MURRAY AND NOBLES COUNTIES. 53} 



Material resources.] 



Grand Prairie. Benjamin Midbos; sec 14: well, 18 feet deep; soil, 2; gravel and sand, 16; 

 water abundant and good. This is on the northeast part of a plain which occupies the southern 

 two-thirds of Grand Prairie, having a subsoil of gravel and sand, in which wells go from 12 to 20 

 feet in depth . 



MATERIAL RESOURCES. 



The agricultural capabilities of Murray and Nobles counties have been 

 noticed sufficiently on page 523. 



No water-power is used in Nobles county; and the only one used in 

 Murray county is on the Des Moines river at Currie, where the Lake She- 

 tek mill, employed in the manufacture of flour, and owned by Currie & 

 Growl, has a head of eight feet. The dam here holds the stream above it 

 level to lake Shetek; and a second dam, situated nearly a mile above this, 

 close below the junction of Bear creek and the outlet of lake Shetek, raises 

 the surface of this lake and creek four feet above the Currie dam, for 

 which it thus forms a reservoir. 



The only stone for masonry obtainable from these counties is supplied 

 by the boulders of granite, gneiss, limestone, and other kinds, which are 

 contained in the drift. In some localities, as along the bluffs bordering 

 the east branch of Kanaranzi creek four miles northwesterly from Rush- 

 more, in the moraine-Jike hillocks within a mile west of Adrian, and among 

 the rough drift hills of Leeds and Chanarambie townships in western Mur- 

 ray county, these boulders are abundant up to five feet, and less frequent 

 to ten feet in diameter. 



Lime has been burned for the local demand, from drift boulders, in 

 Bigelow and Dewald, Nobles county. The largest limestone block found 

 in this region was on section 25, Dewald, measuring about 20 by 20 by 12 

 feet in dimensions. It was used for underpinning three houses, besides 

 walling two cellars and three wells. Most of the boulders, whether of 

 limestone, or of the granite and schists, are less than five feet in diameter, 

 and larger ones are rare. Only a twentieth, or less, of the large boulders, 

 but nearly half of the small stones and gravel in the drift, are limestone. 



In Murray county, lime is burned by John Swenson, in section 34, Lake 

 Sarah, usually only one kiln yearly. 



Brick-making is not undertaken in these counties, because of the high cost of fuel. 



Peat. Only scanty deposits of peat are found in this part of the state, and it is very rarely 

 used. Prof. Winchell's report upon the peat of southern Minnesota, from explorations in 1873, 

 mentions four localities in Nobles county, as follows :* 



*Sccond annual report. 



