BIG STONE AND LAC QUI PARLE COUNTIES. 623 



River Warren-J 



was pouring its floods along this hollow. Then the entire extent of the 

 valley was doubtless filled every summer by a river which covered all the 

 present areas of flood-plain, in many places occupying as great width as 

 these lakes. It seems fitting that this river, which flowed in the ice age 

 where lakes Traverse and Big Stone and the Minnesota river now are, 

 should be called the River Warren, in honor and in memoriam of general 

 G. K. Warren, the author of the first adequate description of this valley.* 



The bights of the bluffs, composed chiefly of till, but sometimes having rock at their base, 

 which form the sides of this valley in the portion adjoining these counties, are as follows, stated 

 in feet above the lakes and river: along lake Traverse, 100 to 125; at Brown's Valley and along 

 Big Stone lake, mainly about 125. the highest portions reaching 150; at Ortonville, 130; and at 

 Marsh lake, along Lac qui Parle, and at Montevideo, about 100. The outflow from lake .Agassiz 

 was divided at two places, seven and ten miles below Big Stone lake, where isolated remnants of 

 the general sheet of till occur south of Odessa station and again three miles southeast. Each of 

 these former islands of the river Warren is about a mile long, and rises seventy-five feet above 

 the surrounding low land, or nearly as high as the bluffs enclosing the valley, which here meas- 

 ures four miles across, having a greater width than at any other point. 



Gen. Warren observed that lake Traverse is probably due to a partial silting up of the 

 channel since the outflow from the Red river basin ceased, the Minnesota river at the south hav- 

 ing brought in sufficient alluvium to form a dam; while Big Stone lake is similarly referred to 

 the sediment brought into the valley just below it by the Whetstone river. The deep, winding 

 channel of Whetstone river near its mouth is quite remarkable; and its level alluvium, about five 

 feet above the lake, fills the valley, a mile wide, between Big Stone City and Ortonville. 



Fifteen miles below Big Stone lake, tbe Minnesota river flows through Marsh lake, which is 

 four miles long and about a mile wide, shallow and full of reeds and grass. This lake may be 

 due to the accumulation of alluvium brought into the valley by the Pomme de Terre river, which 

 has its mouth about two miles below. Twenty-five miles from Big Stone lake, the river enters 

 Lac qui Parle, which extends some ten miles, with a width varying from a quarter of a mile to 

 one mile, and a maximum depth of twelve feet. This lake, as Gen. Warren suggested, has been 

 formed by a barrier of stratified sand and silt which the Lac qui Parle river has thrown across 

 the valley. 



As soon as the retreat of the ice-sheet allowed lake Agassiz to be drained northward into 

 Hudson bay, this deeply excavated water-course, which had been formed by its outflow to the 

 south, began to be partially filled by the deposits brought into it by small tributary streams at 

 their stages of high water. The valley was thus changed from its original continuously descend- 

 ing slope, and portions of its extent which have been dammed by these deposits of tributaries are 

 occupied by long and narrow, picturesque lakes, bounded by partly wooded bluffs, 100 to 150 feet 

 high. 



The beautiful scenery of Big Stone lake has already made Ortonville and Big Stone City 

 popular resorts of summer tourists. Small steamers carry excursion parties to the head of the 

 lake, a distance of nearly thirty miles, or for picnics to wooded portions of the lake-shore, or to 

 a group of wooded islands, three to five miles from the foot of the lake. These, which are the 

 only islands of Big Stone lake, belong to Dakota. They are low, rising only ten to fifteen feef . 

 The largest, called Chamberlain island, from the name of its owner, is about a mile long and con- 

 tains approximately one hundred and twenty-five acres. Another, lying a little farther north- 

 west, has an area of about seventy acres, and is known as Paradise or Wheaton island. With 

 these are several more of small size, each containing a few acres. The highest water of this lake, 

 due to the rain-fall or snow-melting, rises five feet above its lowest stage. Another cause of 

 fluctuation is wind, which, blowing strongly a half day or more from the south, lowers the lake 



"This name was proposed in a paper entitled "The Minnesota valley in the ice age," at the Minneapolis meeting 

 of the American association for the advancement of science, August, 1^83; see also the American Journal of ScieticeiS} 

 xxvii, 1884. 



