Brick. At Jordan, Charles Rodel makes a light-colored brick. (The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, First Annual Report For The Year 1872, N. H. Winchell, Press Printing Company, St. Paul, 1873, Page 209)
At Jordan Charles Rodell has made brick 12 years, averaging about 500 thousand yearly, and selling at $6 per M [1,000]. This clay deposit, as at Carver, is part of the stratified valley drift. It is 40 feet thick, lying upon till, and overlain by gravel and sand. The top of the clay is about 65 feet above the river. A very interesting kind of stratification is shown by this clay, which is bedded in distinct horizontal layers from 3 to 8 inches thick, averaging 6 inches. These layers are dark bluish, often finely laminated, changing above and below to a nearly black, more unctuous [smooth or greasy] and finer clay, which forms the partings between them. These divisions are clearly seen through the whole extent of Mr. Rodell’s excavation, which reaches 25 feet below the top of the clay and is 4 rods long [one rod = 16.5 feet]. The same stratification is shown also by the excavation of Nye & Co. at Carver, where the exposure is 4 rods long and 15 feet high, except that here the layers all have a nearly uniform thickness of 3 inches. In this depth of 15 feet there are thus about sixty layers, all exactly alike. The alternating conditions which produced them were evidently repeated sixty times in uninterrupted succession. The only explanation for this which seems possible is that these divisions mark so many years occupied by the deposition of this clay. It appears that these clay-beds are of limited extent. The broad flood-plain was mainly built up by additions of fine gravel and sand spread over its surface by floods like those which now occasionally overflow the bottom-lands.
Clay could settle only where hollows were formed by inequalities in this deposition and left outside the path of the principal current. Now nearly all the features of the modified drift, as the general absence of shells or other fossils, its hillocks and ridges called kames, and its occurrence only in glaciated regions or in valleys of drainage from them, indicate that this formation was accumulated by streams discharged from a melting ice-sheet. If the origin of the modified drift that filled the lower part of the Minnesota Valley was from such glacial melting, it is apparent that the floods would be greater and would bring and deposit more sediment in summer than in winter. Layers nearly like those in the clay at Carver and Jordan are also seen in other clay-beds in this valley and in that of the Mississippi in this State. The principal mass of each layer is regarded as the deposition during the warm portion of a year, and the very dark partings as the sediment during the winter when the melting was less and the water consequently less turbid. The upper part of the these beds of clay are generally colored yellow to a depth varying from one to ten feet, the lower portion being blue. The limit of the yellow color in the clay at Jordan runs obliquely, being nearly parallel with the sloping surface, so that the same horizontal layers are partly blue and partly yellow, which shows that this is a discoloration by weathering. (The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, The Eighth Annual Report for the Year 1879, Submitted to the President of the University, Feb. 18, 1880, The Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, MN, 1880, Page 119)
Page 131. Origin of the brick clay. The beds of clay in this valley drift, which are used for brick-making at Jordan and Carver, show a very interesting kind of stratification. In Mr. Charles Rodell’s excavation at Jordan, this clay is bedded in distinct horizontal layers from three to eight inches thick, averaging six inches. These layers are dark bluish, often finely laminated, changing above and below to a nearly black, more unctuous and finer clay, which forms the partings between them. These divisions are clearly seen through the whole extent of this excavation, which reaches 25 feet below the top of the clay and is four
Page 132. rods long. The height of its top is estimated to be 65 feet above the river. (A Report on the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, 1882-1885, Volume II, N. H. Winchell and Warren Upham, Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1888)
The limit of the yellow color in the clay at Jordan runs obliquely, being nearly parallel with the sloping surface, so that the same horizontal layers are partly blue and partly yellow, which shows that this is a discoloration by weathering. (A Report on the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, 1882-1885, Volume II, N. H. Winchell and Warren Upham, Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1888, Page 133)
At Jordan the excavation whence Charles Rodell takes clay for brick-making is in the base of the terrace of modified drift called Spirit hill. The section, in descending order, is gravel, 10 to 25 feet, containing pebbles up to six inches in diameter; clay, 40 feet, yellowish in its upper 4 to 10 feet and dark bluish below, exposed and worked to a depth from its top of about 25 feet; lying upon very hard dark blue till. The top of this clay is about 65 feet above the Minnesota river. Its stratification and weathering have been before noticed. Mr. Rodell has made bricks here fifteen years, averaging about 500,000 yearly, and selling at $6 per thousand. For tempering, one part of sand is mixed with three of clay. The bricks are cream-colored and of very durable quality. In burning they first change to light red, then to cream-color, and near the fire attain a yellowish tint. He also makes fire-bricks, of the same size as ordinary bricks, which he sells at $8 per thousand. The demand for them, however, is small, being only four to eight thousand yearly, through the last six or eight years. The clay employed is dug about ten rods southwest from this excavation, at the top of the bank, where the section is soil, 2 feet; sandy clay, used for fire-bricks, 3 to 5 feet; and sand and gravel below. (A Report on the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, 1882-1885, Volume II, N. H. Winchell and Warren Upham, Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1888, Page 146)