120 The American Geologist. August, i897 
what we now know of Hie ice-motion in the lal<ebasins at the 
various stages, it is hard to see how there ever could have 
been motion toward the east at that place. 
There is juiother area of red clay probably of the same kind 
and of the same or slightly earlier age in Minnesota west of 
the western extremity of lake Superior. It was probably laid 
down in the first glacial lake of the vSuperior basin, before the 
opening- of the St, Croix outlet and hence before the time of 
lake Dulutli. All these very red clays are evidently derived 
from the red rocks of the Nipigon series.* 
Nipiyon. In going by train from Port Arthur to Nipigon 
one sees a number of interesting evidences of the higher lake 
waters of the past. Sandy places and fragments of beaches 
are seen in several places. Prof. Lawson reports here a pit- 
ted te/race-plain at Mackenzie backed by sea-cliffs, altitude 
497 feet, with another higher terrace. At Loon lake, 424 feet 
above lake Superior, sandy gravel overlies the stony clay in 
patches. At Pearl River, 246 feet above the lake, the surface 
is a mass of boulders and cobbles. East of the station there 
is a finely foi-med beach ridge of rather coarse gravel with 
well rounded pebbles. It runs for some distance nearly par- 
;illel with the track and appeared to spring from a rocky knob 
east of the station. It is cut on a long diagonal by the ti-ack 
just west of the rocks. Pebbles of bright red color and beau- 
tifully rounded are a large constituent. At a point about 
two miles east of Pearl River and 60 feet lower a narrow val- 
ley between bare hills is floored with greenish yellow silt and 
clay in finely laminated beds. In some places the fine sedi- 
ments take on a reddish tinge. Farther east a broad plain of 
these sediments in beds with line horizontal laminations, was 
crossed for several miles descending gradually from about 
275 to 100 feet above the lake, and extending to Nipigon. 
No ground favorable for the higher beaches appeared tO' 
exist near Nipigon station. Lawson reports the apparent crest 
*In a letter to, the author relating to the red clays, Dr. G. M. Daw- 
son, director of the Canadian geological survey, very kindly gave the 
following references: "On the Fresh Water Glacial Drift of the North- 
western States.'' 1864, by C Whittlesey, Smithsonian Cont., vol. xv, 
"Geology and Resources of the 49th Parallel," 1875, p. 213. Red clays 
of Minnesota are mentioned in some of the reports of that state. Those 
described here are also mentioned briefly by Dr. Bell in one of his early 
reports in the Canadian geological survey. 
