54 
GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
little or no other drift accompanies them, they are supposed to repre- 
sent an earlier ice invasion than that elcich brought the drift east of 
Missouri River—an invasion so long ago that most of the clay in the 
drift has been washed away, leaving only: the coarser material. 
About half a mile east of the station at New Salem (see sheet 8, 
p- 60) the lignite mine of the Dakota Products Co. has been in opera- 
tion for anumber of years. The bed of lignite mined 
New Salem. 
Elevation 2,188 feet. 
Population 621. 
St. Paul 479 miles. 
is 5 feet thick and lies about 30 feet below the surface.? 
West of New Salem, which is situated on the surface 
of the upland plain, the railway goes down a small 
ravine in which scattered granite bowlders can be seen 
from the car window for a distance of 5 miles, or as far as milepost 
33. Beyond this point no bowlders can be seen, but careful exami- 
nation of the surrounding ae 
as far to the southwest as Almont 
West of the Altamont moraine, which 
marks the greatest extension of the glacial 
lobe that occupied the Red River valley 
in Wisconsin time, there is only a thin 
veneer of drift on the upland. and i in some 
of the valleys. This outer d 
dered by any well-marked moraine, bar 
here and there indications of such a fea- 
ture occur along its outer margin on the 
west side of Missouri River. In the vi- 
cinity of the Northern Pacific Railway 
the moraine is characterized by a low 
bowldery ridge which trends nearly south 
from Judson. Outside of this moraine 
there is a marginal fringe of rales 
which extend as far west as Almon 
The general thinness of the drift a of 
the Altamont moraine indicates that the 
material which was brought by the ice has 
almost all been washed away, except the 
large bowlders; and this means that a 
much longer time has elapsed since it was 
See stand ++ ra L ‘g rh! 4 ed 
1 
east of the Altamont moraine was laid 
echoed Some geologists have meee that 
tion very much older than the Wisconsin 
and have ue semen it provisionally to the 
Kansan (one nt 
Others have maintained that 1 the granite 
bowlders which can be seen from the 
Northern Pacific Railway are too fresh 
and unweathered to have been dropped 
here during the Kansan stage, many 
—— ago; but the unweathered 
condition of the granite is due to the 
has shown that they are present 
dryness of the climate and therefore is 
not a reliable criterion as to the age of 
the drift. 
From all the facts at hand it is evident 
that the glacier which crossed Missouri 
River was older and thinner than the one 
which occupied the Red River valley, but 
the difference in age is problematic. 
? The lignite bed is reached by a slope, 
and from the bottom of the slope the 
workings extend north about 2,100 feet. 
The lignite bed is almost horizontal. It 
ranges in thickness from 44 to 6 feet and 
either hauled by wagon to the surrounding 
country and used by the farmers or 
shipped by rail to the neighboring towns. 
North Dakota lignite represents one of 
the early stages in the transformation of 
vegetable matter into coal. The products 
of the various stages now recognized are 
(1) wood, (2) peat, (3) lignite, (4) sub- 
bituminons coal, (5) bituminous coal, (6) 
semibituminous coal, (7) semianthracite, 
and (8) anthracite. Much of the lignite is 
woody, and frequently logs and stumps 
are found in the mines. It is generally 
he min 
about 40 per cent of water. 
readily dry down to 8 or 10 per cent if 
stored in a dry place with good ventila- 
tion, but in 80 doing it shrinks and falls to 
pieces. is falling to pieces is generally 
