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Geology-Sandstone District

II The country next to this Primitive district, extending along the Mississippi from the Falls of St. Anthony to the border of the Mineral District a short distance south of the Wisconsin river, and extending [eastward to Fort Winnebago, which] up the branches of the Mississippi to their respective falls, is composed of sandstone resting upon, and surmounted by limeston. In many places only one of these rocks [are to] exists, the others being below the deepest valleys or having been carried away or destroyed by some unknown cause. The sandstone is mostly pure [white] and "white as the drier snow", [pure] resembling the finest white sugar in appearance, but is occasionally colored by iron rust with red, orange, or dark tints; [Occasionally] At other times it is yellowish and has been compared to the finer varieties of Marcovado sugar. These colors are frequently arranged in stripes or bands. It is soft and easily crumbles-so soft says Featherstonhaugh that the swallows in great numbers have been able to pick holes in it on the Wisconsin hills, to build their nests. The grains appear to be perfect quartz crystals and not beach sand smoothed and ground by the action of water and then hardened into rock.

This pure sand must ere long become the material for the manufacture of glass. The sandstone is sixty feet

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