116 N. H. WINCHELL GLACIAL LAKES OF MINNESOTA 



A few miles farther toward the southwest, in Germantown, Cottonwood 

 county, there are two other abandoned watercourses which are at con- 

 siderably higher altitude, but run in a direction parallel with that in 

 Stately, and these indicate similar relations between the ice-border and 

 the topography, such that the small marginal lakes which thej' drained 

 probably found their outlets into lake Minnesota. At this time the 

 margin of the ice lay against the northern slope of the quartzite ridge 

 or crossed the ridge, which is here locally known as the eastern spur of 

 the Coteau des Prairies. It is evident that these old channels were the 

 ways of exit of the surface waters which drained the higher region to 

 the south and west — the earliest locations of the Cottonwood river which 

 now reaches the Minnesota river toward the northeast. Below this point 

 the valley of the Cottonwood is much like that of the Maumee river in 

 Ohio below Defiance. The extent of lake Cottonwood to the northward 

 was limited b}^ the ice-border, and toward the south by the Coteau des 

 Prairies, its westward extent being determined b}'' the contour line of 

 l/)75 feet. It hence must have extended sometimes nearly across Red- 

 wood county. 



5. Lake Canby 



About cotemporary with lake Cottonwood, or perhaps somewhat later, 

 the western ice-border })roduced a similar lake along the northern slope 

 of the Coteau at a point about 70 miles farther northwest, in the western 

 confines of Yellow Medicine county, covering the town of Canby. The 

 area of this lake slopes naturall}^ toward the north, and had it not been 

 obstructed it would have been tributar}'', as now, to the Lac qui Parle 

 river. The outlet of this lake was b}^ a marked channel, now for the 

 most part not occupied by any stream, which runs southeastwardly 

 parallel with the Coteau des Prairies for a distance of about 15 miles. 

 The bluffs of this channel are 30 to 40 feet high and consist of till. By 

 this channel the water of lake Canby was conducted across a low divide 

 and made to empty itself into the Yellow Medicine river, constituting 

 at that time the chief affluent of that river. Lake Canby had an altitude 

 of about 1,200 feet. 



6. Lake Antelope 



In the same manner that lake Undine was descended from lake Min- 

 nesota was lake Antelope a derivation from lake Canby. The ice-margin 

 receded and afforded a lower outlet. This lower outlet, which was in 

 Yellow Medicine county, town of Omro, also flowed eastward, entering 

 the stream known as Stony run, finally joining the Minnesota river. At 

 the point of exit from lake Antelope the water was at an altitude of about 



