354 IIAI-L AND SARDKSON EOLIAN DEPOSITS OF MINNESOTA 



disclosed one of the most magnificent exposures of till and modified drift 

 to be seen in the State. Its entire thickness is shown from the diabase 

 door to the eolian sand-caj). 



This overlying eolian sand varies from 1 foot to 3 feet in thickness, 

 and is easily distinguished from the glacial drift on which it rests by its 

 lack of stratification, pink gray color, uniformity, and fineness of texture. 

 Its i)osition indicates clearly that it was not formed by the river while 

 fiowing in its present bed. The probability is that it was accumulated 

 contemporaneously with or immediately succeeding the glacial deposits 

 of the region. 



Along this same stream are other exposures. Within this same town- 

 ship and section can be seen another view of the same sand plain just 

 briefly described. It presents no new nor var3'-ing features. 



OTHER LOCALITIES IN THIS REGION 



At White Bear, 8 miles north of Saint Paul, there is seen beside the 

 tracks of the Saint Paul and Duluth railroad a prominent deposit of 

 wind-driven sand. It is from 2 to 4 feet thick at the point exposed. 

 Other places within the village and vicinity show undoubted eolian de- 

 posits, without indicating their total thickness. From observations made 

 it would appear that the village of White Bear is built on an extensive 

 deposit of dune sand and loess accumulated before the present soil was 

 formed. 



Northward from White Bear, along the line of the same railroad, and 

 particularly between the stations Harris and Rush Cit}', the fi,elds and 

 railway cuts bear the peculiar dune features. Along the line of the 

 Eastern Minnesota railroad, recently graded, from Minneapolis to Long 

 lake, 3 miles north of Cambridge, dune sands and loess sands are strongly 

 in evidence. The latter sometimes show a banding of finer loessial ma- 

 terial, which retains moisture longer, thus showing plainly on cross-sec- 

 tions, })articular]y after rains. This material indicates a tendency to 

 merge into " loess-loam," such as is occasionally found around Minne- 

 apolis and Saint Paul. These dune sands attain a thickness in some of 

 the railway cuts of from 8 to 15 feet. Indeed, the underlaying till, almost 

 without exception, is not reached in the whole long series of railway cuts 

 which this line now shows. 



^YISCONSIN EXPOSURES 



Within the Saint Croix River valle}^ on the Wisconsin side, the glacial 

 drift is generally distributed. Overlying it almost everywhere is a wind- 

 drifted covering of fine unstratified sand. Nearly all tlie material, both 

 the ice, the water, and the wind deposits, comes primarily from the de- 



