There are many small valleys in the sides of the quartzite ranges (especially the South range) which do not extend back to their crests, and therefore do not occasion passes across them. The narrow valleys at a and b in Plate [XXXVII], known as Parfrey's and Dorward's glens, respectively, are singularly beautiful gorges, and merit mention as well from the scenic as from the geologic point of view. Wider valleys, the heads of which do not reach the crest, occur on the flanks of the main range (as at d and e, Plate [II]) at many points. One such valley occurs east of the north end of the lake (x, Plate [XXXVII]), another west of the south end (y, Plate [XXXVII]), another on the north face of the west bluff west of the north end of the lake and between the East and West Sauk roads, and still others at greater distances from the lake in both directions. It is manifest that if the valleys were extended headward in the direction of their axes, they would interrupt the even crest. Many of these valleys, unlike the glens mentioned above, are very wide in proportion to their length. In some of these capacious valleys there are beds of Potsdam sandstone, showing that the valleys existed before the sand of the sandstone was deposited.

The structure and constitution of the ridges.—The quartzite of the ridges is nothing more nor less than altered sandstone. Its origin dates from that part of geological time known to geologists as the Upper Huronian period (see p. [23]). The popular local belief that the quartzite is of igneous origin is without the slightest warrant. It appears to have had its basis in the notion that Devil's lake occupies an extinct volcanic crater. Were this the fact, igneous rock should be found about it.

Quartzite is sandstone in which the intergranular spaces have been filled with silica (quartz) brought in and deposited by percolating water subsequent to the accumulation of the sand. The conversion of sandstone into quartzite is but a continuation of the process which converts sand into sandstone. The Potsdam or any other sandstone formation might be converted into quartzite by the same process, and it would then be a metamorphic rock.

Like the sandstone, the quartzite is in layers. This is perhaps nowhere so distinctly shown on a large scale as in the bluffs at

WISCONSIN GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. BULLETIN NO. V., PL. V.

The Notch in the South quartzite range, at Devil's Lake.
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WISCONSIN GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. BULLETIN NO. V., PL. VI.

The east bluff of Devil's lake, showing the dip of quartzite (to the left), and talus above and below the level where the beds are shown.
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