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 35
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The stone cutters of Iowa City are supplied with gravestones from a quarry of cream colored limestone, which lies in thin, even bedded layers, to the height of from thirty to forty feet above Cedar River, in the south part of Township 82 north, Range 5 west of the Fifth Principal Meridian. The lowest strata, which are the thickest, hardly exceed eight inches. In some of the layers, small hemispherical concretions run in the joints of the strata, as well as through the substance of the rock itself. . The best of the slabs approximate in character to lithographic limestone. They are, however, of too coarse a texture for fine work. The upper strata are striped with yellow, obliquely to the bedding. On Section 28, Township 81 north, Range 4 west, where the south line of the section strikes the river above Washington Ferry, the rocks are of the same character as at the last described quarry, only in rather thicker layers of a yet coarser texture. The lowest layers have very much the aspect of the beds observed on the west side of Clear Creek. A north and south crevice traverses the rock at this place, con- taining some calcareous spar and ferruginous clay ; but no metallic ores have been discovered, the crevice being filled with tumbled wall-rock, intermixed with red clay. The strata have a southerly dip of 3º.
A quarter of a mile lower down, near the middle of Section 34, of the same township and range, below Washington Ferry, there is a fine quarry of heavy beds of sub-crystalline magnesian limestone. This rock, which is of the Upper Silurian Period, dips south westerly, under the thin bedded limestones above the Ferry. These latter appear, from their chemical composition, to belong to the Devonian system, although no evidence was derived from organic remains, which are very scarce at both localities. Some well known Devonian forms are, however, in the debris of the river near by.
In Hickory Grove, on the southeast corner of Section 34, Township 80 north, Range 4 west of Fifth Principal Meridian, both magnesian limestone and white limestone lie within two yards of each other-the latter containing Spirifer euruteines gorgonia rectiformis (?), and a Stromatopora, of the same species as that found in the Winnebago Reserve.
The Devonian rocks consists chiefly of white or gray limestones, sometimes brecciated, or of argillaceous limestones, both varieties containing a much smaller percentage of magnesia than the adjacent dolomitic rocks of Upper Silurian date. The former are of no great thickness, probably not exceeding seventy feet.
The prairie country, based on rocks belonging to the Devonian and Carboniferous Systems, extending up the Red Cedar (Cedar), Iowa and Des Moines, as high as latitude 42º, or 42º 31', presents a body of arable land, which, taken as a whole, for richness in organic elements, for amount of saline matter and due admixture of earthy silicates, affords a combination that belongs only to the most fertile upland plains.
The valley of the Cedar River and Indian Creek have been formed subse- quent to the Devonian age. There was a wide valley for the Cedar at the time of the Drift, which may have filled it up level, and when it was cleared out again the channel of the river, in places, may have been considerably changed.
As especial objects of interest, we may mention that the rocks of Cedar River in Linn County afford the finest specimens of fossils-they are literally a great shell-bed-from which Devonian, Carboniferous (?) and Silurian (?) fossils can
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be taken almost as natural as life, with many undetermined species. In addi- tion to those fossils given, we have found a Zaphrentis Cyathophyllum and other polyps. A Tribolite, beautiful specimen (photographed). Geodes. Some of the shell-bed rock polishes into pretty marble ornaments, barring the blemishes caused by the shell of the fossil. There is a layer of this rock overlying yellow clay, on the bank of the river, below the dam and just above the creek, coming down the Vinton road. In the quarries on the C. & N. W. Ry., two miles below Cedar Rapids, can be had fine specimens of colored calcite, and in the lower quarry concretionary structures, like geodes, are numerous.
In the upper bluff rock, at a small ravine, below an old lime kiln at the bend of the river, between three and four miles above Cedar Rapids, at one place appear fossils, undetermined in name, that may be carboniferous. The shell rock, which is last seen at the bend of the river (as above), crops out again below Cedar Rapids in a ledge south of the greek, a distance above the upper lime kiln. back from the river a short distance. At the latter place are porous stones, oval in shape, that suggest a sponge petrified.
Between Indian Creek and the Cedar River, westward of Marion, there are places, sink holes, where the water has found its way down in the rock, and in places caverns have been worn. It is possible that in the stalagmite of these caverns there may be petrified human remains.
Concretionary structures can be obtained in the clay bank at the Epley brick yard ; they are in all shapes, single and combined, round and flat, hollow and cracked. Some are odd looking.
There is an indication of a fault-a vertical depression-having taken place at the rapids in the Cedar, near where the Vinton Road Creek enters the river.
The tilted rocks in the vicinity of the Wapsipinicon give evidence of con- siderable disturbance.
UNSTRATIFIED ROCKS.
The Drift Period will be the part of this subject of most interest to the general reader, especially so, as there are only a few persons but have an opinion as to its origin. The drift has covered, substantially, the whole country ; but in the present valleys, nearly every drift vestige has been removed, and hence is not covered with drift material, as is the case on the general levels above the river valleys, in the woods and over the open prairies ; an occasional " boulder " -a component part of the drift soil-of more than ordinary dimensions, in the valley or bed of the river, has been left as a relic to point to the past, and to the reflecting mind suggest what may have been.
In speaking of the drift soil, we say the drift deposit ; this, of itself, sug- gests that the soil has been deposited-has been brought here, from somewhere, by some means. We find it composed of clay, sand, gravel, rocks and an occasional piece of coal and other minerals has been found. This drift soil is many feet in depth-from inches in some places to over a hundred feet in other places. Throughout the drift-deep down, or protruding at the surface-we find rocks, those of larger size called boulders. These boulders, in places, are near together, thick on the ground ; then, a whole section might be searched and not one to be found. Sometimes we see them lying in such direction to each other that there seems to be some method in their being scattered-in streaks longer than wide-and these streaks may have a direction from the northeast to the southwest or from the southwest to the northeast. These boulders are observed to be unlike the rocks we find in the quarries of our county ; they are different in composition, generally of granite. They have a smooth surface, most are
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rounded in shape, indicating that they have been smoothed-by the same influences we find stones smoothed in the creeks and rivers-worn smooth by abrasion by the action of water. These rocks came from somewhere; where they came from, the soil surrounding them came from also, would be a natural inference, and came at the same time-the boulders and the drift soil came together. If we know where the boulders were brought from, we may then find out the means by which they may have been brought together here.
The Drift epoch is usually called the Glacial epoch, under the idea that ice, either in the form of icebergs or glaciers, was concerned in the transportation of the boulders, pebbles and earth. Ice may float masses of many thousand tons' weight, when in the condition of an iceberg, for twenty, thirty or hundreds of miles; and so glaciers, as in Greenland, may bear along great masses of rock or earth, But simple running or moving water is comparatively feeble tor such results. There are, then, two theories, the Iceberg and the Glacier. The former supposes large parts of the continent under the sea ; the latter places the same regions above the sea, and per- haps at a higher elevation than now. They thus diverge at the outset .- Dana.
How the drift became connected with icebergs, and the iceberg's relationship to the glacier, can be seen at a glance on reading Dr. Kane's description of those in Greenland :
Humboldt Glacier .- This line of cliff rose in a solid, glassy wall, 300 feet above the water level, with an unknown, unfathomable depth below it. The interior with which it commu- nicated and from which it issued, was an unsurveyed mer de glace, an ice-ocean, to the eye, of boundless dimensions.
It was in full sight-the mighty crystal bridge which connects the two continents of America and Greenland. In mass, Greenland is continental over 1,200 miles in length. Imagine, now, the center of such a continent, occupied through nearly its whole extent by a deep, unbroken sea of ice, that gathers perennial increase from the water-shed of vast, snow-covered mountains. and all the precipitations of the atmosphere upon its own surface Imagine this moving on like a great glacial river, seeking an outlet at every fiord and valley, rolling icy cataracts into the- Atlantic and Greenland sea. It is thus, and thus only, that we must form a just conception of a great glacier. It was slowly that the conviction dawned on me, that I was looking upon the counterpart of the great river system of Arctic Asia and America. Yet here were no water-feed- ers from the south. Every particle of moisture had its origin within the Polar Circle, and had been converted into ice. There were no vast alluvions, no forest or animal traces borne down by liquid torrents. Here was a plastic, moving, semi-solid mass, obliterating life, swallowing rocks and islands, and plowing its way with irresistible march through the crust of an investing sea.
As the surface of the glacier receded to the south, its face seemed broken by piles of earth and rock-stained rubbish.
As I looked over the ice belt, losing itself in the far distance, and covered with its millions. of tons of rubbish, greenstones, limestones, chloritic slates, rounded and angular, massive and ground to powder, the importance as a geological agent in its transportation of drift struck me with great force Its enormous masses of the Great Glacier are propelled, step by step, year by year, until, reaching water capable of supporting them, they are floated off to be lost in the- temperatures of other regions.
We now present part of what has been said by Dr. Owen in his report :
Extensive deposits of drift prevail throughout the interior of the Chippewa land district .. These fill up the inequalities of the surface, and give, for long distances, a greater degree of flatness and uniformity of contour than one would expect to encounter in a country near the- sources of so many large streams.
Between the western tributaries of the Chippewa River and the heads of the eastern branches of the St. Croix and Rum Rivers, the drift seems to rest chiefly on the northern exten- sion of the lower protozoic (containing remains of the earliest life of the globe) sandstones of Wisconsin, which formation appears to be invaded only at a few points by intrusive rocks of igneous origin. The drift of this part of Wisconsin, which, in a great measure, conceals these underlying formations, is chiefly of a light, sandy and gravelly nature, supporting, locally, mul- titudes of boulders, many of which do not appear to be far removed from the parent rock. Where valleys have been excavated by streams, these boulders, undermined and rolling from the higher grounds, have accumulated on the banks and in the beds of the rivers, causing frequent obstruction in the channel, or covering it as with an artificial pavement.
Northeast of the Chippewa, toward the Michigan boundary, the drift reposes chiefly upon metamorphic (sedimentary rocks, which have been changed by heat) schists and granitic rocks ; and the same is true of the extreme northern portion of the district, and of a belt of country some forty or fifty miles in width, ranging north-northeast and south-southwest, from Mille Lacs,.
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through the rapids of the Mississippi and St. Peter's Rivers, between longitude 94° and 95°. In these latter regions, besides the coarse boulder drift sand and gravel, a deposit of finer materials, more marly and argillaceous, and of ash gray color, prevails over considerable areas.
Bordering Lake Superior, red clays and marls, containing a large percentage of oxide of iron, underlie the boulder drift.
The sand which constitutes the most bulky part of the drift of the interior of Wisconsin, north of the forty-third degree of latitude, lias evidently been derived from the denudation of the beds of the lower sandstones, belonging to the Lower Silurian Period.
Between Crow Wing and Sandy Lake, there is no rock visible in place on the Mississippi. The sections exposed by the river, throughout the whole distance, present deposits of clay, sand, pebbles, boulders and loam, varying, in thickness, from ten to one hundred and twenty feet. Such deposits are usually described as a part of the drift formation, although it is evident to my mind, that they were deposited under very different circumstances from those which operated during the great " errat c" period.
In some places the drift hills are conical, or, rather, dome like; but most generally the elevations are in the shape of narrow, oblong ridges, with gently indulating valleys between them.
Opposite Upper Saukville (Wisconsin River), the hills on the river are again of drift, composed of loose sand and boulders of trap, porphyry, quartzite granite and masses of mag- nesian limestone, some of which would weigh several hundred pounds. Behind the drift hills, which are upward of one hundred feet high, rise higher hills, in which rocks are partially exposed, and one mile above Sauk Prairie, the lower magnesian limestone forms a bold and rug- ged escarpment at the top of the bluffs, which are three hundred and sixty feet high, with drift hills on the foreground one hundred and thirty feet high, resting against the slope of the prin- cipal range.
On the west side of the Mississippi, in the vast prairie region of Iowa, the attention of the geologist is frequently arrested by erratic blocks of enormous dimensions, scattered here and there, and half sunk in the ground. As they arise around the ocean of grass, they may be seen for miles; and in the absence of more conspicuous objects, they form the principal landmarks of the traveler. The largest of them might, in an inhabited country, very well be mistaken for cabins in the distance. The measurements of one observed, were found to be fifty feet in cir- cumference and twelve feet high. It is probable that at least one-half the rock is buried beneath the ground. Hence, may be gathered some idea of their dimensions
The boulders appear to be most abundant along the route which I traveled, between the headwaters of the Wapsipinicon and Red Cedar (Cedar), and some ten to fifteen miles beyond the latter, along a belt which may be twenty to thirty miles in breadth.
Among the smaller of these erratic blocks is considerable variety ; it is, however, somewhat remarkable that almost every large boulder which I examined in this region is a peculiar variety of porphyritic granite, in which the feldspar is of a flesh color, and often in large, regular crys- tals. Of the granite which I found in place in the (north west of Wisconsin ) Chippewa land district, along my route to Lake Superior, that which was found at the first rapids of the Court Oreille River (from Lake Court Oreille, in the north west corner of Chippewa Co., Wis., to the Chippewa River), comes nearest to the composition and appearance of these prairie boulders. This, how- ever, can hardly be the source from which they have drifted, for the direction of the belt of erratics does not appear to be transverse to the streams, that is, from northeast to southwest, but parallel with them, from north west to southeast.
No boulders were found near Cedar River, in Townships 79, 80 and 81. A few only were noticed in the east part of Johnson County, eight miles from Iowa City, near the Dubuque road.
The only explanation that is at all satisfactory in accounting for the transporting power which has brought these detached masses of granite rocks into their present position is, floating ice-ice drifted by currents setting in from the north before the land emerged from the ocean, in the same manner as, at the present time, thousands of tons of rock are precipitated on tlie bed of the Atlantic Ocean from icebergs which annually work their way from the north, and melt in southern latitudes. No mere currents appear at all adequate to convey such heavy blocks across valleys and over hills, to a distance of hundreds of miles from the parent rock. Their isolated position on the prairie also indicates that they were dropped into their present position, rather than rolled into. Under the latter supposition, even if it were possible, they would probably be closer together and more regularly assorted as to size.
There are facts ascertained which render it probable that a large area of the Northwest Territory has been raised during very modern periods, even since the present fauna inhabited its lakes and rivers. Below Parkhurst (Rock Island rapids ?), on the west bank of the Missis- sippi, I have observed, over a considerable tract, multitudes of Unios, besides a variety of other fresh water mollusca, of the same species as those now inhabiting the Mississippi and its tribu- taries, elevated far beyond the reach of the highest freshets ; and I am informed that the same deposit can be found in some places as much as a hundred feet or more above high water mark. It is well known to those who have traveled much in the swampy and undine regions of the Mississippi Valley, that there is a gradual drainage of its waters taking place, even at this time, so that land which was formerly covered with water is now completely dry ; and shell marls
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found through portions of the prairie country show that many of these places are but drained lakes or expansions of the great water courses.
The fine silicious and loamy marls widely distributed in the valley of the Mississippi, at an elevation of a hundred to two hundred feet above the present rivers, containing Cyclostoma, Physa, Succinea, Helices, Helicina and Planorbes, with occasional Unio, Paludina and Melanica, and considered to be of the age of the Loess (a tertiary deposit) of the Rhine, in Germany, afford evidence of a modern rise of the lands of the interior of the Northwest.
There is abundant evidence of the rise of land throughout the valley of the St. Peter's, and I would call attention to the fact that the ancient elevated bed abounds in boulders, while but few are seen in the upland prairie, and none on the recent alluvial deposits. Hence I infer that the second bench was not formed by the same causes which accumulated the first bench.
In relation to an occasional piece of coal, Dr. Owen has this to say : " On the Mankato (St. Peter's) several pieces of lignite were picked up from the beds and banks of the streams. Some of this lignite approaches in its character to cannel coal, but most of it has a brown color, and exhibits distinctly the lig- neous fiber and other structure of the wood from which it has been derived. At one point, a fragment was found seventy feet above the level of the river, projecting from the drift. It appears most probable that the pieces found have been transported from the North along with the drift. All of the coal found did not exceed ten pounds." A similar origin can most probably be ascribed to any other pieces of mineral that may be found.
Since the publication of that report, we believe coal of this character has been discovered in the Arctic regions on Bathurst Island, which lies in a line to the north of a trend of the great lakes of the north-Winnepeg, Athabasca and Great Slave; and it is noticeable that this lake valley is parallel to the present iceberg channel of Baffin's Bay. This would be a strong argument to support the iceberg as against the glacial view of the origin of the drift.
This coal of a " woody fiber" may have been formed from wood carried to the Arctic regions by ocean currents, as is being done by the Gulf Stream to the coast of Nova Zembla to-day. This Gulf Stream in and north of latitude 42° meets the Arctic currents that bring down the icebergs, retards their surface southerly flow, and, hence, icebergs are seldom seen below that latitude. If the same natural Gulf Stream, with a continent submerged, had passed over the now Valley of the Mississippi, and an iceberg had come down over the now valley of the lakes, stretching to the north, the Gulf Stream would have checked those icebergs in the latitudes in which we now find the boulders.
The larger part of the drift deposit on the prairies is now clay, when, in all probability, it was sand when deposited. It may occur to ask, what has pro- duced the change ? We can, perhaps, answer this question by asking another one: What has become of all the vegetation that it is reasonable to suppose through the unnumbered years, has grown, fallen and decayed on the soil ? On poor, sandy soils we have known men to haul peat, wood, etc., and burn it. This had the effect, in a short time, to make a heavier soil-to make a light clay of it. Nature may have worked in the same way ; burnt the accummu- lated vegetable deposits, and from the original sandy soil, through the action of the ashes on the same, changed it to beds of clay.
THE MOUND BUILDERS.
How long man has existed on this earth has not been determined. History and chronology are not by any means definite as to his age. It is very proba- ble that our knowledge of man, or what man may have done, does not extend further back than the time when his thought became preserved in writing. We think this is so, for we find that the first record, or oldest record, we have is of the people that first reduced or preserved their thoughts in writing. Historical
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man is no older than the time of the knowledge of writing. In the earliest records, traditions of a remoter time may be preserved, but it is hardly possible that tradition has any reliability more than a thousand years, if as long, previ- ous to the time of writing. Where we find records of man unmentioned in history, not necessarily prior to any history, those records and those people are called pre-historic. In America, history goes back no further than is preserved in the oldest European annals. The North American Indians had no written language prior to the time of the European; they had traditions, and memory preserved them as best it could.
To determine the age of man from his first appearance on the earth is undoubtedly an impossibility. However, it would be natural to suppose that the oldest continent was man's first habitat ; there we should find the first evidence of his existence. What relics of man-fossils, preservations in the rocks, caves and earth-there may be in America, on account of the limited search that has been made, we cannot now tell. In Europe, extensive pre- historic relics have been discovered. Near Abbeville, on the Somme River, in north of France, relics were discovered in a bed of stratified loam, sand and gravel, situated ninety feet above the valley ; the layers apparently had not been destroyed since their formation. Bones of the old elephant were found in the overlying sandy layer. Near Amicus, the beds are similar, and are situ- ated eighty-nine feet above the bottom of the valley. Their thickness is twenty to thirty feet. The arrow-heads and hatchets are in a gravel resting on chalk : and in the same deposit were found bones of the ancient elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus. At Hoxne, England, five miles east of Diss, flint imple- ments occur in alluvium, with land and fresh water shells, and some mammalian bones-part of them of extinct species; and it is probable that the deposits date back to Post-Tertiary mammals. The beds, according to Prestwick, "are more recent than the boulder clay of the Glacial Period. This evidence may not be carrying man back in past time so much as the bringing forward of the extinct animals toward our own times. About several of the Swiss lakes, there are remains of "lake habitations," in the shape of piles and platforms for their support, which are in view at occasional low stages of the water. In connec- tion with the structures, numerous human relics have been found, such as stone arrow-heads, lance-heads, axes, hammers, bone harpoons, bone arrow heads, pieces of pottery ; but nothing made of metal. Many relics have been found in caves. Near Aray, in France, a human jaw was found in the same bed which contained remains of rhinoceros and the cave bear and hyena. In Kent's Cavern, near Forquay, England, there are flint arrow heads. At Brix- ham, Devonshire, in the superficial stalagmite, other human relics-as frag- ments of rude pottery and bones-have been found, with bones of the ancient mammals ; and they occur in each case in such connection as appears to show that man existed before the extermination of the Post-Tertiary species. A cave near Auvignac, in the vicinity of the Pyrenees, contains human skeletons, and flint and bone or horn implements, along with fragments of bones or teeth of the cave hyena, cave bear, cave felis, fox, wild boar, bison, stag, reindeer. Irish elk, and others. These bones are supposed to have been carried in by the ancient anhabitants, and the most of them were from their food. Many show that they had been split open to get out the marrow. Some of these are of the species of the Post-Tertiary, which were probably the earliest to disappear.
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