TO the steadily-increasing number of visitors who are 

 learning how delightful are summer homes amid the 

 forests and lakes of Minnesota, or what ministries these 

 afford to the excursionist with canoe and rod or camera, there 

 conies a frequent questioning as to the origin of all these 

 scenic attractions. 



As best they might, the geologist, geographer and hydro- 

 grapher have endeavored to picture the vast processes out of 

 which the Minnesota landscapes of today were evolved. They 

 tell us of the earthquake and the volcano; of the titanic plow- 

 ing by the glaciers; of the harrowing and rolling by the 

 floods; and of the tilting of broad plains, which once had the 

 smooth level of lake or seashore, until their slopes today 

 descend a thousand feet or more now to the north, like the 

 Red River Valley, now to the south, like the margin of pre- 

 historic Lake Agassiz, from the Lake of the Woods to the 

 Minnesota river, whence another reversal carries the gen- 

 eral downward slope northward and eastward to Lake Supe- 

 rior. All these forces, they tell us, now acting in uniscn, now 

 contending with one another, have combined to give to Min- 

 nesota's landscapes such a mingling of land and water sur- 

 faces, at all sorts of altitudes between the extremes of 600 

 and 2,230 feet above the level of the sea, as awakes the won- 

 der while it kindles the delight of the nature-lover. 



Once a mountainous country, the subsidence of the heights 

 has been such that the maps no longer show any mountains 

 in Minnesota. But many regions in other states, whereon the 

 map-makers have sprinkled mountain ranges in generous pro- 

 fusion, presents to the summer visitor an appearance dif- 

 fering little from that of Minnesota's wooded highlands. The 

 obvious reason is that in the so-called ''mountain" states, the 

 long, easy slopes he has ascended, from plains and footland, 

 detract so much from the measured height above sea-level, 

 that the effect of superior elevation is lost to the eye. 



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