170 
BULLETIN OF WISCONSIN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
VOL. 2 NO. 
Preliminary Notice of the Forests Beds of the Lower Fox. 
PUBLIUS V. LAWSON. 
The forest beds of the Lower Fox River have been httle ex- 
ploited. They are found in parts of four counties, underlying an 
area of 500 square miles between the modified glacial till and 
Champlain clays. 
The pre-glacial valley occupied about the same limits as the 
present one, extending from the Niagara limestone bluffs on the 
eastern border, to the Trenton outcrop on the western, and being 
about fifteen miles wide. But the pre-glacial river bed lay to the 
east of its present location and over against the foot of the Niagara 
limestone range. The glacial till filled the valley, as well as the 
present site of Lake Winnebago, to a depth of about 75 feet. 
After the glaciers had receded, the waters of the river filled 
the whole valley. For many years these waters cleared away the 
clay from its bed and scouring the limestone rocks deposited its 
cements here and there in a hardpan, almost impossible to disturb 
with a pick. This has been stated to be the Beach Formation "A" 
of the Wisconsin Geological Survey, but it seems to have been a 
river bed product, rather than a lake beach formation. Above this 
river bed grew this ancient forest, which now lies buried under 
from ten to one hundred feet of the lacustrine modified red clay of 
the Champlain Sea. 
Above the polished gravel and hard pan of the river bed grew 
the forest, forming a bed which is even now, after ages of pressure 
under millions of tons of later deposits, one and tw^o and in places 
even three feet in depth. This bed is composed of moss, leaves, 
grasses, seeds, limbs and branches of trees and saplings and the 
trunks of trees of all sizes up to 24 inches in diameter. The moss 
and leaves are pressed into a compact mass, of a dark brown color, 
bearing patches of light-green or w^hite mould. At John Roy's 
farm in the Town of Harrison, Calumet County, there are said to 
have been taken out pine cones and pine logs. Along the border 
of Lake Little Butte des Morts we have taken out what seemed 
to be fragments of cedar, black ash and black oak trees, and 
stumps of trees of black ash and tamarack. At Forest Junction in 
Calumet County w^ere taken at 26 feet in depth cuts of linden 
trees. The growth of this lost forest is characteristic in some 
places of lowland and in others of highland localities. 
