Geological

Oh Where, oh Where, is Ware?

Over the course of the past eight months I have received a tour of the natural landscape of Minnesota as it appeared over one hundred years ago. The glass plate negatives in the Bell Museum of Natural History records and…


The Survey, Year III

After a brief and hastily conducted “retrospective” survey in the fall of 1872, followed by a full year foray filled with salt determinations and peat assessments in 1873, Newton Horace Winchell, the director of the Minnesota Geological and Natural History…


Winter on the North Shore

We did it! We made it through our first major snowstorm of the season. Traffic made us late to work, we were chilled by the cold wind breezing past our cheeks, and we were forced to round up all of…


For peat’s sake!

The second full year of work on the Minnesota Geological and Natural History Survey was a busy one for State Geologist Newton Horace Winchell. First, he was directed by the governor and the state legislature to settle once and for…


No Picture

The Survey, Year II: It could use a little salt…

In our previous post regarding the initial evaluation of the progress made by State Geologist Newton Horace Winchell in the first year of the implementation of the Minnesota Geological and Natural History Survey, we ended with the following question and…


Norsk Oasis

Last week we shared how the Minnesota Geological and Natural History Survey was first implemented by director Newton Horace Winchell, State Geologist. Winchell’s field notebooks, along with his annual reports of the survey, provide great insight in to the State…



Explorations of Fillmore County

This past weekend I traveled to southeastern Minnesota to visit family and camp at Forestville State Park near Preston in Fillmore County. Forestville State Park resides in the Root River Valley, a unique area in the southeast corner of the…


The General Museum

In addition to mandating an exhaustive study of the geological, botanical, and zoological phenomena of the state, the March 1, 1872 law that created the Minnesota Geological and Natural History Survey under the authority of the Board of Regents of…


Complementary Collections: A Survey Begins

On March 1, 1872 the legislature of the state of Minnesota approved a bill that ordered the commencement of a geological and natural history survey of the state, to be implemented and overseen by the Board of Regents of the…