216 PHYSICAL ASPECT 
for long distances, scarcely noticeable except by actual measurement. On the north 
side, the descent is much more rapid, the middle of the highlands approaching, 
generally, within twenty-five or thirty miles of Lake Superior, and in some places 
much nearer. 
These ranges are made up of successive chains of rounded hills or knobs, with an 
elevation of from thirty to two hundred feet above the intervening valleys. Many 
of the hills are dome-shaped, and possess great regularity of outline. Most of them, 
however, are either oblong or irregular and ridge-like, and have an almost constant 
strike northeast and southwest, though many spurs are given off having various 
other bearings. Their summits present, almost uniformly, an assemblage of low, 
dome-shaped elevations, with occasional exposures of trappean and granitic rocks ; 
the trap ridges presenting, generally, a more rugged and broken outline than the 
others. 
This description applies to the northern ranges between the waters of Montreal 
River and those of the Bois Brulé. The highlands south of Fond du Lac, in the 
direction of Lake Pokegoma, differ from those just described, in the almost total 
absence of any distinctly marked ridges or chains of hills, after leaving the imme- 
diate vicinity of Lake Superior. After passing the high hills south of the Great 
Bend of St. Louis River, and which approach it very nearly opposite the Trading- 
House, eighteen miles above its mouth, the country is undulating but not knobby ; 
and occasional small prairies, with numerous wet meadows, and tamerack, spruce, 
and cedar swamps, present themselves in every direction, until the head-waters of 
Kettle River are reached. This portion of the country resembles, in many respects, 
that lying along the line separating the first and second divisions, in the neighbour- 
hood of St. Croix River. It is covered with a great depth of red marl, clays, and 
drift, based upon red sandstone, which is the only rock to be seen in place 
between St. Louis River and the head-waters of Kettle River, and that rock is 
only visible at a few points. In some of the valleys, crystalline boulders are so 
numerous, that, with little trouble, a person could step from one to another for the 
distance of half a mile or more. The general elevation along this line is also much 
less than along any other line of country traversed between the Mississippi and 
Lake Superior. 
On no other line than the one just mentioned, are the higher lands destitute 
of a good growth of timber. Between the Bois Brulé and Montreal Rivers the 
ridges support a dense growth of both hard and soft woods, while the marshy 
valleys and low grounds are covered with tamerack, spruce, and hemlock. So dense 
is the forest over most of this region, that it is difficult to see from the top of one 
range to that of another, except where the summits happen to be formed by the 
protrusion of trappean or granitic rocks. Such points occur sufficiently often, how- 
ever, to give the observer a knowledge of the general outline of the intervening 
country. 
Although this section is, as just stated, covered with vegetation, yet there is 
much inequality in the soil of the hills, owing to the diversity of rocks from which 
it has been derived; and this gives rise to considerable inequality of vegetation, 
some of the ranges being covered with a much heavier and finer growth of timber 
