USA > Wisconsin > Sauk County > The history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, containing an account of settlement, growth, development and resources biographical sketches the whole preceded by a history of Wisconsin > Part 71
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In its east and west extension, the valley preserves the same characters as above described, the cliff on the north side being the highest and boldest, and retaining for a long distance the height it attains at the corner where the valley bends. Along the face of this cliff, the heavy quartzite beds are seen on the strike, and present, therefore, an appearance of horizontality when
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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.
viewed from the valley below. At the mouth of the valley (southeast quarter Section 20, Town- ship 11, Range 7 east), the northern cliff is of horizontal sandstone, behind which the quartzite passes, while the south cliff terminates in a sharp, rocky point, known as the Devil's Nose. Doubling the Nose, we are-on the south side of the range, with Sauk Prairie in front, and the high bluff with its roches-montonees surfaces of quartzite behind. These surfaces rise in rude steps, which are due to the gradual northern dip.
Near the top of the sides of the ravine, on the southwest corner of the lake, horizontal sand- stone and coarse conglomerate occur, the pebbles of the conglomerate coming from the quartzite against which it lies. Nowhere else along the sides of the valley, until we reach its eastern end, are there any indications of its ever having been filled with sandstone, and, consequently, of its equally great antiquity with other ravines about the quartzite ranges. This occurrence itself is not, necessarily, any such indication, for the sandstone is found only at a high level, and may, therefore, have been introduced from the northward, quite independently of the valley of Devil's Lake, which, we are thus led to believe, is of more recent origin than the Potsdam period.
This valley has evidently been, at some time, the passage of a large stream. We cannot suppose that it has been produced by any other process than that of erosion, and such an erosion as could only be effected by the agency of running water. Confirming this view, we find, high up on the cliff sides, within 150 feet of the summit, remnants of large pot-holes, several feet in diameter, presenting smoothed surfaces, and having about them many small pebbles and smoothed bowlders, which may have been engaged in the work of their formation. The large size of the valley suggests that it may have been the passage of the Wisconsin River, which, at the close of the Glacial period, found its ancient channel obstructed by the great drift-heaps that are now to be seen in it, and was forced to find its way eastward to the valley of the great river that for long ages before the Glacial period drained the whole basin of the Wolf and Upper Fox, through the valley of the Lower Wisconsin to the Mississippi. This valley, which the deflected river reached at Portage, and which it subsequently appropriated as its own, passes altogether to the eastward of the eastern extremity of the quartzite ranges. If this is a correct view, the river must have had a passage through the northern range also, and this passage would be found in the Lower Narrows of the Baraboo, a much wider channel than is needed by that small stream. This explanation of the origin of the Devil's Lake Valley is offered as a suggestion only. The Bara- boo may be a stream to which the work should be allotted, but, if so, we must imagine it to have been a much larger and more powerful stream than now. Only ten miles above on its course, the gorge through which it passes the northern range presents no such proportions as seen about the Devil's Lake Valley.
The rock in the vicinity of Devil's Lake, omitting reference now to the Silurian conglomer- ate and sandstone, is nearly altogether the typical quartzite of the region, as above described. It generally shows some shade of red. On the weathered surface of some of the large fallen masses in the edge of the lake, a distinct tendency to a granular texture is perceptible, while a fresh surface shows generally no traces of it. Fine lines of lamination are nearly everywhere to be seen, and are generally quite strikingly marked, but there is never any structure parallel to them. They are nearly always bent into sharp angles, or curved and contorted, presenting often the irregularities seen in the bedding of sandstone. While many of the bendings in these lines may be due to original irregularities of deposition, or to contortion at the time of disturbance and alteration, there are surfaces where they present such a peculiar knotty and concentric appear- ance as strongly to suggest a concretionary origin. The lines are alternatingly light and dark red. In a few places white quartz veins with geodic quartz crystals are seen, but these do not characterize any considerable portion of the rock. All about the Devil's Lake Valley the bed- ding of the quartzite is quite distinct, and is made apparent by the existence of large dip sur- faces, often beautifully ripple-marked. At the northern ends of both east and west bluffs of the lake many such surfaces occur. Others are seen on the sides of the railroad track about mid- way the length of the lake. These all give an inclination to the north of 15° to 25°, the higher figure being seldom reached, and a strike of north 80° east. The quartzite layers are
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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.
many feet in thickness, showing no internal structure whatever parallel to the general dip direc- tion, but being affected everywhere by the curved and bent lamination alluded to. Between the quartzite beds occur layers of greasy quartz slate, usually but a few inches in width. Such a layer is well exposed on the side of the railroad track on the east side of the lake, the laminæ dipping north 37°, or transverse to the bedding planes. The slate is quartzite, like that of the surrounding beds, but is penetrated by a soft, greasy mineral, and affected by slaty cleavage. As the cleavage planes of the slate approach the surface of the adjoining quartzite, they curve toward and penetrate it to a short distance. Large surfaces of quartzite, which have had one of these slaty layers removed from above them, show a peculiar ridgy appearance, evidently due to the passage into them of the slaty cleavage planes.
At the summit of the east bluff, near its southern end, indications of a somewhat lower dip than elsewhere are seen, while at Devil's Nose, surfaces occur slanting as much as 29º northward. At the latter place, many cross joints obscure the bedding, nearly all of the planes, however, sloping northward. Some very large ones were noted, with as high an angle as 82°, covered with a shining, soft, greasy film. In seams and nests in the quartzite, in this vicinity, occurs a compact, but soft, clay-like substance of a lilac color, which is penetrated by fine white strings, and contains : Silica, 62.16 ; alumina, 29.67 ; iron oxide, 4.17 ; lime, 0.16 ; water, 2.50-99.36. This substance appears to be the same as that which pervades and gives character to the quartz schists of the region, and is closely allied to the red " pipestone," that occurs with the quartzite of Barron County, and again in southwest Minnesota.
On the summits and sides of all the cliffs about the lake and valley, two sets of very marked vertical cross-joints are to be seen, the more prominent and persistent set trending north 45° west. These joints have produced, on the upper portions of the cliffs, a striking col- umnar appearance, the separate columns of quartzite, twenty to forty feet in height, often standing entirely detatched by joint cracks from the main cliff. In some cases, intervening masses of quartzite have fallen, and left entirely isolated needles at a distance from the cliff face.
As in the ravine at the southwest corner of the lake, so also in many other places on the north bank of the ridge, horizontal ledges of sandstone and very coarse conglomerate occur, abutting against, and unconformably overlying, the quartzite. At the northern point of the east bluff, the contact of the two formations is beautifully exposed. Here the ends of columnar, joint-detached masses of the quartzite are surrounded and filled between by the horizontal sand- stone, the whole capped with a heavy layer of a conglomerate composed of angular, subangular, and rounded masses of quartzite, embedded in a coarse, friable, sandy matrix, which is occasion- ally cemented by the brown oxide of iron, and is not unfrequently almost altogether excluded by the included bowlders. The quartzite of the bowlders and pebbles is the same as that of the ledges further up the bluff. Places also occur where the sand and quartzite pebbles are wedged down into the joint-cracks of the quartzite.
Eastward from the mouth of Devil's Lake Valley, in Section 29, Town 11, Range 7, the southern face of the quartzite range continues high and bold on the right hand, as far as Section 25, Town 12, Range 8, in Columbia County. On Mr. Fitzsimmon's place on Section 22, Town 11, Range 7, Sauk County, near Parphrey's Glen, and only a short distance from the south slope of the ridge, one of the highest points on the whole range of bluffs occurs, the eleva- tion being nearly one hundred feet greater than that of the Devil's Lake bluffs. The point is in use by the United States Coast Survey, as a Signal Station. North from the Signal Station, the quartzite range has a width on top of nearly three miles. As far as Section 3, Town 11, Range 8, Columbia County, the south face of the range, except at the higher levels, where large surfaces of bare quartzite occur, is composed of sandstone, with some coarse conglomerate, which flanks the quartzite in horizontal layers. These flanking sandstones are well exposed at the mouth of the Devil's Lake gorge; in Parphrey's Glen, on the line between Sections 23 and 22, Town 11, Range 7, and again in Dorward's, or St. Mary's Glen, on the line of Sections 18 and 7, Town 11, Range 8, Columbia County. In all these places, the sandstone layers appear to possess a small dip, about 5° away from the quartzite core. At Dorward's Glen, the quartzite
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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.
is to be seen at the north end of the gorge, and lying upon and against it sixty feet of hori- zontal sandstone and bowlder conglomerate. These are exposed on the wall of the gorge, the conglomerate forming the base of the cliff and the stream-bed, with a thickness seen of four feet. The bowlders of the conglomerate are largely irregular, angular masses, reaching up to eight inches in size, and are almost entirely without surrounding matrix. The quartzite at the head of the glen is non-granular, pinkish-gray to red, and without plain bedding. East of Section 3, Town 11, Range 8, as far as the end of the range, the flanking sandstone appears to be want- ing, outcrops of quartzite in places extending from summit to base of the southern face of the range. Such a place occurs on the northern side of Section 3, and southern side of Section 34, Town 12, Range 8, near Mr. Fleming's house. Here the quartzite bluff rises immediately from the north side of the Portage road, showing for the first steep ascent of 250 feet, large loose masses and rough exposures of a metamorphic conglomerate, in which matrix and pebbles are both of quartzite; the pebbles being very small, and in no way different from the matrix. From the top of this slope, a gradually rising wooded steep is crossed for about a third of a mile to a second nearly precipitous rise of over a hundred feet. The summit is of bare rock, and is a mere crest, others similar to it occurring east and west along the range. The bedding of the quartzite is distinct, the strike being north 63º east, and dip 60º north.
On Sections 34, 35, 26 and 27, Town 12, Range 8, numerous other large quartzite expo- sures occur. On the southeast quarter of Section 27, large outcrops on the road-side show pink- ish-gray opaque quartzite with very fine greenish-black streaks (mica ?).
The eastern end of the quartzite range is on Section 25, Town 12, Range 8, where the two ranges unite in the bold point that has been heretofore alluded to. On the north side of the point, the horizontal sandstone begins again to flank the quartzite. On the northwest quarter of Section 25, the road ascending the bluff shows sandstone, with a slight slant eastward, nearly to the top. Near by, on the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 26, are large rounded exposures (roches-montonees) of quartzite, showing on the top glacial furrows and scratches, and also several large smoothed pot-holes, the largest two feet wide and one foot deep, with connecting furrows. Occurring where no stream could now possibly run, these pot-holes are of interest, as showing the great erosion the quartzite must have undergone since their formation.
Along the northern side of the north range and westward from the eastern extremity, the flanking sandstone continues nearly to the county line. On the south side of Section 23, well up on the bluff, a steep ravine has laid bare the sandstone and quartzite nearly in contact. The quartzite here is a fine metamorphic conglomerate, in which the matrix of pinkislı-white quartz embraces darker-hued pebbles one-sixteenth inch to one-quarter inch in diameter. The pebbles are very firmly attached to the matrix, and are not always well defined from it. Nests and veins of white quartz occur in this rock.
On the northeast quarter of Section 22, Township 12, Range 8, a deep ravine shows a great thickness of sandstone, with a bed of bowlder conglomerate, dipping northward, or away from the quartzite. Further westward, along the road from Portage to Baraboo, which follows the foot of the bluff, sandstone is seen in numerous places. On the northwest quarter of Section 21, high up on the bluff, a well goes through ten feet of sandstone and then into quartzite. It is quite probable that the quartzite core is in places along here entirely covered by sandstone. The core does not extend, however, beyond the southern line of Sections 19, 20 and 21, for here wells pass through over 170 feet of sandstone. After passing the county line, the north slope of the quartzite is again free from its sandstone mask, and is to be seen in small outcrops dipping north 60°.
On Sections 23 and 26, Township 12, Range 7, the Baraboo River passes the north quartzite range in a gorge known as the Lower Narrows of the Baraboo. The passage is nearly half a mile in width, the level bottom extending to the foot of the cliffs on either side. The cliffs rise 400 feet above the river, and show finely the great beds of quartzite and associated strata. The gorge is much wider than needed by the small stream that now occupies it, and
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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.
may, as already suggested, have been at one time used by the Wisconsin, as the valley of Devil's Lake seems to have been. It is unlike the latter valley, in having been in part, at least, formed first before the Potsdam period, as indicated by the way in which horizontal sandstone and con- glomerate ledges occur around the heads of steep ravines that extend down the cliff toward the main gorge. It is a combination of a paced section made along the west line of Sections 23 and 26, and of another not so carefully measured, made about forty rods further west. The first follows closely the edge of the cliff, where the quartzite beds are exposed, to the southern edge of the ridge ; the other runs a little west of north from the Garrison place, in the northeast quarter of Section 27, and passes for a long distance over horizontal sandstone and conglomerate layers filling an old ravine in the quartzite.
Beginning with the north end of the section, we find, forming the north face of the range, in bold, northward-sloping ledges, quartz porphyry about 600 feet in width. This porphyry is for the most part dull red to pinkish on the weathered surface, which is a good deal altered, often iron-stained, and has generally a whitish undercrust. The least-altered specimens show a brownish-pink matrix, through which are scattered, very thickly, large facets, up to an eighth of an inch in diameter, of bright-red cleavable feldspar, and, more sparsely, minute facets of a white kind. In nearly all specimens a few small greenish-black blotches, apparently composed of fine mica scales, occur, as also small iron-stained cavities, which often show linings of minute quartz crystals. The porphyry is very distinctly bedded, showing an east-west strike, and a dip of 58° to 60º north. Toward its lowest portions, and higher up on the bluff, it becomes grad- ually more slaty in character, the feldspar facets, though very numerous, becoming at the same time less well defined, and the surface of the laminæe becoming covered with a soft, greasy mineral. This finally changes to a distinct schist, about eighty feet wide, containing a large proportion of the soft mineral, and allied to the greasy quartz schists occurring at Devil's Lake, but withont transverse cleavage. Continuing the ascent of the bluff southward, quartzite is seen lying immediately underneath the schist, and forming the body of the ridge to the foot of its southern slope. At first this quartzite is much veined and seamed with reticulating veins of white quartz, in which fine specular iron is occasionally to be seen. ' At the summit of the hill, this character is less marked, and the rock is a dark reddish-purple quartzite, with a distinct tendency to a granular texture, the individual grains being vitreous and translucent, but the rock as a whole having a dull, opaque appearance. The bedding of the quartzite is not everywhere very plain. Toward the north the layers appear to conform to the directions noticed in the over- · lying porphyry, but further southward the inclination is much steeper, and on the south slope, near the end of the ridge, beautifully ripple-marked vertical surfaces are seen. Interstratified with the quartzite in places are some greasy-surfaced schistose layers. At the foot of the hill, near the Garrison place, the lowest member of the series is seen in a peculiar white to straw- colored quartz schist or slate. This slate occurs in regular smooth-faced, brown-tinted layers, one-sixteenth inch to three or four inches in thickness, and has a fine granular texture, the grains being of more or less angular quartz. Surrounding the grains and pervading the mass is a fine white pulverulent matrix, which renders the rock soft, and has a highly argillaceous odor when breathed upon. Only about fifteen to twenty feet are exposed. The northward dip is very plain, the edges of the layers in places being much bent out of the true inclination, which, as seen in the old shaft near by, is as much as 60° to 70°. The whole thickness of the metamor- phic rocks represented in this section is not far short of 5,000 feet.
A short distance westward, and a few feet above the quartz schist just described, horizontal sandstone is quarried. Further up the bluff, this is succeeded by a great thickness, probably a hundred feet, of a horizontally bedded, coarse bowlder conglomerate, the bowlders chiefly of red quartzite from the rocks near by, and the matrix usually a loose, friable sand. The conglomerate rises nearly, or quite, to the summit of the ridge.
The east bluff of the Narrows does not present so fine a section as the one just described ; the exposures are, however, very large. At the south point of the cliff, the elevation is 310 feet above the Baraboo, and the rock a very compact, red-tinged, slightly vitreous quartzite.
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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY
Near the middle of the cliff, a very steep ravine indents its face. On the south side, and around the head of the ravine, are horizontal ledges of a conglomerate of quartzite pebbles up to six inches in diameter, for the most part without matrix. What matrix is present appears in many places to be almost as much of a quartzite as the pebbles themselves, though in others it is sandy and friable. On the north side of the ravine, semi-translucent, amethystine quartzite is seen, unconcealed by conglomerate. Further northward, the steep north 70°-dip of the quartzite is very plain, the dip surface being often laid bare for a great distance, and giving a very steep slope to the north side of the ridge. The east cliff of the Narrows does not extend so far north as that on the west.
West from the Narrows, for about two miles, the north face of the range trends north of west, continuing to show all along beds of quartz porphyry. Since the strike throughout is east- west, the existence of a very much broader belt of porphyry than shown in the Narrows section is indicated. On the south side of the southeast quarter of Section 16, the porphyry reaches its northernmost point, showing in a bold, rocky projection. The rock here presents a dull, brownish appearance on a weathered surface, and is much fissured by weathering, the surfaces of the fissures showing generally a brownish iron stain. A schistose structure is apparent in places, and the bedding is plain, with an east-west strike, and dip of 55º north. A fresh frac- ture shows a compact, flaky matrix, of dark-brown to nearly black, sometimes grayish, color, the last being characteristic of altered portions. The color is not quite uniform, but is mottled with fine strings and specks of whitish or pinkish color, and of indefinite outline. This matrix fuses easily to a black glass. In altered specimens it is easily scratched by the knife ; in unaltered ones the knife makes almost no impression. Sparsely scattered through it are minute white and pink feldspar facets, and still fewer large brick-red ones. In this regard the rock is quite different from that of the Narrows section.
About one eighth to one-fourth of a mile eastward from this rocky point, in the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 21, the porphyry is seen again in a large exposure, showing the same weathered appearance and bedding structure. Specimens from this place resemble the rock last described, having somewhat more numerous feldspar facets, and containing -silica, 71.24 ; alumina, 12.20 ; iron peroxide, 1.71 ; iron protoxide, 5.44 ; lime, 0.98 ; mag- nesia, 0.13; manganese oxide, 0.97 ; potash, 1.86; soda, 4.29; water, 0.81-99.63. The large content of soda, as compared with potash, is noteworthy.
The quartz porphyries have thus been traced along the north flank of the range from the Baraboo Narrows, in Section 23, to the south side of Section 16. Judging from the bedding . directions, their whole width cannot be less than three-fourths of a mile, nor their actual thick- ness short of 3,200 feet. They are found nowhere else in the Baraboo region. From the description and analysis given, it will be seen that these rocks have a matrix too silicious to be purely feldspathic, through which are scattered crystals of orthoclase, possibly also of a soda feldspar, the porphyritic quartz crystal generally characteristic of quartz porphyry being absent. They are evidently nearer to true quartz porphyry, however, than to the non-silicious porphy- rites.
Further west again, and until we reach the Upper Narrows of the Baraboo, in the town of Excelsior, the quartzite exposures along the north range are only occasional, as on the low ridge north of Baraboo, and on the northeast quarter of Section 23, Township 12, Range 6.
On Sections 28 and 29, Township 12, Range 5, in the town of Excelsior, the Baraboo River breaks southward through the north quartzite range in a narrow gorge, 200 feet in depth and something more than half a mile in length, known as the Upper Narrows of the Baraboo. For most of its length the ravine is just wide enough to admit of the passage of the river, rail- road and a wagon-road. Here the quartzite core of the north range is finely shown, flanked on either side, and even overtopped by the horizontal sandstone and conglomerate.
At the southern end of the section-the jaws of the Narrows-horizontal sandstone layers, alternatingly hard and quartzitic, and soft and friable, are seen abutting against and overlying heavy beds of northward-sloping, pinkish-gray, dark-gray and purple, vitreous quartzite. The
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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.
exact contact of the two formations is finely exposed, the sandstone filling the cracks between the layers of quartzite and including large detached masses of the latter rock. A short distance northward, along the wall of the gorge, this quartzite is terminated by a steep ravine, on the north side of which comes in the veined quartzite that forms the body of the ridge. This curiously veined rock may be described as a light to dark-reddish, sometimes purple, usually somewhat vitreous quartzite, which has been shattered throughout into small, sharply angular fragments, and these cemented together again by milky-white vein quartz, the numerous cavities in which are lined with small, brilliant, and very perfect quartz crystals. The extensive fissuring to which this rock has been subjected is indicated not only in the interlacing veins of white quartz, which often make up half the mass, but also in the frequent juxtaposition of different-looking fragments of the quartzite. Certain'portions of the rock are more fissured than other neighbor- ing portions, and then appear like wide veins into which numerous fragments of the wall rock have fallen. In some of the crystal-lined cavities, a soft white coating is noticed in the crystals. The same material is seen sometimes lying loose in the cavities, and again filling cracks in a more compact condition. According to Prof. Daniels' analysis, it contains silica, 53.15 per cent, and alumina, 45.09 per cent, the balance being water. The bedding of the veined quartzite is indistinct. It appears to stand at a high angle to the northward.
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