USA > Iowa > Linn County > The history of Linn county, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, &t., a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics history of the Northwest etc > Part 34
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To these succeed the Lower Magnesian Limestones, which appear on both sides of the Upper Mississippi, south west of the Lower Sandstones, and partially intersected by narrow belts of the same, where they crop out beneath it, in the deep cuts of the streams, or rise to the surface along the bearings of partial axes of upheaval.
Next supervenes the Upper Magnesian Limestone, with its underlying shell-beds, its lead bearing strata, and its coralline and pentamerous subdivisions, all lying south of the two preced- ing.
Southwest, again, we come upon the Cedar Limestones, cotemporary with the Devonian formation of English geologists, separating the Magnesian Limestone of the north from the Car- boniferous Limestones and the great coal field of Iowa and Missouri.
The intervening country, lying chiefly toward the headwaters of the Mississippi and its tributaries, and on Red River (of the North), is overspread with drift. The latter occupies, in this district, not only a much greater area than any one of the above described formations, but nearly as much as all of them put together.
Underlying the whole of these formations, but showing themselves only over limited tracts, either in cuts of the streams or where they protrude in dykes or ridges upheaved by igneous action, are the crystalline and metamorphic rocks.
We also represent this in tabular form, to show where corresponding to the known formations.
A
308
HISTORY OF LINN COUNTY.
SUPERFICIAL SEDIMENTARY DEPOSITS.
DRIFT PERIOD .- Erratic Block, and Fine and Coarse Drift; Red Clays and Marls, overlying the Red Sandstone of Lake Superior.
SUPERPOSITION OF THE FOSSILIFEROUS STRATA.
CORRESPONDING FORMATION.
FORMATION.
DESCRIPTION OF FORMATION.
GEOLOGIC AGE.
Hamilton Group, Onondaga Limestone.
Cedar Valley.
Upper Coralloid Limestone. Middle Shell Beds. Lower Coralline Beds.
Devonian Age.
Clinton and Niagara Group (and Onondaga Limestone in part ?)
Upper Magne- sian Limestone of Iowa and
Coralline and Pentamerous Beds. Lead Bearing Beds.
Upper Silurian Period.
Hudson River Group and Trenton Limestone.
Wisconsin.
Shell Beds.
Lower Silurian Period.
Upper Sand- Sandstones, usually white and incoher- ent.
Calciferous Sandstone
of
Magnesian Limestones, with veins and segregations of Chert and Quartz.
Lower Si- lurian Pe- riod.
New York.
stone of Min- nesota and Wis- consin. Lower Magne- sian Limestone of Iowa and Wisconsin.
Magnesian Limestone, with Oölitic lay- ers and green particles, disseminated with intercalations of Magnesian Limestone.
Lower Sand-
Potsdam Sandstone of New; stone of Wis- York.
consin and Minnesota.
Soft, fine Sandstones, usually fine grained. Upper Trilobite Beds; Fu- coidal layers and Green Earth. Lower Si- lurian Pe- riod. Coarse Lingula Grits; Lower Tri- lobite Beds ; Lingula and Obulus lay- ers; Inferior Pebbly Beds ; Red Sand- stone of Lake Superior.
As this pioneer and great geological report is becoming very scarce-perhaps the copy before us (a borrowed one from another county) is the only one in the county-and as it, fortunately, is the work of the father of our local knowledge on this subject, placing a few of his words in our county history will be but a due method of expressing our appreciation, and at the same time we shall be preserving to our posterity a legacy of great value. It is from this report that the geological information we find in our text-books, relating to our territory, has been derived. In this report, we believe, the world first learned that America was the oldest continent-Europe and Asia, with all their great and lofty mountains, were modern in comparison to America. In the report on the by which he was led to the announcement that America is the oldest continent ; "Bad Lands" in Nebraska and Dakota, David Dale Owen gives the reasoning geologically speaking, it is not the "New World," as we have been led to call it. We give this reasoning as an unique specimen; and which may serve as a model for our geological reasoning; and perhaps be the ideal on which some future Owen will reason out and establish the detailed geological history of Linn County :
" The investigation connected with the geology of this curious country, and the natural history of its ancient Fauna, are invested with no small degree of interest when we consider that, at the time these singular animals roamed over the Mauvaises Terres of the Upper Missouri, the configuration of our present continent was very different from what it now is. Europe and Asia were then, in fact, no continents at all, being represented only by a few islands, scattered over a wide expanse of ocean. The Atlantic seaboard of the United States, back to the mountain ranges, and up the valley of the Mississippi as high as Vicksburg, was yet under water. Mount Ætna, that remarkable volcanic cone
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HISTORY OF LINN COUNTY.
of Sicily, nearly 11,000 feet in height, was yet unformed, and the fertile plateau of that island, more than 100 miles in circumference, was still deep under the tertiary Mediterranean Sea. In Europe, during the period following the extermination of the eocene fauna of Nebraska, the Alps have been heaved . up nearly their whole height, and in Northern India, the whole sub-Himalayan range has been elevated. In South America, 9,000 feet has been added to the height of the Cordilleras, and the South Atlantic has been driven back 700 miles ; while a district of country 2,500 miles in length, from the Great Plain of the Amazons to the Straits of Magellan, has emerged from the ocean.
" Some of my readers, who have not made Geology a particular study, may be curious to follow the course of reasoning by which geologists have arrived at such startling results-results which must, no doubt, appear to them incredible.
" In Europe, in Asia, and both North and South America, science has long observed and studied particular geologic formations, which, in all these countries, have a certain degree of uniformity of organic remains therein embedded. These are, chiefly, an assemblage of marine shells and corals, which, though they differ in most instances in trivial minutiæ of form, yet bear a close resemblance to the very shells and corals now inhabiting our seas, and which are cast by thousands upon our shores.
" It is not in a few rare instances alone that these fossil shells are detected embedded in the substance of the rocks in question; many of the strata, and especially those that contain much lime, actually teem with these exuviæ; and not infrequently, as in Florida and Mississippi, they are but an aggluti- nated aggregate of marine productions. We have, indeed, the most unequiv- ocal proof that all the strata comprising this formation have been a succession of sediments or precipitates consolidated at the bottom of the ocean. Alter- nating with these beds, there are also others interstratified, filled with the bones of quadrupeds which have perished on the banks and near the mouths of rivers, whence they have been swept into estuaries and bays, and embedded in the sed- iment there accumulating. In the occurrence of such mammalian remains, the geologic formations to which the attention of the reader is now called differ essentially from every other which underlies them, and which, therefore, are of more ancient date, since it is self-evident that the upper layers of sedimentary deposits must always be the newest and last to have settled down.
" These bone and shell beds constitute what is now known as the Tertiary or Cainozoic grand divisions of the fossiliferous rocks, and overlie the chalk of England and the cotemporaneous marly limestones and argillaceous beds of this country; and with the exception of transported superficial sands, gravel, erratics, marls and alluvial earth, are unquestionably the most recent of the sedimentary strata. These tertiary rocks are of great thickness, and admit of being sub-divided into subordinate groups and members, of older and newer dates-chronologically, as well as palæontologically, distinctly separable from each other. Thus we have become acquainted with a lower, middle and an upper group, and even subdivisions of these groups, in each of which peculiar and distinct races of animals are found. By these, any given member can at once be identified, even on remote continents. For instance, the gigantic ani- mal, the skeleton of which was discovered in the bad lands, called the Palœo- therium, characterizes the lowest group of the formation. Its remains are con- fined exclusively to the eocene beds, both in Europe and this country ; whereby we learn that the animal lived during the dawn of that geological epoch, and became entirely extinct before the middle group began to accumulate, which latter does not contain a vestige of its bones, though rich in the remains of
310
HISTORY OF LINN COUNTY.
an entirely different set of extinct animals. The same is true of the uppermost and most modern beds of the formation as compared with the middle and lowest divisions.
"Now it is an axiom in geology, which all experience fully confirms, that there is never any reversal of superposition-these tertiary beds invariably occupying the same relative position with respect to the chalk formation, being always above it, never below it so long as they remain in their original undis- turbed condition. They may be twisted, contorted and sometimes even turned and folded under the upper, over limited spaces ; but these are local inversions of the order of arrangement by subsequent disturbance, and occur only in mountain chains in which powerful subterranean forces have been at work, and close observation can even there, in many instances, trace the continuity of strata around the axes of the pliated subverted beds.
" In such situations, the strata may be baked, indurated and greatly altered from their original appearance, but all this does not by any means militate against the general proposition. Wherever organic remains can in such cases be detected, they always prove to be infallible guides to unravel the complicated structure and solve the difficult geological problems which such regions fre- quently present.
" Another self-evident fact of this science regards all strata which have been rent asunder, broken, tilted, or otherwise disturbed, as, in every case, more ancient than the dislocating forces and eruptions producing such derangement of the bed ; and older, also, than the rocks which, in a nascent state, may be thrust up through the fissures and parted walls of the superincumbent layers.
" Admitting these facts, the corollary follows which determines the age of mountain chains, and which may now be illustrated by demonstrating the period of the principal uplift which gave origin to the highest and most extensive range of mountains in all Europe.
" Among the sedimentary strata forming part of the flanks of the Alps, there are certain dark colored slates, marls and sandstones, known in Switzerland by the name of Flysch. These beds are implicated in the gigantic movements which have convulsed the whole of Switzerland, and they have been carried on the crest of the intruding masses, in their upward course, until they have actually been raised more than 10,000 feet-nearly to the highest summits of the chain. This effect was produced, not by one violent, tremendous eruption, but rather by a long succession of oscillatory movements-by contractions and sub- sidence of the rocks during periods of repose, and the extinguishment of volcanic fires ; and by the expansion of the wedge-shaped nucleus, as well as by the ejection of incandescent materials, during the rekindling of the irresistible chemical reactions, called into activity by interchanges of elective affinities going forward in the great laboratory of nature-the bowels of the earth.
" The question now arises : Can we determine the age of these disturbed Flysch beds ? Can we refer them to any group of sedimentary strata, the age of which is well established ? If so, we have the clue-we have the data, the proof-the quid erat demonstrari, by which the period of formation of the Alps is mathematically demonstrated. The Flysch beds were long regarded as of great geological antiquity, anterior even to the great coal formation ; but in the language of a French geologist, 'The longer they are studied, the younger they grow,' and this, notwithstanding their great hardness, solidity, or even local crystalline structure. Now, all the most experienced geologists of Europe admit that, so far from being classed with the paleozoic rocks, their position above the numulite limestone has latterly proved that they really belong to the
311
HISTORY OF LINN COUNTY.
eocene or early tertiary, which subdivision contains, in France, the celebrated Gypsum quarries of Montmartre, containing the remains of Palœotherium and other remarkable extinct quadrupeds, and which are cotemporaneous with the Nebraska beds, affording a gigantic variety of the same genus, and the other coeval extinct races which form so interesting a feature in the palæontology of the Mauvaises Terres.
Thus it is that the geologist is able to prove, as satisfactorily as can be demon- strated a mathematical problem, that, at the times these fossil mammalia of Nebraska lived, the ocean ebbed and flowed over Switzerland, including the present site of the Alps, whose highest summits then only reached above its surface, constituting a small archipelago of a few distant islands on the great expanse of the tertiary sea."
STRATIFIED ROCKS.
In the prosecution of his survey in 1849, Dr. Owen visited Linn County. Maj. Robert Holmes, then a resident at Marion, "piloted" him about the country, where there were rocks exposed, or things remarkable to be seen. The Major speaks of him as a man of the acutest observation, and the greatest reti- cence ; his eyes were all the time open to see and detect, and his mind seemed hard at work, analyzing, comparing and classifying his observations. One day, after a long ride in silence, the Major thought to enlist him in a conversation, and asked him his opinion on a subject then exciting public attention : "If the science of Geology confirmed the Bible?" His reply was : "Sir Charles Lyell is of the opinion it does." The Major says "he remembers that reply well, as he had plenty of time to ponder it over, but no further opportunity for con- versation.'
The particular object of his visiting the valley of the Cedar was to deter- mine its geological character ; the point of great interest being that the Upper Silurian, Devonian and Subcarboniferous formations come together somewhere to the east of and above the confluence of the Cedar and Iowa Rivers. The strata of either in places were found near together, but owing to the limited outcropping of rocks it was difficult to lay down a particular line of limit.
He says : "The inferences to be deduced from his observations (given below) made on both sides of Cedar River, in Muscatine, Johnson, Cedar and Linn Counties, are : All the rocks, as well those referable to the Upper Silurian as to the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, have been subjected to disturbances subsequent to the Carboniferous era. These disturbances have been chiefly dislocations, through which the strata have been displaced more by abrupt ver- tical depressions and elevations, than by prolonged, arched or waved movements."
Its Mineral Contents .- The structure and composition of the rocks which form the bases of this tract of country are not unfavorable for the retention of minerals ; its physical features, however, do not indicate a mineral tract. Along the course of our route, no symptoms were observed of important axes of dislocation and disturbance. The surface is comparatively level ; the ledges of rocks lie low and horizontal, without any abrupt uplifts or sudden faults, as if beyond the sphere of active action that has fissured, and filled with metallic matter, the magne- sian limestones lying to the northeast, near to the Mississippi.
Its Range, Extent and Bearings .- The superficial area of the formation under consideration is much less than that of any other system of sedimentary rocks of the district. It may be traced along the course of the Mississippi River, for the distance of about thirty miles, viz .: From near the head of Rock River Rapids, a few miles below Parkhurst, to the town of Wyo- ming. Thence the formation ranges, with a northwesterly curve, up the valley of Red Cedar River ; forming a belt, averaging, at first, some twelve or fifteen miles only in width, but gradu- ally enlarging, until when in latitude 43º, it disappears under the drift of Northern Iowa, it attains a width of from thirty. to thirty-five miles.
Over a large portion of this tract of country, and especially on the high grounds, these limestones are concealed, wholly or partially, by extensive deposits of drift. Indeed, they appear mostly only in low ledges, near the water-courses.
312
HISTORY OF LINN COUNTY.
Its Physical and Agricultural Character .- On leaving the northwestern margin of that portion of the Illinois coal-field, which, on the west side of the Mississippi, juts into Iowa, in the vicinity of Muscatine, a sudden change is observable, not only in the character of the soil, but also, to some extent, in the climate. The soil which overlies the sandstones of the coal measures is of that warm, quick, siliceous, porous character, which rapidly advances vegetation, but is apt to leave it in a parched condition, during the drouths of Summer or Autumn ; while, immediately north of the mouth of Mud Creek (Sec 10, T. 78, R. 2 W.), the stiff, dark, calcare- ous soil marking the transition to the limestones of the Cedar Valley appears. Though less forcing in its character than the other, this soil is much richer and more retentive ; storing up the successive acquisitions and infiltrations from organic decomposition, until the proportion of geine, humus and other organic principles rise from ten, sometimes even to thirty per cent. For wheat and small grain generally this soil is well adapted.
Its Local Details,-On leaving the Mississippi (at Muscatine) and proceeding in a northerly course for two or three miles, there is a change in the soil after passing the principal branch of Mud (Mad?) Creek, and on Section 27, Township 79 north, Range 2 west, Fifth Principal Meridian, on the east bank of Sugar Creek (Cedar County), ledges of rugged magnesian lime- stone rise twelve feet above the water level at the foot of a dam. In this rock I found no well- defined fossils ; but the imperfect Tereb -atula and Pentameri, as well as the lithological character leave little doubt that it belongs to the Upper Silurian epoch. This inference was confirmed by observations on the opposite side of the same stream, where these magnesian beds are at an eleva- tion of from fifteen to twenty feet, and have resting on them from fifteen to twenty feet of a white, brecciated, close-textured limestone, the extension of the beds of the Upper or Rock Island Rapids of the Mississippi River ; at which locality the superior beds contain Terebratula reticu- laris, T. aspera, Spirifer enruteines, Orthis resupinata and Favosites spongites.
In juxtaposition with these calcareous beds, in a hollow, not thirty paces from Sugar Creek, and at an elevation of twenty-five feet above the creek, a light, buff banded freestone, an outlier of the coal formation, crops out. On Section 15, Township 79 north, Range 2 west, on the same creek at Freeman's Quarry, are solid ledges of magnesian limestone to the height of thirty feet. At this locality, no white limestone was observed overlying it, only some loose pieces of freestone are scattered on the slopes. In some of the slabs of the magnesian limestone lying in the quarry are casts of Cyathophylla, a small Terebratula, and an Orthis, not sufficiently well preserved to make out the species. At Floyd's Mill on the same creek, on Section 14, Township 80 north, Range 3 west, is a similar rock, having, however, a more earthy and arenaceous appearance, and sometimes banded. There the white, brecciated limestone lies about twenty feet above the water. On Red Cedar River, half a mile from Rochester (southeast qr. Section 2, Township 79, Range 3 west), is magnesian limestone, like that at Parkhurst, and a variety of freestone is again in close proximity ; and a half a mile west of the same place, twenty feet of buff colored earthy magnesian limestone (this rock has the same lithological appearance as the Quarry Creek rock near Le Claire on the Mississippi and an analysis gave Carbonate of Lime 52.15 ; Carbon- ate of Magnesia 42.10; Oxide of Iron, Alumina, etc., 1.90; Insoluble matter, 1.20; loss and moisture 2.65), is exposed with nests of calcareous spar and black specks disseminated, such as are found at the head of the Upper Rapids of the Mississippi.
On Rock Creek, a mile northeast of Rochester, a light colored magnesian limestone is in place ; and the same rocks form ledges of thirty-five feet above the level of Rocky Run, on Sec- tion 27, Township 80, Range 3 west. At these latter localities, the magnesian limestone is of a much lighter color than is usual ; it has, however, the texture and glistening aspect peculiar to dolomitic rocks. Only obscure casts of organic remains are found in it.
In digging a well on Section 9, Township 80 north, Range 3 west, rock was struck at thirty- two feet, and the excavation continued for forty-three feet more, first through white, close-grained limestone, and then magnesian limestone. The top of the well is about seventy feet above the waters of the Cedar. A mile or a mile and a half from this place, on Rocky Run, earthy magnesian limestone with dark specks is exposed eight feet above the water At the south end of Mason's Grove the rock is a cellular magnesian limestone, containing Entrochites.
Between this place and Rocky Run, porphyritic boulders are scattered over the prairies, of a similiar composition to those observed in the Winnebago Reserve (south of Crow Wing, Minne- sota), but smaller, about one-third the size.
At the crossing of Clear Creek, in the southern part of Cedar County, twenty-six feet of buff- colored magnesian limestone, with cavities, is exposed in a quarry. The lower strata, to the height of fifteen feet, lie in heavy beds from one and a half to three feet thick, and over the whole the beds are much broken and irregularly divided.
At the crossing of Breakneck Creek, on the road from Rochester to Marion, the rocks are schistose, even bedded, and ring under the hammer, possessing a texture like some of the Daven- port limestone.
On Section 11, Township 83 north, Range 7 west of the Fifth Principal Meridian, west side of Indian Creek, the upper rock is compact, close-textured limestone, resting on magnesian limestone beneath.
At the source of the Big Spring that drives McLoud's Mill on Section 9, Township 83 north, Range 7 west, a partial exposure is seen of soft, yellow, magnesian limestone, like that observed at Quarry Creek, near Parkhurst.
313
HISTORY OF LINN COUNTY.
The bed of Cedar River, at the rapids (near the gas works in Cedar Rapids) in Linn County, is formed of white and gray compact limestone, containing Terebratu'a reticularis, Orthis resupinata, Spirifer eureutines, Lithostrotion hexagonum, L. ananus, Favosites Gothlandica (var. F. basaltica), Gorgonia retiformis (?), and a small species of Cystiphyllum. The quarry near by, which has been opened in the prairie bottom, is composed of thin, even bedded limestones, containing nests of calcareous spar. It afforded, however, few or no fossils.
On the high ground, between (Cedar) Rapids and Marion, on Section 15 (Southwest } 11 ?), Township 83 north, Range 7 west of Fifth Principal Meridian, freestones, like those of the coal series, occur, whilst a quarter of a mile north of this place, both buff-colored magnesian and white compact limestones are in place.
In sinking wells on the prairie on which Marion stands, a schistose limestone is struck, at a depth of from thirty to thirty-five feet. The soil and sub-soil are usually fifteen feet deep. Beneath these a stiff blue clay sets in, sometimes passing into a yellow clay, enclosing water- worn pebbles. Under this clay is an ancient vegetable mold, intermixed with sticks, leaves and timber. This soil rests upon the above mentioned limestones. Water rises plentifully, to the height of seven feet in the wells, on penetrating the ancient soil.
Small particles of lead ore are reported to have been found, in digging the foundation of the Court House at Marion. It is possible, however, that it may have been pyrites, or blende, ores which are of more frequent occurrence in the formations prevalent in Linn County.
Where the Tipton road, passing through Linn Grove, crosses Big Creek, compact magnesian limestone is overlaid by white and buff colored limestone. In the bed of Cedar (River), in Township 80 north, Range 3 west of Fifth Principal Meridian, probably on Sections 34 and 27, limestone, possessing a close lithographic texture is found, at a low stage of the river.
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