025

• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: State Historical Society of North Dakota
• Subjects: Lever; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://cdm16921.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ndsl-books/id/55475

■24 MORAINE TOWNSHIP and the-sediments that were deposited in the ancient lake. At its highest level the waves of this lake washed the base of the hills and threw up the gravel, ridges that were long since recognized as the shore line of the lake. But the hill country lay above the reach of the water. When the front of the ice-sheet of the last glacial epoch slowly receded northward year by year, it left itsdiiftshett exposed to sunshine :and weather conditions. It is thought that vegetation .quickly took possession of all land areas vacated by the ice and not covered by waters such as then filled ail depressions of the surface. The soil of the hill country has therefore been formed by decomposition of the surface deposits and inclusion of organic matter, mainly through growth and decay of vegetation, especially the rootlets in the soil; also its working .oj/er by worms and insects which b.iing to the suiface flue matt-rial from below. The annual burning of the grass in former times liberated potash, doubtless a powerful solvent in soil-making. Moreover flie wind-driyen snows of winter deposited dust and !i:».|Jy, the land w;;s ranged over for centuries by countless numbers of buffalo, elk and antelope. It would be an error to suppose that white men Lever visited the hi!! courtly prior to about the time that the county was first being settled. As early as October, 1SH7, Captain AJexardfr Henry, an officer of the Northwest Fur Company who was located at Pembina, made a trip southwaul by way of the foot: of the uplands, this route being followed as far as Bachelors Grove. Bo traveled in a chaise that ho Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited in Multi-page TIFF Editor.