I.AKKS UNDINK. FAHIBAUF/r, AND COTTOXWOOl) llo 



entered lake Undine, which was formed by tlie transportation and re- 

 de[)osit of the sediments of lake Minnesota. Thence this shoreline must 

 have taken a winding course, with islands and baj^s, northwestwardly 

 through Watonwan and Brown counties and far into Redwood count}', 

 perhaps as far as Redwood falls, as has been indicated b}' Mr U])ham. 

 During this steady stage of this lake the margin of the glacier ran some- 

 where along a line connecting Scott county with Redwood county. 

 This lake therefore covered Nicollet county and portions of Sibley 

 county, lying on the north side of the Minnesota river. There can 

 hence be no question that these counties owe to this lake their present 

 smoothness of surface and their arable, fertile, loamy soil, which consti- 

 tute their chief agricultural attractions. Swan lake, in Nicollet count}', 

 is the most important residuum of the waters of lake Undine. 



3. Lake Faribault 



One of the earliest of the glacial lakes of Minnesota was formed by 

 the damming of the waters of Straight river, by the margin of the gla- 

 cier which ran nearly north and south diagonally across Straight valley. 

 This lake was confined to Rice and Steele counties, and covered the site 

 of the city of Faribault with about 200 feet of water, but it had a rather 

 fluctuating level, as it seems to have escaped sometimes along the east- 

 ern margin of the glacier and later across the glacier in Bridgewater, in 

 Rice county, forming the Bridgewater kame. It had for a long time a 

 steady outflow at a level of 1,160 feet above the sea, across eastern Rice 

 county, uniting with the Zumbro river, and thence reaching the Missis- 

 sippi below lake Pepin. 



4. Lake Cottonwood 



The extension of lake Minnesota toward the northwest could not have 

 been beyond the point where the contour line of its outlet (1,150 feet) 

 would limit it, nor farther toward the north than the ice-margin at the 

 time of the existence of the lake. There is an abandoned glacial channel 

 in the town of Stately, in western Brown county, running in the line 

 of extension of Big Cottonwood river, the water of which, when flowing, 

 must have had an elevation of about 1,075 feet above the sea. This 

 channel, therefore, must have emptied not into lake Minnesota, but into 

 lake Undine. In order that the Big Cottonwood, or any drainage waters 

 of that vicinity, could have occupied that abandoned channel the glacier 

 margin must have obstructed the natural flow northward, and that would 

 at once produce a small lake which covered the region lying below the 

 level of 1,075 feet, or 75 feet lower than the level of lake Minnesota. 



