wide; the group of the Bear lakes, four in number, from 

 one mile to two and a half miles in length, lying in the north part of Lowvilleand the south edge 



