RICE COUNTY. (;(51 



Moraines.] 



There is a second morainic belt, less distinctly continuous, lying east 

 of that just described. Toward the north it begins imperceptibly, at least 

 it is now impossible to define it. It does not appear distinctly in north- 

 western Bridgewater, although in northwestern Greenvale, Dakota county 

 it is more plainly marked. There is a tract of country, in sees. 5, 6 and 8, 

 Bridgewater, that rises about fifty feet in an undulating manner, above the 

 average hight surrounding it, which perhaps should be placed in this 

 moraine. But in the southern part of Bridgewater, especially on the west 

 side of the Cannon river, there is a notable accumulation of hilly blue till 

 rising 1120 feet above the sea about the center of sec. 33. This range 

 extends toward the southwest through the west part of Cannon City and 

 the east part of Wells, where it lies between the present Cannon river and 

 an older channel lying further west. Just north of the junction of the 

 Cannon and Straight rivers this moraine passes to the east side of the Can- 

 non and covers a belt about two miles wide on the east side of that river. 

 But at the great bend of the Straight river in sec. 5, Walcott, it crosses 

 again to the west side, and thence continues S. S. W. to the southern 

 boundary of the county. This morainic belt also consists of blue till, but 

 its changes of outline are less abrupt than in the more westerly belt. It is 

 also less broad, being generally about two miles in width. Its highest 

 points are 1150 and 1200 feet above the sea, and from these elevations the 

 surface slopes rather smoothly to 1050 and 1100 feet above the sea. Where 

 this moraine comes in contact with the river, as in the valley of Fall creek, 

 the drift consists very largely of a yelloAV loam, which, containing some 

 stones and many pebbles, may be a modified condition of the till, as acted 

 on by the waters of the river at the time of its deposition. This loam or 

 yellow clay seems to be the same as that which spreads wider and covers 

 more thinly the general sheet of till both east and west of the river, and in 

 both cases it seems to graduate into the till itself. 



There is another conspicuously rolling tract, entering the county from the south on the east 

 side of Straight river, extending east from the river four miles. This continues along the east 

 side of the Straight river through Walcott township. In Cannon City township it unites with the 

 moraine already described, and further north its identity, separate from that moraine, can not be 

 traced, it consists of gravelly, gray till, bearing granitic boulders and drift limestone. In north- 

 eastern Walcott some of the knolls of this rolling belt are from 75 to 100 feet high, above the. val- 

 leys, and where it apparently blends with the moraine already described, in Cannon City, north- 

 east of Faribault, the elevations are from 100 to 150 feet above the valleys. This rolling tract, in 

 that portion of Walcott east of the river, does not produce any elevation above the adjacent prai- 



