THE LIGHTNIXGS NEST. 309 



three parallel wave-like ridges of gravel and sand, divided bv depressions 

 an eighth t(i a quarter of a mile wide and fi to 10 feet lower. 



This belt reaches north to the Lightnings (or Thunders) Nest/ a mas- 

 sive dune of fine sand (PI. YII, p. 28), partly bare and now wind-blown, 

 but mostly covere<l witli bushes and herbage, situated near the center of 

 section 30, townshi}) 130, range 49. Its base on the south is 1,0G0 feet and 

 its top 1,120 feet, approximately, above the sea. It covers a space about 

 a quai'ter of a mile in extent from southeast to northwest, with nearly as 

 great width, and rises in two summits of nearly equal height. The Light- 

 nings Nest is the most prominent in a series of dunes, elsewhere ri.sing 

 only 10 to 30 feet, mostly grassed, which extends a mile or more to the 

 southeast and is traceable se^'eral miles northwest to the east end of a very 

 conspicuous tract of dunes 50 to 100 feet above the adjacent level, with 

 summits at 1,100 to 1,1.50 feet above the sea, ^vhich stretches aboiit 4 miles 

 in a west-northwest course in the south part of township 131, range 50, 1 

 to 2 miles south of the Wild Rice River. By winds, eroding and drifting, 

 these sand hills were heaped iq) from the Herman beach and its associated 

 belt of modified di-ift, probably soon after the retreat of the ice, though 

 their forms have been constantly changing- since that time. 



Outside the area of Lake Agassiz, the southwest part of Richland 

 County is till, mostly undulating or moderately rolling, Ijut in part promi- 

 nently hilly, with rough morainic contour and abundant bowlders. Taylor 

 Lake, approximately 1,050 feet above the sea, 2^ miles west of the Light- 

 nings Nest, is a very beautiful sheet of water, bordered by a sandy shore 

 and a large grove on the north, and by a shore of bowlders and morainic 

 hills 5(» to 150 feet above the lake on the west. These hills and most of the 

 lakes farther west in this county have no timber. Northeastward the area 

 that was covered by Lake Agassiz is mosth* smooth and nearly flat till, 

 with frequent marshy tracts called sloughs, but with only very rare and 

 small lakelets. 



Swan Lake, 3 miles long, reaches from section 3 to section 7, township 

 130, range 51, having an estimated height of 1,070 feet above the sea, with 



' A traiislntion of the alioriginal Dakot.i name. 



