THE VALLEY OF THE MINNESOTA RIVER. 



Location of the valley. The basin occupied by the Minnesota 

 river and its various tributary streams is a tract of country 

 approximately 16,600 square miles in extent, and lying between 

 the 93d and 97th meridians west of Greenwich, and between 

 43 20' and 46 20' of north latitude. It comprises portions of 

 the states of Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota, but of its 

 total area 15,706 square miles is within the borders of Minne- 

 sota. It includes in Iowa portions of Winnebago and Kossuth 

 counties, and in South Dakota portions of Roberts, Grant, 

 Deuel and Codington counties. In Minnesota it includes the 

 whole of the counties of Swift, Lac Qui Parle, Chippewa, Yel- 

 low Medicine, Redwood, Brown, Watonwan, Nicollet and Blue 

 Earth, together with larger or smaller areas in Big Stone, 

 Stevens, Grant, Pope, Douglas, Otter-Tail, Kandiyohi, Ren- 

 ville, Sibley, Carver, Hennepin, Dakota, Rice, Le Sueur, Wa- 

 seca, Steele, Freeborn, Faribault, Martin, Jackson, Cotton- 

 wood, Murray, Pipestone, Lyon and Lincoln counties. The 

 general outline of the basin is that of a somewhat elongated 

 and bent ellipse, the convexity facing southward, and its 

 greatest diameter is in a direction northwest by southeast. 



At Brown's Valley, between lake Traverse and Big Stone lake, 

 is the divide between Hudson Bay and Gulf of Mexico drain- 

 age. Lake Traverse is one of the head lakes of the Red river 

 of the North, the waters of which, by way of lake Winnipeg 

 and the Nelson river, empty into Hudson Bay. In Itasca 

 county, one hundred and fifteen miles northeast from the 

 north west extension of the Minnesota valley, lies Bow-String 

 lake, of which the waters drain into the Rainy river. 

 Between Bow-String lake and the head waters of the 

 Pomme de Terre and Chippewa rivers, tributaries of the Min- 

 nesota, lie the head waters of the Mississippi. On the south- 

 west of the Minnesota valley, just over the divide in Lincoln 

 county, the streams are tributary to the Missouri river. As an 



