History of Grant County, Wisconsin, Part 48

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

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many of its windings, offers material aid in determining the limits of the superimposed mass. The Green Bay loop of the range, itself morainic, surrounds on all sides except the north, several scattered masses or knobs of granite, porphyry and quartzite, which protrude through the lime- stone and sandstone that prevail in that region, and the significance of these knobs will not fail to be perceived by the reader. The adjacent formations gave their several contributions to the range, but only to a limited section, invariably in the line of glacial striation. Take any seg- ment of the range, and you find a noteworthy quota derived from adjacent rocks in the line of striation ; and generally a less proportion from the successive formations backward for three hundred miles or more, along the line of glacial movement. The agency that produced the range, gathered material along its line of march for at least three hundred miles, freezing to the recruited matter of all kinds, but finding its great accumulations near the terminal moraine. The range changes its components in different parts of its course, in obedience to the law indi- cated, showing physical and lithological characteristics exactly corresponding with the forma- tions less and more distant whence they were thus derived. The moraines of Switzerland exhibit parallel facts. The margins of the great moraine on the flanks of the Juras, are in a great degree bowlder-clay from the limestone in that vicinity, the proportion derived from the more distant Alps being small by comparison. The more recently formed moraines derived from the Bois, Vierch, Rhone, Aar, and other such glaciers, which pass over granite, are com- posed mainly of sand, gravel and bowlders, with little clay ; while the glaciers of the Zermatt region, which traverse schistose rocks, and those of the Grindelwald, that move over limestone in all their later course, are rich in clay. The Professor found some moraines that were almost exact reproductions of the phenomena observable in the Kettle Range, unstratified, commingled debris in the main ; but stratified and assorted material was also found; as for instance, in the inner moraine of the Upper Grindelwald glacier there was much fine assorted gravel and coarse sand heaped together in curious peaks and ridges strangely placed on the sides and sum- mit of the moraine.

To prove the relation of the range to the movements of the drift is, of course, vital to our purpose-to show that the ridge was located by glacial action. The grooving of the rock sur- face is one method of determining the course of the ice current; the direction from whence the materials must have been conveyed, the abrasions of rock prominences, the trend of elongated domes of polished rock, and the arrangement of the deposits topographically-are all means that mav assist us in the demonstration, and they concur in placing beyond question the work of the glacier in the Kettle Range wherever opportunities have been found to test them exhaustively. The erratics from the protruding knobs of archaan rocks, which have been alluded to, were traced along their line of travel, as marked by striations, to the glacier-plowed parent rock, from which lines of erratics have been deposited along the ice march as they fell. Observations in Eastern Wisconsin have determined that, between Lake Michigan and the Kettle Range adja- cent, the direction was obliquely up the slope southwestward toward the range. Between the Green Bay Valley and the range, after surmounting the cliff that borders the valley, the direc- tion was obliquely down the slope southeastward. In the Green Bay trough, the glacier moved up the valley to its water-shed, and then descended Rock River Valley. Between Green Bay Valley and the range on the west, the course was up the slope southwesterly or westerly, as the position was more or less favorable. These movements have been carefully ascertained after collecting an immense mass of data, and they exhibit a marked divergence from the main chan- nel toward the margin of the striated area, of which the Kettle Range is the ultima thule. Beyond our own State, a great deal of valuable matter tending in this direction has been accu- mulated, showing that the main channels of the ice streams were the troughs of Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and of the two lakes, Erie and Ontario, besides which there were lesser glaciers, but still great ones, planing and plowing their several courses along the basins of the bays of Saginaw, Green and Keweenaw. The wasting and disappearance of each glacier on every mar- gin and its advance, grinding under its ponderous weight the less elastic materials which it held imprisoned, will, when properly considered, fully account for the striations which mark its course,

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and for their divergence from the main channel ; but for some time the plowed lines now so easily explained by the aid of science were sore stumbling-blocks to the inquiring minds which have solved the problem. The topography of the range may be best described by an imaginary jour- ney along its course. Starting from the northern extreme of the range in Wisconsin, midway between the southern point of Green Bay and Lake Michigan, we mount an eastward-sloping rocky incline, the base of the range being only about two hundred feet above the level of Lake Michigan. Our course lies southwest, up the rocky slope to its crest. Twenty miles north of the Illinois line, there is a division, one portion stretching toward the south, while the other curves westward, crossing Rock River Valley, descending therein at least three hundred feet lower than the rocky crest which the glacier just as certainly traversed. Curving now gradually to the north after passing Rock River, the range crosses the water-shed between the rivers Rock and Wisconsin, and the great bend of the latter, sweeping directly over quartzite ranges with a vertical undulation of more than seven hundred feet, then ascending the water-shed between the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence drainage areas, estimated at from seven hundred to eight hundred feet above Lake Michigan. Crossing the head-waters of Wisconsin River within about fifty miles from the State's northern boundary, we descend obliquely the east slope of the Chippewa Valley, and, having crossed that part of our course, curve rapidly to the north and along its western margin to the water-shed of Lake Superior. Returning along this line to com- plete our tour of investigation, we find the range branching near the northern limit of Barron County. We travel with the western line southwestward to Lake St. Croix, on the boundary of Wisconsin, and move onward into Minnesota. Taking the State Geologist of Minnesota for our guide in that region, we find an extensive deposit of drift-hills on the water-shed between the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, and a line of similar accumulations, less definite and continu- ous, stretching southward from the neighborhood of St. Paul into Iowa; between which we are somewhat at a loss to imagine which is the true moraine, or whether each may fairly lay claim to that distinction. Probably the line re-curves north of the center of Iowa, so we continue our journey north westerly until we strike the Coteau de Prairie of Dakota, where, uncertain as to the possible limits of the tour, we reluctantly abandon the gigantic monograph of the glacier, still to be followed by inquirers and questioned as to the time and conditions under which the ice-king defined his bounds and set up this rampart to mark the decline of his empire. Return- ing now to the bifurcation in Southeast Wisconsin, we follow the range as it strikes south into Illinois after an interesting flexure near our State line; but the range loses its more pronounced features in the Sucker State, broadening its base and lowering its crest, until, as it rounds Lake Michigan, it is well nigh lost. East of the Lake, trending northward in Michigan, the range resumes its old-time characteristics and is aggressive enough to develop two belts, one bearing northerly between the Great Lake and the Saginaw Valley, and the other northeasterly between that valley and the basin of the Erie. The first-named belt is hypothetical rather than actual, though not altogether hypothetical, and beyond the points already indicated there is abundant room for speculation, but little clearly defined knowledge. There is a line of drift-hills in Ohio with a surface analogous to our moraines, occupying the water-shed between Lake Erie and the Ohio River, stretching across that State and extending westward into Indiana, probably very near to, if not actually joining, the belt already described. Ohio and Indiana geologists claim that parts of those States have sustained a degree of erosion altogether exceptional in the Mau- mee-Wabash Valley, and it might hardly be expected that the moraine would come out of such an ordeal in any other than a fragmentary condition ; so we may have to content ourselves with a partly speculative range in the regions named, but some remains will certainly be found when adequate and critical search shall be made to connect the Ohio belt with the western range. A similar formation is described in New York reports as extending along the southern part of Long Island, and the same range is traced across New Jersey by Prof. Cook, who is satisfied that it is a terminal moraine.

Sufficient investigation may yet establish the oneness of our morainic belt, and prove a yet vaster extension, but history records only what is known.

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We come now to consider the mineral resources of the State-metallic ores from which metals are extracted, and non-metallic minerals which are applied in numerous ways, with but slight preliminary treatment, in the mechanic and economic arts, to increase the comfort of man- kind. Wisconsin possesses, in large degree, the ores of lead, zinc, iron and copper, and in degrees almost infinitesimal, even the more precious metals. The non-metallic substances prin- cipally found are building stone, brick clay, cement rock, kaolin, glass sand, peat and limestone for lime and flux. Lead and zinc are found in the same region, under like conditions and often together. Lead has long been the most important metalliferous product of the State, but the demand for our lead is not so great as formerly, and the labor employed suffers a corresponding reduction. Lead and zinc ores have been discovered in limited quantities in the archæan rocks in the northern part of this State, which we have described elsewhere as the core about which the concentric bands of other formations aggregated in transforming the Island of Wisconsin into part of this continent. The economic value of the deposits named is wisely doubted. The chief supply of those metals in this State comes from that section of the southwest west of Sugar River and south of the valley of the Wisconsin River, from the head-waters of the first-named stream westward. That is the lead region, and, with small additions of territory included in Iowa and Illinois, the lead regions of the Upper Mississippi can be accurately delineated.

France became impressed with the belief that the valley of the Mississippi was rich in met- als, during the seventeenth century, and in the next century the fearful climax of speculation known as the " Mississippi Bubble" was largely due to the assumption that the valley was auriferous. Nicholas Perrot is said to have discovered lead here about the year 1692, but the supposed discoverer does not mention the fact in the only work of his pen that has been pre- served. Le Sueur, famous for his voyage up the Mississippi in the first year of the eighteenth century, found lead on the banks of that river near what is now the southern limit of our State. Capt. Carver found lead in the Blue Mounds in 1766, the Indians being unaware of its value as an ore, although conversant with its appearance. The first mining for lead in this country with which we are conversant was undertaken in 1788 by Julien Dubuque, who continued his opera- tions near the site of the city named for him until 1810, the time of his death. For twelve years from that time, lead mining was a lost art among the American people, but after 1821 that industry was resumed with great profit, and has been prosecuted ever since, attaining its maxi- mum of production between the two years 1845 and 1847, until the silver-lead nines of Utah rose into prominence, with other such mines in the Rocky Mountains. The lead mines of the Mississippi Valley eclipsed all the other mines in the United States in the production of lead, and the production of that metal is still large in the region with which we are most concerned. Wis- consin gives but one form of lead ore in quantity, sulphide of lead or galena, which, when free from foreign admixtures, shows over 86 per cent of pure lead mixed mechanically with sulphur. Ordinarily, galena contains silver, but the ore in Wisconsin has only the slightest trace of the more precious metal.

There are two varieties of zinc ores produced in our mines-sphalerite, sometimes marma- tite, and smithsonite-the first a sulphide containing about 10 per cent of iron, known to the miners as "black jack ;" the pure sulphide of zinc contains about 67 per cent of the metal. Smithsonite, popularly known as " dry bone," is an iron-bearing carbonate, which is produced abundantly. Both the ores, lead and zinc, in the several varieties named, and some others, are limited practically to the beds of Galena and Trenton limestone, which have already been described in their order, underlaid by almost horizontal strata, deposited upon the archæan rocks the crystalline metamorphic sedimentary upheaval, to which we are under so many obliga- tions. The order of their coming has been already given, and the facts of their partial erosion ; but the strata attain a depth in all of nearly two thousand feet in the lead region. Galena buff and blue limestones are, in all, about three hundred and seventy-five feet thick, the upper and lower strata of the deposits being, in a metallic sense, barren. The blue and buff layers are the main depositaries of zinc, and lead is the chief product of the Galena limestone; but the layers all produce both metals in greater and less proportion. The deposits of ore are found in crevices

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sometimes vertical and sometimes lateral, the simplest and commonest form being a crack in the rock, probably a few inches wide, having a flat extension beneath, worn by the water as it per- colated through the stratum, leaving the chemical residue to be found by enterprising men. Some of these extensions are several hundred feet in length and breadth, vast chambers forty feet in height, lessening to nothing on every side, and brilliant with incrustations that might enrich a palace. The imagination of the reader may riot at will in conjuring up the wondrous forms of beauty assumed by these subterranean cavities, without danger that his most extrava- gant creation will surpass the reality in favored instances; but many of the chambers contain masses of loose rock disintegrated, but not carried away, containing large quantities of Galena; and the ore in numberless instances is found in cubes and stalactites, crystalline embodiments of the wealth that rewards patient labor. The limestone has been creviced in two directions, rudely indicating the points of the compass, the lines treading east and west being the most pro- ductive of metal. Vertical crevices are seldom found in the lower stratum or buff limestone; hence the ores of zinc are not found in the vertical openings to any extent. Sometimes many of the chambers or "flat openings," sheets, or crevices. are worked together with manifest advantage to the miners. Occasionally the flat openings contain little or no galena, but are well supplied with "black jack " and "dry bone " ores and cleavable calcite, as well as marcasite or sulphide of iron on roof and floor, the area between being clear. Vertical crevices characterize the galena proper, as a rule, and the flat openings are looked for generally in the blue and buff limestones, so that zinc is principally obtained in such chambers.

Until the year 1860, the zinc ores, being more refractory than galena, were not considered capable of being worked with profit, the clay and fuel for smelting having to be brought from great distances, so that freights were enormous; but about the time named the plan of sending ore to La Salle, Ill., was initiated, and has since been prosecuted with much advantage, as it is cheaper to send the ore for reduction to the fuel and clay than to bring the other substances to the mining district in sufficient quantity for the work. The innumerable purposes to which zinc is increasingly applied in daily life render it certain that the large deposits of the ore obtainable in this State will long continue to be a source of wealth. The geological survey of the State has been of immense advantage in determining the localities in which the deposits of galena and buff and blue limestone have been more or less extensively eroded by atmospheric influences, and the economic value of such inquiries will be found in the saving of money and labor from being invested, where, even though the ores may be discovered, they do not exist in sufficient quantities to justify large outlay for permanent works. The practical miner knows the worth of accurate scientific investigation.

Iron is not yet one of the great products of Wisconsin, but those who have read the former pages of this chapter cannot fail to know that there are great possibilities in the future in this respect. Many blast furnaces are now employed in the eastern section of the State, reducing ores brought from Michigan, but there are other furnaces dealing with ores from our own mines, and their number and profits will very largely increase. Our best iron fields are, beyond doubt, in the north, where the country is heavily wooded, and where much patient exploration and many tentative experiments should prepare the way for large investments, such as will afford remunerative employment to skilled miners and workmen for centuries in developing this branch of our great mineral resources. In describing the several ores from which iron is obtained, we shall try to avoid technical phraseology except in those instances in which the technique has become a popular possession. Red hematite ores contain iron in an earthy condition, as anhy- drous sesquioxide, without luster, although when pure fully 70 per cent of metallic iron is present. The mined ore is seldom pure, and the mechanical combination of foreign substances reduces its value generally to about 50 per cent, or even less. Clinton iron ore is our most important find in this State of red hematite, at present being exploited, the name being derived from the locality in Oneida County, N. Y., where it was first obtained. Its rocks are limestones and shales in the Silurian formation, and its characteristics are marked so unvaryingly that any person once familiar with the ore cannot fail to recognize its presence in new positions. This

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ore contains much phosphorus, and the iron is known as "cold short," but, when blended with other ores, silicious and free from phosphorus, the product is very valuable for foundry purposes. The deposit is found in rocks of great thickness which are already being mined at many points from the locality of first recognition to Tennessee. Clinton ore is found in Wisconsin sometimes immediately overlying the Hudson River or Cincinnati shales ; but, more generally, the Clinton rocks merge into the Niagara limestone rocks in the eastern part of the State. Iron Ridge, in Dodge County, is an important deposit. A ledge of Niagara limestone running north and south, . looking down upon lower land to the west, covers an ore bed from fifteen to eighteen feet thick, with horizontal layers ranging from three inches to fifteen, of concretionary structure, having lenticular grains one-twenty-fifth of an inch in diameter. The topmost layer is a dark purple, slightly metallic to the eye, but not resembling the other layers in structure. At Mayville. Mr. Sweet examined a thickness of forty feet three-fourths of a mile from the ridge, and the same authority gives the results of his analysis of the ridge ore in the following formula : Iron peroxide, 66.38; carbonate of lime, 10.42; carbonate of magnesia, 2.79; silica, 4.72; alumina, 5.54 ; manganese oxide, 0.44; sulphur, 0.23; phosphoric acid, 0.73; water, 8.75-100; metallic iron, 46.66. The average furnace yield of the ore at Mayville is about 45 per cent. Two small fur- naces operating at Mayville and Iron Ridge, and using charcoal, smelt from these ores an iron sometimes rich in phosphorus. The ore is not usually smelted at the local furnaces, being mainly shipped to the extensive iron works in Chicago, Joliet and Springfield, Ill., St. Louis, Mo., Appleton, Green Bay, Depere and Milwaukee, Wis., and Wyandotte and Jackson, Mich., to mix with other ores. The yield of the ridge eight years ago exceeded 80,000 tons per annum. The base of the Niagara limestone is marked by similar deposits at other points further north in this State, but the commercial value of the ore in the instances noted is yet uncertain. The Potsdam sandstone, lowest of our horizontal formations, is highly charged with red hema- tite in many places ; and, in Westfield, Sank County, an excellent iron ore has displaced the sandstone, but the extent of the deposit is unknown.

Hydrated or brown sesquioxide, commonly known as brown hematite, contains 60 per cent of iron when pure ; but the average yield comes nearer 40 per cent. Bog-iron ore is one of the varieties of brown hematite, a porous deposit from the water of bogs and marshes found in Portage, Wood and Juneau Counties. Near Necedah, in Juneau County, and near Grand Rapids, Wood County, are excellent bog ores containing nearly 50 per cent of iron, but the quan- tity available is uncertain. Brown hematite mixed with red ore is found in Sauk County and in Richland County adjoining, filling fractures and cavities in the Potsdam sandstone; and two furnaces are now in operation on this ore at Ironton and Cazenovia, the first named having been established many years, and having proved the value and quantity of the deposit.

Magnetic ores and specular hematites are found intimately mingled in the same group of rocks in Wisconsin, and, although not yet included among the industrial products of the State, there are many indications that they will rank high in its mineral sources of wealth. Magnetite is an oxide of iron, containing, when pure, about 72 per cent of iron, the highest per- centage indeed possible to an ore. Specular hematite is of the same nature as red hematite, but the ore is crystalline and hard, with a metallic luster. These ores combined seldom give more than 50 per cent of metal, and the richest ores hardly ever yield more than 65 per cent. There are two iron districts in this State in which specular and magnetic ores abound ; the Me- nomonee, near the head-waters of the river of that name, in Township 40, Ranges 17 and 18 east, Marinette County, and the Penokee in Bayfield, Ashland and Lincoln Counties, ten to twenty miles south of Lake Superior. Veins and nets of specular iron are found with the quartz rocks of Baraboo Valley, Sauk County, and in Necedah, Juneau County ; and in the vicinity of the Black River Falls, Jackson County, in a peculiar quartz-schist, magnetic and specular iron oxides are found, but so far it does not appear that the ore would pay for reduction. The ores are found in the Menomonee and Penokee districts in slaty and quartzose rocks, extensions of the series which in the Northern Peninsula of Michigan have contributed so largely to the fame and wealth of that State as a producer of iron. Lean magnetic and specular ores are found in

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this rock series, in great beds, combined with large quantities of quartz, forming bold ridges, almost defying the power of the air to erode them ; but of little or no value for reduction. Other layers in the same series, very soft and seldom outcropping, for that reason are extremely rich, and the Menomonee region possesses the last-named layers in a marked proportion. One of these deposits shows a breadth of more than 150 feet of first-class specular ore. The existence of sim- ilar beds in the Penokee district, may be reasonably inferred, as the rocks form part of the same · series, but the discovery has yet to be made, and should probably be sought north of the main range, under heavy deposits of drift which cover large areas of iron-bearing rock. There are lean ores in the Penokee range which are almost rich enough to pay for reduction, and which by and by will be reduced.

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History of Grant County, Wisconsin, Part 48

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