THE VALLEY OF THE MINNESOTA RIVER. 
Location of the valley. The basin occupied by the Minnesota 
river and its various tributary streams is a tract of country 
approximately 16,600 square miles in extent, and lying between 
~ the 98d and 97th meridians west of Greenwich, and between 
43° 20' and 46° 20' of north latitude. It comprises portions of 
the states of Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota, but of its 
total area 15,706 square miles is within the borders of Minne- 
sota. It includes in Iowa portions of Winnebago and Kossuth 
counties, and in South Dakota portions of Roberts, Grant, 
Deuel and Codington counties. In Minnesota it includes the 
whole of the counties of Swift, Lac Qui Parle, Chippewa, Yel- 
low Medicine, Redwood, Brown, Watonwan, Nicollet and Blue 
Earth, together with larger or smaller areas in Big Stone, 
Stevens, Grant, Pope, Douglas, Otter-Tail, Kandiyohi, Ren- 
ville, Sibley, Carver, Hennepin, Dakota, Rice, Le Sueur, Wa- 
seca, Steele, Freeborn, Faribault, Martin, Jackson, Cotton- 
wood, Murray, Pipestone, Lyon and Lincoln counties. The 
general outline of the basin is that of a somewhat elongated 
and bent ellipse, the convexity facing southward, and its 
greatest diameter is in a direction northwest by southeast. 
At Brown's Valley, between lake Traverse and Big Stone lake, 
is the divide between Hudson Bay and Gulf of Mexico drain- 
age. Lake Traverse is one of the head lakes of the Red river 
of the North, the waters of which, by way of lake Winnipeg 
and the Nelson river, empty into Hudson Bay. In Itasca 
county, one hundred and fifteen miles northeast from the 
north west extension of the Minnesota valley, lies Bow-String 
lake, of which the waters drain into the Rainy river. 
Between Bow-String lake and the head waters of the 
Pomme de Terre and Chippewa rivers, tributaries of the Min- 
nesota, lie the head waters of the Mississippi. On the south- 
west of the Minnesota valley, just over the divide in Lincoln 
county, the streams are tributary to the Missouri river. As an 
