The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1885-08-28
Lake Arassis.

River Valley, begun by Mr.. Warren
Upham in Minnesota four years ago, is
being continued by linn this year, assist
ed by Mr.. r. Harry Young, in leveling
along the Dakota side of the valley.
This work is done for the United States
geological survey, the main work of the
present summer being an examination
of the western border of the very fiat
land known as the Red RIVER Valley,
mapping it and determining the height
of the line where this vast plain is sue
ceeded on the west by more undulating
and rolling land. Along this line arc
found nearly continuous but narrow de-
posts of gravel and sand, which evident
Y mark the. shore-lines Of great lake
Il ,at formerly covered all the flat country
of the Red river. Biologists believe that
til 9 northern barrier holding this lake in
tn 9 valley was the rcceding continental
ict ,-sheet. which in comparatively late
GET illogical time extended over British
America and the northern part of the
United States; and it is named Lake
Aga SSH in honor of the great scientist
who first brought forward, about forty
years ago, a true explanation of the
origin and mode of formation of the
glacial drift. The shore of this lake in
Minnesota has been traced from Lake
Traverse by Herman, GAINESVILLE, Mus
kods., and north to Maple Lake, twenty
mile IS east-southeast of Crookston. Thence
its course tends eastward through q
forest region, passing south of Red Lake
int, British America. On the west its
shore extends from Lake Traverse by
Wyndmere, Sheldon, Wheatland and
Larimore, to the Pembina mountains,
there entering Manitoba. Its outlet was
to the south, by the great valley in which
the narrow, long lakes, Traverse and Big
Stone lie, its continuation being occupied
by the Minnesota river. Though Lake
Traverse now emptics to the north and
Big Stone lake to the south, this valley is
continuous between them, being widely
known as Browns Valley. The very
fiat, fertile Red River Valley has been
generally supposed to be the bed of a
lake, but some of the formations OH its
borders, which had not before received
explanation, are found to be the deltas
brought into the margin of the lake by
its tributary rivers. Thus the sand drives
of the Sand Hill river in Minnesota, the
similar but much more extensive sand
hills of the Wild Rice and Cheyenne
rivers in Dakota and of the Assiniboine
river in Manitoba, were originally delta
deposits of these streams, at first spread
fiat in the edge of Lake Agassiz, but
when this glacial lake was finally drained
away, and before the land became COW
ere.l by grass. these sand beds were
blown up by the wind into very irregular
hills and short ridges, from twenty to one
hundred feet high. Another very re-
mark able delta was brought into this
lake Ivy the Pembina river and forms the
first mountain, SO called, south and west
of Walhalla. Some of the wells in this
deposit of gravel and sand reach eighty
to a hundred and forty feet in depth.
A few nights determined in this region
are as follows: Lake Traverse, $40 feet
above the sea; Fargo and Moorhead sos
Pembina and St. Vincent. 792; Lake
Winnipeg, 10; Larinore, 1889; Pembina
river at Walhalla bridge, 922; first noun
tain west of Walhalla, 1,l75 to $50; and
the second range, or higher part of the
|Pembina mountains, / ,450 to 1900.