CROW WING AND ST. LOUIS RIVERS. 



599 



The annexed diagram represents the succession of the different members of the 

 deposits on this part of the Mississippi. 











•p.',°°. ;o*p "o 



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1. Soil. 2. Small boulders and pebbles. 3. Pebble-bed. 4. Light-coloured flue sand. 5. Dark yellow sand, sometimes banded with red 

 stripes. 6. Coarse red sand, often highly ferruginous. 7. Beds of red and blue clays. 8. Deposit of large boulders. 9. Alluvion. 10. Bed of 

 the river. 



At the point on which the old Trading-House of Mr. Aitkin stood, at the junc- 

 tion of the outlet of Sandy Lake with the Mississippi, the drift-hills are about sixty 

 feet high, and show numerous boulders of quartzite, felspathic granite, syenite, 

 greenstone, and hornblende slate, with some large pebbles of red sandstone. 



The width of the Mississippi River, between Crow Wing and Sandy Lake, varies 

 from ninety to one hundred and sixty yards. At the mouth of Sandy Lake River, 

 it is a little over one hundred yards wide. The distance between the two points, 

 following the meanders of the river, according to my estimate, is one hundred and 

 forty-one miles. The outlet of Sandy Lake, at its junction with the Mississippi, is 

 about forty yards wide, and is nearly a mile and a half in length, with very little 

 current. The waters of the lake are said to rise and fall with the river. 



The neighbouring soil is a sandy loam, and produces good corn, potatoes, and 

 turnips, together with the generality of garden vegetables. As you recede from 

 the lake, north and south, the soil becomes poorer, the country presenting a succes- 

 sion of drift ridges, covered with small birch and aspen. Some few ridges in the 

 vicinity of small lakes, in both directions, bear hard maple. Between this place 

 and Mille Lacs, the country is represented as being made up of these ridges, bearing 

 a dwarfish growth of timber, with intervening swamps, but no prairie. 



Sandy Lake is very irregular in outline, and is about six miles across in its long 

 diameter. It contains several small islands, upon one of which we encamped ; and 

 at this place, as before mentioned, the observations for geographical purposes were 

 made by Colonel Whittlesey. 



The caterpillar before noticed, and which appeared at Crow Wing on the 15th of 

 June, was very abundant here, where it was first seen on the 19th. The trees, 

 bushes, and shrubs, were literally covered with them. The Indians said this was 

 its first visit to this section of country, although I was told, by one of my voyageurs, 



