628 TUE GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ. 



ot" the alluvial clay is used for brickmaking, its color being dark above and 

 yellowish beneath; the lower continuation of this deposit is unsuited for 

 this use because of limy concretions. No sand is required for tempering. 

 Sand needed for mortar is brought from Muskoda at the cost of about $3 

 per cubic yard. The bricks are cream-colored and of very good quality, 

 selling at about SlO per thousand. Oak wood, used for fuel, costs $5 

 per cord. 



The brickyards of Crookston, owned by Norris & McDonald, W. A. 

 Norcross, and G. Q. Erskine, supply 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 bricks yearly, 

 which Ipring an average price of $10 per thousand at wholesale, loaded 

 on the cars. At Mr. Erskine's yard, on the south side of the Red Lake 

 River, a thickness of 13 feet of clay is used, lying next below the superficial 

 2 or 3 feet of black soil, which is removed. The more sandy lower part 

 of the clay is mixed with the upper part, by which the whole is rightly 

 tempered. 



In Grand Forks brickmaking has been cari-ied on by J. S. Bartholo- 

 mew since 1880, his product in 1887 being 1,200,000. The upper foot 

 of soil is stripped oif and the next 7 feet of clay are used, requiring no 

 intermixture of sand. 



The description of the artesian wells of this district given in the pre- 

 ceding chapter has included nearly all that needs to be stated concerning 

 its saline well water and springs. In the early times, when the Hudson 

 Bay Company's trading posts and the Selkirk colonists comprised all the 

 white inhabitants of the region, the expense of importation of salt was 

 much greater than now, and considerable quantities of it were yearly made 

 by evaporation of the water of salt springs. One of these sjirings from 

 which much salt was made for the Hudson Bay Company is situated in 

 the channel of the South Branch of Two Rivers, about 1^ miles above its 

 junction with the North Branch and some 6 miles west of Hallock. It is 

 exposed only when the river runs low, and in such portions of the summers 

 the work of salt-making was done. 



