K, E M AUKS IN C 0 N 0 L V fc> I 0 N. 



twenty-five feet above the water. The bottom lands all overflow to the depth of 

 several feet during freshets. 



Eight or nine miles before reaching Snake River Portage, slight rapids begin to 

 occur, made by lines of boulders and pebbles crossing the river, similar in all 

 respects to the rapids observed on the Mississippi between Crow Wing and Sandy 

 Lake River. The clay-beds are also exposed at these rapids, associated with 

 coarse, ferruginous sands. Four or five miles nearer the portage, there is five feet 

 of clay, overlaid by fifteen feet of sand. In the upper part of the clay-bed, are a 

 great many small boulders of crystalline rocks, and also a large proportion of frag- 

 ments of ironstone and limestone. The limestone is similar to that found on St. 

 Louis, Embarras, Big Fork, Ondodawanonan, and the Northern Mississippi Rivers. 

 The clay-beds undulate, as they do on the Mississippi. They are stratified, and 

 dip, at many points, at an angle of four or five degrees. The sands which overlie 

 them follow the bendings of the clay-beds, and are almost always best developed 

 Avhere the clays are best displayed. The great boulder deposit is in the upper part 

 of the sands ; and below the sand-beds, in the upper part of the clay, is the deposit 

 of small boulders before alluded to. The deposit of fragments of ironstone is in 

 the lower part of the sands. The middle bed of sand is white, while the upper 

 and lower beds are yellow, the lower one being often highly ferruginous, with 

 numerous large thick crusts, cemented by oxide of iron. 



The country continues the same, except that the hills and ridges are higher, and 

 have a few second-rate pines scattered over them. The river is very crooked, and 

 in addition to the usual trees in the bottoms, I noticed hackberry, butternut, box- 

 elder, and haw. 



Below Snake River Portage, high rolling prairies begin, with clumps of dwarf 

 oak scattered over them. The soil is thin, and rests on sands from thirty to forty 

 feet thick. The river is from twenty to forty yards wide, and the bottoms become 

 narrow, with few or no trees on them. Boulder-rapids now become more nume- 

 rous, until the mouth of the river is reached. Along the lower part of the stream 

 the country rises in terraces ; the lower terrace consisting of the clay-beds, with 

 six or eight feet of bedded sands over them ; and the upper terraces of heavy sand 

 deposits, with large boulders in the top part. On the lower terraces red cedar was 

 seen at many points. 



We got to the mouth of the river on the 17th of October, and on the 18th 

 reached St. Peter. 



