330 THE GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ. 



Golden Lake water, July 28, 1885, 1,122 feet above the sea; highest 

 level reached by this lake in recent years, 1,128 feet. It is a beautiful 

 sheet of water, 1^ miles long and a quarter to a third of a mile wide. Its 

 west shore is moderately undulating till, with the highest swells 20 to 30 

 feet above the lake. In a few places its grassed bluffs rise steeply from the 

 water's edge 10 to 20 feet. Farther west the rolling siirface of till, seen 

 for a distance of 3 or 4 miles, nses to 1,225 or 1,250 feet. This lake has no 

 trees on its margin, excepting two small cottonwoods, each about 25 feet 

 high, on its northwest shore; liushes grow in several places, mostly on the 

 east; but the greater part of the lake border, like all the surrounding 

 country, is prairie. 



Beach ridge through the north part of section 2, township 147, range 

 55, 1,138 to 1,132 feet. In the south half of section 35, township 148, 

 range 55, it has been mostly eroded by a lake which borders this beach on 

 the east from the north part of section 2 to the north part of section 35, 

 having a length of 1 mile and a width of an eighth to a fourth of a mile. 

 The elevation of this lake is 1,104 feet It has no trees or bushes, except- 

 ing a few willows 4 to 6 feet high, near the middle of its west side, and is 

 wholly surrounded by hard, grassy shores. Crest of the beach west of 

 the north part of this lake, 1,140 to 1,142 feet, and through the south half 

 of section 26, 1,137 to 1,142 feet, similarly bordered on the east by two 

 lakelets, which have approximately the same height as the preceding, 1,104 

 feet. The land east of these three lakes is flat, 1,113 to 1,117 feet near 

 them, with a very gentle slope descending thence eastward. 



More diffuse and ii-regular beach deposits in north-to-south swells and 

 short, massive ridges of gravel and sand, inclosing occasional hollows with 

 no outlets, some of which hold small ponds and sloughs, extend from the 

 north edge of section 26 northward tlu-ough the west half of section 23, 

 township 148, range 55, with an elevation of about 1,135 feet. The 

 depression on the west is some 5 feet lower, and on the east thei-e is a 

 descent of 10 feet from the crest to the base of the beach. Fingals Creek, 

 in the northwest corner of section 23, where it intersects the beach, has a 

 height of about 1,110 feet. Undulating and rolling till within 3 or 4 miles 

 westward rises to 1,250 feet. 



