The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1907-05-09
North Dakota.
mo. 81
By w. H. Mann.

BY w. H. Mann.
am, Mr.. Editor Of the Inde-
pendent, going to continue a re-
sumo OF the soil that has already
made for us in about twenty
years, two hundred millions Of
dollars and is destined in the no
great distance, to yield us q
wealth that need not be comput-
ed by the homely small millions,
Mr.. Editor, but by the handsome
big billions, your honor.
What has made all this posi-
BILE? The answer is, our rich
glacial clay, SO highly charged
with latent fertility awaiting
and slumbering for ages untold,
to be unlocked and made avail.
able for plant food by the soil
tillers, who today number thir-
ty-five thousand. But our state
is so large and roomy that we
will be some day able to have
another cipher. Aud then read
three million, i've hundred thous-
and farmers. Surely North Da-
kota is a land OF farms and far
mers indeed. But we also have
a wealth OF coal that owes its
origin to the same cause, that
is our upper subsoil, or in other
| words, the subsoil that is above
the lowest down veins of Ignite
coal All that part OF our sub
soil, beneath the Ignite fields be-
longs to the age that antedated
| the coal formation, and belongs
to the tertiary age, and not 10
the post tertiary or recent age,
as does the congolmerated shale
or glacial CLAW that covers the
coal fields. We may have more
to say on the subject later in
some subsequent article. on coal
and petroleum, natural gas, etc:
for we believe that there is an
oil river coming down from Brit
ish Columbia that might have
| it's eastern end about Minot and
with lot OF wells we might
pump the oil from under the
King, as our end would lie the
Lowest. Atany rate Minot ought
to he able to strike in 24OO feet.
either oil or gas, or both. AS it
is perhaps 5000 feet to salt rock
if there is any oil or gas, it OF
course must be found above
And by the way, Mr.. Editor, the
writer has seen pretty good in
dications, not four miles from
Minot, Of both oil and gas. But,
the greatest is in favor OF the
natural gas probability.
Our state is best understood
by people who live far away,
when it is mentioned, in three
distinct parts. There is the Mis-.
souri, River Heights section, Gov
ering a large part OF the western
part of the state. This part is
in the western plain, and has an
elevation of about fifty feet
above the second bench, or Gen.
trail part which also has an ele.
walton of say forty feet above
the Red River Valley basin sec
tion on the extreme eastern side
OF the state, and all drains north.
The waters of the other parts
are divided and drain both north
and south. Here we get our al
titude which places our state on
the summit of he central plain
Of North America. Being the
most elevated, we "re the oldest
of the states in the Central Plain.
Possibly by a hundred thousand
years or more, possibly two hum
dred thousand years.
That fact, Mr.. Editor. cuts a
big figure with our surface soil
fertility for there are good indi-
cations that we were a peninsula
once while the states to the south
of us were under the waters of
the Gulf of Mexico.
And by the way, your humble
servant has discovered between
Millbank and Bigstone, S. D.,
Gulf Of Mexico mud, or as it is
better understood, bluff soil"
and the same pertains in Yellow
Medicine county south of Lake
Travers, that leads the writer to
believe the doctrines advanced
by some biologists that the wat
ers Of the gulf met the waters of
the Arctic ocean over our heads,
but that was away back of and
beft re the glacial age that brot
down on us. our present upper
earth that we denominate glacial
clay which in some places IS al
most all blue shale, but IN our
state is a mixture of the blue
with the yellow. The western
part has about 200 feet of con-