USA > Illinois > Perry County > Combined history of Randolph, Monroe and Perry counties, Illinois . With illustrations descriptive of their scenery and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 13
USA > Illinois > Randolph County > Combined history of Randolph, Monroe and Perry counties, Illinois . With illustrations descriptive of their scenery and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 13
USA > Illinois > Monroe County > Combined history of Randolph, Monroe and Perry counties, Illinois . With illustrations descriptive of their scenery and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 13
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The following statistics in reference to the physical con- dition and equipment of the Illinois Central Railroad, will not be devoid of interest :-
53
HISTORY OF RANDOLPH, MONROE AND PERRY COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
MIL.ES.
Main line, Cairo to La Salle, opened for business, Jan. Sth, 1-55, 30% 99 (alena Branch, La Salle, to Dunkirk. . pened Jure 12th, 1875, . 147.73
Chicago Branch, Chicago to C'entralia Junction, opened Sept 21 th, 1 56, solito
Springfield Division, Gilman to springfield, opened in Sept., 1871,. 111 47
Total length of Main Line and Branches, $16.97
Aggregate length computed as single track, . 833.08
Length of Sidings,
132.08
Total length of track owned in Illinois, 966.36 Iowa Division, from Dubuque to Sioux City, 327.00
Southern Division, from Cairo to New Orleans, 54 -. 00)
Minnesota Branch, from Waterloo to Mono, . 80,00
Making the totaknninber of miles, 1921.36
The line between Chicago and Cairo is operated as the Chicago Division ; that between Centralia and Dubuque as the Northern Division, and the Road between Gilman and Springfield as the Springfield Division. The tracks of the various lines are mostly steel-rails, the road beds, especially in this state, are ballasted with roek, the rolling stock is ex- cellent, and the road throughout is, in all parts, first class. The Main Live passes through the richest portion of the state-and is the greatest thoroughfare of travel and traffic between the North and the South.
RAILROAD LINES.
Believing that there are many farmers in these counties who desire a profitable investment, we would therefore call the attention of all who are desirous of procuring more land, or larger farms to the large quantity of good farming land, the Illinois C'entral Railroad company still offer for sale, along their line in Marion, Fayette. Clinton, Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Perry, Franklin. Union, Williamson, Alexander, and Pulaski counties iu this state.
TITI.E.
The title to these lands offered for sale is as perfect as humau agency ean make it. It was originally donated by act of Congress to the State of Illinois, and by an act of the State Legislature transferred to this company aud its trus- tees. No incumbrance of any kind whatever. To all who desire in good faith to examine any of these lands, the rail- road company issues half-rate tickets on any of their own lines to and from the nearest points to the land, and if such ticket holder buys eveu a forty-aere traet, they will allow what he paid for such ticket as part payment on the pur- chase. These lands are productive, the elimate healthy, and priees very low-usually from $4 to $8 per acre, ou easy terms, and a low rate of interest. These lands can be pur- chased on the following terms :
One quarter eash, with five per cent. interest for one year in advance on the residue ; the balance payable in one, two and three years, with five per cent. interest in advance each year on the part remaining unpaid. For example, for forty acres of land at $5.00 per aere, the payments would be as follows :
Cash payment .
$10.00 principal, and $7.50 interest.
In one year
50.00
44
5.00
In two years
50.00
46 2.50
In three years
50.00
44
£200.00 $15.40
Or the same land may be bought for 8180.00, all cash, as ten per eeut. is dedueted when all eash is paid. Full informa- tion on all points relating to any particular loeality or tract, will be furnished ou applicatiou, either in person or by letter, to
P. DAGGY, Land Commissioner, Room 36, No. 78 Michigan Ave., Chicago, Illinois.
04-0-4+ 0-
CHAPTER IV.
GEOLOGY
HERE are represented in Illinois the Quarternary, Tertiary, Carboniferous, Devonian and Silurian systems. Be- neath them may, and, if generally accepted theories be true, must be formations of other systems anteda- ting these. The Empire State of the Valley has mainly escaped from up- heaval by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, so that her prairies spread out in beautiful repose uninterrupted by unsightly masses of matter from long past ages. In the counties of Randolph, Monroe and Perry, the various systems penetrated thus far by man in his inquiries after geologieal truth have rewarded his re- search quite as well as any throughout the state. The Mississippi with her deep grooved channel upon the West ; her line of blutt's following up her general course ; a break traversing the counties all contribute to make clear the strategraphical chart. The Quarternary, Tertiary and Carboniferous systems present out-eroppings here and there throughout their extent.
The Quarternary, or uppermost stratum, is possessed of greater economical value than all other formations com- biued. It comprises the drift and all deposits above it of whatever may be the quality of the soil. In scientific terms, it includes the alluvium, bottom prairie, bluff aud drift of various thicknesses, which crop out here and there upon the surface. All those deposits which have been formed since the inauguration of the present order of things, might be appropriately classified under the head of Alluvium as it embraces soils, pebbles, sand, clays, and vegetable mold, all of which are here found.
Soils are a well-known mixture of various comminuted and decomposed mineral substances, combined and mingled with deeayed vegetable and auimal remains, aud composing those ingredients so well adapted to the nourishment of the vegetable kingdom. They are formed by the action of water in form of rain or dew ; by atmospheric changes of heat and cold; by decay of vegetable and animal matter. The soils of these counties are very deep and exceedingly pro- duetive. The vegetable kingdom has contributed largely to their formation. The luxuriant growth of prairie grass,
=
54
HISTORY OF RANDOLPH, MONROE AND PERRY COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
high as a man's head riding horseback (as the old settlers are wont to say), dying with the touch of frost each autumn to form a thin layer of vegetable mold, or. being burned by the raging fires of the hazy Indian summer-time to add their mite of alkali, has contributed untold wealth to the fertility of the soil. Here and there, are clay formations cropping out upon the surface, kindly inviting the hand of industry to transform their barrenness into tile and brick, and thus contribute to the general good. Immediately un- derneath are evidences of the aqueous agencies in pebble and formative sand rock measures, only waiting to become useful in various ways that man's inventive genius has devised. Upon the surface here and there, are the monuments to the existence of a glacial period, in form of great boulders, com- posed of quartz, feldspar, mica, and hornblend. We look upon these massive rocks, and note nothing in common with the formations surrounding them. Bedded in the virgin prairie soil, poised upon its surface, their composition declares them of different origin from other rock, and the abrasions upon their surface, sometimes in deep longitudinal grooves, ottentimes well rounded in general outline, declare in plain words a long journey thitherward. Scientists have critically examined them. Evidently the storm of centuries have beaten upon them where they stand, and the hand of time has broken many a fragment and piled them at their bases, as if to number the years of their being. Speculations have been indulged as to their mighty journeyings from the far-off North land during an age when Manitoba waves would have been hailed as the breath of spring-time; an age when animal and vegetable existence were alike impossible. Borne on before the resistless power of slowly-moving glaciers or icebergs, they were dropped here and there on far-stretching prairies, or carried on the very tops of mountains, like those of Missouri, where their piled up con- fusion leads to the idea of a battle-field with the gods. Who can number the ages that have rolled away since it paused in its course, or measure the time of its journey ? or who assay to count the time it occupied its place in the parent ledge before the glacier or iceberg wrenched it from its place and bore it away ?
The prairies themselves, stretching out in their beauty,- nay, in silent grandeur,-have invited man's genius to assign to natural cause their origin, and declare the years of their formation. Much scientific discussion has been indulged respecting them. Prof. Leo Lesquereux, in report of the State Geologist of Illinois, asserts that they, with their pecu- liar surface soil, owe their origin to the same causes that are at present operating to form prairies, though on a less exten- sive scale. The black, rich soil is doubtless, he says, due to the growth and decay of successive crops of vegetation, which, in the geological ages of the past, under a far higher temperature and more favorable atmospheric conditions than now exist, grew to an extent unknown since the appearance of man upon the earth. These prodigious crops of plants and grasses were from year to year submerged, and becom- ing decomposed, contributed their annual accumulations to the surface of the country. By the continuation of this pro- cess for untold centuries, and by the subsequent recession of
the waters that once covered the entire Mississippi Valley, a black, mucky soil was formed, and the whole region emerged as vast swamps or swales interspersed with hills and valleys. mountains and table-lands. These, by gradual growth, became outlined in prairies.
In each of the three counties here treated of, great deposits of coal have been found. The age of these formations would prove a study of interest. That of coal can be computed more accurately than any other encountered beneath us. It has been calculated that thirty feet of vegetable matter would be required to form one foot of coal. What must then have been the plant growth which gave us such vast deposits.
RANDOLPH COUNTY .*
The surface deposits of this county comprise the three usual sub-divisions of the Quarternary system, designated as alluvium, marly deposit known as " loess " and drift. The most important alluvial deposit in the county is that known as the American Bottom, which follows the great river from the northwest corner of the county southward to the mouth of the Kaskaskia, having a width varying from four to fif- teen miles. This belt is exceedingly productive, and but for the overflows to which it is subjected, would be by far the most valuable land of the county. The soil is quite sandy, but is intermingled with humus or vegetable mold or clay from the sediments of the river, forming a rich warm soil of unsurpassed fertility.
The loess is a deposit of light brown or buff siliceous marl, sometimes also quite calcareous It caps the bluffs of the Mississippi and other streams of the county, and is of a thickness varying from ten to sixty feet, or even more. It generally contains great numbers of bleached shells. It gives origin to the bald knobs, that are often a conspicuous feature in the river bluffs. The drift deposits of this county comprise a series of brown and yellow clays, intermingled locally with gravel and small pebbles, spread over the en- tire surface of the uplands, and underlying the loess where both are present. Boulders of igneous character are occa- sionally seen in the valleys. Specimens of galena, analogous to the ores of Potosi in southeast Missouri, are frequently found beneath the soil in this county. Whether native, or transported by human agency, or yet by easterly currents, carrying them from their resting places across the river, is a subject for speculation. The stratified rocks exposed at the surface include a portion of the lower coal measures, from the micaceous sandstone above coal No. 6 in the general section to the base of the measures, together with the Chester group and the St. Louis group of the lower carboniferous limestone series.
Coal Measures .-- The beds exposed in the county that be- long to the coal measures comprise a series of micaceous sandstones, limestones, and shales, with two seams of bitu- minous coal. The thickness of the whole, including the conglomerate at the base, probably does not exceed two hun-
* We are indebted to the State Geological Reports for much data bearing on the Geology of these counties.
55
HISTORY OF RANDOLPHI, MONROE AND PERRY COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
dred and fifty feet. The following vertical section shows the succession and comparative thickness of these beds :
Micaceous sandstone and shale
30 to 40 feet. 3 4
Band of limestone
Shale .
12 .
Limestone and bituminous shale
4 .
Coal (Belleville) ..
Fire-clay and nodnlar limestone
3 .
Shale or shaly sandstone
30 40 4
Limestone 3 " 4 .
Bituminous shale
3
5
Coal No. 5 (1)
..
Fire clay
2
4
Shale and sandstone ( conglomerate) . 50 " 150 4
The coal measures underlie about one-third of the county, being that part known as the prairie district. The saud- stone and shales that form the base of this group of strata give origin to a more broken surface. Of the coal mea- sures, two are developed in this county, the Belleville coal (No. 6) and a lower seam, probably No. 5 The Belleville coal seam is very regular, with an average thickness of about six feet. It almost invariably has a good roof, composed either of limestone or hard bituminous shale, either of which makes a sub-tantial roofing, both safe and economical. In a few places, packets of a conglomerate have been found in this roofing, notably in a shaft sunk near Coulterville, the giving way of which is attended with disastrous results. The coal from this seam is compact, of a bright cofor, and comparatively free from pyrites. Sometimes it rests upon a bed of fire-clay, but more frequently on one of argillaceous limestone. The over-cropping limestones are fossiliferous. The out-cropping of the coal measures, which underlie the northwestern part of the county, is along Mary's river. At Pope's bank the coal is deposited in five distinct layers, measuring respectively sixteen, twelve, fifteen, sixteen, and one and a half feet.
At Boyd's coal mines, one mile west of Sparta, the coal is obtained by a shaft sunk to the depth of about fifty feet through the following beds :
('lay and gravel
20 feet.
Limestone
2 "
Shate
15
Limestone
5
l'oat
G
The dip is slightly easterly, and does not exceed 5°. A mile and a half northeast is Wood's coal mine, where the coal is reached at a depth of forty feet. It is overlaid with bituminous shale and limestone. In the vicinity of Steels- ville, the coal is of an average thickness of six feet, and is found from twenty-five to thirty feet below the surface. Four miles to the south it out-crops in the bluff's along Cox's creek.
Chester Group .-. The following vertical section gives an idea of comparative thickness and relative position of the different members of this group:
Grey silicious limestone No. 1 25 to 30 feet.
Shales and shaly sandstones, with tossit plants 80 90 4 Shaly litnestone No. 2 15 18 4
Massive brown sandstone 40
Limestone No. 3, upper bed at Chester 10 45
Green and blue argillaceous shales, with plates of limestone 45 4
Arenaceous and argillaceous limestone No 4 . . 20 to 30 feet.
Massive and shaly sapdstone . . 15 4 20 4 Compact and granular grey limestone No. 5 . 150 4
Massive quartzose brown sandstone 120 4
This group attaius its greatest thickness in the southern part of the county. At Chester the middle portion of this group forms the greater portion of the river bluff, and the beds afford the following section at this point :
Green and purple scales 8 feet.
Compact grey limestone 10 4
Limestone, irregular, partly nodular and partly argil- laceons 32 .
Green and argillaceous shales, with thin plates of line. stone and ferruginous hands
Compost grey limestone, with intervalated beds of blue and green clay shales 82
Total
202
Adjacent to the city, and partly exposed on the hill-tops, is a bed of quartzose sandstone This sandstone is overlaid with another limestone which may be found as you journey farther from the river, so that like step-stones these forma- tions rise one above another, exposed as the aqueous abra- sions have by lapse of time laid them bare. Near the Peni- tentiary buildings the top of the limestone is eighty feet above low water level of the river, and is overlaid by a mas- sive sandstone about fifteen feet iu thickness. Below Ches- ter, limestone almost wholly made up of crinoidea and fish teeth abounds-a limestone susceptible of a high polish. At Prairie du Rocher, the bluff is composed of the massive grey limestone of the St. Louis group, but before reaching the general level of the adjacent country we pass over the lower sandstone of the Chester group, and the limestones and shales of the higher beds are found exposed on all the small streams between the bluffs and Red Bud. At Red Bud, the sinking of a shaft presented the following record of strata :
Surface clay 18 feet. Grey limestone, containing fossils found in the Chester 13
group
Clay shale 46
Economical Geology .-- Elsewhere in this work soils are treated of, and in presenting a brief view of what is appro- priately termed economical geology, we shall only call atten- tion to the minerals that furnish the basis of future wealth and importance to this county.
Coal-By far the most valuable and important mineral deposit underlies fully one third of the county. It has been calculated that the yield of a coal seam is one million tons to the square mile for every foot of thickness of the seam, and consequently the yield of the upper seam as here found would aggregate six million tons. Then if three hundred square miles of the county are thus underlaid the enormous amount of eighteen hundred million tons of coal awaits the application of human genius in its exhumation. Then, too, yet beneath this partially developed seam is another with probably one-third as much more coal. Mining coal, a comparatively new industry, is being rapidly prosecuted, and with constantly increasing facilities for its transportation, and not only this, but for transfer of rude ores from the mountains of Missouri, to be changed as if by a magician's
56
HISTORY OF RANDOLPH, MONROE AND PERRY COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
wand into various forms of utility and beauty through its agency. It is destined to grow and demand enlarged facili- ties for exhumation and carriage. Manufacturing interests are taking hold, and will be within the next decade more than double in number and capacity.
Building Stone. - Enough stone, and that too, of superior quality-abounds here to supply the state for centuries. Its presence was one of the great inducements offered in behalf of the location of the State Penitentiary at Chester. To particularize, the St. Louis limestone, abundant in the northi- western part of the county, rising full two hundred feet in height, could be made available for the heaviest masonry, as well as for foundation-walls for dwellings, for flag-stones, etc.
The lower sandstone of the Chester group, an excellent free- stone, which can be sawed or cut easily when freshly quar- ried, hardening on exposure, will furnish, practically, inex- haustib'e supplies for various purposes of art. Then the lower limestone of the same group, for all manner of archi- tectural display, is most excellent ; for caps, for cornices, for columns, and for shafts it is well adapted. Much of it is susceptible of a high polish, and will be availed of by way of ornamentation.
Lime .-- Stone employed in its manufacture abounds. The best is found in the vicinity of Prairie du Rocher. It is not surpassed by any calcareous deposit in the Mississippi valley for the production of a superior quality of lime.
Clays .- The fire clay which underlies each of the coal seams may be used advantageously. Clay for the manufac- ture of brick of fair quality everywhere abounds, underly- ing the surface soil.
MONROE COUNTY.
As iu Randolph we find along the great river, following its course, a widespread bottom presenting its inexhaustible alluvial deposits. Soil sandy, intermingled with humus or vegetable mold and clay from the sediments of the river. Hemming in the great water way, as if to check its overflow, are great bluffs of varied character. The disturbances in the regular stratification of rocks are very marked, there being two decided axes. The nucleus of the more northern one is the Keokuk limestone, which is well exposed near Columbia on a small creek. Above the exposure is a brown- ish-gray and cherty limestone, forming about forty feet of its bulk, while the remaining ten feet consists of blue calcarco- argillaceous shales with small geodes of quartz. Immediate- ly west, the overlying St. Louis limeston : dips full 20 degs. south, while on the eastern side of the axis the dip in the opposite direction varies from 8 to 12 degs., thus forming a trough or valley, and indicating, at some time away back in the sleeping ages, mighty convulsions of nature which have pusbed upwards out of their natural beds great masses of rock, different from their fellows, upon either hand. These convulsions speak of an age antedating the carboni- ferous period, since coal measures in regular lines cross the valley, intervening the exposures of the Keokuk limestone. The other axis is to the south and shows the elevation of the Saccharoidal sandstone. Its extent is limited, as it rapidly
sinks to the eastward beneath shales and limestones of the Lower Carboniferous series.
The relative position and comparative thickness of the stratified rocks in this county are shown in the following section :
No. 1. Coal measures . 40 to 50 feet .
No. 2. Chester group . 100 to 350 feet.
No. 3. l'pper St Lonis limestone . 140 to 150 feet.
No. 4. Lower St. Loni- or Warsaw 120 to 150 fort.
No. 5. Keokuk limestone . 150 fret
No. 6. Burlington limestone . 75 to lon feet.
No. 7. Kinderhook gronp. All to log feet-
No. 8. Trenton limestone. . 120 feet.
The aggregate thickness of these rocks may be estimated at about one thousand feet, and they represent a very large portion of the whole Paleozoic series below the coal meas- ures, as that series is developed in Southern Illinois. No part of the State presents more interesting phases of geo- logical research than here. Coal is found throughout the basiu formed by the break in the formations already referred to, and is necessarily confined to a narrow strip. Breaks in coal measures, being quite as uneven as the basis on which they rest, make successful mining hazardous. At a number of' points within the isolated synical basin, coal was found, and in some places successfully mined. Gall's coal mines, on the northwest quarter of section 3, township 2 south, range 4 west, have been quite extensively worked and abandoned. The beds exposed give the following section :
Caleareons shales . G to & feet
Compact argillaceous limestone 3 to 4 feet.
Bituminon- shale I to 3 feet.
Coal. Belleville seam. , 3 to 4 feet.
Calcareons shales and no lular limestone 3 to 4 feet.
Shale and shaly sandstone 15 feet
No. 2. Chester Group .-- As developed in this county is the upper group of the lower carboniferous system, consists of a heavy bed of sandstone forming its lower division, above which are two or three beds of limestone alternating with sandy and argillaceous shales and sandstones. In thickness they are less than in Randolph county, and as we travel north grow more and more so. In places the rock of this group is massive and concretionary in structure, then again, fossiliferous, consisting of coarse, granular and partly crinoi- dal limestone.
Nos. 3 and 4 St Louis Limestone. Upper and Lower. Occurs in extensive outcrops in the county, and in two well- marked divisions. The upper consists mainly of light-gray compact, regularly bedded limestones, with some thin shaly partings, and the lower of buff or brown marly and partly magnesian beds, and with some very massive layers of a semi- oolitic, nearly white limestone. Exposures of these groups are met with to the east and north of the Chester group. 'The sink holes met with are a sure guide to the extent of these formations, they being only formed where the upper division of this group forms the bed-rock.
No. 5. Keokuk Group .-- Exposures of this group are rare in this county, forming as it does the nucleus of the anticlinal axis passing near Columbia. It has been found to be com- posed of coarse-grained gray limestone, yellow calcareous shale, blue shale, cherty gray limestone and bedded chert.
57
HISTORY OF RANDOLPH, MONROE AND PERRY COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
No. 6. Burlington Limestone -May include the bedded chert attributed above to the Keokuk group. It is confined to the vicinity of Salt Lick Point where it forms the upper escarpment of the bluff. It consists of alternations of light- gray crinoidal limestone anl chert. The bluff where found is the highest between St. Louis and Chester. presenting from its summit a grand panorama of river and valley.
No. 7. Kinderhook Group .- Seemingly out of its place, having by some agency been pushed entirely out of its rela- tive position, usurping that of the Devonian and upper Silu- rian groups, is found only in the vicinity of the foregoing group, and consists of ashen gray sbales, which pass upward into chocolate-colored shales and limestones.
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