"THE RIDGE" AND "THE MOUNTAINS." 349 



mounds, (] to 8 feet in height, on its top. The material of this beach ridge 

 is fine gravel and sand. Its crest on the line between sections 8 and 5 has 

 an elevation of 1,161 feet; an eighth of a mile north, at the verge of the 

 south bluflf of Forest River, 1,155 feet ; for the first half mile from the bluff' 

 north of this river, 1,152 to 1,157 feet; and at the mounds in section 32, 

 1,156 to 1,159 feet. 



Another beach ridge, 20 rods wide, Avitli descent of 10 feet on each 

 side in as many rods, formed during the same stage of Lake Agassiz, lies 

 a half to three-fourths of a mile west from the foregoing, in the northeast 

 quarter of section 6, Inkster. This is the highest land between the main 

 Forest River and its South Branch. It consists of sand and fine gravel, of 

 which a considerable proportion (about a sixth) is Cretaceous shale. The 

 maximum elevation of this ridge, 1,157 to 1,164 feet, is maintained for 

 50 or 60 rods, from which it sinks to 1,150 feet at each end. 



From the north side of section 32, Eden, an island of rolling and hilly 

 morainic till above the highest level of Lake Agassiz, far larger than 

 any of these already described, extends, with the exception of two short 

 gaps, 20 miles northward, varying in width from a half mile to a little 

 more than 1 mile in its southern quarter and fi-om 1.J to 2i miles through 

 the remainder of its extent. This hilly tract, commonly denominated "the 

 mountains," forms the east border of the Golden Valley. In the north 

 part of section 36, Vernon, it has a depression to about 1,180 feet, which 

 probably was a strait of the glacial lake in its highest stage, an eighth of 

 a mile wide and a few feet deep. Again, in the center of Golden Town- 

 ship, it is intersected by the South Branch of Park River, which has a 

 valley a quarter to a half of a mile wide and about 75 feet deep. The 

 stream in its course of 1^ miles through this belt descends about 50 feet, 

 from 1,165 to 1,115 feet, approximately. It seems almost certain that a 

 depression slightly lower than the Golden Valley on the west originally 

 extended across this rolling and hilly area where it is cut by this stream ; 

 but the erosion of its valley has undei-mined and removed portions of 

 adjoining hills and ridges, so that its inclosing bluff's now rise 50 to 100 

 feet, their highest points being about 1,225 feet above the sea, or 25 to 

 30 feet above the east edge of the Golden Valley. All these bluffs and 



