CHAPTER Y. 
Details of Excavations and Embankments.—Supplies of Wood, Water, Stone, and other 
materials. 
To go over the (railroad) line, as shown on the map, more carefully, and in sufficient detail to 
give its general features. 
The Mississippi at St. Paul flows some one hundred and fifty feet below the high prairies 
in the rear of the town. The connexion between the Mississippi and the higher ground is made 
with a forty-foot grade. With but little variation of surface or soil the line follows the general 
direction of the river, passing over prairies or oak uplands, to Sauk rapids, and thence to Little 
Falls, one hundred and twelve miles. In this interval the soil generally consists of a vegetable 
mould of from one to four feet depth, resting on a gravelly or sandy substratum, affording the best 
material for a firm and dry road embankment. On the right, and farther interior, is the heavily 
wooded and timber country of Minnesota, the tamarac swamps occasionally approaching the 
line. No rock cutting was observed, though rock was found in place near St. Anthony’s Falls, 
and in the vicinity of Sauk rapids. 
The grades along the east bank of the Mississippi are light, seldom exceeding ten feet per 
mile. The bridge crossings are, Rice creek, sixty feet; Coon creek, sixty feet; Rum river, one 
hundred and fifty feet; Elk river, one hundred and twenty feet. 
The culvert masonry is small, and the earth-work will not exceed an average embankment 
of six feet. For structures, both of wood and stone, the material is good and near at hand. Of 
lumber, the yellow and white pines, larch and cedar, are abundantly manufactured on the St. 
Croix and the different tributaries of the Mississippi, and with these woods the white, black, and 
bur oaks, ash and sugar maple. All of these different species of lumber are manufactured near 
the line of the road. Granite was found in place near Sauk rapids. An inferior limestone 
is obtained in the vicinity of St. Anthony and St. Paul, but it is probable that for the present, 
lime must be obtained from a point lower down on the Mississippi. 
The crossing at Little Falls requires but three hundred and twenty-five feet of bridge, in two 
stretches, the river being divided by an island. The river is crossed at right-angles. The 
abutment rests on rock. Crossing at the falls, the bridge presents no obstruction to navi¬ 
gation. 
The crossing at Little Falls affords a good connexion with a line from Lake Superior, and 
enters, on the west shore, a better wooded country than will be obtained by going farther south, 
and over which it will probably be practicable to build a firmer and drier road-bed. 
The crossings at St. Anthony Falls and the Sauk rapids are eight hundred feet and six hun¬ 
dred feet respectively, both feasible and giving fair facilities. 
In the next hundred and twenty-eight miles, to the Bois des Sioux prairie, the line passes 
successively through a wooded and prairie country, and thenceforward to the Rocky mount¬ 
ains the growth of wood is confined to the bottoms of rivers and the borders of lakes. 
The rise in this interval is about three hundred feet. The ground is rolling, sometimes showing 
stony and gravelly knolls, and is frequently interrupted by small lakes. 
The earth-work for this hundred and twenty-eight miles will not exceed an average embank¬ 
ment of eight feet height, and is occasionally stony. Granite boulders, at occasional intervals, 
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