414 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
west line of the lead district. From, this point I extended my 
observations east toward the fourth principal .meridian, 
through an almost impenetrable forest. 
I found here the same geological arrangement of parallel 
ridges, with just the same bearings as those in the lead district, 
and all dipping down and dying out as they extended west. 
Here we are altogether in the azoic formation, with the strata 
very much disturbed; consequently it is impossible to judge 
as accurately as where we have undisturbed rocks for our 
guide; and furthermore, at this point the axis we have been 
following north forms a junction with an east and west axis 
of elevation known to extend from Labrador to the sources of 
the Mississippi. 
My object in going to this place was not so much to find out 
the evidences of this axis of elevation, as to find out if there 
are any lines of fracture, or systems of dykes traversing the 
azoic formations here, and if so, what their bearings are. 
South of Ashland the country is covered with a very thick 
bed of marl, forming a basis for agriculture such as we seldom 
meet with, and supporting a forest of which the state may well 
be proud, but hiding mostly her mineral treasures and their 
phenomena. It was not until I reached the base of the Peno- 
kee elevation, along the Bad Ax river country, that I could 
get a good exposure of the rocks. But along this region, and 
to the east of it, good exposures of the strata are occasionally 
met with. 
In but few places where the azoic rocks are exposed as the 
surface rook do we find stronger evidences of mechanical dis¬ 
turbance and long continued exposure to heat, than here. The 
mechanical forces, however, by which these strata have been 
brought up to such an angle, do not seem to have acted with 
great violence, but to have acted through long periods of time. 
The rocks are not fractured as in many places, and the systems 
of dykes are mostly (as far as they came under my observa¬ 
tion) running with the strata, and between the different beds, 
crossed by smaller veins cutting the strata at right angles. 
At one of the falls on Bad river there is a beautiful expos- 
