ITASCA COUNTY, 1899. U. S. GRANT. 



* 



distinct moraine has been noted in this locality, in Itasca county, but further east, 

 in St. Louis county, the Vermilion moraine seems to approach Rainy lake. It appears 

 that that moraine may have been coincident with a stage of lake Agassiz, and ceases 

 to be visible at the point where one of its beaches makes its appearance. 



Still another glacial episode of Itasca county has" to be noted. After the Lake 

 Superior glacier lobe had shrunken, there was a period when its northern margin 

 crossed the county about along the Mesabi range, forming a continuous morainic 

 belt, which is well known between Grand Rapids and Pokegama falls and westward, 

 extending across Cass county south of Leech lake. It has not been connectedly 

 traced, but it probably blends with some of the morainic deposits that turn south- 

 west and south in the central or western part of Cass county. This ice-lobe set back 

 the whole upper Mississippi river, forming a large glacial lake covering Leech, Win- 

 nibegoshish, Cass and Bemidji lakes. It was but the enlarged descendant of the small 

 lake noted at the headwaters of the Mississippi by Mr. Todd (Beltrami county) and 

 had a history like that of other glacial lakes, finding lower and lower outlets as the 

 glacier receded. Besides the outlets mentioned by Mr. Todd, viz., that westward from 

 lake Itasca, that (probable) cia the Clearwater river, and that to Red lake through 

 the valley in which lies lake Julia, there is another into Bowstring lake in Itasca 

 county, through which even yet, in time of high water, canoes can be paddled, with- 

 out stopping, from the Mississippi into the Bowstring waters and thence to Lake of 

 the Woods. But the most important and probably the longest continued of these 

 outlets was that southwestward from Leech lake, through the channel occupied by 

 the chain of lakes in Hubbard county. 



This glacial lake has not been named. It has never been mentioned before 

 except in a footnote in volume iv, p. 88, by the writer. It is now proposed to call it 

 lake Nicollet, from the great geographer of Minnesota. 



This county is yet almost wholly in its primeval condition. But few roads 

 cross it. It is covered with almost continuous forest, including much pine, but very 

 largely of deciduous trees. It is destined to constitute one of the richest portions 

 of the state. Its forests, water-powers and' its prospective mining give it high 

 promise. N. H. w. 



