USA > Wisconsin > Lafayette County > History of Lafayette county, Wisconsin > Part 48
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116
Outwardly, the formation presents an irregular, intricate series of hills and ridges, rapidly but often gracefully undulating, having well-rounded domes, conical peaks, winding ridges, some- times geniculated, short, sharp spurs, mounds, knolls and hummocks in a variety of combina- tions, and corresponding with depressions just as remarkable, or even still more striking. These depressions have given their name to the range ; many are circular in outline, hence the title "potash kettles ;" but the major part are not nearly so symmetrical. Some of the cavities resemble a bell inverted; others are shallow saucers ; and others are rudely trough-like, oblong, oval, elliptical, or even winding ; but to describe their various configurations would demand a volume. Their depths vary from mere indentations to sixty feet, or even more in the symmet- rical forms, while the irregular sinks show a depth often exceeding one hundred feet. Occa- sionally the sides of the kettles are about as steep as the material will lie, an angle of from thirty to thirty-five degrees with the horizon, but usually the slope is much less declivitous. The kettles seldom exceed five hundred feet in diameter, but it is not easy to define their limits. Numerous small lakes dot the course of the range, having neither inlet nor outlet, and suggest- ing the process by which, under favoring circumstances as to drainage, the depressions may have been formed. In the base of some kettles there are yet ponds of water, arrested in their escape, and waiting the slow process of evaporation ; and some of the lakes range from two to three miles in diameter, the increase proceeding by degrees hardly perceptible. Many of the hills in what is called the "Knobby Drift," resemble inverted kettles ; and trough-like, winding hol- lows are offset by sharp serpentine ridges, giving to this range a distinctive character, notwith- standing its lack of altitude ; but the features indicated are subordinate to the characteristics of the main range, being most abundant on its more abrupt face, though to be found on every side, and in all varieties of situation, sometimes even on areas level by comparison, adjacent to the main range, and again in the valleys, the ridges being free; or on the ridges, the valleys show- ing no trace of like action ; or distributed indifferently over each.
320
HISTORY OF THE LEAD REGION.
The range is composite, being made up of rudely parallel ridges, that unite at some points, interlock at others, and appear to have advanced and retreated in the mazes of their morainic dance, until suddenly stricken with fixity in their most eccentric combinations. The ridge within the ridge is sometimes clearly traceable between component ridges, and the depressions resultant from such divergences, are. often the areas filled by the larger lakes on the range. Some ridges cross the trend of the main range, and transverse spurs may be called common. The component ridges are frequently broken and irregular in height and breadth as in all else, just as we might have predicted would be the case, could we have seen the terminal moraines of certain Alpine glaciers understandingly, and then have been called upon to forecast the operation of similar forces, on a scale immensely greater, in this country, with variations for the widely dif- fering contour. Most of the Swiss glaciers of our time terminate in narrow valleys with steep, sloping sides, hence their debris takes the form of lateral ridges, like a torrent-washed valley deposit. Some of them, in their recently advanced state, are found in more open valleys, with a gentle inclination, and, in such cases, terminal moraines have been formed from the ground moraines of the glacier, differing only from our Quaternary formations, in the presence of medial and lateral morainic matter, which, in the very nature of things, cannot be found in our more open country. The Rhone glacier has left three ridges, which, except that they are diminutive, might be studied as models of the topographical eccentricities which we have endeavored to describe. The two outer ridges are now covered with grass and shrubs, but the inner and later ridge is still bare, graduating into the ground moraine of the retreating glacier, which by some new advance may yet heap all their scattered material to magnify the last ridge of the trio, or to establish a quartette. The glaciers of the Grindelwald have left similar moraines in part, pre- senting a perfect analogy with our range; such as may also be found near the Glacier du Bois, the Argentine, and the Findelen ; though less strikingly in the case last named. Terminal moraines alone must be relied on for analogies with our ranges. The formations have been pretty thor- oughly interrogated as to their materials, as well as for their arrangement, to assist in determining their origin. The Kettle Range, in its typical development, consists mainly of clay, sand, gravel and bowlders, gravel being most conspicuously exposed. The belt at many points exhib- its two formations, perfectly distinguishable ; that which is uppermost, but not constituting the heights of the range, being sand or gravel, which covers the lower stratum like a sheet, over large and diverse areas, and, in many cases, suggests a much greater quantity in the superficial coating than is actually present. The coating of gravel tends to level and mask the irregulari- ties of the main formation, but the aspects presented by the mass are still billowy and undulatory, a margin often being found on the flank of a ridge stretching away into a sand-flat, or gravel plain. Gravel is a large constituent in the Kettle Range, and wherever the forms are most symmetrical, the presence of gravel in increasing proportions may be assumed. Some minor knolls and hills are almost entirely composed of sand and gravel, including bowlders occasionally. The core of the range is, however, a confused commingling of clay, sand, gravel and bowlders, the latter sometimes many feet in diameter, and grading down to the very finest rock flour; some- times without an angle abraded, and again thoroughly rounded by the rolling and planing proc- ess they have undergone. The cobble-stones are found spherically rounded, unlike beach gravel, which has been subjected to a sliding motion, and is thereby flattened.
There is no stratification in the heart of the range, but immediately thereupon stratification commences, partly simultaneous with the first deposition, and the rest by subsequent modifica- tion. The local overlying beds are stratified, but often inclined, rather than horizontal, and frequently discordant, undulatory or irregular, but the main point of the glacier theory is to establish non-stratification at the heart. The source whence the material was obtained to form the range in this State, cannot be doubted. Coarse rock is present in large quantities, so that identification is easy, and the distances that have been traversed can be estimated with measur- able certainty, from the marks of abrasion. Many details establish the main proposition, but a single case must be relied on for illustration, premising merely that the instance cited is in per- fect accord with the mass from which it is selected. The rock formations below the range, in
321
HISTORY OF THE LEAD REGION.
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 mnav 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 archæan 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- inulated, 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,
.
322
HISTORY OF THE LEAD REGION.
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 northwesterly 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.
323
HISTORY OF THE LEAD REGION.
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
324
HISTORY OF THE LEAD REGION.
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.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.