History of Grant County, Wisconsin, Part 46

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 1044

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Suppose the State cut through to the level of Lake Michigan, east from the Mississippi River in Grant County, we find the formations which prevail throughout Wisconsin, and tar be- yond its borders, always attesting the regularity with which Dame Nature prosecutes her designs. The Lower Magnesian limestone gives us the first record of life found in this region, hitherto, after the disintegrated gneiss or granite had in some degree solidified beneath the waters as sand- stone, and the thickness of that stratum is remarkably even throughont our imagined cutting; the limestone following the form of the underlying rock, and having suffered but little from abrasion, protected as it must have been by its coverlet and base of supplies, the sea. Elsewhere this formation is much less regular in depth, as it follows the contour line preceding its deposit, and lies irregularly. Grant River has cut down into this bed of limestone at about 350 feet above the level of Lake Michigan, but the banks of the Father of Waters reveal the same form- ation at an elevation of about 200 feet. Our supposititious section runs east and west through the county of Grant about seven miles north of Lancaster, crossing the head-waters of Platte River.

Next above the Lower Magnesian limestone, we find St. Peters sandstone, so called from one of its best exposures, which has evidently suffered from abrasion in many parts of its sur- face, and is found cropping out on the Mississippi banks as well as on the sides of Grant River, though still far below the Platte. Trenton limestone, moderately rich in fossils, attests an era in which life had risen to more various formations, beautiful as though some cunning and skilled artist, with an unbounded wealth of resource, had fashioned and imbedded them to minister in after ages to the esthetic sense in man. The head-waters of the Platte cut through and into this formation, which reaches an elevation little more than 300 feet on the Mississippi at our imagined line, but is found at an altitude of nearly 500 feet on Grant River, our base line being always the level of Lake Michigan. Galena limestone follows next in order, and the name is significant at once as to its place of first identification, and as to the valned mineral with which it was charged. The stratum has been abraded in many localities until it fails even to put in an ap- pearance ; as for instance, at our imagined line bisecting the bank of the Mississippi, but east of that point the stratum asserts itself, cut through with greater or less pertinacity by streams

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that have long since found a grander channel. That deposit caps the ranges in the vicinity of Grant River, and further east along the head-waters of the Platte, rising east of that point to an elevation of about 700 feet on the eastern boundary line of the county.

The fact that this region did not suffer from glacial denudation and was not enriched by morainic drift, gives to our line of bisection special value in ascertaining readily the surface con- tour of the land before that era of refrigeration, allowing always for erosion by the atmosphere and rains and rivers. For that reason, we will follow another imagined bisection of the county due north and south, near the eastern boundary. North of the center of the line, the Potsdam sandstone rises above the level of Michigan Lake, and gradually ascends to an elevation of about four hundred feet, not far from the northern limit of the county, descending thence by denuda- tion to about three hundred feet at the boundary. Although this sandstone is not rich in fos- sils, it would be folly to assume that life was not plentiful on this planet while this vast stratum was being deposited ; the more sensible conclusion is that the stratum was not well adapted to the preservation of the forms of life which passed into its keeping. The Laurentian rocks, upper and lower, which constituted the first Island of Wisconsin, were sedimentary, and their formation must have preceded the sandstone mentioned by a term which human investigation has never yet defined; yet the Laurentian rocks hold within their embrace many evidences which are satisfactory to men of scientific attainments, that vitality of a low order preceded their deposi- tion, and some fossils have been found in America and in Europe, which, it is claimed, set that question forever at rest. Some careful investigators doubt the organic character of the alleged fossils, and we are not prepared to decide, where doctors disagree ; but, inasmuch as our supposed section of Grant County does not reveal the systems of rocks named from their great develop- ments in the valley of the St. Lawrence, we will proceed with our brief disquisition on the strata actually found in that region, which we endeavor to describe. Wisconsin River has cut its course through the Potsdam sandstone, and numerous streams of less dimensions have left their marks in unmistakable characters, hewn out of the same body, which is entirely denuded of all such overlying strata as may elsewhere be found. The same order of succession as has been noted in the line east and west-Lower Magnesian limestone, St. Peters sandstone, Trenton limestone and Galena limestone in the same relative position-is still observable, but superim- posed upon these we find preserved in the Platte Mounds, at an elevation not less than seven hundred feet above the level of Lake Michigan, the formation known as Cincinnati or Hudson River shale, capped by a remnant of Niagara limestone. Blue River has its course bottomed on St. Peters sandstone, while Trenton and Galena limestones form the superincumbent layers, and this regularity in the movements of natural forces enables the student to apply himself, with much economy of resource, to unfold the wealth of mineral possessions, which, in our own time and in the near future, will become the heritage of the human family.

From the writings and tracings of Prof. Chamberlin, we are permitted to supplement our scanty delineation of the State, as represented in the geological features of this region, by adding a general though brief description of the State as a whole, and of the upheaval and formations that have contributed the material bases of our national wealth.

We have delineated the shallow sea that ebbed and flowed, obeying the impulses of the moon, where the State of Wisconsin now reposes in beauty and excellence, the loved home of a thrifty and prosperous people, but we will return to that point in our narrative, the better to present the picture of that upheaval to the popular mind. The sediment to which we are indebted for the Laurentian rock, is estimated to have been much more rapid in deposition than similar processes to-day, and a thickness of 30,000 feet is claimed by scientists as only a small remainder of a more vast formation, contributing its quota to the crust of the earth. Beneath the sea, this sediment accumulated in horizontal strata under circumstances that favored metamorphic action, the results of which are still visible. The time came when heat and lateral pressure, such as we have already mentioned, re-arranged the folds of the earth's mantle and began to pre- pare a dwelling-place for man. That nucleus of a nation may be called, for our own conven- ience, the Island of Wisconsin. The character as well as the position and form of that rock,

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was probably changed in the act of upheaval, so mighty were the forces therein engaged. The sediment had been changed into crystalline rocks, widely dissimilar from the later sandstone, although compacted of the same elements. Thus we stand, as it were, in the presence of the Archæan or ancient rocks, otherwise known as the Azoic. The wonderous changes through which this metamorphic rock passed in attaining the eminence of an island in those seas, might well be supposed capable of obliterating all signs of vital organization, but, in other rocks which seem to be identified with this formation, it is asserted, with some authority, that fossils have certainly been found, and our investigations have hitherto been too narrow and restricted to entitle us to say with authority that there are no fossils in the Laurentian formation here. It is not possible to define accurately the extent of that island won from the domain of Neptune, but it is assumed to have filled a large area in the northern central part of our State, stretching beyond into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This was the primeval base upon which was to be erected an empire of the people, sacred to liberty and right. Other islands, at remote distances, were per- haps upheaved at the same instant with our own, to be banded together in one vast continent, for the noblest ends possible on earth, when the Laurentian era should have taken its place away back in the remotest antiquity with which life has been identified. We have no data whereby we can determine the altitude of these islands, upon which the rain descended and the floods came, beating with tempestuous violence ; but, apart from the strata forced into positions almost approaching the perpendicular, and from which the cap or connecting fold has been abraded, we have the deep and wide-spread deposits of the Huronian period to tell us of the mountainous elevations from which that sandy detritus must have been torn away by wind-storms, rain, the beat of countless waves, and the never-ceasing disintegrating power of the chemic constituents of the atmosphere. We have, thus, our island lifting its head toward heaven, and the elements tearing down the inaccessible mountain peaks, to bridge the chasms and convert that island, with others widely scattered, into the broad expanse of prairie, mountain, valley, cataract, lake and river, which is to-day the world's wonder. Science may yet enable us to read this exquisite story of the earth as the home prepared for man, with fuller appreciation. It is not easy to imagine that, on an island thus builded, there could have been any form of vegetable life at the outset ; but, in the sea around its base, if we may judge from the carbonaceous matter incorporated with the deposits, there must have been an abundant marine flora, and, in the limestone accretions we find evidence of higher organizations. Life was in the waters surrounding our island, and the Great Artificer of the Universe was, through His laws, compelling the least of His animate creatures to prepare the way for their superiors in the army of being. Perhaps this statement of the case may savor of dogmatism, but we argue the presence of life in the waters from the limestone deposits left in testimony, as well as from the fact that the Laurentian rocks, which antedated this era by unnumbered centuries, are not certainly and entirely barren of fossils. The shales, sandstones and limestones of this period of deposition, aggregated many thousand feet in depth ; and, in due time, these also were upheaved and metamorphosed in that process, as the Laurentian had been, into crystalline and semi-crystalline rocks, known to us by various names and innumerable uses in the civilization by which we are surrounded. The Huronian rocks are compacted of quartzites, crystalline limestones, slates, schists, diorites, quartz-porphyries and other forms of metamorphic sediment. Graphite is the resultant from carbonaceous deposits, and magnetite, hematite and specular ores tell of the forms of life by which such means of wealth are brought within our ken ; the last-named deposits are so great as to give the name of the iron- bearing series to this upheaval. These several strata, contorted and folded by pressure and heat, added largely to the circumference of the island, from whose shores and heights they had been gathered, and the ceaseless activities of nature paused not one instant in preparing new formations. The nearest approach to a mountain in our State, is the upturned edge of the Huronian upheaval, which stretches for sixty miles, crossing Ashland County, bearing within its rampart a belt of magnetic schist through nearly the whole length of Penokee Range. The Menominee iron-bearing series, which extends into the northern part of Oconto County, is another important topographical and mineralogical feature in the Huronian formation. Barron

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County owes its deposits of pipestone to the same source, and they cover a large area. The Baraboo quartzite ranges in Sauk and Columbia, with detached outliers northeasterly through other counties, are conspicuous contributions from that formation, which has its most southerly exposure near Lake Mills, in the county of Jefferson.

Before the Huronian strata were upraised, it is assumed that the crust of the earth was fissured in the Lake Superior region, and that a vast outflow of molten rock spread itself by successive eruptions at various intervals over an area more than 300 miles long by 100 miles wide, forming a series of trappean beds. Sometimes there were intervals between these molten streams, during which the ocean ransacked from the superimposed rock, the materials for beds of sand, gravel and clay, which are now present as sandstone, conglomerate and shale; and, as though tenacious of the credit that belonged to its handiwork, the waves of the perturbed sea have left their ripple-marks in the stone to tell us that the forces of the central fire were not allowed to assert themselves unchallenged by the ocean. When eruptions ceased entirely in that region, the sedimentary process went on accumulating until the series achieved a thickness which is stated in miles. The rocks which have been named as thrown up from within the earth's crust have undergone changes so great that their igneous character is almost obliterated; the mineral ingredients have been metamorphosed by chemical action, so that we find iron chlorite and feldspar associated with quartz, prenite, calcite, laumontite, analcite, datolite, magnetite, native copper, silver, and occasionally other minerals, the rock being known as a melaphyr. Usually we find the upper portion of each bed composed of cells about the size of an almond filled with the minerals that have been indicated, so that the rock is amygdaloidal. After the beds were deposited, the native copper was placed in the receptacles, where it is found to-day, by chemical action after changes in the rock had been initiated by similar means, and the silver found in that series is due to the same agency. Ashland, Bayfield, Burnett, Douglas and Polk Counties, in the northern section of the State, are remarkable for the presence of copper and silver bearing rocks, the metals being most plentiful in the amygdaloids and some conglomerates, but being found in the melaphyrs, sandstones and shales also. The Huronian rocks carried the copper-bearing series with them in their upheaval, and they are found with the same folds and flexures. The Keweenaw Point range extends from the part of Michigan to which its name is due southwesterly through Ashland, Burnett and Polk Counties, in this State, the beds dipping toward Lake Superior northwesterly; but, in a parallel range, which is found in Bayfield and Douglas Counties, the beds dip at a less angle in the opposite direction. There was a "lost interval " after the upheaval of the Archaan rocks, the Laurentide hills of the early French explorers, the Laurentian of our time, which even now, after ages of erosion, can be traced on the north side of the St. Lawrence, from Labrador to Lake Superior, and still to the north a distance yet undetermined. The hills of this formation are seen 4,000 feet in height, and where the Saguenay makes its course toward the St. Lawrence there are cliffs that lift their heads fully 1,500 feet sheer from the water's edge. South of the range through which the Saguenay runs, the Adirondack Hills stand an isolated mass 6,000 feet in altitude, a sentinel rock of the Lau- rentian system, rivaled by the newer formation-the White Mountains. The Lower Laurentian has no exposure in our State, but it is found in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and, rarely, in Massachusetts and Maryland. Beyond the Atlantic the same rocks are identified in Norway, Sweden, the Hebrides and Bohemia, bearing with slight differences the same alleged but debatable fossils, the Eozoon Canadense, Bavaricum, etc., of a type still said to be extant. The Lougroynd groups of rocks in Shropshire and in Wales, with their equivalents in the Wick- low Mountains in Ireland, are probably Huronian rather than Laurentian. The exact equiva- lency of our Laurentian system with that of Canada and the provinces is not determincd, but strong likelihoods point in that direction with increasing force. The "lost interval " indicates no idleness in nature, but a failure on the part of the geologist to follow her operations. We have elsewhere glanced at the wondrous activities that laid down the vast beds now known as Potsdam sandstone, and then upheaved them to their present and to still greater elevations. We can trace the formation here lying on the foot of an eminence which is gradually succumbing to

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"the tooth and razure of oblivion," except as its remains are preserved as particles of quartz in the new stratum. Again we see some harder projection of the old rock detached from the main island, which yet lifted its head in solemn self-assertion, and breasted the angry billows, impa- tient of their endeavor to reduce its elevations to the common level; and yet again we meet some great bowlders, typical of the empire foretold in Scripture, compacted of brass and of clay; there the harder components remain, dismounted from their eminences by the erosion of feet of clay in the softer material upon which they depended, and the sands of the sea shore reverently surrounded them with their legions of defenders, to retain them where they are found in our era, still distinguishable as mementoes of the age of giant rocks, which built for man a temple not made with hands.

Life was an ever-present element in this formation, but the earlier sandstones are not rich in well-defined fossils, although they give us lithographic illustrations and actual casts of the shells in which living beings built themselves in from the elements. Limestones and shales, interstratifying the sandstone, mark where some sheltered spot temporarily favored the establish- ment of a cemetery, upon which the sands once more advanced, burying the dead out of the sight of generations that had never dreamed of the mysteries of existence. The red sandstone of Lake Superior is due to the action of the sea upon the iron and copper-bearing series of rocks of whose qualities we have spoken ; away from that region we find a broad, irregular belt reach- ing almost around the Archæan island, a rude crescent of light-colored sandstone, won by the waves and winds and rains from porphyries, quartzites and granite, either of which would, in our more conservative age, be able to hold its own against oxygen for centuries unless frost came in to help the demolition.

There was no great upheaval after the Potsdam sandstone had been deposited, hence it lies horizontally upon the abraded bed of the underlying crystalline stratum, neither crumpled nor metamorphosed by heat and pressure, only slightly arched toward the center of the State. The weight of superincumbent beds. and the cementing action of waters carrying lime and iron in solution, which have percolated through this formation, have largely increased its density; but the ripple marks, cross-laminations, worm burrows, and other indications of action and life on a sandy beach are clearly traceable, and its thickness varies from the fine line which defined its limit on the shore of the island down into the depths where it formed an aggregate of perhaps a thousand feet. All the later formations take their place above the Potsdam sandstone, which. may be reached by boring in any part of the State, beyond the bounds of the Archaan core. This is a fact of vital importance, because a water-bearing rock can be calculated upon with absolute certainty, and the layers of limestone and shale which interstratify the mass are of great value in arresting the flow of water and turning it surfaceward. The formation of lime- stone, never arrested while life endures, comes now once more within our region of observation, and the deposit ranges from fifty to two hundred and fifty feet in thickness. The horizontality of the sandstone was not perfect, and the irregularities of the foundation were filled by the limestone as it settled down and solidified under oceanic pressure. There were places where the substratum showed a rise and fall of nearly one hundred feet within quite a limited area, but the limestone itself is remarkable for an appearance aptly described as follows: The lime- stone and the interstratified beds mentioned earlier were magnesian or dolomitic, containing carbonate of magnesia in great quantity. There were quantities of silica in the deposit which sometimes are found as nodules of chert, and in other instances as quartz crystals ; this beautiful form of matter lines cavities which never saw the light until man quarried in the rock, and yet the exquisite loveliness of each crystal is perfected according to its law, as though the handi- work therein concealed had been one of the most costly adornments of a palace. Some metals appear in the mass, but they are of little value, and evidences of life herein are very scanty. Sea weeds, mollusks and a few other forms of being are scattered sparsely, save at intervals, where circumstances favored a more liberal contribution to our knowledge of the organisms that obtained in the earlier seas. Erosion has removed a large proportion of this rock, so that it is now jagged and irregular in the last degree, but, originally, it must have been a broad and regular band, contributing its quota toward increasing the island to the dimensions of a continent.

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We cannot tell why the deposit of magnesian limestone ceased, but the sandstone known as St. Peters comes next in order of succession, probably after an interval. This is a fine sili- cious sand, much desiderated in the manufacture of glass ; but it is deposited in small quanti- ties, sometimes not enough to cover the inequalities of the limestone. The greatest thickness of St. Peters sandstone yet discovered does not exceed two hundred and twelve feet, and the average is less than one hundred. It is not a firm stone, having been imperfectly cemented, so that it disintegrates readily. Some organic remains have recently been found in this deposit, but they are few and far between, just sufficient to attest the presence of marine life and the agency of the ocean in triturating these fine grains of quartz. This belt, probably much reduced from its original dimensions, fringes the lower magnesian bed on the south, and covers but a small area. The absence of fossils may be accounted for in two ways : First, in the cut- ting and crushing action of the sandy particles, and next in their porosity-a quality to which we are indebted for the supply of many of our finest artesian wells, and from which numberless other such living fountains may be procured, as the flow of water is practically inexhaustible.

Trenton limestone deposits follow, indicating some changes in oceanic conditions, local or general, and, at the same time, a great deal of clay-like matter was being placed in position to be converted into shale, shells, corals and other organic debris, or their signs manual in the rock give positive evidence as to the origin of this limestone in the myriad lives that were capa- ble of converting the particles held in solution by the seas into the osseous environments of their own being. The limestone now deposited was very pure, not largely magnesian ; but, when the clay predominated, a bed of shale, greater or less in extent, resulted. Sometimes these beds were so highly charged with carbonaceous matter that they burn readily, and no small portion of our petroleum comes from such formations. In the lead region, this deposit has sometimes been found rich in metals, but of course that condition is the outcome of chemi- cal action and infiltration-not a characteristic found in the pure limestone stratum. The fos- sils in the Trenton limestone are abundant, and the stone, being susceptible of a very high pol- ish, is valuable in an economic sense, as well as deeply interesting to the scientist on account of its archeological revelations, as all the animal sub-kingdoms, except the vertebrates, are therein represented. This rock borders the St. Peters sandstone, and its greatest thickness hitherto observed is about one hundred and twenty feet.

The next formation is the highly magnesian Galena limestone, buff or light gray in color, attaining a maximum thickness of about two hundred and fifty feet, and having a sub-crystalline structure. In the northeastern part of the State, the presence of shaly matter changes the color to a bluish or greenish gray ; but, in the southerly deposits, the bed is not affected in that way. The presence of galena, or sulphide of lead, in this layer, in the southwestern part of the State more especially, has given its name and commercial value to this limestone. Zinc ore is abundant, as well as lead, in the region indicated, and in other districts the same metals can be traced, but not in paying quantities. In other sections of the country, the production of lead is a necessary part of the process of mining for the precious metals, and, for that rea- son, pure lead mining is comparatively at a discount for a time ; but, whenever the best product of lead is demanded, the mines in our State and in Illinois will not fail to be largely called upon. Our Island of Wisconsin, growing from its Archaan core by concentric additions, is already much larger than the area of the State within which it took its rise, and still the aggre- gation continues.

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History of Grant County, Wisconsin, Part 46

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co. Number of Pages: 1044

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 1044