15 ORDERING ON THE UPPER WISCONSIN RIVER. 



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qui Traine Lakes. Just below the KeAvaykwodo Portage, the river is filled with 

 boulders, some of which are very large. 



The banks of the river to-day were of fine drift, generally from three to eight 

 feet high, and resting on a bed of red clay, the thickness of which is not known, as 

 it only rises from twelve to eighteen inches above the water-level. It is stratified, 

 exceedingly compact, and in seams about an inch thick. Some of the ridges, sections 

 of which are made by the river, are from fifty to sixty feet high, and composed 

 entirely of sand, with pebbles and a few small boulders near the top. 



October 6. About eight miles below the last high range, we came to one about 

 one hundred and fifty feet high, composed of the same kind of rocks, — syenite and 

 hornblende. The rapids at this place are half a mile long, with an island dividing 

 them at the lower end. At the foot of the island, the water falls two and a half 

 feet perpendicular. There is a portage path on the east side of the river. One 

 canoe, however, descended the rapids without much difficulty. 



There is a succession of small rapids for the next four miles, the rocks showing 

 themselves in the borders of the river, at short intervals, the whole distance. The 

 river is very shallow, very wide, and the bed covered with boulders, many of which 

 are from thirty to fifty feet in circumference. In the afternoon, we reached a point 

 where the river is from four hundred to five hundred yards wide. Up to this point- 

 it has been so shallow, below the last rapids, as to allow the canoe to pass with 

 difficulty. Here it is deep, with no perceptible current, and continues so for about 

 six miles, when it is again obstructed by boulders and a succession of rapids, which 

 continue for about eight miles, the rock showing itself in place, at several points, in 

 the middle of the river. The rocks are fine-grained granite, hornblende, and por- 

 phyritic syenite, in low ranges, all bearing northeast, and traversed by wide quart- 

 zose veins. The country, with the exception of the rocky ranges, is, in the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood of the river, mostly broken sand prairie, with a few small pines 

 scattered here and there ; and, occasionally, a few shrubby oaks, small birch, and 

 aspen, show themselves. The ridges are densely timbered with hard and soft 

 woods ; among which, when the rocks approach the surface, a great deal of fine 

 cedar is found. The river bottoms, which are sometimes from a quarter to half a 

 mile wide, are timbered with oak and elm of good size, or covered with a luxuriant 

 growth of grass. 



October 7. We left camp this morning at seven o'clock, and two miles below 

 came to a low range of trap rocks, bearing northeast and southwest, and making 

 rapids. One mile below this, we reached the largest rapids of Wisconsin River, 

 known among the traders and lumbermen as " Grandfather Bull Falls." A fine 

 section is exposed at this place. The top of the ridge is about one hundred and 

 fifty feet above the level of the water, which cuts through the rocks for the distance 

 of a mile and a half. The fall of the water in this distance I had no means of 

 ascertaining. At the upper part of the rapids, the river is divided into three chutes, 

 by two chains of rocks, which rise from ten to fifteen feet above the water, and con- 

 tinue for some distance below the commencement. The rocks on the north side of the 

 range are greenstone trap, protruding through gneiss and hornblende slate ; while 

 the lower part of the rapids is made by gneiss, interstratified with mica slate and 



