586 THE GEOLOGY OF MINKESOTA. 



[Springs. Water-powers. 



Westline. Garrett Murray; sec. 14: well, 30 feet; soil, 2; yellow till, 13; harder blue till, 

 14; gravel, 1 foot and below, with water rising from it five or six feet. 



Gates. S. S. Gale; sec. 10: well, 27 feet; soil. 2; gravel and sand. 4; yellow till, picked, 6; 

 blue till, also picked, but softer, moister, and less gravelly, and containing occasional pockets up 

 to six inches in diameter, of fine gray sand, 15 feet, and extending lower; at this depth of 27 feet, 

 the compact till contained many fragments of wood. Another well, fifteen rods south of the last 

 and on ground about ten feet lower, was 15 feet deep, finding soil and gravel and sand, 3 feet; 

 with very compact till, which was picked, for all below, containing, close to the bottom of the 

 well, a prostrate trunk of a tree, six inches in diameter, reaching five feet across the well, at each 

 side of which it was chopped off. Both these wells thus encounter an interglacial forest-bed. 



MATERIAL RESOURCES. 



The excellence of these counties for agriculture, and their areas of 

 woodland and prairie, the latter far exceeding the former, have been no- 

 ticed in treating of their soil and timber. Besides the fertility of the land, 

 this region possesses an invigorating, healthful climate, and almost invari- 

 ably good water in its wells and springs. The material resources which 

 remain to be mentioned are water-powers, building stone, lime, bricks, pot- 

 tery, and mineral paint. Explorations made for coal, its mode of occur- 







rence, and the improbability that it exists here in any valuable amount, 

 have been spoken of in the account of the Cretaceous strata. No ores of 

 any practical importance have been found. The principal resources of this 

 part of the state are the products of its rich soil, and the water-powers 

 afforded by many of its streams. 



Springs of water, often impregnated with iron, occur along the ravines and valleys of many 

 of the creeks and rivers in these counties, one worthy of mention being Mound creek in its course 

 through sections 28, 21 and 22, Stately. A "big spring," well known by this name, moderately 

 irony, supplying nearly all the water that is used in the dry season for running a grist-mill a 

 mile farther east, is in the N. E. J of the S. W. } of section 19, three-quarters of a mile north- 

 west from Golden Gate, in Home township. Both these localities are in Brown county. At the 

 southwest side of the Minnesota valley in the north part of section 30, Swede's Forest, near the 

 west line ot Redwood county, is a "boiling spring," also irony; from which a stream three or four 

 feet wide, and six to twelve inches deep, flows away. This is at the northwest side of a rivulet, 

 in a ravine some 50 feet below the general level. These springs issue from the drift, and show 

 that large water-courses exist in sand and gravel veins or strata, enclosed in the till. Such sub- 

 terranean streams are often struck in wells, with the water sometimes flowing constantly through 

 them at the bottom; but more frequently, when the outlet of the spring is distant, the water soon 

 rises to fill the well permanently, 10, 20, or 30 feet in depth. 



Water-powers. The water-powers used in Brown county, all employed by flouring mills, are 

 as follows: 



Leavenworth mills: F. Schieltz; in the east part of sec. 14, Leaven worth; head, about ten feet. 



Iberia mills: Schwerdtfeger & Platb; in the west part of sec. 16, Stark; head, ten feet: canal 

 about forty rods long. . 



Francke Brothers' mill; in the S. E. J of sec. 36, Home; head, eleven feet. 



Cottonwood mills: Frank & Bentzin; at the northeast corner of sec. 4, Cottonwood, one and 

 a half miles south from New Ulm; head, nine feet; two run of stone; a custom grist-mill. 



The foregoing are on the Cottonwood river. Only one other utilized water-power was learned 



