USA > Minnesota > Renville County > The history of Renville County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 3
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which seem to be formed by the sections of concretions inclosed in the mass. It is rather hard when dry, and nearly white. It is associated with a blue clay. the relations of which cannot here be made out.
"At a point a little further up this ereek appears a heavy deposit of concretionary, rusty marl . . . in heavy beds that fall off in large fragments, like roek. The first impression is that the bluff is composed of ferruginous conglomerate, but there is not a foreign pebble in it. Every little round mass has a thin shell which is easily broken, revealing either a cavity or a loose, dry earth. These coneretions are generally not more than one-fourth or one-half inch in diameter; seen eighteen feet. Under this is the light, concretionary clay or marl already de- scribed."
Glacial and Modified Drift. Glacial striae were seen in sev- eral places on the ledges of gneiss at the dam at Beaver Falls, bearing S. 60- E., referred to the true meridian: and again in the northwest quarter of section 10, Birch Cooley, having the same direction.
The unmodified glacial drift, or till, with comparatively small associated deposits of modified drift, covers this county to an average depth of about a hundred and fifty feet, as shown in the Minnesota valley, where it has been ent through by fluvial erosion. The till here has the yellowish color near the surface. dne to weathering, and the dark and bluish color below, which it possesses generally throughout the western two-thirds of this state.
Red till, having the same color with that which is spread over northeastern Minnesota, was observed at only one locality in Renville county. This was at the northeast corner of the mill in section 18, Camp, where a section, exposed three rods in length and twelve feet in height. consisted wholly of this red till, excepting two or three feet of soil and gray till on the sur- face. It is in the lower part of the Minnesota valley bluff. about fifty feet above the river. Several other such exceptional de- posits of red till in the great area of blue till covering western Minnesota and eastern Dakota are noted in volume 1, page 628, "The Geology of Minnesota," where their origin is attributed to an ice-current reaching southwestward from Lake Superior across Minnesota in the carly glacial epoch when the ice at- tained its maximum extent and depth. Another explanation of the red color of the till in these isolated localities is suggested by Prof. Winchell, who thinks that it may have been caused by the glacial erosion of red shales and sandstones lying near on the north, coloring the drift locally in the same way as it was colored over a large area by derivation from such rocks about Lake Superior. As this part of Minnesota is almost universally
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
drift-covered, the underlying rock-formations are only partially known. No decisive evidence for this view is found, but much probability is given to it by the occurrence of red shales in the deep well at Mankato and of red quartzyte in Nicollet, Cotton- wood, Pipestone and Rock counties, similar to the Lake Superior rocks and belongings with them to the same Potsdam period.
Boulders are only sparingly present in the till of this region, excepting on the bluffs of the Minnesota valley and its larger tributaries, where they seem to have been left in the process of erosion, and also at a few localities in the west part of the county, where they occasionally occur in remarkable abundance along the course of slight depressions on the general surface of the drift-sheet. In the Minnesota valley boulders were seen especially plentiful on the bluffs through Birch Cooley township ; and in the valley of Hawk creek they abound on its east bluff within a quarter of a mile south from the bridge in the north- east quarter of section 17. Hawk Creek. Many boulders were noted in a depression extending from north to south, about thirty feet deep and a sixth of a mile wide, crossed by the highway and railroad near the middle of sections 1 and 12, Sacred Heart ; also in similar north-to-south hollows, about ten feet below the average level, a third of a mile and again abont one mile west of Olivia. These depressions were probably water-courses dur- ing the departure of the ice-sheet, and their boulders may be- long to the stratum of rocky drift apparently a buried moraine, which is observable along the Minnesota valley and within a few miles north from it through Chippewa, Swift and Big Stone coun- ties. The size of these rock-fragments seldom exceeds five feet. Most of them are granite, syenite, and gneiss; several of horn- blende schist were observed in sections 10 and 12, Sacred Heart, but elsewhere few or none of this rock are found; magnesian limestone, which is everywhere present. making abont hall of the gravel in the drift, usually supplies a small proportion, perhaps one in twenty, of the large boulders, and even occurs rarely in blocks or slabs ten feet or more in extent.
An interglacial forest-bed is inclosed in the drift upon a considerable area near the centre of this county. At Olivia sta- tion, in section 7. Bird Island, a well was yellow till, pieked, ton feet ; softer but more rocky blne till, nine feet ; very hard blue till, one foot ; and quicksand, four fect. A log, apparently tama- rack, eight inches in diameter, with several smaller sticks and twigs, lay across this well, imbedded in the top of the quicksand. They were chopped off at each side. G. W. Burch, two miles southwest from this, in section 24, Troy, found yellow till, eighteen feet; dry, yellow sand, four fert : soft blue till, fifteen feet : black loam, perhaps an interglacial soil, two feet : and gray quicksand, four feet, its upper part containing a log and smaller
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
sticks like the foregoing. Several other wells within one or two miles about Olivia show similar remains of a deeply buried for- est-bed, overlain by till.
Terraces apparently formed in the till of the general drift- sheet were observed at two places on the Minnesota valley bluffs, one being in section 21, Hawk Creek, lying about forty feet be- low the top of the bluff and extending nearly a mile between the creek and the river. and the other in Beaver Falls : lying twenty to forty feet below the top of the bluff, from an eighth to a quar- ter of a mile wide and extending two miles, with a slight descent from northwest to southeast. These terraces are quite notiee- able from the opposite side of the river. Seen from that dis- tance, they show Hat ontlines, contrasting with the somewhat un- dulating higher land.
Kame-like mounds and small short ridges of gravel and sand, extending ten or twenty rods and rising fifteen to twenty-five feet above the general level, are seattered over most portions of this and adjoining counties. These small deposits of modified drift lie on a surface of till, and are attributable to the aetion of streams produced in the final melting of the ice-sheet. Oe- easionally such a gravel knoll is quite isolated, distant a half mile or more from any other. They are sometimes coarse gravel, with pebbles or rounded stones up to a foot or more in diameter ; again they are fine gravel and sand, interstratified and obliquely bedded. When they form short ridges, their trend in the central and west parts of this county is prevailingly from northwest to southeast, and from west to east in its east part, but they are mostly only twice or three times as long as they are wide. and no distinct series was noticed. In Brookfield, Osecola, Hector, Melville, Bird Island, and Birch Cooley, numerous mounds of this kind were observed. An excavation to the depth of seven feet in one which is nearly round and twenty feet high, situated in or near the southwestern quarter of section 2, Bird Island, shows it to consist of gravel and sand irregularly interbedded in layers three to eight inches thick. Its pebbles, more than half of which are limestone, are mostly less than two inches in diameter, but rarely as large as six inches.
Modified drift occurs also within the sheet of glacial drift forming the thin layers or seams of water-bearing gravel and sand so often struck in well-digging, and occasionally beds of considerable thickness. A section extending vertically forty feet in modified drift that seems to be a part of the drift-sheet, being probably overlain by till, was observed in section 27, Camp, at the east end of the mill-dam on Three Mile creek where it enters the Minnesota valley. In descending order, this was coarse gravel, four feet, containing pebbles up to about one foot in diameter; gravelly sand, five feet ; coarse gravel, cemented by
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
iron-rust (limonite), three feet ; and obliquely stratified sand and fine gravel, abont thirty feet.
No terraces of modified drift were found in the part of the Minnesota valley bordering this county.
A fossiliferous layer of postglacial gravel lies in the east bank of Hawk creek in the southeast quarter of seetion S, Hawk Creek township, three to fifteen rods north from the highway bridge. The valley of the creek is here about seventy-five feet, deep, inelosed by bluffs of till. In its bottom a terraee of gravel and sand, about twenty rods wide, borders the stream, above which its height is fifteen feet. On the slope from this terrace to the creek the onteropping edge of a layer of fine gravel about two feet thick, six to eight feet above the water, differs from the bank above and below by being cemented with ealcare- ous matter, and in this bed many shells are found. These have been determined by R. Ellsworth Call, as follows: Sphærium striatinum, Lam., Valvata tricarinata, Say, Amnicola limosa, Say, Gyraulus parvus, Say, a Goniobasis, probably G. livescens, Menke, and representatives of the genera Unio. Anodonta and Campel- oma. Mr. Call states that all these species are found living in this region, and that the four named with certainty are also common in the loess of Iowa.
Minerals. M. Abbott, of Heetor, some thirty-five years ago, came into possession of a beautiful mass of amethyst crystals, found about a foot below the surface, a few rods south of the railroad station at Hector. The entire mass was about twelve inches long and four inches wide, attached to a layer of nearly black rock, about a quarter of an inch thick, in which were fre- quent minute crystals of pyrite. For this base the amethyst erys- tals rose three and a half inches, the largest having a diameter of two inches. Some of these large crystals contained in the faces of their terminal pyramids, particles and irregular erys- tals of pyrite, up to an eighth of an inch wide and a third of an inch long. The mass showed no signs of glacial wearing. It was possibly brought to this region by the Indians or early French explorers.
A deposit of travertine, or "petrified moss" was found by Ole Deason, situated on the south side of the wooded ravine, sixty feet deep, in the northwest quarter of section 22, Hawk Creek township. It was of a light gray color, more compact than usual, and enelosing impressions and casts of leaves and twigs. Two exposures of it were seen about four rods apart each showing a thickness of six or eight feet.
(Note. The above resume of the Geology of Renville county was written by Warren Upham, from notes gathered by him in 1879, and published in the second volume of Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, 1882-1885.)
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IHISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
UNDERGROUND WATERS.
Surface Features. The surface of Renville county consti- tutes for the most part a very gently undulating drift plain cov- ered with a plexus of lakes, ponds, and swamps. The monotony of this plain is interrupted only along the southwestern margin, where Minnesota river flows through a valley one to three miles wide and 175 to 200 feet deep, and where many short, rugged tributary gorges dissect the level uplands. Much the greater part of the county still retains the gentle prairie topography inherited from the Pleistocene epoch, and is quite immodified by postglacial erosion.
Surface Deposits. The glacial drift is found everywhere ex- cept in parts of the Minnesota valley and its tributaries, where underlying formations are exposed. Owing to irregularities in the surface on which it rests its thickness varies somewhat, but in general increases from the Minnesota valley eastward and northward, attaining a maximum of more than 400 feet, and hav- ing an average for the county of perhaps 250 feet. The follow- ing table shows the thickness of the drift and the altitude of the surface upon which it rests in the different localities of the county: Renville, thickness of drift, 264 feet ; altitude of sur- face on which drift rests, 790 feet. Olivia, thickness of drift, 297 feet : altitude of surface on which drift rests, 770 feet. Bird Island, thickness of drift, 280 feet : altitude of surface on which drift rests, 800 feet. Hector, thickness of drift, 438; altitude of surface on which drift rests. 635 feet. Buffalo Lake, thick- ness of drift, 340 feet : altitude of surface on which drift rests, 725 feet. Morton, thickness of drift. 0: altitude of surface on which drift rests, 850 feet. Franklin, thickness of drift, 122 feet : altitude of surface on which drift rests. 900 feet. Fairfax, thickness of drift, 202 feet: altitude of surface on which drift rests. 840 feet.
The beds of sand and gravet, which oeeur at different depths, constitute the water-bearing members of the drift. The supplies from the shallow beds are generally meager and are readily affected by dronght, but the yield of the deeper zones is gener- ons and permanent. In many places at or near the base of the drift there is a thick stratum of sand and gravel that will fur- nish large quantities of water. In the southern part of the county. where the drift is not as thick as elsewhere, the underlying for- mations are sometimes penetrated before a satisfactory supply is obtained.
Throughout most of the county the water rises nearly to the surface, but no flowing wells have been reported. In the vicinity of the Minnesota valley the head is lower than elsewhere, be- canse of the water lost through the munerons large springs in
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
the valley. The following table shows the height to which the water rises in the various village wells: Renville. depth to top of water, 50 feet : head above sea level, 1,005 feet. Olivia, depth to top of water, 14 feet ; head above sea level, 1,065 feet. Bird Island. depth to top of water, 30 feet ; head above sea level, 1,050 feet. Hector, depth to top of water, 12 feet ; head above sea level, 1,060 feet. Buffalo Lake, depth to top of water, 10 Feet ; head above sea level, 1,055 feet. Franklin, depth to top of water, 50 feet : head above sea level, 970 feet. Fairfax, depth to top of water, 80 feet ; head above sea level, 960 feet.
Throughout the northeastern part of the county the water from the deep beds of the drift is lower in total mineralization, total hardness. and permanent hardness than that from the shal- low sources. In the southern and western parts of the county, where the drift has only a moderate thickness. the difference be- tween the shallow and deep waters is less marked.
The deep-drift water differs both from the shallow-drift water and from the Cretaceous water which exists west of this county. In its content of calein and magnesium it is intermedi- ate between the two-the shallow-drift water containing large amounts, the Cretaceous water small amounts, and the deep-drift water moderate amounts of these elements. In its content of sodium and potassium the deep-drift water approximates rather closely to the shallow-drift water, both containing moderate quantities of these elements, whereas the Cretaceous water con- tains large quantities. In its content of sulphates it differs sharp- ly From the other two in that it is low in this constituent, whereas they are very high. These differences seem to indicate that the deep water in this county is not derived entirely from the over- lying drift nor from the Cretaceous to the west, nor yet from a mingling of the waters from these two sources.
An interesting phenomenon noticed in the northern part of the county is the presence of inflammable gas which is brought up in small quantities with the water from a number of the deeper wells.
Cretaceous and Archean Rocks. At various points along the valley of the Minnesota are found onterops of stratified roeks con- sisting of blue, black, green and white shales, and of marl, lime- stone, coal, sand, sandstone, ete. The section exposed is every- where thin and changes within short distances from one kind of material to another. In some places Cretaceous fossils have been found in these deposits and there is little doubt that they are all Cretaceous in age. The outerops that have been de- seribed in this county can be summed up as follows:
1. In sec. 10. T. 112 N., R. 34 W .. on the north side of Minne- sota River, up the valley of a small ereek, are outerops, deseribed by N. II. Winchell, of concretionary marl or limy earth of a
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
white color, which he refers to the Cretaceous. 2. Warren Up- ham described exposures of Cretaceous clay or shale along Fort Creek. in see. 31. T. 112 N .. R. 32 W. At one place these contain a thin layer of limestone and at another a seam of clayey lignite. Ile also described an exposure near the foot of the bluff of the Minnesota Valley, in the NE. 14 sec. 34. T. 112 N., R. 33 W., which consists of gray Cretaceous shale visible to a thickness of 7 feet. 3. C. W. Hall described an exposure of white sandstone along the wagon road in the same seetion, and also in the gorge of Birch Coulée at the border of secs. 32 and 33. T. 113 N .. R. 34 W .. and in sec. 28. T. 113 N. R. 34 W. This sandstone is exposed for 12 or 15 feet.
Beneath the Cretaceous rocks is a white or nearly white non- calcareous clay which consists largely of kaolin. In some places it is entirely free from grit, in others it contains embedded grains of quartz. and in still others it is free from grit at the top but contains embedded quartz grains at the bottom. This clay was described by N. II. Winchell. It has been encountered in many wells in Renville county and in other parts of southwestern Min- nesota where granite is reached in drilling. and without doubt owes its origin to the decomposition of the granitie rocks on which it rests. Where it is thin and contains embedded grains of quartz it is probably the undisturbed granitie residuum, but where it has a considerable thickness, is free from quartz grains. and contains interbedded layers of grit it has evidently been handled by water and is a sedimentary rather than a residual deposit. If this sedimentation took place at the time when the Cretaceous seas invaded the region, as would seem probable, it is a sort of basal formation belonging to the Cretaceons. Evi- dently it is not always possible, especially in well sections, to locate the precise boundary between the granitic residuum and the Cretaceons. In the maps and sections the white clay is in- cluded with the granitic residuum except where it is evidently Cretaceous. Though this method is somewhat arbitrary it rep- resents the facts as accurately as is feasible.
Beneath the white clay there is generally decomposed granite, which plainly shows its origin and which gradually gives place downward to the firm, unaltered rock.
The Cretaceous rocks are nowhere thick and are absent in some parts of the county : the white elay is found chiefly in the southern part. In some places the Cretaceous roeks, the white elay, and the decomposed granite have all been swept away by the invading ice sheets, and the glacial drift rests immediately upon hard granitic rock.
Along the line of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Rail- way, in the east (Hector and Buffalo Lake) the glaeial drift seems to rest directly upon the granite. but in the west : Renville.
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
Olivia, and Bird Island) a certain amount of shale and deeom- posed granite forms the transition between the drift and the un- altered granite. It is not everywhere certain at what point the boundary should be drawn between the Cretaecons and the gran- itie residuum.
The following sections of wells are given to illustrate the character of the formations in the southern part of the county:
Section at Fairfax (mill well) .- Yellow boulder clay, thick- ness, 20 l'eet : blue boulder elay, thickness, 165 feet ; sand, thick- ness, 1 foot ; bhie boulder clay, thickness, 16 feet ; white, putty- like material containing grit (water), decomposed granite (wa- ter,) thickness, 36 feet.
Well section at Franklin .- Yellow boulder clay, and blue boulder clay, thickness, 110 feet ; sand and gravel, thickness, 12 feet.
Well seetion at Morton (Catholic church) .- Coarse gravel, thickness, 40 feet; white elay, thickness, 75 feet ; sand (water). thickness, 3 feet ; white clay and sandstone, thickness, 27 feet.
Section of well one mile north of Morton, on the farm of John Eder. Yellow boulder clay and blue boulder clay, thick- ness. 120 feet ; white elay, thickness, 17 feet : sand and gravel (hard water), thickness, 3 feet.
Seetion of well two and a half miles north of Morton, on the farm of Peter Kavney. Boulder clay and "Hardpan," thiek- ness, 120 feet ; soft, sticky, blue-clay without grit, thickness, 2 feet : sand (water), thickness, 3 feet.
Section of well four miles north of Morton, on the farm of Jolin Jones. Yellow boulder clay and blue boulder elay, thick- ness, 124 feet ; white clay, thickness, 6 feet.
Section of well four miles north of Franklin, on the farm of John Drury. Boulder clay, etc., thickness, 130 feet : white elay, thickness, 168 feet.
The following table shows the approximate depth to the granitic surface and its altitude above sea level in the varions localities of the county: Granite Falls (Yellow Medicine Coun- ty), depth to granitie rock, at surface; altitude of granitic sur- face, 900 feet. Renville, depth to granitic rock, 325 feet; alti- tude of granitic surface, 730 feet. Olivia, depth to granitic rock, 345 feet : altitude of granitie surface, 730 feet. Bird Island, depth to granitic rock, 345 feet ; altitude of granitic surface, 730 feet. Hector, depth to granitic rock, 438 feet; altitude of granitic surface, 635 feet. Buffalo Lake, depth to granitie rock, 340 feet ; altitude of granitie surface, 725 feet. Morton, depth to granitic roek, at surface : altitude of granitic surface, 850 feet. Frank- Jin, (bottom of white clay), depth to granitic rock, 150 feet; altitude of granitie surface, 860 feet. Fairfax (bottom of white
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
clayi, depth to granitic rock, 230 feet ; altitude of granitic sur- face, 810 fert.
In the northern part of the county attempts to obtain water in the formations beneath the drift have generally failed, but in the southern part a number of wells have been reported which derive their supplies from layers of sand or sandstone enconn- tered after the Cretaceous deposits or the white elay have been entered. This is true of nearly all the wells whose sections are given above. The mill well at Fairfax, which derives its water from grit and decomposed granite below a layer of the white ma- terial, received a rather severe test. The following statement was made by one of the drillers in this county :
"Beneath the elay (glacial drift ) there is a white formation, in general from 30 to 50 Feet thick, beneath which there is rotten granite and then hard red granite. The white material is at first soft and putty-like but changes into a harder formation containing grit. This gritty white material and the decomposed granite usually contain a good supply of water."
The water from beneath the white elay is of various mineral character, much of it being very hard but some being similar to the deeper drift water.
City and Village Water Supplies. The larger centers in Ren- ville county are all excellently supplied with water, adequate for household use, and fire protection. The water-towers which crown every municipality are a characteristic feature of the landscape. Private wells are still in extensive use in the city and the villages because for coffee making and a few other purposes the supply from private wells is much superior to the supply from the artesian wells.
Farm Water Supplies. In the northern part of the county most of the farms are supplied from shallow bored wells which end in the upper portion of the drift and yield meager and un- certain quantities of hard water, but there are a few deeper drilled wells similar to the village and railway wells along the Chicago. Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway. The deep wells are superior to the shallow ones in the following respeets: (1) The water is softer, (2) the yield is larger and more permanent, and (3) there is less danger of pollution. In the southern part of the county there are more drilled wells. These range from 2 to 6 inches in diameter, and from less than 100 to more than 300 feet in depth, but are generally between 100 and 150 feet. They generally end in the glacial drift, but a few penetrate the under- lying formations, as has already been explained. The shallow wells have hard water but some of the deeper ones yield water which is softer. Six-inch drilled wells are recommended for farm purposes in all parts of the county.
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