90 
EXCAVATIONS AND EMBANKMENTS. 
are scattered on the surface. Side ditching is often necessary in fiat and low places, but for 
the main part of the distance the excavation is light and gravelly. There is no rock excavation. 
Grades of thirty feet per mile will occasionally be required in the limited region of knolly, 
rolling country, but will generally not exceed ten feet. 
Crossing the tributaries of the Minnesota at their sources, the amount of bridge work will be 
small; an estimate of two hundred feet on the small streams of the Crow, South Branch, and 
Chippewa rivers, covers the whole. The culverts will be small and frequent in number. 
The pine and wooded region through which the line passes is estimated to extend westward 
from the Mississippi eighty miles. The numerous beautiful lakes are often surrounded with a 
handsome growth of wood, mainly elm and poplar. The supplies of lumber will, however, be 
drawn mostly from the Mississippi and the pine region to the west of it, and with small expense 
of transportation. 
Stone is found in places only at the Mississippi. The granite boulders are found at some sixty 
miles west of the Mississippi, and will supply the culvert masonry. Stone for the small amount 
of bridge abutments must be brought from the Mississippi, unless further explorations discover 
the formation of good building material. 
Thenceforward to the valley of the Missouri the total rise is about 700 feet. In this portion is 
included the prairie of the Bois des Sioux, a remarkable flat of some forty miles width, almost an 
absolute plain, and from whose eastern verge the eye seeks in vain, on its shadowy, monotonous 
surface of coarse, dark grass, any relieving undulation, or tree or shrub. Through this remarkable 
prairie the Bois des Sioux and Wild Rice rivers make their way to join the Red river of the North, 
in narrow, canal-like channels, with miry sides and bottoms. The elm and oak are found on 
these two streams, either threading their banks or grouped together in handsome clusters. The 
water-level was, in the latter part of June, when crossed by our train, some eighteen feet below 
the edges of the banks, but high deposits of drift stuff had been made on the banks, and were 
found even at several miles distance from the river. In the breaking up of winter, and with the 
spring rains, this prairie is undoubtedly very wet and marshy, and, to a great extent, covered 
with standing water, though at small depth. 
Between this prairie and the Shayenne the land becomes undulating and dry; and, in the 
vicinity of that river, sand-hillocks, and in some instances sand-bluffs, show themselves. The 
Shayenne flows in a deep valley, 150 to 200 feet below the general prairie level, and with a 
valley one-quarter to three-quarters of a mile wide. The bottom is fairly wooded with elm, oak, 
ash, poplar, &c. At the first crossing made of this river by the train, its width was sixty feet, its 
depth fourteen feet, with freshet marks eighteen feet above the water-level. At the second 
crossing its width was fifty feet, its depth three and a half feet, the immediate banks miry in 
both cases. These crossings would be expensive and cause much loss of grade, and are avoided 
in the direction given to the route. Granite boulders of large size are frequent on the high 
grounds bordering on the river, and at one place east of the second crossing it was supposed that 
granite was found in place. 
From the bend of the Shayenne to Mouse river the country is nearly uniform, gradually rising, 
is in part undulating, but has many small lakes, and is often marshy. Riviere a Jacques is 
crossed with a width of some 120 feet. This river has probably very little wood on it within 
reach of the route. 
There is a general destitution of wood throughout this interval, and it is only rarely that one 
finds a growth of wood on the numerous small lakes, and the small tributaries of the James river. 
The vegetable mould, not over-deep at Shayenne river, gradually decreases, and the soil is gen¬ 
erally thin at the source of the Shayenne and James rivers. Thence the soil improves until we 
reach the Mouse river, where there is much good arable land. 
The Shayenne river, with a curve from the north, appears to retain its character, as already 
observed, with a deep valley, high, steep banks, wooded bottom, and much the same formation 
