USA > Minnesota > Redwood County > The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 3
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The valley of the Minnesota river, 160 to 200 feet deep, has cut through this mantle of till. Along this valley, and in the last two miles of the Redwood valley before it joins the Minnesota, irregular knobs and ridges of gneiss and granite are exposed to view; and in some places these occupy nearly the whole width between the bluffs of the Minnesota river. Generally, however, the bottomland of the Minnesota river, as also of its large tribu- taries, are flat tracts of very fertile fine alluvium, or interbedded sand and gravel, covered by a rich soil of fine silt. These bot- toms, which would be called intervals in New England, are ele- vated five to fifteen feet above the streams, being thus mostly within the reach of their highest floods in spring, but are very rarely overflowed during the season of growing crops.
Redwood county was originally mainly prairie or natural grass land, without tree or shrub, consisting of a continuous green sweep, often reaching in gentle undulations and swells, five to twenty feet high, as far as the view extended.
Timber. A nearly continuous though often very narrow strip . of timber is found immediately bordering the Minnesota river through almost its entire course; but generally much of the bot- tomland is treeless. The bluffs on the northeast side of the Min- nesota have, for the most part, only thin and scanty groves. The southwestern bluffs are, for the most part, heavily wooded. The greater abundance of timber on the southern bluffs of this and other rivers in this region appears to be due to their being less exposed to the sun, and therefore more moist than the bluffs on the opposite side.
Along the Redwood river, and the Cottonwood river through Redwood county and in western Brown county, and along the upper part of the Little Cottonwood river, the width of wood- land, excepting occasional interruptions, usually varies from a few rods to an eighth of a mile; but along the last twenty miles of the. Cottonwod river and the last eight miles of the Little Cottonwood, the timber generally fills their valleys, from a fourth of a mile to one mile wide.
The lakes of Redwood county and of western Brown county have only narrow margins of timber.
The farm groves which are now so conspicuous a feature of the Redwood county landscape, have all been planted.
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HISTORY OF.REDWOOD COUNTY
In northwestern Redwood county, Malcom McNiven has enumerated the following species of trees and shrubs occurring at Swan Lake, on the west line of Underwood: white elm, white ash, box-elder, cottonwood, wild plum, willows, Virginia creeper, climbing bitter-sweet, frost grape, prickly ash, choke-cherry, black currant, and prickly and smooth wild gooseberries, and wild rose, less frequent. Species not found at Swan Lake, but common or frequently on the Redwood river, are bass, red or slippery elm, iron-wood and sugar maple. Red cedars grow on the cliffs of this river at Redwood Falls, and from them has arisen one of the traditions of the name of this river and thence of the county.
The Cottonwood river is said to have its name, which also has been given to a county, from a very large, lone cottonwood, beside this stream, in the south part of Redwood county, about seven miles northwest of Lamberton; but this tree has also a luxuriant growth throughout the timbered bottomlands of this river.
The northern limit of the black walnut appears to be at the Walnut Grove, of about a hundred acres, from which comes the name of the neighboring station and village on the railroad, the grove itself being on Plum creek in sections 25 and 36, Spring- dale, close to the south line of Redwood county, and one to two miles southwest from Walnut Grove village.
Geological Structure. The foundation of Brown and Redwood counties, northwest from New Ulm, consists of metamorphic gneiss and granite, belonging to the great series denominated Eozoic or Archaean, which embraces the most ancient rocks known to geology. This is overlain by various shales, sandstones, limestones and clays, the latter sometimes holding beds of lig- nite, which are regarded together as of Cretaceous age. Creta- teous strata, including lignite, outcrop in the bluffs of the Red- wood river close north of Redwood Falls; in the bluffs of Fort Creek near Fort Ridgely, in the west extremity of Nicollet county and close to the Minnesota valley, about sixteen miles below the last, and on the Cottonwod river in western Brown county.
Fossiliferous and sometimes lignitic clays of Cretaceous age are occasionally encountered in the wells through this region, especially at Walnut Grove and northward in western Redwood county, and in Lyon county, adjoining this on the west. The sheet of drift which forms the surface is thus often separated by unconsolidated Cretaceous beds from the underlying floor of crystalline rocks. Within the area here reported this gneissic and granitic floor outerops, away from the valley of the Minne- sota river and Redwood, at only one or two points, which are in Granite Rock township. These formations will be described in the order of their age, beginning with the oldest.
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
Gneiss and Granite. These rocks have the same composition, being made up of quartz, feldspar and mica. Gneiss differs from granite in having these minerals laminated, or arranged more or less distinctly in layers. Nearly all of the metamorphic rocks to be described here are varieties of gneiss, with which masses of granite, syenite and mica and hornblendeschists occur rarely.
In the N. E. 1/4 of Section 12, Granite Rock, an exposure of rock extends ten rods in length, from northwest to south- east, with half as great a width, rising five to ten feet above the surface of the undulating prairie. It is light grain gneiss, much contorted, with its strike and dip obscure; intersected by few joints, which in some portions are absent across an extent of three or four rods, enclosing in the southeast two or three masses of nearly black mica schist, each two or three feet long.
About five miles further west, in N. E. 1/4 of the S. E. 1/4 of section 6, in the same township, is said to have an exposure of the same rock about three rods in extent, with a larger space around it where the rock lies only a few feet beneath the surface.
The depth of these rocks in this region is generally from 100 to 200 feet or more, so that they are not reached by wells nor by the channels of most of the rivers. Their only other outerops in Redwood and Brown counties are within the Minnesota valley and are in the gorge of the Redwood river at and below Red- wood Falls.
, The Minnesota valley, in the northwest corner of Swedes Forest and in the edge of Yellow Medicine county, contains abundant ledges for two miles, reaching 40 to 75 feet above the river. A lone school house is situated among them, about a mile east of the county line. Half a mile west from this school house the rock is reddish gray gneiss, dipping 15 N. N. W. A third of a mile west from this school house are massive granite cliffs, probably rising 75 feet above the river, divided by joints into nearly square blocks ten to fifteen feet in dimension. An eighth of a mile east from the last it is obscurely laminated gneiss, much intersected by joints, the principal system of which dips 15 S. At the east side of the school house it is also gneiss, somewhat water-worn, dipping about 5 S.
Within the next few miles following down the river, similar ledges are seen on its northeast side, in the N. E. 1/4 of section 16, in Sacred Heart, Renville county, rising about 50 feet above the river; in the southeast part of section 17, Swedes Forest, rising at several points 25 to 40 feet; at south side of Big Spring creek, in section 20 and the west edge of section 21, Swedes Forest, about 50 feet above the river, and near the north line of section 27, small in area and only about 20 feet high.
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
From the small creek a mile farther east in section 26, Swedes Forest, ledges of gneiss and granite abound in this valley through a distance of twelve miles, to the mouth of Redwood river and Beaver creek. They often quite fill the bottomland, occurring on each side of the river and rising from 50 to 125 feet above it. Between Redwood river and Beaver creek fre- quent small ledges rise along the bottom of the Minnesota valley, in knobs 40 to 60 feet above the river, but yet leave much open tillable land. Between Beaver and Birch Cooley creeks out- crops are mainly on the north side of the river, rising 100 feet in their highest portions. Below the mouth of Birch Cooley they are mostly on the south side, occurring in great abundance for two miles above and three miles below the mouth of Wabashaw creek. The highest of these are a mile above this creek, rising 75 to 125 or perhaps 140 feet above the river.
It will be remembered that the bluffs along this part of the valley are about 175 feet high, so that none of these ledges were visible until the surface of the drift-sheet had been considerably channeled.
On the Redwood river where it enters the Minnesota valley, one and a half miles northeast of Redwood Falls, the rock is greenish, being apparently a "talcose quartzite," or protogine gneiss, dipping 25 S. E. It forms cliffs 50 to 75 feet high, which are continuous on the west side of the river a quarter of a mile more. The picturesque gorge of the Redwood river at and below Redwood Falls is principally cut through a similar gneiss, partly decomposed, and sometimes almost completely kaolinized, over- lain by Cretaceous strata, which in turn are capped with glacial drift. The largest cascade, having a fall of about 25 feet, is over a ledge of this protogine gneiss, much contorted and jointed, often obscure in its lamination.
The dip of the principal system of joints, which appears to coincide nearly with the lamination, is 20 to 30 N. At a cut which has been made through the rock two rods east of this cas- cade, it contains a nearly vertical trap dike, seen along an extent of some thirty or forty feet, bearing N. 40 E., about two feet wide, composed of dark greenish, compact rock, which weathers to a reddish color, much joined in planes parallel with its walls. Ten feet above the bottom of this cut, and higher, the cliff of gneiss is much decayed and changed to impure kaolin.
Decomposed Gneiss and Granite. Very remarkable chemical changes have taken place in the upper portions of many of the exposures of gneiss and granite near Redwood Falls. The rock is transformed to a soft, earthy or clayey mass, resembling kaolin. It has a blue or greenish color, when freshly exposed ; but when weathered, assumes a yellowish ash color, and finally becomes white and glistening. Laminae of quartz are generally
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
contained in this material, and have the same arrangement as in gneiss, so that the dip can be distinctly seen. Veins of quartz or feldspar, the latter completely decomposed, and the lines of joints, are also noticeable, just as in granite or gneiss; making it evident that this substance is the result of a decay of rocks in their original place.
Because of the enclosed quartzose laminae, grains and parti- cles of more or less gritty character, throughout these kaolin- like rocks, they appear to be unsuited for the manufacture of porcelain or any kind of ware. So far as can be judged from stream channels and other exposures, this decomposition reaches in some places to a depth of 20 or 30 feet, perhaps more. All grades of change may be found, from ledges where only here and there a few spots have been attacked and slightly decomposed, to portions where nearly every indication of the original struc- ture has been obliterated.
Of these decomposed rocks on the Redwood river, Prof. N. H. Winchell wrote in the second annual report of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota: "At Redwood Falls the granite is overlain by the kaolin, which has been mentioned, presenting, in connection with this substance, a very interesting series of exposures, suggesting very interesting questions both economical and scientific. About a mile below the village, on the left bank of the river and at the northwest of the bend, is a con- spicuous white bluff (probably that seen by Keating, and pro- nounced white sandstone), composed of white kaolin clay. Near the top of this bluff, where the rains wash it, it is silvery white, and that color is spread over much of the lower portions, though the mass of the lower part is more stained with iron, having also a dull greenish tinge.
The white glossy coating which appears like the result of washing by rains is spread over the perpendicular sides. On breaking off this glossy coating, which is sometimes half an inch thick, the mass appears indistinctly bedded horizontally, but con- tains hard lumps and irony deposits. Further down, the iron becomes more frequent, and gritty particles like quartz impede the edge of a knife. The bedding is also lost, and the closest inspection reveals no bedding. Yet there is, even then, a sloping striation of arrangement of lines visible in some places on the fresh surface that corresponds in direction with the direction of the principal cleavage plane of the talcose and quartzitic slate already described. In other places this arrangement is not seen, but the mass crumbles out in angular pieces which are super- ficially stained with iron.
The profile of the bluffs here presents a singular isolated knob or buttress that rises boldly almost from the river. On either side of this bold promontory are retreating angles in the bluff.
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
A careful inspection of these ravines and of the adjoining bluffs affords indubitable proof that this material, white and impal- pable as it is, results from a change in the underlying granite rocks.
"Just above this point is another exposure. It here supplies what is locally known as the 'paint rock,' from an enterprise started several years ago in the manufacture of mineral paint from this material. The decomposed granite here has very much the same appearance as the kaolin at Birch Cooley, but contains more quartz, and is more stained with iron. It is a rusty brown color, but within might be green or blue. It passes upward into the greenish, and then white, kaolin clay already described, but it stands out in a crumbling rusty buttress, exposed to the weather, and has quartzitic grains and concretions, iron-coated, and often an impure iron ore in considerable quantities. It shows silvery or shining talcose flakes, the same as seen in the so-called building rock, near the point where the railroad bridge crosses the Redwood river at North Redwood.
"A short distance above this, nearly opposite Redwood Falls, is situated the rock which was quarried for the manufacture of paint. This has in every respect the same character and com- position as that last described. It consists of a perpendicular bluff or point, standing out from a lower talus that rises about 75 feet above the river, to the hight of 75 feet more. On the top of this is the drift-clay hardpan, covered by four or five feet of sand and gravel, the whole bluff being about 150 feet above the river. This bold bluff, or promontory, stands between re-entrant angles, its face falling down sheer thirty or forty feet. There is here visible an irregular slatey or cleavage struc- ture in the rock, that at a distance has the appearance of dip toward the S. E. 30.
"This also contains quartz veins and deposits, accompanied by iron, in some places too abundantly to allow of being cut with a knife, though very much of it can be easily shaped with a knife. It shows 'slickensides,' or surfaces that seem to have been rubbed violently against each other, causing a scratched and smoothed appearance, even within the body of the bluff. These surfaces are concave or curving, like putty hardened after being pressed through a crevice."
Before the extensive denudation of the glacial period, it is probable that all the granite and gneiss of this region were covered by a similarly decayed surface. Upon the areas where decomposed rocks still exist, the glacial plowing was shallower than elsewhere. These kaolinized strata are exposed in a ravine north of the Minnesota river, opposite to Minnesota Falls; in the gorge of the Redwood river, below Redwood Falls; in many of the ledges of the Minnesota valley for several miles next
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
below, especially in excavations made by roads at the foot of the bluffs; in the valley of Birch Cooley near its mouth; and occa- sionally for eight or ten miles farther southeast. They have been found also in well-digging at considerable distance from the Minnesota valley.
Cretaceous Beds. In western Redwood county wells occa- sionally have gone through the drift and passed into clay or shale below, apparently of cretaceous age, and sometimes proved so by enclosed fossils. Such sections are reported at Walnut Grove in North Hero township, and in Granite Rock.
Cretaceous strata doubtless lie next below the drift upon the greater part of this district; but their only outcrops, excepting within the Minnesota valley and the gorge of the Redwood river, occur on the Cottonwood river in Brown county.
In Sherman, in Redwood county, Prof. Winchell records an exposure of cretaceous beds of sandy marl, horizontally strati- fied, seen in the road that descends from the Lower Sioux Agency to the old ferry. At this place in 1860 Prof. A. W. Williamson found in a cut for the road about thirty feet above the Minne- sota river a large coiled shell, since lost, which agreed nearly with the figure of Ammonites monilis seen in an English text- book of geology.
Lignite. About four miles farther northwest, or half way from the Lower Sioux Agency to Redwood Falls, a cretaceous out- crop, including a thin layer of lignite, occurs in the south bluff of the Minnesota valley, above Tiger lake, being in the southwest corner of section 35, Honner, some three-quarters of a mile west from the mouth of Crow creek. Mining for the exploration of the lignite, which is an imperfectly formed coal, of inferior quality, yet valuable for fuel, was undertaken here, on the land of George Johnson, in 1871, by William H. Grant and others, a horizontal drift, or adit, being excavated into the bluff to a dis- tance of about 260 feet from its face southward. This followed the same lignite, which, or at least, a black lignite shale, was found continuous along all this distance, being level in the direc- tion of the adit, but dipping to the west about three degrees, or five feet in a hundred.
The adit is about a third of the way up from the foot to the top of the bluff, or some sixty feet above the river. Several tons of coal, sometimes quite clear for a thickness of six to nine inches, were obtained from the mine, and were used as fuel. The cost of the work, however, was about $2,000, without discovering any portion of the bed that could be profitably mined.
Prof. Winchell describes the formation here explored, and the similar lignite layer in the bluffs of the Redwood river, as fol- lows: "This coal is from one of those layers in the Cretaceous
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
that are usually known as lignites. It is earthy, passing some- times into a good cannel coal, or into a bituminous clay. The compact cannal coal is in detached lumps, and occurs throughout a band of about four feet in thickness. This lignite band was followed in drifting into the bank at Crow creek, and was found to divide by interstratification with black clay, showing some leafy impressions and pieces of charcoal.
"The 'coal' here is said to overlie a bed of lumpy marl.
In some of the concretions are small shining balls of pyrites. . . . Over the 'coal' is a blue clay, requiring a tim- bered roof in the tunnel. This clay is likewise Cretaceous. The underlying lumpy or concretionary white marl becomes siliceous, or even arenaceous, the concretions appearing more like chert. Some of it is also pebbly, showing the action of water currents.
The same lignite coal also occurs elsewhere in the same region, the exposures being kept fresh by the freshet waters. More or less exploring and drilling, besides that done by Mr. Grant, has been engaged in, in this vicinity, but never with any better success.
"Near Redwood Falls, on land of Birney Flynn, is another outcrop of carbonaceous deposit in the Cretaceous. This is seen in the left bank of the Redwood river. It is in the form of a back bedded clay or shale, five or six feet thick, more or less mingled with charcoal and ashes, the whole passing below into charcoal fragments mixed with the same ash-like substance. In the latter are sometimes large pieces of fine, black, very compact coal, the same as that already spoken of at Crow creek as cannel coal. These masses show sometimes what appears to the eye to be fine woody fiber, as if they, too, were simply charred wood. Further examination will be needed to determine their origin and nature. They constitute the only really valuable portions of the bed, the light charcoal, which everywhere shows the dis- tinct woody fiber, being generally mixed with the light ashy sub- stance, and in a state of fine subdivision.
"A short distance above Mr. Flynn's land is that of George Houghton, where the Redwood Falls' coal mine was opened. This mine consists of a drift into the bluff, forty feet, following a lignite, or charcoal bed in the Cretaceous. The bed here is seven feet thick, the greater part of it being made up of black, bedded shale or clay, though Mr. Flynn is authority for the statement that it showed a great deal more of the real charcoal than any other point discovered. Some fragments that lay near the opening, contained about nine parts of charcoal to one of ash, the whole very slightly cemented, and so frail as to hardly endure transportation. In this drift were also numerous pieces of what is described by the owners both here and at Crow creek. as 'stone coal.' It is the same as that mentioned as probably a
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
cannel coal, occurring at Crow creek. It is these harder lumps that are found scattered in the drift throughout the southwestern part of the state."
This mining was done in 1868 or 1869, on the northwest or left side of the Redwood river, about one and a quarter miles north from Redwood Falls, on the south part of the S. W. 1/4, of section 30, Honner, the height of the drift being some 75 feet above the river, and about the same amount below the top of the bluffs and general surface of the country. The lignitie bed is reported to dip slightly toward the southwest, and to be over- lain conformably by shale, above which the upper part of the bluff is till. Next below the black coaly layer is said to have been a marl, varying from reddish to white, six inches to two feet in thickness, underlain by yellow and blue clay. No expo- sure of gneiss or granite is visible at this locality.
It appears nearly certain that no workable deposits of coal exist in this region. Prof. Winchell summarizes his observations and conclusions upon this subject as follows :
"First. The rocks that have been explored for coal, on the Cottonwood and Redwood rivers, belong to the Cretaceous sys- tem, and do not promise to be productive of coal in valuable quantities.
"Second. The coal there taken out is of an inferior grade, though varying from cannal coal to charcoal." The charcoal, "while it is the more abundant, is of less value for use as fuel. It is light, and quickly ignites. . . . It lies in irregular sheets, generally not more than half an inch thick when pure, but may be disseminated through a thickness of six or eight feet. It is very fragile, hardly bearing transportation."
The cannel coal "is black, or brown black, lustrous, compact, rather hard, and presents every aspect of a valuable coal. It occurs in isolated lumps or pockets, in the same beds as the charcoal, but less abundantly. It readily burns, making a hot fire. In the air, when it has become dry, it cracks and crumbles something like quicklime, but not to a powder."
"Third. As the rocks of the Cretaceous period are believed to have existed throughout the most of this state, the only prob- able exception being in the southeastern portion, including half a dozen counties, such coal is likely to occur at a great many places.
"Fourth. The 'float' coal which has so often attracted the attention of the people, is derived, so far as yet known, from the disruption of the Cretaceous rocks by the glaciers of the ice period. It is scattered through the drift, and is met with in wells and other excavations, and may be often picked up along the beds of streams."
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
Glacial and Modified Drift. Glacial striae are plainly seen upon the ledge of gneiss in section 12, Granite Rock, bearing S. 50 to 60 E.
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