INDUSTRY OF COUNTIES. 
413 
The chief towns are Lancaster, the county seat,, and Platteville, now dis¬ 
tinguished as being the seat of the first State Normal School,, and also as 
being the only town, excepting Boscobel and Muscoda, on the Wisconsin 
river and the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, which have railroad con¬ 
nection with the rest of the world. It is worthy of remark, however, that 
measures are now on foot which promise to secure the early extension of 
the southern branch of the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad from Monroe 
to Calamine, and of the Calamine and Platteville road directly across the 
county to the Mississippi river. 
The population of Grant compares favorably with-the best in any portion 
of the state for industry and intelligence, and the county is accordingly 
characterized by all those educational and other like improvements which 
indicate the social progress of a people. 
GREEN CO ENT Y. 
BY DR. JOHN C. HALL OF MONROE. 
Green is one of the southern tier of counties in Wisconsin, lying midway 
between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi. It is a square of sixteen 
townships, and has a population of 23,GOO. 
Physical Characteristics .—While there are considerable acres of level 
lands in the eastern and southeastern portions of the county, the surface is 
for the most part gently rolling— rising, however, in the northern and west¬ 
ern sections of the county, into high bluffy hills. From east to west the 
general surface is crowning, the summit of which, in the southern border, 
is on the central line of the county, where the underlying rock—Galena 
limestone—reaches its highest elevation in the state. This somewhat 
irregular swell of land forms the “ divide ” between the Sugar river on the 
east and the Pecatonica on the west, its surface being somewhat diversified 
by the valleys of the numerous tributaries of these streams. From the 
summit level of this “divide ” going west there is a slight dip of the lime¬ 
stone strata, while it is nearly level to the east. This furnishes, however, 
no indication of the configuration of the surface, for this strata becomes 
rapidly denuded, or thinned out, from the central axis in both directions 
until the underlying Trenton limestone is reached in the valleys of the 
Sugar and Pecatonica rivers. The latter river in fact cutting through the 
latter strata, and also the St. Peter’s sandstone underneath, finding its bed 
at last, in the southern border of the county, upon the lower magnesian 
limestone, 
The lower and more level portions of the county to the east, consists of 
open prairie or bottom lands. Across these prairies, in various directions, 
run sharp, narrow ridges of stratified rock; which have resisted the agencies 
