Page 178. At the north end of the "sand prairie," in the N. E. 1/4 of section 5, Traverse, south of the creek, red bricks of good quality were made during several years by John McCurdy, chiefly while the (St. Peter) asylum was being built, a large part of his product, which was 1,000,000 yearly, being used in its construction. The clay lies about 100 feet above the creek and some 30 feet below the "sand prairie," which supplied the sand used for tempering. In the excavation only two or three inches of sward and soil at the surface were wasted; and thence the stratum of clay used for brick-making reaches to a depth of eight feet, the upper four feet being yellowish and requiring an intermixture of one-third as much sand as clay, and the lower four feet dark bluish, needing much more sand, so that often sand and clay were mixed in equal amounts. No limy concretions occur in the yellow clay, but they are found in the lower blue clay,
Page 179. being most frequent in its upper six inches. Next below this clay a well went through 45 feet of sand and fine gravel to water in quicksand. (A Report on the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, 1882-1885, The Geology of Minnesota, Volume II, N. H. Winchell and Warren Upham, Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1888)