470 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
very extensive in their range, and embrace those fainter lines marked only, it 
may be, by the metallic impregnations of the rock, as well as those different 
systems of elevation, some of which raise their heads above the clouds, and 
stretch themselves across the continents of the earth. So much of geology, 
then, as is necessary to explain this order and their relations, I shall need for 
the explanation of my work, and the objects and facts contained in my report. 
In the description of the phenomena of the lead district in my last report, I 
called attention to the fact that there was a tendency in the ore deposits there, 
to arrange themselves in belts, having an east and west bearing along a north 
and south line, which appeared to be a north and south axis of elevation, ex¬ 
tending through the State; or what, perhaps, would express it better, an anti¬ 
clinal line marked with evidences of the action of mechanical and chemical 
forces; and that this anticlinal line was, in all probability, a belt of mineral 
land. When I say a belt of mineral land, I would not convey the idea that 
there is to be a continuous, unbroken range of ore deposits, but a belt of country 
within which we find evidences of the physical conditions necessary to pro¬ 
duce such deposits, and indications of their existence. Observations made 
during the present season, confirm these views, and the facts when put togeth¬ 
er in this report, will leave, I think, no doubt of the truthfulness of the teach¬ 
ings of my last report on this question; at all events, so far north as my ob¬ 
servations have been made. 
For the purpose of being fully understood on this question, I will state again 
here, that while the sedimentary rocks, that is, our limestone and sandstone 
formations extend on the east side of the state away into Oconto county, and 
on the west side, beyond St. Paul; in fact both east and west to the base of 
the Laurentian elevation, in the centre of the state, or along the line of this 
anticlinal, they extend no farther north than town 21 , except in detached 
patches filling the depressions in the azoic formations. A line drawn from 
Black Iiiver Falls, east to the Wisconsin river, gives us the first appearance 
of the azoic formations, that is, the old crystalline rocks that underlie the 
sedimentary strata of the southern part of the state. Here in these strata, we 
have the outlines of this anticlinal more fully brought out. Where it rises 
from beneath the sedimentary rocks of the south, it extends north in a belt, 
bounded for many miles on the east by the Wisconsin, and on the west by 
Black river. These are some of the tangible evidences of the existence of this 
anticlinal line running north and south through the state, and I call especial 
attention to it here, because it seems to bear important relations to the ore 
deposits thus far discovered in our state, and indicate the line along which 
other deposits may be looked for. 
Now, inasmuch as the chemical composition and physical characters of the 
ores will depend to a great extent upon the character, composition, and the 
age of the rocks in which they are found, it is very important for us, in order 
to form an opinion of what kinds of ore we may look for along this belt, and 
also for the probable extent of those deposits already discovered, to become as 
familiar as possible with the geological formations exposed (along this belt) 
as the surface rock. Their general features can be described in a few words. 
