Letter to Taylor from Leverett, November 19, 1916
Scope and Contents
The correspondence series includes approximately 1100 letters written between 1892-1939. The majority of the collection are letters between Frank Leverett and Frank Bursley Taylor; they discuss their field work, Monograph 53, other publications and various related problems. There is also other correspondence with other geologists, including T.C. Chamberlin, Grove K. Gilbert, J.W. Goldthwait, H.L. Fairchild, et alia. There is extensive correspondence with the U.S. Geological Survey, the Geological Survey of Canada, and the Michigan Geological Survey. The primary subject of this series is the surficial glacial geology of the midwestern U.S. and Canada. Leverett & Taylor's work was essential for understanding how the Great Lakes were formed as the Pleistocene glaciers advanced and retreated from the midwestern states. The letters describe the 30 year process of gathering data, mapping the data and constructing the picture of glacial processes during the last Ice Age.
Dates
- Creation: November 19, 1916
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Access
The material is stored offsite in Remote Storage. Please contact Special Collections 3 working days in advance if you wish to use it.
Extent
From the Collection: 1 Linear Feet
Language of Materials
English
General
Rec'd your interesting account of your NY work and I judge from it that much needs to be done on moraines and shorelines there. Perhaps we can talk it over when we are at Albany, and perhaps, if it seems best, call in Dr. Clarke and Prof. Fairchild. Have you decided where you will stay in Albany? I would like to arrange to stay in the same hotel. I had considerable success working on the shorelines of the Superior Basin. As we will soon be able to talk with maps in hand, I will only outline the chief points beginning at L'Anse. The highest Duluth beach was traced along the RR and NE to the Marquette Co. line. I will soon have precise data from a highway engineer on altitudes. I worked out the details in the Keweenaw Peninsula on the Houghton and Calumet maps more completely than before these maps were issued. I then went to WI and found that a lake E of the Bayfield Peninsula discharged across the peninsula S of Iron River into Lake Duluth in the Brule Valley while the ice was still covering the N end of the peninsula and the district E of Ashland. The beaches on the S side of this little lake are higher than they are further N. Near Mellen the beach is 1128' but at Saxon the highest shore is 1116'. A moraine leading E from Saxon seems to correlate with the beach on the S shore of this small lake. The highest Algonquin is 860' where the Soo Line crosses it, but is 10' lower at the W end of the lake S of Superior, WI. At Duluth it is 870-875' and near Two Harbors 910-915'. It is 915' at Bayfield and a line from Two Harbors to Bayfield gives the trend of the isobase. I worked on another shoreline about 100' above the Algonquin in the Superior Quadrangle and found it has a more rapid rise than the Algonquin. As this is S of the Kirkfield isobase, the difference is likely due to a rise in Algonquin waters marking a change from the Kirkfield Outlet to the Port Huron Outlet, and NOT to a rise in the land preceding the Algonquin stage. I wish to go over this with you. I presume you have read A.W. Johnston's bulletin on the Trent Valley Outlet in GSC Bulletin 23. It impressed me as a good piece of work. I do wonder if the outlet waters may not have made a descent into the section now occupied by Sturgeon and Pigeon Lakes and caused a distortion in the isobases. A slight descent into these 2 lakes would make it easy to draw a wrong inference about the trend of the isobases. The isobases may really trend as they do in the Simcoe Basin. I also read Johnston's paper in the Journal of Geology where he infers an early Lake Agassiz separated by an interval of dry land in the Red River Valley from the later Lake Agassiz. I doubt this dry land episode cause. His evidence is not at all conclusive that there is a marked unconformity. I went to Rainy River and found nothing that I would base such a hypothesis. Johnston quotes Upham to sustain the land emergence by calling certain deposits lacustrine that Upham called alluvial. Johnston should go to see the deposits before making a different interpretation. However, I did re-read Upham and find that some of the vegetable material is under till and some was drifted and lodged at various levels, which happens in both glacial and alluvial deposits. Another queer thing is that Johnston doesn't let his early Lake Agassiz excavate an outlet, leaving that for the later Lake. I have done a lot of careful work on Lake Agassiz in ND and MN which allows me to correlate certain moraines with certain shorelines. The highest beach does not go as far NE in MN as the Red Lake Basin but ends in eastern Polk Co. outside a moraine that runs W on the S side of Red Lake into Polk Co. It is all Tommyrot for Johnston to talk about the beach staying clear up to Canada. It is a pity that Johnston went into print on this; I am going to write him soon about the weakness of hs evidence and the inapplicability of most of his interpretations of features in MN and ND.
Repository Details
Part of the Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections Repository