History of Houston County, Including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 47

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 547

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The following measurements by aneroid will show the depth of some of the valleys below the immediate upland at the points named.

Section seventeen, Caledonia, three milles south of Sheldon. Beaver Creek, at the great spring, is 230 feet below the tops of the bluffs, which em- brace the Shakopee limestone, Jordan sandstone and a part of the St. Lawrence sandstone.

At Sheldon the bluffs are 420 feet high.

At Houston the bluffs north of the city are 520 feet above the level of water in Root River in summer.

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HISTORY OF HOUSTON COUNTY.

At Hokah, Mount Tom rises 530 feet above the flood plain of Root River.

On section eleven, Union, the ridge between Thompson's Creek and the railroad, at the soulp- tured rock, rises 355 feet above the highway di- rectly south of the ridge.

At Brownsville, the height of the bluff above the flood plain of the Mississippi is 495 feet. Mr. Fred. Gluck, of Brownsville, measured the same by triangulation in the winter season, and obtained 486 feet as the height above the ice. Railroad surveyors are said to have obtained 483 feet as the height of the same bluff. The most of this height is made up of sandstone, there being but 105 feet ol limestone in the upper part of the bluff be- longing to the St. Lawrence formation.

Notes on the Plate of the United States Survey in Houston County, on record in the Register's Office at Caledonia. (The county was surveyed in 1852-3-4.)

TOWNSHIP 101 N., RANGE 3 W. FRACTIONAL; EAST PART OF JEFFERSON.

This is embraced wholly within the river bot- toms of the Mississippi. It is timbered but low, with some marsh and standing water. Acreage, 3,169.76.

TOWNSHIP 101 N., BANGE 4 W. WEST PART OF JEF- FERSON AND SOUTH PART OF CROOKED CREEK.

The Mississippi bluffs run north and south across the east end of this town, which embraces some marsh and slough land in the eastern tier of sections. These bluffs, which unite with those of Winnebago Creek from the west, in the southeast- ern corner of the town, introduce in that portion a very rough and rocky character of surface. The town is nearly covered with timber. Acreage, 22,546.52.

TOWN 101 N., RANGE 5 W. WINNEBAGO.

This is crossed by Winnebago Creek, which re- ceives several tributaries from the north and south. There is a tract of prairie in the southwest corner of the town, and another in the northwest corner. The remainder is either timbered or shrubby, with oaks and aspens. The creek valley is deep and rocky. Area, 23,045.05 acres.

TOWNSHIP 101 N., RANGE 6 W. WILMINGTON.

This town is about equally divided between prairie and timber, which are irregularly inter-

mingled. Waterloo Creek, in sections twenty- nine, thirty-two, and thirty-three, runs in a deep valley, with steep and rocky banks. Area, 23,- 037.13 acres.

TOWNSHIP 101 N., RANGE 7 W. SPRING GROVE.

Along the northwest edge of this town the South Fork of Root River causes a deep valley, which is rough, timbered, and rocky. The rest of the town is variously overspread with mingled prairie and timber or oak bushes, with gently un- dulating and sometimes rolling surface. Area, 23,045.12 acres.

TOWNSHIP 102 N., RANGE 4 W. CROOKED CREEK AND SOUTH PART OF BROWNSVILLE.

This town is named from the creek which crosses it from west to east, south of the center. This creek, with its branches, causes a rough and rocky surface, with deep gorges over a considera- ble area. The town has no natural prairie. Area, 20,403.73 acres.

TOWNSHIP 102 N., RANGE 5 W. MAYVILLE AND WEST PART OF CROOKED CREEK.

In the central portion of this town are the sources of Crooked Creek, which leaves the town towards the southeast, in section twenty-five. With the exception of small portions of sections thirty-one and thirty-two, this town has no prairie, but the heaviest timber is along the creek and its tributaries. The surface is undulating to rough. Area, 22,976.20 acres.

TOWNSHIP 102 N., BANGE 6 W. CALEDONIA.

Beaver Creek is the only stream in this town. It causes a rough and bluffy surface in sections nineteen, eighteen, seven, six, five, eight, and seventeen, flowing northward. A little more than one-half is of prairie, the timber being along the creek and in the eastern side of the town. Area, 23,063.95 acres.

TOWNSHIP 102 N., RANGE 7 W. BLACK HAMMER.

The South Fork of Root River crosses the west- ern portion of this town in a northerly direction, accompanied by a heavily timbered and rocky tract affecting nearly one-half of the town. There is an irregular strip of prairie which enters the town from the southeast and runs northwest past the center. Area, 23,042.34 acres.

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TOWNSHIP 103 N., RANGE 4 W. NORTH PART OF BROWNSVILLE AND SOUTH PART OF HOKAH.

This is a border town along the Mississippi, and in the north has some bottom land east of the bluffs. No prairie is shown. The Wild Cat Creek joins the Mississippi at Brownsville, section twenty-six, and Thompson Creek flows across the northwest corner. These streams, like others in the county, run in deep, rocky valleys, and cause a great diversity of surface some distance on either side from the immediate valley. They have a great many tributary valleys which do not con- tain streams, but which are equally deep and bluffy. Area, 20,912.18 acres.

TOWNSHIP 103 N., RANGE 5 W. UNION AND SOUTH PART OF MOUND PRAIRIE

Root River, with its tributaries, the Crystal, .

Bear, and Thompson Creeks, causes a rolling and even a rough surface over much of this town, with frequent rock exposure. There is a small area of prairie covering section four, with adjoining parts of five, eight, nine, and three; but the greater part of the town is represented as timbered, or over- grown with small oaks and aspens and with hazel. Area. 22,951.16 acres.

TOWNSHIP 103 N., RANGE 6 W. SHELDON AND SOUTH PART OF HOUSTON.

The South Fork of Root River, with its tribu- taries from the south, Beaver, Crystal, and Badger Creeks, covers this town with a network of deep valleys, in many places very rough. In the east- ern portion of the town the surface is more uniform and open. Area, 22,854.31 acres.

TOWNSHIP 103 N., RANGE 7 W. SOUTH PART OF YUCATAN.

The South Fork of Root River crosses the southeastern quarter of this town. The whole town is rough and wooded, except a narrow prairie belt occupying the river bottoms. Area, 23,045.67 acres.

TOWNSHIP 104 N., BANGE 5 W. NORTH PART OF HOKAH AND EAST PART OF LA CRESCENT.

This is a Mississippi River town, and between the line of the river bluffs and the channel of the river is a belt of bottom land, much of it marshy, from two to four miles wide. The Root River cuts a deep gorge across the southern part of the town,

and Pine Creek crosses the northern portion. Area, 20,398.03 acres.

TOWNSHIP 104 N., BANGE 5 W. PRAIRIE MOUND AND WEST PART OF LA CRESCENT.

This town is crossed by Root River, along the southern two tiers of sections. It has a belt of prairie within the rocky bluffs, covering sections thirty-three, thirty-four, and thirty-five, and a marsh in sections thirty and thirty-one, but the rest is more or less wooded. Pine Creek also crosses the north-eastern portion of the town. Area, 23,045.07 acres.

TOWNSHIP 104 N., RANGE 6 W. HOUSTON AND EAST PART OF MONEY CREEK.

This town is broken by Root River and Money Creek. It also has Silver Creek in the eastern portion. There is a belt of prairie land along the south side of Root River, within the rock bluffs, and in the western portion of the town in Money Creek valley, but the most of its area is wooded and broken. Area, 22,984.56 acres.

TOWNSHIP 104 N., RANGE 7 W. NORTH PART OF YUCATAN AND WEST PART OF MONEY CREEK.

This town has prairie bottom-land along Root River, which crosses it from west to east in the south- ern half, and along Money Creek in sections one, two, and twelve, The rest of the town is more or less wooded, with a rolling surface. Area, 23,- 179.03 acres.

THE SOIL AND TIMBER OF HOUSTON COUNTY.

The soil of the county is formed by the loess loam. It is very fertile, and apparently very en- during. It is mainly a clayey deposit, without stones or gravel, but yet in some places becomes arenaceous, the sand grains being very fine. The loess is hardly pervious to water. In the scarcity and costliness of common wells, many farmers re- sort to the expedient of retaining the surface water, after rains, in open reservoirs produced by throw- ing a low dam across some of the shallow drain- age valleys that intersect their farms, thus form- ing with the common loam a small pool or lake for the use of their stock. Except on the brows of the bluffs which enclose the valleys this loam is thick enough to make a reliable subsoil as well as suface soil. In some of the valleys it is very thick, but here it is apt to be influenced by the causes that produced the river terraces, and to mingle

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with the ordinary alluvium. On the nplands, gen- erally, where it may not have been reduced by wash, its average thickness might reach thirty feet, but in some of the valleys material of the same aspect is sometimes encountered to the depth of over one hundred feet.

In the valley of Root River, and also along the Mississippi, the soil of the alluvial terraces, greatly resembling that of the loam in the uplands, is apt to be more sandy, and sometimes becomes very light and very poor. These materials are gener- ally seen to be in obliquely stratified layers, and to embrace, in the Mississippi valley, small gravel stones of northern origin. The immediate flood plain of these rivers presents still another variety of soil. While it is generally sandy, and often very light, it is also a very rich soil, and is apt to be enduring by reason of the Nile-like overflows to which it is subjected, and the decomposition of large quantities of vegetation. This variety of soil sustains some of the heaviest forests to be found in the county.

It is noticeable that many of the valleys, partio- ularly those running east and west, as Crooked Creek valley, have the bluffs along the north side of the creek, destitute, or nearly so, of timber, but are heavily timbered along the opposite bluffs, on the south side. This may be due to warm days in winter or early spring, when the sap may have started in the trees on the north bluffs, followed by severely cold weather, before the actual setting in of steady warm weather. Of course the sun's heat would be quickest felt on the bluffs facing south. This process repeated for a good many years, would injure and at last destroy the timber on the north bluffs, if it were ever possible for trees to have come to maturity there, while tim- ber on the south bluffs would escape these sudden changes, owing to the shaded condition of the bluffs during the warmest portion of the day, and would only experience a steady increase of warmth due to the progress of the season.

THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE.

The rocks of Houston county are embraced wholly within the Lower Silurian. They are as follows:

The Trenton limestone, confined to the south- western quarter.

The St. Peter sandstone, in an irregular area surrounding the area of the Trenton above.

The Lower Magnesian formation, comprising the

three parts, Shakopee Limestone, Jordan sandstone, and St. Lawrence limestone, and underlying the greater portion of the county.

The St. Croix sandstone, which is found only in the bluffs of the Mississippi and Root Rivers, and of their tributary valleys.

THE TRENTON LIMESTONE.

The greater portion of this formation, which is found within the county, is of the Lower Trenton, so-called, and produces the same topographical features as in Fillmore county. The reader is re- ferred to the report of progress for 1875, where the geology of that county is given, and the effect of the Lower Trenton on the surface features is discussed and illustrated by diagrams.

This formation is found in Spring Grove and Wilmington townships. It runs also in a nar- row, but interrupted belt, nearly to Caledonia, where it may be distinctly seen, in its peculiar features, and its flat-topped mounds, or tables, a mile west of that village. There is reason to sup- pose that it formerly extended much further east than it does now, covering the most, perhaps the whole, of the county, and being continuous with the horizon of the same formation on the east of the Mississippi, in Wisconsin.

The usual characters of the Lower Trenton, both lithological and palæontological, were the only ones noticed in Houston county. It has been opened for quarries only in the vicinity of Spring Grove. It generally presents a stained and long- weathered aspect, as if split and dissolved by the action of water. The layers are at first about an inch in thickness, but become thicker, by adher- ing to each other, on being wrought to some depth, and possess a blue color.

ST. PETER SANDSTONE.

This lies next below the Trenton. Its area em- braces not only the slope from the high table-land of the Trenton area, but also a belt extending in width from the foot of that slope over the more level county surrounding, so that its irregular area is often a mile or two in width. As already remarked, while its upper limit has a very easily recognized location, by reason of the terrace-like topography of the Lower Trenton, its lower hori- zon is often very uncertain on account of the very easy and gradual destruction of its layers, and the prevalence of the loess loam.

The thickness of the St. Peter sandstone was

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very satisfactorily ascertained on the southwest quarter of section seventeen, Wilmington. The well of Mr. O. A. Bye is situated near the Trenton bluff, and by uniting the known depth drilled in the sandsone with aneroid measurement of the bluff, the St. Peter was found to be between sev- enty-five and eighty feet thick, the Shakopee be- low having a thickness of sixty-four feet.

THE SHAKOPEE LIMESTONE.

The continuity of this formation from the Min- nesota valley to the Mississippi, and its identity with the limestone at Shakopee, where it was first recognized as a distinct member of the Lower Magnesian in Minnesota, was fully established in the survey of Houston county. It is everywhere dis- tinct as the uppermost portion of the Lower Mag- nesian, and is everywhere separated from the other great calcareous member of the same forma- tion by a sandstone as distinct and continuous, and as clearly recognizable, as the St. Peter sandstone. There can be no further question of its existence and its great extent. There seems every reason to believe also that it exists across the Mississippi, in the state of Wisconsin, but at this time there is no distinct published notice of its occurrence there. The Lower Magnesian in Wisconsin has been divided by Prof. R. Irving, of the Geological Survey of Wisconsin, into three parts, as exempli- fied near Madison, (American Journal of Science and Arts, June, 1875, ) but there is much reason to believe that his proposed subdivisions do not include the Shakopee limestone at all, and that the distinctions in the Lower Magnesian which he mentions are wholly confined to the St. Lawrence limestone of Minnesota. This subject was dis- cussed by the writer in the Bulletin of the Minne- sota Academy of Natural Sciences, for 1875, when this hypothesis was first published. It is ren- dered still more plausible, in the absence of fur- ther facts in Wisconsin, from the fact that even in Houston county the St. Lawrence exhibits varia- tions of composition and lithology which are com- parable to those Prof. Irving describes.

The characters of the Shakopee in Houston county are not noticeably different from those mentioned in the reports of progress for 1873 and 1875. Its bedding is much less regular than that of the St. Lawrence. It is apt, indeed, to be dis- turbed by cherty, or conoretionary masses, which, on the weathering away of the bluffs, become de- tached and fall into the bottom of the valley, where

they lie long after the non-silicious portions of the rock have dissolved and disappeared. Such cherty lumps are often a foot, or even two or three feet in diameter. They are roughened by cavities open- ing on the surface, by dissolution of the most cal- careous parts, and by the natural openings and pores they acquired in the act of formation. They are the only portions of the formation in which fos- sils have been found in Houston county. These masses sometimes show surfaces of drusy quartz crystals, also amethyst crystals, and great quanti- ties of pyrites, oxydized and hydrated so as to pro- duce a limonite, the form of the crystal alone re- maining to indicate the original mineral. A care- ful study of these fossils has not yet been made, but there is some evidence, from the handling to which some of them have been subjected in the ex- amination of the Trenton fossils now going on, that the Shakopee limestone is the equivalent of the Chazy of New York, a formation which has not been recognized in the State, though the St. Peter has been regarded by Prof. Hall as its equi- valent.

This formation does not appear in the bluffs of the Mississippi River, in Houston county, nor in those of Root 'River generally; but its line of strike is some miles back in the country away from the immediate bluffs. This is due to the crumbling nature of the Jordan sandstone which underlies it, and which operates, in that respect, to tear down the Shakopee in the same manner, and for the same causes, as the St. Peter on the Trenton. To this fact, and to its general resem- blance to the St. Lawrence limestone, may be attri- buted the non-discovery of this limestone by the United States geologists who have reported on the geology of the State, or by others, whose exam- inations were largely confined to the main water courses, before the general settlement of the State, and the construction of good roads.

This limestone may be seen frequently in the central portion of the county, in the upper reaches of the ravines which radiate in all directions from the vicinity of Caledonia. It is seldom quarried, or used for any purpose, for the St. Lawrence lime- stone is generally accessible in the immediate neighborhood, and that is much more desirable for building-stone, or for lime-making. In de- scending the ravine toward the quarries east of Caledonia, the Shakopee is the first limestone seen exposed. The quarries are much lower-in the

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St. Lawrence. It may be seen also in the upper tributary valleys that feed Badger, Beaver, Crys- sal, and Thompson Creeks. It causes the first rugged or rocky portion of those valleys. It is exposed in the tops of the bluffs at the great spring, section seventeen, Caledonia, three miles south of Sheldon. Its thickness at Mr. O. A. Bye's, section seventeen, Wilmington, when drilled through, was found to be sixty-four feet, which is probably about its average thickness throughout the county.

THE JORDAN SANDSTONE.

The lithological features of this sandstone are nearly the same as those of the St. Peter, but it has only about one-half the thickness of the St. Peter. Its area of outorop is quite small, and its exposures are few. As it lies between two hard limestones, which are apt to form perpendicular, walled bluffs, its line of outerop is known by & belt of non-exposure of rock separating the Shak- opee from the St. Lawrence, which is less steep in the ascent, and perhaps turfed over. It often be- comes rusty and firm from a cement of iron, when it endures longer exposure, and is seen as detached blocks in the valleys. Some blocks of this kind are visible by the roadside in the ravine that de- scends to the quarries of Aiken and Molitor, a mile east of Caledonia.

THE ST. LAWRENCE LIMESTONE.

This is the most important formation in the county. It not only occupies a greater superficial area of outcrop than any other, but it takes the most prominent part in causing the varied topog- raphy of the county. It surmounts the St. Croix sandstone, an easily eroded rock, into which the valleys are deeply and rapidly cut, and maintains a bold and sharp outline along their tops. It is the immediate cause of a great many hills and ridges. It confronts the observer in every nook and on every promontory along the whole course of the Root River, and down the Mississippi bluffs as far as the State line, and it is especially con- spicuous in the little valleys that ascend from the streams, and that often are more rocky than the larger valleys.

The thickness of the St. Lawrence in Houston county is about 200 feet, though other geologists have reported it as 250 feet thick at La Crosse. It is a dolomite, or magnesian limestone. Its layers, while generally regular and useful as a building-

stone, are also sometimes very much brecciated, rendering it at once more firm, but also more re- fractory. It furnishes more stone for building than all the other formations of the county com- bined. It is of a light, lively color, and endures the weather perfectly, showing not the least change in the oldest buildings in which it has been used.

THE ST. CROIX SANDSTONE,

This name was applied, in the first annual re- port, provisionally to the light-colored, and often friable, sandstones which occur along the Missis- sippi River in Minnesota, and which have by some been regarded as the stratigrapical equiva- lent of the Potsdam sandstone of New York. This was done because, in the existence of another formation, of different lithology, affirmed also to be the equivalent of the New York Potsdam, it was necessary to have some designation for each of them. It seemed from considerations there given, that the lower of these two sandstones was the probable equivalent of that formation in New York, and in subsequent reports, while no facts have been gathered that confirm that view, the survey not having been carried on where these rocks are exposed, the provisional name has been continued. It is only in the county of Houston that any opportunity has been afforded for an examination of this formation, since the season of 1872.

It is not intended here to enter upon an exam- ination of the evidences of the parallelism of this sandstone with any eastern formation, nor to cite or compare authorities one way or the other. Con- siderable has been written on the sandstone of the Lake Superior region as developed in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Canada, tending to show the ex- istence of two distinct sandstone formations. Prof. Irving (American Journal, 3d Series, Vol. VIII, p. 46) reports three different sandstones ex- isting in the North-west involved in this disputed horizon, as exemplified in his study of north-west- ern Wisconsion, viz .: (1) Copper-bearing, highly tilted sandstones, conglomerates, and shales, asso- ciated with trap. (2) Horizontal, aluminous, red sandstones, lighter than those associated with the trap, which "appear to dip underneath the light- colored Lower Silurian sandstones of the Missis- sippi valley," and (3) the light-colored sandstones of the Mississippi valley. In this he agrees with Dr. C. Rominger (Vol. I, p. 95, Palaeozoic Rocks, Geological Survey of Michigan, ) who makes them

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-(1) Copper-bearing rocks, (2) Lower Division of the Lake Superior sandstone, and (3) the upper division of the Lake Superior sandstone. Brooks and Pumpelly, however, do not make mention of but two series of sandstones in the Lake Superior region, viz .: (1) The copper-bearing series, and (2) the Silurian sandstones. (Michigan Geolog- ical Survey. Vol. I, Part I, pp. 75 and 185; and Part II, p. 1.) Foster and Whitney, in 1851, re- ferred all the sandstones in question to the Pots- dam of N. Y., regarding them as deposited over an uneven surface, producing local cross-stratification and unconformability. (Report on the Geology of the Lake Superior Land District. Part II, p. 120.) In this they were seconded by Prof. James Hall, and followed by Prof. J. D. Dana in his Geological Manual, First Edition. More lately, in 1862, Prot. Hall parallelized the uppermost of these sandstones with the New York Potsdam, (16th Regents' Report, p. 119,) with the caution- ary remark that "it may not yet be regarded as proved that the sandstone from which I have de- scribed these fossils is in all respects the equiva- lent of the Potsdam sandstone of New York, Ver- mont, and Canada. It may represent more, or it may represent less than that formation. The lower accessible beds of the Mississippi valley may represent the Potsdam of one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet in thickness in the typical localities in New York, while the middle and upper beds of the West may be of epochs not rep- resented in that part of the series studied in New York." As long as the Potsdam sandstone at the typical localities in New York was accepted as the base of the fossiliferous primordial strata, while at the West there are two recognized sedimentary sandstones, though not yet proved fossiliferous, lying below the sandstones of the Mississippi val- ley, it seems quite presumptious to affirm the hor- izontality of the light-colored sandstones with the New York Potsdam, especially when, as admitted by Prof. Hall, "there are no species of fossils in the western sandstones which are positively ident- ical with those of New York." It would be more in keeping with the recognized stratigraphical laws, to allow that formation which in New York begins with the top of the "azoic" to begin there also in Minnesota.

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History of Houston County, Including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 47

Author: Edward D. Neill Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Number of Pages: 547

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 547