The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1908-04-02
The Mouse River Valley No. 2

CdllGu SAT- llCho WulCu UclOuS " I0S
, cretacious age or age in which the
waters were in the process of drying
up off Of the earth for we are told
that the earth stood out Of the wat
ers and under the waters and God
dried up the waters from off Of the
earth we are not told anything about
| the process whether it was fast or
slow but it is best to understand a
gradual process for God again came
down and fixed the ponds when they
had found the proper level. These
monster reptiles may have had their
day before this time for then condi-
tions pertained that man came at the
last the highest type of all mammals,
that the old sea bottom was covered
up by glacial drift is quite certain,
because there is still remnants of an
ancient glacier still to be seen in
the mountains of Western Alberta and
British Columbia west Of the north or
upper end of the Mouse River Valley
some of them are of considerable eX-
tent, one has an area Of thirty miles
in length by ten miles in breadth
These remnants are what is still left
of a very great glacier that once rest
ed on the eastern slope of the high
Rockies west Of us and gradually NOV
ed down the slope carrying vast mas
ses of rock, gravel and dirt beneath
its ponterous weight. Those six
very large domain builders lying in
a direct line near Lethbridge, Alberta,
Canada are six witnesses that here
rested prehistoric glacer which had
its southern end at the Black hills
Of North Dakota across which the
Missouri river cut it's way and the
Missouri river heights called the hills
or cauteau which forms the western
boundary of the valley beginning at
the divide or summit, may be said to
be the resting place Of the glacier
when it came to the period of it's dis
solution by being subjected to heat
which may have begun with the ap-
pearance of the sun which caused the
waters to dry up from off the plain
and here we had two gradual process
ses going on at the same time as the
glacier melted off the natural result
would be the covering up of the
ocean mud and consequently the bury
ing OF the dead reptiles or grant
saurins that could open their mouths
five feet wide. We have seen
skeletons at Philadelphia, Pa, of these
old fossilled lizards seventy feet in
length these were in fine preserva-
ton and were exhibited at the Centen-
NAL exhibition in 1876, and there was
brought down the last or upper por-
ton of our subsoil in the siet and
drift that followed as a necess ary re-
suit we have come too late to see
any remains of the glacier on our
side Of the boundary line because the
Columbia plateau west of the Rockies
let, in the Japan current and melted
the last of the glacier thousands of
years ago but there is the Davonia
Rock left in fragments to tell us that
they once formed part of the up
titled lofty peaks of the mountains
two metes above us one has but to
go 20 miles southwest from Minot
in the fall when those small lakes
are dry to see rock of the Davonian
age red Of every color, green of every
shade, blue of every hue. These had
no way to come to their last resting
place but beneath some monster ice
Or by some tremendous wave as they
are more than two hundred miles from
the place they were once intact. !
Here is also the origin of the gravel
and all other broken rock Of various
kinds found upon the cauteau and |
western plain
The Surface Soil. ,
While the conditions were being fix
ID that related to the topography OF !
the valley there was meteorological |
conditions also fixed that resulted in !
our fertile surface soil.