USA > Iowa > Black Hawk County > History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume I > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
1 I
3. Stone still lighter in color than number four, which often washes out in a remarkable way, yet makes a durable stone once it has been dried out
2. Yellowish stone, full of pockets
1. Soft, chalky stone I
9
15
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
Numbers I and 2 are no longer quarried, not comparing favorably in value with the other beds. Numbers 3 and I are the same beds found under the open channel of Dry Run and which everywhere have extensive, tortuous canals dissolved out and worn away by attrition, making it possible for the water in the upper course of Dry Run to disappear from the surface channel in the lower course excepting in times of flooding.
North and northwest of Cedar Falls are a few rock exposures, all of limited extent. The horizon is about the same in every instance, it being that of the Stromatoporas and lithographic limestone. In Union Township just east of Finchford is Beatty's Quarry. It is shallow, and little fresh exposure appears. Four feet of rock was noted. It is irregularly bedded, much jointed, finely granu- lar, grayish on fracture, but yellowish on the surface, iron-stained in places. rough, the upper layers becoming mere fragments in the geest. Some of these fragments were somewhat spherical stromatoporoids with laminæ in very irreg- ular wavy lines, and where broken the planes were thickly tubercled. Others were masses of small cylinders, rarely branching, running at various angles but incorporated together, stromatoporoid in structure, the stem always rising above the plane of the matrix wherever exposed. Immediately above the geest were six inches of Buchanan gravel. In the road one-half mile east and at a little greater elevation the rock is of a decidedly lithographic type in some layers. The dendroidal Stromatoporas were here, together with a few Cladopora stems.
In the northeast quarter of section 5. Union Township, twenty-five or thirty feet above the water of West Fork, is a hard, brittle, yellow rock. It has many crinoid stems, a few cyathophylloid corals, often weathered to the merest skeleton outline, brachiopods and traces of other fossil forms, embossed thickly over the surface, giving it a strangely harsh feel. The crinoid stems interpenetrate the rock at right angles to the bedding planes, as if the calcareous mud had filled about them while still in situ. Below two feet of this are three feet of lime- stone, whitish where exposed, but gray within. Dendroidal Stromatoporas plenti- fully emboss the surface, and sometimes make up nearly the whole substance of the rock. Where organic structure is not apparent the rock is lithographic in character, but very seamy and readily weathers into small irregular fragments, rendering it unfit for any economic purpose. In a channel cut by a small stream were loose pieces of lithographic stone, but such rock was nowhere found in place. The fossils here would indicate that the dendroidal Stromatoporas were below the massive, laminated ones, and the crinoidal layers were above them.
One-half mile south of Winslow Station a small quarry has been opened. The floor is about ten feet above the river, and about nine feet of rock in vertica! section is shown. The rock is mostly in thin layers, often earthy, unfossiliferous. A few Stromatoporas were loose in the debris of the quarry floor, but none were found in place.
The only rock noted in Washington Township was at a point a little north of P. Negley's residence, in the southeast quarter of section 10. Years ago some rock had been removed from an outcrop in a low bank, but loose soil and vegeta- tion have healed the scar so nearly that little could be observed. Stromatoporoids were found. These and the lithological character of the rock fragments unite in confirming the evidence gained from the topographic relations that the horizon is the same as that of the exposure in Union Township.
16
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
Along the western side of Mt. Vernon Township are two old quarries from which have been taken a good quality of stone for local purposes. One is in section 18. No fossils were found here and the lithological character of the stone gives little clue to the horizon. In a small creek bed near by, a gray, firm, finely granular stone occurs, one bed of which by weathering develops an edge showing numerous lamint with many minute pores, as if it were stromatoporoidal in structure, but a fresh surface gives no proof of such a structure unless faint, yellow lines near together and parallel may be so regarded. The other quarry is in section 30. Much of the rock in place here was under water at the time it was visited. A specimen picked up at random is gray, firm, granular and effervesces reluctantly with cold acid. Traces of iron oxide are everywhere diffused throughout the stone. The behavior with acid is unusual with limestone in this county. Another specimen is of the concretionary lithographie type.
In the southwest quarter of section 36, township 87 N., range XII W., is the Buchanan Quarry showing the following section :
Ft. In.
2. Limestone, full of seams and joints, so uncertain as to make any at- tempt at tracing of beds unprofitable. In the lower part occurs Acervularia, a cyathophylloid coral and Cladopora prolifera. A Favosites is dimly apparent in places. S
1. Limestone, chiefly dark drab, but bluish in upper part, sometimes gran- ular, with calcite crystals interspread, at times making fine specimens of dogtooth spar. The first five feet develop three or even four layers, but in the upper portion layers are uncertain. The quality of the stone in this quarry is variable. It is soft, carthy and much broken in some beds, firm and comparatively free from joints in others I5 6
In the southwest corner of section 25, on land owned by J. Robertson, is a quarry from which much good stone has been taken. The floor of this quarry is clearly exposed over twenty-five or thirty square rods and shows a decided dip to the southeast. For thirteen feet above the base of the quarry is a limestone in about eight layers. A thin, shaly parting separates the fourth and fifth layers. The beds below this are blue on fresh faces, yellow or brown in the seams. All show numerous and sometimes large pockets of dogtooth spar or solid masses of calcite. The upper beds are buff, ironstained along seams. Parallel, yellowish- brown streaks run persistently through some layers. The uppermost layer bears favosite, cup and acervularian corals, not in as good condition as in the West Waterloo Quarry, but the stone is of better grade. A single specimen of Atrypa reticularis was found here. Above this layer are thin layers of buff limestone, becoming thinner and more irregular toward the top and ending with a thin layer of chert in nodular masses, or in angular fragments.
In the northeast quarter of section 35 is a quarry belonging to A. K. Longaker which shows a section as follows :
Ft. In.
6. Top soil with a few limestone fragments 4
5. Soft, light gray stone, much broken 2
4. Soft, buff stone with cherty nodules. The chert more dominant and the calcareous matrix softer as the upper layers are reached. .. 6 2
17
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
Ft. In.
3. Rock similar to number 4, but with less chert.
2. Cherty layer, loose angular fragments, white or rusty brown. I 6
4
I. Soft, buff stone, heavy-bedded, with joints running at various oblique angles with exposed faces, red-brown and with yellowish-brown
. streaks, usually parallel with the bedding planes, but sometimes wavy and even in concentric lines. Stone similar to this is found in Mitchell, Howard and other counties, but in this quarry some layers have an unusual development, making a very attractive appearance, about ... 4
The floor of this quarry consists of a stone similar to number 1. No fossils were seen. The whole section is above the Acervularia bed of the Robertson Quarry, the cherty layers at the top of the latter being the equivalent of number 2 in this quarry. The equivalent of the heavy beds of number I, being near the top in the Robertson Quarry, are thin-bedded and otherwise affected by their nearness to the surface.
In the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 20, Spring Creek Township, in the bluff rising from the river plain, is the Camp Quarry, from which considerable quantities of a good grade of stone have been taken, although no quarrying has been done here for some time. The stone is quite heavily bedded. The lower two and upper six feet are lithographic in character. These beds are known locally as limestone, while the intervening eight feet, which are granular in texture, are called sandstone by the local observers. These upper beds are much jointed, especially in the higher layers, where they are yielding more or less to weathering influences, while the lower beds bear numerous calcitic patches in a gray, soft limestone. A quarter of a mile northwest is a quarry owned by C. R. Harmon. The lower layer is a gray, soft stone with calcitic blotches and lines everywhere throughout it. This bed is the equivalent of the beds in the Camp Quarry lying immediately above the lower lithographic bed. Above this are seven feet of rock, gray below and buff above, the latter part being much jointed and somewhat weathered, thus very much resembling the similarly situated beds of the Camp Quarry. No fossils were found in the last named, only the edges of the stone being exposed, but in the Harmon Quarry this upper bed has Atrypa reticularis in it. A quarter of a mile still farther northwest is a small quarry where the same beds are exposed. Atrypa occurs here also.
In the valley of Indian Creek, one mile above its junction with the Cedar, the lithographic beds are found in a natural outcrop. Loose blocks of this stone were observed in a roadside ditch one mile north of Gilbertville. They had the peculiar whitish color of this rock when weathered and evidently had been washed out of the geest so often found overlying a firmer rock, when near the surface.
In the southwest quarter of section II, township 88 N., range XII W., a small quarry very nearly duplicates the upper part of the Camp Quarry, having the granular calcite bearing beds below, then the beds more or less decayed, above which are lithographic beds. Here, however, the latter have distinct shaly part- ings not shown in the others.
On Mr. F. A. Buttke's land in section 15, Spring Creek Township, a ridge has in it stone very near the surface and a local supply of building stone has been removed from two or three different places. The rock quarried was mainly of Vol. 1 -2
1
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
the lithographie type. The floor of one pit was a soft, buff, fissile limestone, above which were two feet of a yellowish, soft, calcite-bearing stone. The uppermost bed of this quarry contained stromatoporoid masses of all sizes up to a foot in diameter. There were also short, cylindrical stems roughening the surface, much resembling the dendroidal Stromatoporas of the outerop on the West Fork in Union Township. There are several other outcroppings along Spring Creek from near its mouth to the north border of the township, in all of which the litho- graphic stone appears. The occurrence of the Stromatopora and lithographic beds east of Cedar River, with Acervularia beds outcropping on both the east and west sides of them without any material change of elevation, would imply that they lie in a shallow syncline and this view is supported by the fact that at the Robertson Quarry on the west is a very decided dip to the southeast. The dip of the Acervularia beds on the cast could not be determined, as only an outcropping in a bank was noted.
In the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 24. Eagle Town- ship, is a ridge due to an outlier of limestone. The country north and west is unusually level, while that cast and south presents very little unevenness of sur- face. Two quarries have been opened here from which large quantities of stone have been taken, since a wide extent of country finds here its only supply of stone except such as may come from the lowan bowlders which in some sections are not plentiful. In a quarry in the field west of the road the following section is shown :
Ft. In.
13. Thin-bedded, broken stone 1
12. Two layers of limestone, blue where unchanged. 4 6
11. Three layers of hard, compact limestone, of good quality, durable, brit- tle, having conchoidal fracture, with drab nodules of varying sizes, and in the upper part with stromatoporoid masses thoroughly coales- cent with the rest of the rock. 5
10. Bluish, carthy limestone, much jointed and irregularly bedded 3
9. Dark drab stone, calcitic at top. I 6
8. Blue stone, buff where exposed, calcite plentiful, in seven or eight layers I IO
7. Drab limestone
6. Buff, earthy limestone, finely streaked with yellow lines. 2
2
5. Shaly partings with very wavy lines of contact above and below 3
4. Hard, brittle, drab limestone, middle portion developing layers. 3 3. Blue limestone of good quality, firm, finely crystalline, with pockets of crystals, thickness not taken.
2. Gray, finely crystalline limestone, yielding good flags 6
1 A good stone, gray, somewhat crystalline, fracture coarsely conchoidal 2 6
Below is given a section from the quarry cast of the road. Ft. In.
- Thin-bedded stone such as usually occurs near the surface. 7
6. Like No. 5 in appearance, but readily weathers into fragments, joints readily developing I 6
2
19
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
Ft. In.
5. Good quarry stone, drab, dense, brittle, resistant to weathering in- fluences 2
6
4. Buff, iron-stained, soft in places 5
3. Thin-bedded, much jointed, buff, calcite bearing 1 6
2. Like No. 3, upper six inches very fragile and fissile. 3
I. Firm, drab, compact, in two layers, upper argillaceous. 4
The stromatoporoid masses in number II of the west quarry, together with the lithological character of certain beds, makes it reasonable to conclude that the beds of these quarries are of the same horizon as those of the Cedar Falls quarries. Aside from the Stromatopora and an undetermined brachiopod very sparingly occurring in a part of number 3 of the east quarry, these beds are entirely barren. A characteristic of these barren beds, whether found in East Waterloo, Cedar Falls, or Eagle Township, is the marked variability of most of the rock, sometimes even in the same quarry and always in nearby quarries. A very few features, like the pockets of crystals, yellow streaks in a soft, earthy stone, blue limestone. yellowing under the weather, may be traced at fairly well established horizons. Otherwise little can be used in correlation and even these without sure reliance, unless the Stromatopora and lithographic beds chance to be found overtopping them.
Stratagraphically the lowest horizon in the county is the outcropping in an intermittent stream bed in the northeast quarter of section 13, Fox Township, which is referred to the upper part of the Wapsipinicon stage of the Devonian. No thickness can be assigned as only a partial section could be made. In the bank adjacent three or four feet of this zone were exposed.
GENERAL SECTIONS OF CEDAR VALLEY LIMESTONE
A general section of the rocks of the Cedar Valley stage in Black Hawk County may be arranged in order as follows :
Feet
3. Lithographic and stromatoporoid beds, somewhat variable in character, but everywhere maintaining certain unmistakable features. In places a nodu- lar or even brecciated phase is found. Excepting the stromatoporoids. few fossils occur 20
2. Beds which, for sake of identification in reference to them may be called the Raymond Quarry Beds, since they have long been known there, distinc- tively barren, excepting an occasional coarse-ribbed Atrypa reticularis, a few fragments of another brachiopod, a few crinoid stems and the fish jaw found at the Bartlett Quarry. Cherty layers, pockets of calcite and geode-like masses occur with considerable regularity. 26
I. The Acervularia beds which scarcely admit of definite differentiation in most of the places where rock of this zone occurs, unless it be in the out- cropping above the Wapsipinicon horizon in Fox Township. 7
Number 2 is the horizon referred to by Calvin as being "Along the river bluff. a short distance above Littleton" * and which is there about sixty feet in thickness.
* Calvin : "Iowa Geol. Surv.," Vol. VIII, p. 234.
20
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
GEEST
In no quarry has it been necessary to do much stripping in order to secure the stone needed to supply the local demands, the natural exposure that first attracted the quarryman's attention being located where the overlying unconsoli- dated material was thin. This condition, however, has favored rock decay in its various phases, with the result that the sound rock is invariably covered with the insoluble products of rock decomposition to a depth varying with the circum- stances. In one instance five or six feet of this dark red, stiff, clayey residuum was observed, though usually from one to three feet measures the extent of the geest, as this form of rock waste is often called, and the lower half of this is mingled with the more resistant remnants of the original rock. Sometimes the activity of the erosive agents is continued along the joint planes to a depth of twenty feet or more, widening them out and leaving the spaces partially filled with guest.
PLEISTOCENE SYSTEM
KANSAN STAGE
Kansan Drift .- The oldest observed representative of the Pleistocene is the Kansan drift. This covers almost four-fifths of the area of the county and in turn is covered practically everywhere with the lowan. Its maximum thickness in the county is not known, but in Lincoln Township where the mantle rock has a thickness of 270 feet, the maximum for the county, more than nine-tenths of this material is Kansan till, judging from the few exposures made by the erosion of the streams and excavation of railroad cuts. The dense, blue clay which in- variably forms the basis of this drift when unweathered, is accompanied always with other constituents, of ever varying nature, form, size and proportions, so that any section through or into it discloses to the careful observer some detail of special interest. Calcium carbonate, often too finely reduced to be noted with the eye, quartz grains, pebbles and larger masses of other minerals, especially of greenstone, and disintegrating granitoid masses are very common. Pockets of sand and gravel as well as streaks and layers of these materials, running in all directions, are numerous. This feature of the Kansan was unusually manifest in the excavations for the Auditorium and Gymnasium buildings of the State Normal School. Here, too, were found pieces of coal and other carbonaceous matter, calcareous septaria, ferruginous concretions with a clayey nucleus, sometimes reaching bowlder dimensions, and in one instance at least beautifully polished and striated. In the cut made by the Illinois Central Railway one mile or more north- west of Cedar Falls a mass of native copper weighing 4/2 pounds was found deeply bedded in the Kansan till, giving unquestionable evidence as to the direc- tion from which this part of the till must have come. When exposed, or near the surface, oxidation changes the color of the clay to a yellow, brown, or gray, the lime and some other ingredients are leached out and the granitoid masses readily fall in pieces.
Calvin, Savage and others note the presence of a layer of pebbles on the top of the Kansan drift, where it rises in ridges, and beneath the lowan. This is
21
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
very common in Black Hawk County, almost invariably to be seen where the road- makers have cut into the more abrupt ridges, beginning part way up one side, passing over the top and partly down the other side. It seems to be a result of post-Kansan erosion. The soluble and finer constituents of the drift having been removed, the pebbles, having settled down together, readily attract attention.
Since the Iowan is everywhere coincident with the Kansan in this county, all distinctive topographical features of the Kansan have been obliterated over by far the greater part of the county. The high bluffs in the vicinity of Cedar Falls are gashed with short V-shaped ravines deeply cut into the Kansan by the pre-Iowan streams as they sought a passage to the river over the steep escarpment. As has already been stated under the head of Topography, for a distance of seven or eight miles southeast of Cedar Falls quite pronounced Kansan topography man- ifests itself through the thin veneer of the Iowan, if the latter be not entirely wanting in some parts of this area.
Buchanan Gravels .- Since Calvin first recognized the Buchanan gravels as a distinct Pleistocene deposit, writers on the Pleistocene of Northeastern Iowa have given them due attention. They are well described and their genesis closely and reasonably accounted for in the report on Howard County .* In every township one or both phases of these gravels may be found, some of which to be sure are very thin and show little stain or other evidence of weathering, but their posi- tion makes their relationship quite certain.
Along the banks of Dry Run and its branches are numerous extensive depos- its. The first to appear as one proceeds southwestward from its mouth is at N. Olsen's Quarry where the upland phase has a thickness of ten feet. The lower part is deeply iron stained and coarse. The upper part is less ferruginous, strati- fied, some layers being a fine sand. The uppermost layers are highly ferruginous. At Carpenter's Quarry the gravel is much thinner and lighter in color, but more uniformly coarse. On the east side of the creek one-half mile directly east of the normal school is the most extensive deposit observed anywhere in the county. It is of the valley phase, very uniform in size of particles, which is that of a fine gravel, or coarse sand, of a yellowish color and very distinctly stratified except in the upper part. Large quantities have been removed by the Chicago Great Western Railroad Company for ballast. It is twenty or more feet thick and is many acres in extent. In fact, the whole valley in this neighbor- hood along the main stream and its tributaries is more or less filled with this material. In one place it is a very dark red brown and hardened into rock-like sheets ; in another it consists of pebbles and cobble-stones of chert, jasper and other forms of quartz, greenstone, etc., all deeply stained with iron. But for the most part it is rather of a sandy nature, though more deeply stained than in the pit of the railway company. At the time of the melting of the Kansan ice there must have been quite an area of still water here on reaching which the burdened floods at once deposited the coarser part of their loads. The upland deposits which overlie the limestone bounding the sides of the valley were deposited while the valley itself was still filled with ice.
On the interurban line of the Rapid Transit Railway where it cuts into the bluff is a deposit ten feet in thickness, containing pebbles and cobblestones, rotten
* Calvin : "Iowa Geol. Surv.," Vol. XIII. pp. 64-68.
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
grafite, iron concretions and cemented gravel, all deeply stained. In the gravel are masses of very fine grain, or without apparent grain, spherical, lenticular and plate like in form. This deposit is interesting for the variations occurring within short distances, both in vertical and lateral extension.
In some localities the farmers have recognized the value of this material for improving the character of the roads. It is surprising that so many are still content to contend with mud, while in so many instances there is within easy reach so effectual a means of relief.
IOWAN STAGE
lowa Drift. There is nothing peculiar in the character of the lowan drift deposit in Black Hawk County. Calvin's description in his report on Dela - ware County may well be accepted as most characteristic. "The lowan drift is a light yellow. highly calcareous clay, unchanged by weathering and oxidation even at the surface."
As compared with the Kansan, it is everywhere very thin. On the bluffs between Cedar Falls and Waterloo and elsewhere along the margin of the Cedar Valley it is scarcely a foot thick. Over the tops of the ridges even in the great lowan drift plains, it is scarcely more in many instances. On the normal school campus it is from five to seven feet thick. In the railroad cut one-half mile northwest of Voorhies the following section is shown :
S. Very light ash-colored clay with sand and pebbles. Ft. In.
7. Darker, more clayey layer containing scattered pebbles 2
6. Ordinary lowan drift 3
5. An extremely meager line of gravel, probably residual 2
4. Oxidized Kansan 6
3. Light ash-colored layer 1
2. Dark gray layer 1
1, Less oxidized clay in which is a line of very irregular calcareous nod- nles sometimes with quartz pebbles included as in a conglomerate .. 4
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.