USA > Iowa > Black Hawk County > History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume I > Part 4
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In a cut southeast of Voorhies the lowan is four feet thick, below which are six feet of oxidized Kansan made up of clay. saud and gravel. Here, too, the nodules mentioned above occur. Under this is a somewhat indurated thin layer making an abrupt line in the slope, succeeding which are three feet of the blue Kansan till. These cuts are in the midst of a very characteristic part of the southwest lowan drift plain, and. while the material in the upper part of the lowan drift is not typical, its thickness may be taken as a fair average of the Iowan in the more elevated portion of this plain. One-half mile northeast of Voorhies, where the road crosses a small creek. Buchanan gravel appears under 215 feet of the lowan. Similar conditions exist over the great lowan plain between the Cedar and the Wapsipinicon rivers where it is most characteristic. as in Bennington and Barclay townships, and in the west half of Fox. There are localities where no drift of any kind can be found. Near the middle of the boundary between sections 34 and 35. ANH. Vernon Township, in the road is an
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HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
outcropping of limestone. In the next level above it is a thin layer of gravel and pebbles, Buchanan perhaps, and near are Iowan bowlders. There is nothing in the topography to account for this isolated outcropping of limestone, the topog- raphy all about it being typical Iowan. Other localities where no drift appears have been mentioned under the head of Topography.
The Iowan drift abounds in bowlders. They are chiefly granitoid, though gneiss, greenstones, basalt, quartzite and even sandstone and limestone are more or less common. A large quartzite bowlder with surface corrugated witli ripple marks slid out of the Iowan down the slope of the railroad cut just below Cedar Falls during a flooding rain in the summer of 1902. Blocks of sandstone very much like, if not of, the New Richmond sandstone are occasionally found. Sometimes many of these kinds may be found scattered over a small area, though the parent ledges must have been at considerable distance apart, thus showing how thoroughly were these constituents of the drift mingled as they were detached and borne along by the resistless power of the great ice sheet. Their distribution over the county is by no means uniform. Long stretches of the plain are entirely destitute of them. Elsewhere their presence in great numbers and in notably large specimens is a striking feature of the land- scape. Again they are few, small and scattered. Nearly every township gives proof of this unequal distribution, though Eagle, Lincoln and Big Creek seem to have larger areas free from bowlders than other townships, those which lie wholly or in large part in the river valleys being excepted.
Loess .- Covering all of the higher parts of the region of Kansan topogra- phy between Cedar Falls and Waterloo is a light gray, homogeneous material consisting of a fine clay and very minute grains of sand. Unquestionably it is a loess. It is noticeably without any tinge of yellow, usually so characteristic of the loess of Iowa. There are few places where the loess is penetrated to the underlying material. So far as observed there is a zone of light colored clay, bearing pebbles or even cobble stones, just below it. In the cut of the Rapid Transit Railway mentioned under the head of Buchanan Gravels, these gravels have immediately above them the pebble bearing till which must therefore be lowan. The Jowan borders this whole region and tongues of it run up into the lower levels among the hills. It is probable that a thin deposit of Iowan drift underlies much of the lower loess deposit, if not all of it. The thickness of this loess is from one or two to eight feet at least. No loess occurs elsewhere in the county as far as observed.
ALLUVIUM AND TERRACES
The larger valleys have been flooded at seasons of high water ever since they assumed their present character. Each overflow leaves its increment of sediment, usually a fine silt, the wash from the adjacent fields and bluff sides. Sand is the most abundant material of these valleys. Coarser sands and gravels are variously mingled in places where the stronger currents have run over the plains. Then, too, the shifting stream beds have left coarse materials in con- siderable quantities here and there throughout the river flats.
It is very difficult to determine accurately the depth or superficial area of the alluvial deposits, since tongues of Iowan clays sometimes underlie the sands,
24
HHISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
and the drift borders the alluvium with a very irregular line of lobes and sinuses. There is some reason to believe from wells and other excavations that a pre- glacial stream has cut its channel into the rock, well below the present rock bed of the Cedar, but the evidence is too meagre to warrant any effort to trace it - course.
Along the margins of these valleys low terraces occasionally appear, but nowhere are they a very noticeable feature of the topography of the county.
ERI ENCEOU'S MATERIAL IN THE DRIFT
In the first volume of the Survey reference is made to Cretaceous material found in the drift in different parts of the state .* As a contribution to the subject there discussed, the following items are given without any attempt to account for the occurrence of the finds in that locality and situation where they were discovered.
A small, soft, ferruginous sandstone well filled with casts of Pinnæ and gastropods of at least two species was found just above the blue clay, eight feet below the surface, in laying a sanitary sewer, on Olive Street near Professor Parish's residence on Normal Hill. Small pieces of a conifer were found near it. A slender belemnite judged to be Cretaceous was unearthed in excavating for the new gymnasium of the normal school. An impression of what appears to be Prionocyclus wyomingensis was found in another excavation on the campus five feet below the surface.
SOILS
The soils of Black Hawk County may be placed in a general way mainly in two classes, that of the larger stream valleys and that of the Iowan drift plains. The latter, a rich, deep loam with a clay subsoil, has often been described in the reports on the counties where it prevails, and it presents no marked variation in this county. Those townships where the features of the lowan drift dominate the landscape are readily recognized as rich farming districts by every indica- tion by which we may judge of the prosperity of a community. The marvel is that any man in these days of labor saving machinery, rural free delivery and telephone consents to exchange the freedom and independence of such homes as abound over these portions of the county for the questionably superior ad- vantages of the town, all things being taken into consideration.
The alluvial plains of the Cedar and its larger tributaries are productive in seasons when there is an average amount of rainfall well distributed through the growing time of the year, but suffer first in dry times and therefore are less to be depended upon for uniformly good crops than the more favored region of the lowan drift plains; though where drainage is imperfect, these latter are the sufferers in the wet years. The advantage lies with the latter, however, for tiling and ditching relieve the situation very readily in most cases. Already the bowlers that embarrassed the cultivator and to the thrifty eye disfigured the otherwise fair fields to a great extent, have been utilized in building, or have
* Keyes : "lowa Geol. Surv .. " Vol. I. p. 125.
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HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
been removed to the boundaries of the farms, where, lying in grim rugged- ness, they continue their mute testimony to the reasonableness of the glacial theory and the wonderful activities of nature in the days long gone by.
The drought resisting capability of the drift plains is indeed remarkable and ought not to be disregarded in any mention of their characteristics. No better test of this could be made than the series of dry seasons that succeeded each other a few years ago. Though the farmers, disheartened by the long prevailing un- favorable conditions, long before harvest time gave way to gloomy forebodings, the crops were happily disappointing in the average results. The clays underlying the rich top soil, slowly but persistently, yielded up their store of moisture by capillarity, no matter to what depth the zone of ground water retreated.
While this cannot be true in the same degree of the valleys of the Cedar and Wapsipinicon, the sandy element which is in excess in some parts of them, by its readier drainage permits an earlier cultivation and by its greater warmth promotes a more rapid growth, thus making them specially adapted to the growth of some crops in the cultivation of which the farmer finds no slight compensation for those qualities of the drift plains which his land is denied. There are intermediate soil conditions between these two types the details respect- ing which need not be given here.
The comparatively small area of Kansan topography affords a third type of soil, which is fertile, warm, drains readily, has good capillarity and is easily worked. It is specially adapted to the growth of garden truck, small fruits and orchards as well as the standard field crops.
DEFORMATIONS
The rocks of this county have been little affected by folding. A low anticiline brings the Acervularia horizon into notice on the west side of the Cedar from Waterloo to the county line on the south, while the rocks on the east side of the river over the same distance are all of a higher horizon stratigraphically, though the altitude at which they occur is no greater than that of the rock on the west, if, indeed, it is as great in some places.
The Acervularia horizon reappears at the surface on the east along Spring Creek. Small narrow folds appear in one or two places along Dry Run in Cedar Falls.
UNCONFORMITIES
The floor of the Rounds Quarry in Cedar Falls shows a distinct unconformity with the bed that had overlain it. Similar unconformities, presumably at the same horizon, were noted in several other localities, though, being in or near the base of the barren beds, no certain means of determining the exact horizon of the several unconformities present themselves.
ECONOMIC PRODUCTS
BUILDING STONE
Rock outcroppings are so distributed over the county as to bring within easy reach of a large part of the population an abundant supply of stone suitable for
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HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
all ordinary constructive purposes. Nowhere, however, is it of such a grade as to warrant quarrying operations on a scale beyond the supply of the immediate local demands. Stone buildings are not common. The few good ones, however. indicate the possibilities yet undeveloped. The best range rock and flagstones are obtained from the Neilson Quarry already described. Naturally the quarries that have been worked most extensively are those in the vicinity of La Porte City. Waterloo and Cedar Falls. The Berry Quarry in Eagle Township supplies a wide range of country as it furnishes the only limestone occurring in that locality.
The lowan bowlders furnish an excellent stone and are used quite largely both in the town and country. The walls of the First Presbyterian Church in Waterloo are built of granite taken from a single bowkler two or three miles from town. The Congregational Church in Cedar Falls is built of bowlders gathered from the neighborhood. These are not only most substantial buildings but pleasing to the eye as well. The range of the varieties of crystalline rocks in the walls of the Cedar Falls Church is truly remarkable. Mr. A. D. Barnum of Cedar Falls con- tracted to furnish large blocks of stone necessary for the lower foundations of the state capitol, and filled his contract from a few large bowlders in the neigh- borhood of that city.
LIME
No lime has been produced in this county for many years. Formerly there were kilns in several localities. The rock used was usually taken from the stromatoporoid horizon, and a good grade of lime for immediate use is reported, but its readiness to deteriorate in a short time destroyed its value for commercial purposes.
BRICK CLAY
The glacial clays afford little promise at present of furnishing material for the manufacture of superior brick, and since other clays are not accessible in this county the prospects for brick making on an extensive scale are not very promising. The small loess region between Cedar Falls and Waterloo yields a material that is utilized by Stead Brothers and Guenther in the northwest quarter of section 21. Waterloo Township, in the manufacture of a good quality of com- mon brick. At present the round. down draft kilns are used. The stiff mud process is employed. A Freeze and Eagle repress machine is used. The present capacity of the plant is from fifteen to twenty thousand daily. A ready market is found for all their output and the proprietors are planning a considerable in- crease in the capacity and facilities of their plant.
The Waterloo and Cedar Falls Brick Company have a plant in the northeast quarter of section 13. Cedar Falls Township. The material used here has been lowan and Kansan drift. At present they are using loess with satisfactory results. They have four round, down draft kilns, ample first class drying facilities, use the stiff mud process and have a capacity of twelve thousand daily. They. too. find ready market for their entire product.
ROAD MATERIALS
Much of the limestone of the county is too soft to use as a road material. Where used it has pulverized in a short time, forming a limey dust that has proved
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HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
very disagreeable to travelers. The stromatoporoid and the lithographic beds, where available, would give better results. When this is not at hand, in place of crushed stone, the Buchanan gravel is available in many localities, and, as has been stated already, it is a most excellent material for improving the roads. Dry Run Channel has afforded large supplies of superior gravel which has already been drawn upon freely for the improvement of the streets of Cedar Falls and the roads in its neighborhood. The Cedar and the Wapsipinicon and their larger tributaries have sorted and deposited in bars, so that it is easily accessible, large quantities of good gravel which in some instances has been used in repairing the roads of the vicinity. With judicious preparation of the roadbed by proper drain- age and building up, most of the roads of the county in a few years could be made firm and dry at all seasons with little, if any, greater expenditure than is now employed. The work should be done on a well formed plan and adhered to throughout a series of years.
WATER SUPPLY
No very large areas in this county are remote from perennial streams which afford water in abundance for all ordinary purposes. By wells, water of good quality was easily obtained in the great majority of cases. The wells in the river valleys reached a layer of gravel at a depth of ten to thirty-five feet and stopped there. On the Iowan drift plain water was obtained at from sixty to two hundred and eighty feet. Some of those stopped in the blue clay. Most of them reached a layer of gravel or passed into the rock a few feet before they terminated. In Waterloo this supply of water was taken from the river, but this was not satis- factory.
In Cedar Falls the waterworks are owned by the municipality. The supply was obtained from large fissure springs near the mouth of Dry Run. An analysis of the water made July, 1902, gave total solids in solution 294 parts per million or 17.150 grains per gallon ; January 22, 1905, 297 parts per million or 17.325 grains per gallon. No trace of organic matter appeared at that time. The supply was abundant. Even 'in the extremely dry seasons of a few years ago there was no perceptible diminution in the flow. It was difficult to determine the strata from which the water comes, but was believed to be the Devonian. The lower beds in this neighborhood were much channeled, as if water currents were common. Limestone was expected to furnish a large amount of quarry water and these channeled beds were suggestive of small subterranean streams that, following the dip, seem to center in the vicinity of these springs. The Union Mill Company in making improvements at one of their Cedar Falls mills in the fall of 1904, quarry- ing into the limestone, uncovered a considerable fissure from which issued a large stream of water. These streams were supposed to be fed from a considerable intake which was situated probably mainly on the east side of the river, as the bed from which the mill company's spring broke out was below the river level. The sandy plain of the Cedar valley would give the proper type of soil for such an intake and would prove a complete filter, thus accounting for the absence of organic matter. While the waters of Dry Run disappear beneath the surface two miles or more above these springs, they do not reach them, as was indicated by the absence of organic matter which would certainly appear from surface waters pass-
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HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
ing so short a distance through well-worn waterways. Nor could the flow in this small creek supply a tithe of the water daily pumped from these springs. Occa- sionally in times of very high water the immediate vicinity of the springs was over- flowed and the city water was affected by this surface water, but this passed with the conditions that caused it.
WATER POWER
I dam across the Cedar has been maintained for many years at Cedar Falls and also one at Waterloo. The control of the power is in the hands of the Waterloo and Cedar Falls Union Mill Company. About six thousand horse- power is available at each place and practically all of this is utilized in the operation of the mills belonging to the company. These flouring mills are thor- oughly equipped with machinery of the latest approved type for the production of flour by the best modern methods. There is also a small mill at Finchford on the West Fork.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The writer is under special obligations to Prof. Samuel Calvin, former state geologist, and to Prof. Frank A. Wilder, the present state geologist, for assistance and advice which have been given very freely and without which this report would not have been prepared. Rodney M. Arey, principal of Musca- tine High School, was a valued volunteer assistant during the gathering of data from the field. To these and the many others who so readily assisted by giving information and material aid in other ways our hearty thanks are given.
UNDERGROUND WATERS: SOURCES AND DISTRIBUTION
The following, written by M. F. Arey and W. H. Norton, in the Iowa Ge- ological Survey of 1910 and 1911, may be considered supplementary and addi- tional to the foregoing narrative :
Except at Waterloo and Cedar Falls the water supply of Black Hawk County is obtained from the Buchanan gravel, the Cedar Valley and the Wapsipinicon limestones and the Kansan drift. On the farms pumps are universally operated by windmills. Flowing wells are rare.
In the valley of Wapsipinicon River, which is confined to the eastern half of Lester Township, the northeastern township of the county, the alluvial deposits are everywhere underlain by gravels, which vary somewhat in fineness and in thickness but which almost everywhere afford satisfactory supplies of good water to comparatively shallow wells. The Village of Dunkerton, in sections 29 and 32, gets its water supply wholly from driven wells ending in these gravels. Norton reports two flowing wells on the slopes of the river bottom. One, the well on 11. Flattendorf's place, flowed up until 1905 : the other, on William McGee's place. still flows. The depth of these wells is not known.
On the lowan drift plain lying betwen the Wapsipinicon Valley and the Cedar River Valley in the north tier of townships and in general in all that part of the county cast of the Cedar River Valley a few wells end in sand or gravel beds or
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HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
streaks within Kansan drift, but by far the greater number end a short distance within the underlying Cedar Valley limestone. The wells range in depth from 85 to 300 feet.
A well on Clubine's place, 21/2 miles north of Dunkerton, on high ground near the edge of the Wapsipinicon River bottom, is 274 feet deep and ends in sand. In a well in section 21 rock was reached at 140 feet.
Near the Bartlett Quarry in East Waterloo Township, on the bluffs just back from the river bottom, where the thickness of the limestone is unusually vari- able, wells are about one hundred feet deep, the depth in rock ranging from sixty to ninety feet. Water is found just below the blue limestone.
On a small creek called Rock Run, 21/2 miles east and 11/2 miles north of Wa- terloo, two flowing wells, 109 and 87 feet deep, are reported by Mr. Purington, a pump dealer of Waterloo. Both end in a coarse gravel without reaching rock.
In the immediate neighborhood of the flowing wells northeast of Waterloo are several springs. Probably springs and wells have a common source in the Cedar Valley limestone.
In Fox and Spring Creek townships, rock outcrops along the slopes of Spring Creek Valley up to the prairie level in many places, making it necessary for the farmers to drill all of their wells.
On the wide river bottom of the Cedar most of the wells are driven, are about eighteen feet deep and end in the Buchanan gravel. The depth of the wells depends on the surface elevation, the water being found at about the level of the water in the river. Some wells on the river bottom must penetrate the blue limestone before obtaining an adequate supply of water.
At Westfield, in section 22, West Waterloo Township, a fifteen-inch well, gives the following section :
Thickness, Depth.
Feet.
Feet.
Sand
14
14
Gravel (Buchanan)
1/2
141/2
Clay, light blue
18
321/2
Broken rock
7
391/2
Limestone, porous (first vein, water not abundant)
9
481/2
Limestone, form (second vein)
30
781/2
Limestone (third vein, water abundant)
281/2
107
At Washburn, Cedar Township, wells thirty to thirty-five feet deep obtain a plentiful supply in sand. A mile and a half to the southwest is a well sixty feet deep, twelve feet in rock, and another sixty feet deep nearby goes thirty feet into rock. Some wells in the vicinity are 100 feet deep. The water of these deeper wells is reported as disagreeable to the taste. On Mr. Marble's place. half a mile east of the packing house at Waterloo, the well is forty-four feet deep, thirty feet being in a very hard, compact limestone that is unusual in this county. The water rises within fourteen feet of the surface.
The city well at La Porte obtains its supply from the Buchanan gravel, not entering rock. As La Porte is 812 feet above sea level (Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway track elevation), an artesian well 1,400 or 1,500 feet deep should yield water which would rise to 20 feet above the surface. The Maquoketa shale
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IHISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
will be reached at a depth of about 300 feet, the Galena dolomite at 550 feet, the Saint Peter sandstone at 930 feet, and the Jordan sandstone at 1,300 feet. Such a well should be sunk to the bottom of the Jordan, which is about 1,450 feet below the surface.
The area southwest of Cedar River is a typical lowan drift plain, crossed diagonally by the shallow valley of the Black Hawk Creek. Limestone outcrops in the immediate neighborhood of Cedar Falls, Waterloo and La Porte, and in a limestone ridge in section 24, Eagle Township. Everywhere else the rock is deeply buried beneath the drift materials.
Wells in this area range in depth from 60 to 250 feet. A few derive their supply from sand or gravel beds within the drift, but most enter the rock from 2 to 12 feet, and exceptionally penetrate rock to a depth of 20 to 60 feet. In the southwest half of this area, making due allowance for difference of surface level, the underlying rock surface is fairly uniform, but in the northeast half it varies much more. Most of the water is reported as good, but one well driller, whose experience is mainly in the southwest half. reports considerable diversity in its quality.
In Waterloo Township, in the west half of section 22, at the old Hummel place, sixty feet of quicksand was passed through below 100 feet of clay. Water was obtained, but the supply did not prove to be permanent.
In Orange Township, at the county farm ( northeast quarter section 3) where the surface elevation is about 100 feet above the river bottom. the well is 175 feet deep. Ho feet being in clay and 65 feet in limestone, where the second vein yields water plentifully. A well nearby is 139 feet deep, 100 feet of which is in limestone. One mile west of the county farm, on N. Miller's place, at about the same surface level, the well is 115 feet deep, 10 feet being in rock. . All of these wells yield unfailing supplies.
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