Landscape
Bounded by rolling hills, bluffs, farmland, and woods in its upper reaches, dammed by H.M. Byllesby in 1910 for hydroelectric power to create Lake Byllesby Reservoir, the Cannon enters a broad gorge below Cannon Falls, where it is flanked by bluffs up to 300 feet (100 m) high. The Cannon River is underlaid with a variety of sedimentary rocks. The river valley created by cutting through these rocks produced rock outcrops of St. Peter Sandstone, the Prairie du Chien Group of dolomites and sandstone, and near the river's mouth, Jordan Sandstone and the St. Lawrence and Franconia formations.
Past the Falls, the river is in the Driftless Area of Minnesota, a region that remained ice free during the last ice age, allowing the river to carve a very impressive canyon. The upper region of the river is involved with terminal moraines and glacial drift and till, and is not in the Driftless Area.
Read more about this topic: Cannon River (Minnesota)
Famous quotes containing the word landscape:
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“There exists a black kingdom which the eyes of man avoid because its landscape fails signally to flatter them. This darkness, which he imagines he can dispense with in describing the light, is error with its unknown characteristics.... Error is certainty’s constant companion. Error is the corollary of evidence. And anything said about truth may equally well be said about error: the delusion will be no greater.”
—Louis Aragon (1897–1982)
“When it comes, the Landscape listens—
Shadows—hold their breath—
When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance
On the look of Death—”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)