Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1925-09-16
GRANT COUNTY
A PANORAMA OF
SCENIC BEAUTY
Emerald Hills of This Sec
ton of State Rivals Fame
of Berkshires of East.

Especial Correspondence to The Herald)
A glimpse of the topography and
the geological story of Wisconsin is
interesting. The surface reveals
striking diversity
West Of a line drawn from the I'LL
nois boundary, north to Madison, and
thence northwest to Prairie du Chen,
lies the southwestern upland" This
region, which includes all Of Grant
county, has a general summit eleva-
ton of about 1900 to 1900 feet above
sea level. The tops of most of the
hills are mainly fairly hard dolom
tie; the TANKS and the valley bottoms
are soft, cream cOlored and buff sand
stone, mostly covered with soil and
hardwood forest. The main streams
have carved their valleys four or five
hundred feet deep into this upland,
and in this process have developed
scenery of diversified and rugged
beauty.
Patch Work on HillSideS.
The sleeper hillsides are a variegat-
ed picture of open, grassy sheep
path" terraced slopes-dotted with
creeping juniper and clumps of fam
ing sumach-Or of dense forest growth
of oak walnut, Eastwood, and poplar,
with here and there larke evergreen
to stand out against the autumn col
ors; or of soft sandstone cliffs chisel-
ed by the wind and nodded by the
rain into fantastic castellated forms
and crowned with lichen-covered gray
dolomite
The gently rolling upland, the gent
Ter slopes and the valley bottoms
make rich agricultural fields and
farm pastures. A view down one of
these prosperous valleys, dotted with
well-kept homes, nesting in the shelf
er of the spurs from the main ridges,
or cut in the open surrounded by ma
jestic groups of elms or naples with
herds of full-uddered dairy cattle dot
ting the hillsides or standing leisure
" in the cooling streams, is one to
csniure up thought of restful ease
and make one wish to live in such
scenes "far from the maddening
crowd''-that is Grant county.
Those familiar with the famed Berk-
shire Hills of Massachusetts tell us
that the scenery in the western up
land" of Wisconsin is more delightful.
Vaster Than Rhine.
Along the western boundary OF the
wisconsin Berkshires" is the great
gorge of the Mississippi, one of the
most magnificent scenic panOramas to
be found between the Alleghenies and
the Rockies. The dolOmite-capped
sandstone walls rise steeply from the
flood plain to height OF 500 feet
and more Sometimes they are in the
form of sheer precipices, at others the
isolated bluffs stand like giant sent1-
nels guarding the Father of Waters.
The whole gorge Stimulates, although
on a vaster scale, the scenery OF the
Rhine valley, even to the little VII
lagos clinging to the base of the over
shadowing bluffs. Giant ruined cas-
ties with turrets and towers and bas-
lions and battlements and all the
other details that mark a medieval for
tress are there, carved by age long
erosion from the rocks of the hill tops.
Peaks Cut Skyline.
East of this western upland lies the
great central plain which occupies
portion of seven counties. This plain
is characterized by fiat or very slight
" rolling land, with sandy and sandy
loan soils, with numerous broad
marshes and sluggish streams.
The outstanding features of the
central plain are the abrupt walled,
stone castles, such as are seen about
Camp Dauglas and farther east bear
ing such names as Peterwen Peak or
Roche A Cris-the last remnants OF
the great sandstone formations that
once covered this great area and still
form the main mass of the uplands OF
the west.
These towering structures rise hum
dreds of fe It sheer out of the plain
and might have been fashioned by
some Titan as his fortress home. Pen
tenwell Peak Ties along the Wiscon-
sin River. a castellated mass of sand
stone which, seen at distance, might
he mistaken for some ancient ruin
dropped into the heart of Wisconsin.
Other crags rise as solitary towers,
their white lines pinnacled against
the flat SURROUNDING country-making
a strange and unusual impression up
IN the observer when he sees them
projecting steeply from the fiat low
land.
The western upland and the central
nlain comprise the n-glac1ated part
of the state, the southwest quarter.
In area it is about 210 miles north
and south and 120 miles east and west.
This "driftless area, so called be-
cause it is devoid of glacial deposits,
or drift !" is world famous because 1t
is completely surrounded by glaclated
territory There is no similar region
left bare of the glacial ice in the ter
ritorv covered by the continental ice
sheets of North America and Europe.