Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1917-08-08
EVIDENCES Of
OLD ICE CAPS
IN WISCONSIN
Wood Specimen Found in ST.
Croix County Glacial Drift
Buried Deep.

All the wood identifications for the
u. S. government are conducted at the
university forest products laboratory
by Prof Arthur Koehler. Hundreds
Of samples, including many represen-
tative foreign species, are submitted
to him each year from all over the
United States. Besides pieces of lum-
Der, sawdust, fibrous material, chips,
dyewo3ds, roots and banks are identi-
fed
a wood specimen found in a glacial
drift and estimated to be approximate
Ivy half million years old was among
the specimens submitted This speci-
men, which proved to be spruce was
verbally older than the hills 1t was
unearthed lii a railroad cut at Wood
Vile, in st. Cr0ix county, Wisconsin.
The wood, somewhat mixed With black
soil, was found in a layer four to II
inches thick in the base of a hill fully
so feet high. 1t was sent to the labor
at0ry by Samuel Weidman of the Wis
eonsin geological survey.
Strange Prehistoric Specimen.
The wood was very brittle and much
distorted, most OF the cells being fiat
tened. However, by cutting thin sec
lions of the wood and viewing them
through a microscope, the character
istic structure Of the cells could be
made out.
Biologists explain the occurrence of
the wood SO far under ground some
thing like this: Ages ago thick sheet
OF ice (glacier) covered the greater
part Of the state of Wisconsin and the
neighboring states, and moved slowly
southwark. Heavy masses of ice will
flow in much the same manner in
which brittle piece of molasses cam
dy will gradually spread out on
plate. At the end of the glacier, where
the ice melted, it deposited a great
amount of soil which had become mix
ed with the ice in its journey south
ward.
From Glacial Drift.
This lower deposit at Woodville is
designated as the pre-Kansas drift
The time came when the lower end
OF the glacier melted faster than it
could move, allowing vegetation and
even trees to encrOach upon the de-
post. The fact that the wood which
was found is spruce, however, indi-
Gates that a moderately cool climate
prevailed, for even now this species
is confined chiefly to the northern lat
itutdes and high attitudes.
Later, probably some 100000 years
ago, thee Innate again became cooler,
allowing another glacier to come
down. The forest was destroyed and
buried under mass of ice and gravel.
Again the glacier was melted and de-
posted a deep layer of soil, forming
the Kansas drift, on top of the remains
of the forest. Long after the Kansas
drift was deposited on the forest bed
a third glacier descended, and later,
melting, deposited the Illinois drift.
Clear to Biologists.
These theories may seem "far fetch
ed' to those who have not studied the
formation of our land areas, but to the
geologist they offer the only logical
0ApAoll1CAOA u VI oo0HL COuulCIOuS. Al
the present time in Alaska some gla-
ciers are slowly pushing their huge
ice masses along to the utter destruc-
ton of all forests and other plant life
in their path. Other glaciers are be-
ing melted faster than they can ad-
vance, and, consequently, their termi-
nails are receding and depositing large
masses of earth and stones.