Fifty Years In The Northwest / With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes

by William H. C. Folsom

In 1851 the writer, with Bart Emery, made a visit to this beautiful sheet of water. We found it what its Indian name imports, "fair and lovely water." The government had, the year before, completed a survey of the lake, and it was high time that it should be given a name by which it should be designated on the map and recognized by civilized visitors. What name more beautiful and appropriate than that which the Indians had already given it. That name we at once recognized and used all our influence to perpetuate under somewhat adverse influences; for Swedish emigrants having settled in its neighborhood, a strong effort was made to christen it "Swede Lake," but the lake is to-day known as Chisago, and Chisago it is likely to remain. We believe in the policy of retaining the old Indian names whenever possible. As a rule they are far more musical and appropriate than any we can apply. The Indians have left us their lands, their lakes, their streams; let us accept with them the names by which they were known. Some have been translated into English and appear on the maps as Goose, Elk, Beaver and Snake. By all means let us retranslate them in memory of the race that once owned them.

DALLES OF ST. CROIX.

Chisago county shares with Polk county in the ownership of the wildest and most peculiar scenery in the valley of the St. Croix. At Taylor's Falls, the head of navigation, the river flows between ledges of trap rock, varying in height from fifty to two hundred and fifty feet, for the most part perpendicular, but wildly irregular, as is common in trap rock formations. These ledges are crowned with pine trees and a dense undergrowth of bushes and vines. The prevailing color of the rock is a cold or bluish gray, but broken occasionally by brilliant patches of coloring, red, yellow or green, as they may be stained by oxides of the metals, or covered with lichens and mosses. This formation is known as "The Dalles," sometimes improperly styled "Dells." The rocks composing it are porphyritic trap, an igneous rock forced upward from the interior of the earth through crevices in the crust while still in a liquid state and then solidifying in masses, sometimes prismatic but oftener in irregular polygons, and broken by parallel lines of cleavage. Some geological experts claim that these rocks are "in place" as forming a part of the original crust of the earth, but the balance of evidence seems to be in favor of their having been erupted at a comparatively modern period. This is evidenced by the presence of water-worn boulders and pebbles, imbedded in the trap, somewhat like plums in a pudding, while it was yet plastic; and now forming a species of conglomerate as hard and compact as the trap itself. These rocks are supposed to be rich in copper and silver, and miners have spent much time in prospecting for these metals.

Whatever the origin of the rocks, it is conceded that they were once plastic, at which time this region could not have been a safe or pleasant dwelling place for such beings as now inhabit the world. The theory of a comparatively recent eruption of these rocks is not a pleasant one, for the suggestion forces itself upon the mind that that which has been, at least in recent times, may occur again. The occasional recurrence of earthquakes on our western coast, and the recent severe disturbances in South Carolina and Georgia, raise the query whether this region may not again be visited with an outburst and overflow of trap, terrible and destructive as the first. The foundations, however, seem firm enough to last forever. The rocks are of unusual hardness, and the crust of the earth is probably as solid and thick here as elsewhere. The Dalles proper are about one mile in length. The river, in its passage through them, varies in width from one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet. It was formerly reported unfathomable, but in recent years, owing to a filling up process caused by the debris of the log drivers, it is found to be not more than a hundred feet in its deepest place. The river makes an abrupt bend about a bold promontory of trap known as Angle or Elbow Rock. To the first voyageurs this seemed to be the end of the river, and gave rise to the story that at this point the river burst out of the rocks. Much of the frontage of the rocks upon the river is smooth and perpendicular, and stained with oxides of iron and copper. In places it is broken. The upper rocks are disintegrated by the action of rain and frost, and, where far enough from the river, have fallen so as to form a talus or slope of angular fragments to the water's edge.

THE DEVIL'S CHAIR.

THE DEVIL'S CHAIR.

There are some instances in which, by the breaking away and falling of smaller rocks, larger rocks have been left standing in the form of columns. Most notable of these are the "Devil's Pulpit," and the "Devil's Chair." The former, owing to surrounding shrubbery, is not easily seen. The latter is a conspicuous object on the western shore of the river a few rods below the lower landing. It stands on the slope formed by the debris of a precipice that rises here about 120 feet above the river. Its base is about 40 feet above low water mark; the column itself reaches 45 feet higher. It is composed of many angular pieces of trap, the upper portion bearing a rude resemblance to a chair. It is considered quite a feat to climb to the summit. The face of the rocks is disfigured by the names of ambitious and undeserving persons. The nuisance of names and advertisements painted upon the most prominent rocks in the Dalles is one that every lover of Nature will wish to have abated. To spend an hour climbing amongst these precipices to find in some conspicuous place the advertisement of a quack medicine, illustrates the adage: "There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous."

THE WELLS.

A more remarkable curiosity may be found on that bench or middle plateau of the Dalles, lying between the upper and the lower Taylor's Falls landings, in what has been not inaptly styled "The Wells." These are openings, or pits, not much unlike wells, in places where the trap is not more than 50 feet above water level, varying in width from a few inches to 30 or 40 feet, the deepest being from 20 to 25 feet. These seem to have been formed by the action of water upon pebbles or boulders, much as "pot holes" are now being formed in the rocky bottoms of running streams. The water falls upon the pebbles or boulders in such a way as to cause them to revolve and act as a drill, boring holes in the rock proportioned to the force of the agencies employed. Some of these boulders and pebbles, worn to a spherical shape, were originally found at the bottoms of these wells, but have been mostly carried away by the curious. Some of the wells are cut through solid pieces of trap. The walls of others are seamed and jointed; in some cases fragments have fallen out, and in others the entire side of the wells has been violently disrupted and partly filled with debris. The extreme hardness of the trap rock militates somewhat against the theory of formation above given. It is, however, not improbable that this hardness was acquired after long exposure to the air.