The Madison Type of Drumlins. — Upham. 77 
G. E. Culver informs me that a well dug many years ago on 
the upper part of the steep northeast end of this drumlin 
reached the bed-rock nearly at the level of this adjoining 
lake; and that another well 50 feet deep, on the southwestern 
slope near the crest, is said to be wholly in till. 
About a sixth of a mile of lowland till, only 10 feet above 
lake Mendota, separates the western end of the Langdon hill, 
as the last may be called, from the eastern foot of the Uni- 
versity hill. Beginning close east of Park street and of the 
Science and Library Halls, this hill, more nearly round than any 
other in its series, extends about 1,600 feet from east to west 
with a width of about 1,300 feet, not including the margin of 
probably 100 feet which has been eroded by lake Mendota on 
the north. The original ratio of the width to the length of 
University hill was therefore approximately 7:8. The natu- 
ral section of its northern slope cut by the lake erosion shows 
sand to a hight of 15 or 20 feet, enveloped by a superficial 
deposit of about 8 feet of till, whose boulders are strown in 
abundance on the shore. The top of this hill is 104 feet 
above lake Mendota. 
An excellent section to a depth of about 10 feet and 500 
feet long, crossing the eastern slope of University hill about 
midway between its foot and top, was supplied in 1892 by the 
trench for laying a large steam pipe from the boiler house to 
the new Law building. At each end this trench found the 
till to reach from the surface to a depth of 5 to 8 feet, being 
underlain by sand. Thence the till gradually diminishes in 
thickness toward the central part of the section, where for a 
distance of some 200 feet or more the sand rises quite to the 
surface. This portion of the central sand mass, destitute of 
its usual covering of till, forms a slightly protuberant swell, 
one to live feet in hight above the general slope, from close 
to the base upward for two-thirds of the hight of the hill. 
Nowhere else on any of these drumlins does their nucleal mod- 
ified drift have any natural exposure at the surface, being, 
with this exception, everywhere veneered by the boulder- 
clay or till. 
From the capitol to the original main building of the Uni- 
versity, that is, from center to center of the Capitol and Uni- 
versity hills, is a distance of one mile in a due west course. 
