26 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
and as far as the eye can see there are no hills to break the monot- 
ony of flat and swamp. The railway follows, in general, the valley 
of Leaf River, which lies north of the track. Like 
Aldrich, re ; 
most of the other valleys of this region, this one 
Elevation 1,351 feet. a P 
Population 586. has not been carved by the stream that occupies 
St. Paul 148 miles. it but is merely a chain of low places along which the 
water finds an outlet. Such valleys have no definite shape or plan; 
and consequently at one place the railway may be in a fine rolling 
country that is well farmed and prosperous, as it 
Verndale, ; : , 
is at Verndale, and at another place it may be in 
Elevation 1,369 feet. . 
Population 538 the most dismal expanse of swamps and shallow 
St. Paul 152 miles. lakes. 
In a general way the country becomes more rolling toward the 
west, and about the town of Wadena (see sheet 3, p. 32) there are 
fine farms on both sides of the railway. When the 
crops wave green in the breeze or take on the golden 
tints of harvest time this country affords the traveler 
a pleasing contrast with the swamps and scrub oaks 
of the region to the east. Just east of the station at 
Wadena the Northern Pacific is crossed by a line of the Great North- 
ern which runs from Sauk Center to Cass Lake, and about 2 miles 
west of Wadena a branch line of the Northern Pacific turns to the 
left and runs to Fergus Falls and Breckenridge. 
Near milepost 169! the railway approaches Téaf River on the right, 
and near the valley there is more decided evidence of morainic 
topography than there is between this point and 
alee. Staples. The hills are not high, but they have the 
a oan peculiar conical or sugar-loaf shape that characterizes 
opulati 
St Paul 16 miles,  morainic hills, and they are separated in many places 
by marked kettles or depressions. The hills in this 
region are formed of material that the ice brought i in from the Red 
River valley. A brief history of the several invasions of Minnesota 
by the ice and a description of the drift deposited by them is given 
below by Frank Leverett. 
Wadena. 
vation 1,372 feet. 
Population 1,820 
St. Paul 159 miles. 
? Mileposts on the Northern Pacific are 
numbered from division points and not 
from the ends of the system. 
? Before the glacial epoch, or Great Ice 
Age, Minnesota presented a very different 
appearance from that which it presents 
‘o-da 
that it has an uneven surface and 
is composed chiefly of old crystalline 
rocks in which there are differences of 
altitude of at least 500 feet. In the 
northeastern part of the State the iron 
ranges and their associated rock forma- 
tions stood out much more prominently 
than they do to-day. This old surface 
is now so deeply buried under glacial 
material in the greater part of the State 
se it is not possible, with our present 
wledge, to outline the position and 
courses of even the principal streams of 
that time the eastern southern 
