CROW WING AND ST. LOUIS RIVERS 209 
The annexed diagram represents the succession of the different members of the 
deposits on this part of the Mississippi. 
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1. Soil. 2, Small boulders and pebbles. 3. Pebble-bed. 4. Light-coloured fine sand. 5. Dark yellow sand, sometimes banded with red 
stripes. 6. Coarse red sand, often highly ferruginous. 7. Beds of red and blue clays. 8. Deposit of large boulders. 9. Alluvion. 10. Bed of 
the river. 
At the point on which the old Trading-House of Mr. Aitkin stood, at the junce- 
tion of the outlet of Sandy Lake with the Mississippi, the drift-hills are about sixty 
feet high, and show numerous boulders of quartzite, felspathic granite, syenite, 
greenstone, and hornblende slate, with some large pebbles of red sandstone. 
The width of the Mississippi River, between Crow Wing and Sandy Lake, varies 
from ninety to one hundred and sixty yards. At the mouth of Sandy Lake River, 
it is a little over one hundred yards wide. The distance between the two points, 
following the meanders of the river, according to my estimate, is one hundred and 
forty-one miles. The outlet of Sandy Lake, at its junction with the Mississippi, is 
about forty yards wide, and is nearly a mile and a half in length, with very little 
current. The waters of the lake are said to rise and fall with the river. 
The neighbouring soil is a sandy loam, and produces good corn, potatoes, and 
turnips, together with the generality of garden vegetables. As you recede from 
the lake, north and south, the soil becomes poorer, the country presenting a succes- 
sion of drift ridges, covered with small birch and aspen. Some few ridges in the 
vicinity of small lakes, in both directions, bear hard maple. Between this place 
and Mille Lacs, the country is represented as being made up of these ridges, bearing 
a dwarfish growth of timber, with intervening swamps, but no prairie. 
Sandy Lake is very irregular in outline, and is about six miles across in its long 
diameter. It contains several small islands, upon one of which we encamped; and 
at this place, as before mentioned, the observations for geographical purposes were 
made by Colonel Whittlesey. 
The caterpillar before noticed, and which appeared at Crow Wing on the 15th of 
June, was very abundant here, where it was first seen on the 19th. The trees, 
bushes, and shrubs, were literally covered with them. The Indians said this was 
its first visit to this section of country, although I was told, by one of my voyageurs, 
