WISCONSIN, wis-kin-sin, a north-central State of the United States, popularly called the •Badger State,* between lat. 42° 30' and 47° 50' and 92° 54' west. It is bounded on the north by Lake Superior and the upper penin sula of Michigan, on the east by Lake Michi gan, on the south by Illinois and on the west by Iowa and Minnesota. The extreme dimensions of the State are about 320 miles from north to south and 295 miles from east to west. The gross area is 56,066 square miles, 810 of which are covered with water. In addition the State has political jurisdiction over 9,878 square miles of water area in the adjoining lakes, Superior and Michigan. The population in 1910 was 2,333,860. Of this total 1,820,000 or 78 per cent were native born and 513,000 or 22 per cent were foreign born. There were 10,142 Indians, 2,900 negroes and 263 Japanese and other races.
Geography, Wisconsin's position as one of the States of the upper Mississippi Valley, adjoining the Great Lakes, constitutes its chief geographical asset. Located about one-third of the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the climate is continental in character, the winters being relatively cold and the sum mers rather hot. The mean annual temperature is about 43° Fahrenheit. The extreme range is from above to 50* below zero. The daily range is about ur in summer and 14° in winter. The summer temperature corresponds to that of France, Germany and southeastern England; the winter temperature to northern Sweden and central Russia.
The Wisconsin and Fox rivers, separated by an interval of less than a mile in south central Wisconsin and emptying respectively into the Mississippi River and Green Bay, constitute a great water trough across the State from north east to southwest. The geographical character istics of the smaller and southeastern of the two sections into which the State is thus divided differ markedly from those of the larger, northwestern section; these differences have had a marked effect upon the historical devel opment and present condition of the State. The eastern and northern portions of the State drain into Lakes Michigan and Superior by short streams with rapid courses. The western and southern portiops (much greater in arca) drain into the Mississippi by a number of large rivers The portion of the State above the Fox-Wisconsin water-trough was originally heavily wooded and relatively inaccessible. The southern and eastern section was relatively open and comparatively accessible to settlers.
Accordingly this region was settled first and is to-day much further advanced industrially than is the northern section. The latter, as late as the admiss;un of Wisconsin to e•immonly regarded as a worthless wilderness. and even to-day retains to a large degree the charicteristics of a frontier region.
With 500 miles of Great Lakes coastline, with a western frontage of 250 miles on the Mississippi, with some 2,000 lakes ranging in size downward from Winnebago with 215 square miles of area and with every portion of the State penetrated by rivers, Wisconsin's water resources are of great importance, largely determining the course of agricultural and in dustrial development of the State. Theprin cipal rivers are the Rock, Wisconsin, Clip pewa and Saint Croix, tributary to the Missis sippi; the Saint Louis, Bois BruM, Bad and Montreal, tributary to Lake Superior; and the Menominee, Peshtigo, Oconto, Wolf, Fox, Manitowoc, Sheboygan and Milwaukee, tribu tary to Green Bay and Lake Michigan. The more important lakes are Winnebago, Kosh konong, Green, Mendota, Monona, Waubesa, Kegonsa, Geneva, Court Oreilles, Poygan, Gietac, Puckaway and Big Butte des Mors. The streams and lakes abound in fish and wild fowls, and the woods and waters of Wisconsin ccnstitute one of the great playgrounds of America.
Geology.— The State includes a large area of the oldest of rocks; the pre-Cambrian, and a still larger area of Paleozoic rocks, newer than the pre-Cambrian but still very ancient. The Mesozoic formation is not found in Wisconsin, but the State includes rocks &longing to the Cenozoic age. The geological histo of the State has included the following e s: (1) All Wisconsin was mountainous a ter the pre Cambrian rocks were deposited and folded; (2) the whole State was a peneplain, with a few isolated hills rising above the general level; (3) all of the State may have been alternately submerged below the level of the ocean and slightly elevated while the Paleozoic rocks were being deposited; (4) again dry land and being fashioned into the present form; (5) all but the southwestern section buried beneath an ice sheet; (6) the ice sheet melted, leaving Wis consin somewhat as before the Glacial Period, but with important manifestations of topog raphy, soil and drainage. The Glacial Period may have lasted nearly 1,000,000 years; it ended perhaps 35,000 to 50,000 years ago.