BIG STONE AND LAC QUI FABLE COUNTIES. 617 



Elevations. Soil and timber.] 



above the sea. Next on the east, the hight of the third terminal moraine 

 is mostly about 1,250 feet, and of its highest points, the Antelope hills, ap- 

 proximately 1,300 feet. 



Estimates of the mean hights of the townships of Lac qui Parle coun- 

 ty are as follows: Camp Release, 1,025 feet above the sea; Lac qui Parle, 

 1,020 ; Baxter, 1,050 ; Ten Mile Lake, 1,100 ; Hantho, 1,030 ; Cerro Gordo, 



# 



1,060; Riverside, 1,080; Maxwell, 1,120; Lake Shore, 1,050; Madison, 1,100; 

 Hamlin, 1,125; Providence, 1,160; Yellow Bank, 1,080; Perry, 1,100; Arena, 

 1,150; Garfield, 1,175; Freeland, 1,240; T. 119, R. 46, 1,160; Augusta, 1,225; 

 Mehurin, 1,250; and Manfred, 1,300. These figures give 1,120 feet as the 

 estimated mean elevation of this county. 



Soil and timber. The soil generally throughout these counties is the glacial drift or till, made 

 up principally of clay, but containing a noticeable intermixture of sand and gravel and frequent 

 small stones, with here and there boulders, seldom exceeding two or three feet in diameter. These 

 rock-fragments are very rarely so abundant as to be a hindrance to cultivation. At the surface 

 the till has been enriched by the decaying vegetation of centuries, and forms a very fertile, black 

 soil, commonly from one to two feet deep, but often having a depth of three or four feet in de- 

 pressions. Much of the rain-fall is absorbed by this soil, and the surplus of heavy rains and snow- 

 melting is soon drained off by the gentle slopes and finds its way into creeks and rivers or into the 

 permanent sloughs and lakes. Wheat, oats, corn and potatoes are the staple products, the first 

 being the chief crop for export, with an average yield of fifteen to twenty bushels per acre. Dai- 

 rying and stock-raising, and the ordinary vegetables and small fruits of the garden, are also im- 

 portant resources in the agriculture of this region. 



Prairie, naturally bearing a luxuriant growth of nutritious grasses and many beautiful 

 flowers, as the prairie-clovers, blazing-stars, golden-rods and asters, but having no trees nor shrubs, 

 extends over almost the whole of Big Stone and Lac qui Parle counties. Timber occurs only 

 along the rivers and on the borders of lakes. All the townships of Big Stone county, with its 

 many lakes, have patches of woods; but they are less frequent, owing to the fewness of the lakes, 

 in Lac qui Parle county, timber being there confined to the stream-courses. The bluffs of this 

 part of the Minnesota valley are mostly treeless, or have only scattered small trees and thin 

 groves; and the thick woodland is restricted to a narrow belt beside the river, and to tributary 

 valleys and ravines. About Big Stone lake, timber generally fringes the shore; occurs of larger 

 growth in the ravines of its bluffs; and covers its islands, situated within five miles above its 

 mouth. The species of trees observed by Prof. Winchell near the foot of this lake on its north- 

 east side, are the following in their order of abundance: white ash, bur-oak, bass, white elm, box- 

 elder, cottonwood, hackberry, ironwood, soft maple, wild plum, slippery elm, and willow. The 

 shrubs recorded in the same locality are grape, prickly and smooth gooseberries, wolfberry, black 

 currant, prickly ash, red and black raspberries, elder, sweet viburnum, red-osier dogwood, climb- 

 ing bitter-sweet, choke-cherry, red and white rose, Virginia creeper, waahoo, and smooth sumach. 



GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. 



Granite and gneiss. The only outcrops of the bed-rocks in Big Stone 

 and Lac qui Parle counties consist of granite and gneiss, and are found in 

 the Minnesota valley, where the thick mantle of drift was cut through by 

 the outflow from lake Agassiz. No rocks older than drift, excepting a bed 



