History of Henry county, Illinois : it's taxpayers and voters, 1877, Part 11

Author:
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Chicago : H. F. Kett
Number of Pages: 604

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Sandstone .- Overlying the lower coal and its roof of black shales and dark limestone, is a heavy deposit of coarse-grained sandstone. The rock is gritty, not very hard, of a creamy-brown or dirty-whitish color, and greatly resembles the sandstone deposit north of Morrison, except that the soapstone seams are wanting. Three miles below Cleveland, in the face of the river bluffs, but near their base, and at several places below or farther down the river, the outcrop is conspicuous, and has been quarried for local uses. The outcrops are partly hidden by talus ; but the sandstone at these localities seems to be from twenty to thirty feet thick. The same sandstone, on a line westward, outcrops heavily at Camden, at Hampton, and opposite the latter place in Iowa. At the latter place, some fine specimens of Lepidodendron were found some years ago. The principal outcrops about Cleveland are on Sections 20 and 35 of Township 17,

Major JAMES M. ALLAN, 1

Geneseo.

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GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HENRY COUNTY.

Range I East. At Moline it also outcrops, and at Hampton, it covers a thin coal seam or trace of coal .* At Camden, the coal seems to be above the heaviest body of sandstone. At Hickory Grove there is a light sandstone outcrop, not very thick; stone poor quality ; quarried by neighboring farmers. In the valley of Green River, up the latter valley, and into the bluffs of Mineral Creek about Minersville, the same bed of sandstone shows itself in several places. The outcrops here run from seven to twelve and twenty feet thick. On Section 3 in the Township of Munson, and not far from Cambridge, some poor sandstones are quarried. In the shaft of the Platt Coal Company, just east of Kewanee, thirty feet of heavy sandstone was struck immediately overlaying the coal seam at the bottom of the shaft, but this bed is about a hundred feet below the surface.t In the vicinity of Red Oak Grove, a thin, rotten carboniferous sand- stone has been quarried by the farmers, and used for farm purposes. One well was walled with this material. The wall decayed or rotted down, and the well caved in after it had been in use for a series of years. On Section 20 on Spring Creek, in the Township of Atkinson, there is a small stone quarry, but my notes on its characteristics have been misplaced or lost.

These are the best tracings I have been able to make of this bed of sand- stone. Its place in the geological section of the county seems to be above the heavy, lower, workable seam of coal, some times separated therefrom by shales and limestone, and some times appearing to rest almost directly on the coal. Its position is by no means constant, however. It is also almost unfossiliferous. A few tracings of Calamites and Lepidodendron were the only organic remains I could find in this deposit.

Limestone of the Lower Coal .- The "cap rock " over some of the coal mines is a dark-colored, almost black, and some times shaly limestone, in which is frequently found a small and beautiful Productus. The coal seam at Aldrich's mine is overlaid by a thin stratum of shale, which is capped by a hard, blue, shelly limestone. This limestone is quarried in small quantities here, and sold at a high price to neighboring farmers. At Cleveland the coal seam is stripped of its superficial covering over several acres in extent. The limestone is more massive here, not quite so dark in color, and rests almost directly upon the coal. Hundreds of cords of it are stripped from the coal. The deposit is from one to two feet thick, and great quantities are sold at remunerative prices. Large numbers of the heavier stones thus quarried are to be used in the railroad bridge to be built across Rock River at this place. Immense slabs, more than a foot in thickness, obtained at the lower opening, are piled over an open space, ready to be transferred to the piers in the river. Some of these show signs of crumbling round the edges, as if the tooth of time had gnawed into their surface. We doubt whether they will prove entirely satisfactory for railroad masonry. Above this massive strata, and separated from it by from four to seven feet of shales and black, hardened carbonaceous mud, is another strata of lighter-colored, thin-bedded, shaly limestone, which is also corded up and sold for lighter masonry. The supply of stone thus obtained at these coal mines is very considerable. About Minersville the same limestone is found in connection with the coal seam, and a section here would be very similar to the Coal Valley section, except the sandstone above spoken of.

Along the banks of Geneseo creek, a little south-west of the city of Gen- eseo, there is a very curious outcrop of stone, which has been worked to some extent in former years. The top of the stratum is a sandstone for about two feet in depth. It then gradually changes into a blue, compact, or dark-colored

*We think Mr. Shaw has here confounded two distinct heds of sandstone, that at Camden being below the main coal seam. instead of above it. The sandstone above the coal Is a much more durable, and Is generally a harder rock than the bed below.

tThls sandstone overlles coal 5 or 6 and Is at least one hundred and fifty feet above elther of the beds out- cropping in the vicinity of Camden, Moline or Carbon Cliff.

A. H. W.

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GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HENRY COUNTY.

limestone, having a nodular or concretionary appearance. The whole rests on several feet of compact, hardened carbonaceous mud. But the most curious deposit in this interesting locality is a thin stratum of "cone in cone," outcrop- ping in the yellow clay, several feet above the top of the sandstone. The stratum is from two to four inches thick, has a woody or fibrous texture, the grain running vertical to the plane of stratification; on being dug from the ground it falis into small blocks, having the appearance of wood split from a thin section of a large tree. In one or two of the low, rain-washed hills in that vicinity, I noticed this same outcrop, with no signs of the underlying rocks. Large quantities of this " cone in cone" have been gathered up for cabinets. Its resemblance to petrifactions of wood is very complete.

The Coal Seams .- In the northwestern part of the county there is one heavy coal seam, well developed, and worked to a large extent. In the south- eastern part of the county, and extending up through its central portion, there are two seams, the lower of which is largely mined. Commencing with the former, and at the outcrop highest up Rock River, within the county limits, we find ourselves at Aldrich's mine, on Section 24, Township 18, Range 2 east. The coal is here about four feet six inches thick. It is overlaid by a few inches of dark shale, and this is in turn capped by the thin stratum of black limestone, spoken of above. A bed of ordinary fire clay lies under the coal. The mine is opened into the point of a hill, up a wooded, romantic ravine, about one-half mile from Rock River, which here washes the base of the bluffs. A steam engine pumps out the water, and draws the coal cars up an inclined plane. The drift extends toward the south at a heavy dip near its opening. The mine has been worked for many years. The coal is a bright, moderately hard, thin- seamed coal, with carbonaceous clod between the seams, and vertical markings of carbonate of lime in the perpendicular openings. The following analysis shows its composition :

Specific gravity

I 261

Loss in coking.

-43.1

Total weight of coke

56.9

100.0

ANALYSIS.

Moisture

6.0

Volatile matters 37.1

Carbon in coke 49.9

Brown Ash 7.0

100.0

This analysis was made for the state by Mr. Pratten, I believe, and gives the general character of the coal in the northwestern part of the county. An approximate section at this coal mine gives about the following figures :

Drift clays of bluffs, light color. -50 to 70 feet. 2

Dark, shelly limestone

Shale and black slate 6 inches.

Coal (No. 1) 41/2 feet.

Fire clay.

All above the water level of the river.

Half a mile below Aldrich's mine is the drift of Messrs. Johnson & Kent. The upper part and outer edges of the seam here pass into a very solid, shining cannel coal, with smooth surface and conchoidal fracture. Messrs. Johnson & Kent believe the seam is not identical with the one worked at Aldrich's mine. The roof is of soapstone and shale, and there are some indications of two seams, ten or twelve feet apart, but approaching each other under the hill. There is,

107

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HENRY COUNTY.

evidently, some local displacement here, and probably a local separation of the seam, such as is witnessed occasionally in working the Coal Valley seam.

'The next important workable locality is at Cleveland. Here, most of the coal is quarried, not mined, The surface deposits are stripped off, exposing the seam, which is from four and a half to five and a half feet thick. The quality of the coal is similar to that at Coal Valley, except that it is a little better. The ash is not so red, in fact it is almost white, and this is probably the better steam coal.

SECTION AT CLEVELAND, FROM THE TOP OF ROCK RIVER BLUFFS.

I. Bluff clays of the drift - 50 to 60 feet.

2. Whitish-brown, coarse sandstone 20 " 25

3. Gravel bed of ochre color. 2 5

4. Carbonaceous black shale. 3

5. Black limestone. 2

6. Coal seam 5

7. Fire clay. 12

8. Hamilton limestone. Bottom.

Three or four mines are being worked in close proximity to each other. Taylor Williams has a steam engine in operation, and he both strips the seam and runs slanting drifts into it. Mr. Stokes and Mr. Jefferson Taylor also mine to some extent. The basin or hollow, between the two uplifts of the Hamilton limestone, in which this Cleveland coal seam is found, is narrow at the place where the mines are worked, being only a few hundred rods wide, and coming to almost a point in the bed of Rock River. The coal seam widens out towards the south, but becomes thin where it runs under the river bluffs. Still farther southi, and about two and a half miles from the Cleveland coal quarries, is the Green River Valley, which intersects the Rock River Valley a few miles below. This Green River Valley, for several miles round Colona, is all underlaid by the Cleveland coal seam. The south slope of the bluff range between Rock River and Green River at this place, where prospected by borings, also shows the seam or traces of it, at many places. The same seam outcrops and is mined extensively on Mineral Creek farther south, and at Coal Valley, southwest a few miles. On the Green River bottom -the underlying rock -the cap of the coal seam is from seventeen to twenty feet below the surface. The seam at Cleveland furnishes one ton and a half of coal to the superficial square yard of its surface. The section there made will give a general idea of the Coal Measures on Mineral Creek, farther south, and for the rest of the northwestern part of the county. No two sections, of course, would be exactly alike ; but the resemblance would be very marked.

The superficial extent of coal lands, underlaid by this coal seam, extend- ing from Cleveland around by Mineral Creek, Minersville, Coal Valley, and Green River Valley, so far as now prospected, contains perhaps some forty thousand acres. On a railroad and coal land map, made by the chief engineer of the railroad about to be built along Rock River, some fourteen sections and parts of sections, are marked as underlaid by coal in Township 17, Range 2 East; in Township 17, Range I East, some twenty-two sections and parts of sections are similarly marked; in Township 17, Range I West, some ten 'sections and parts of sections, are marked as containing coal underneath ; in Township 16, Range I West, five or six sections are similiarly marked; in the same township and range east, three sections are coal lands ; in Township 18, Range 2 East, some ten more sections are supposed to be underlaid partially by coal. These east ranges are in Henry County ; the west ones are in Rock Island County. The Cleveland mines are in Township 18, Range 2 East. Other sections will, no doubt, be found containing coal in this vicinity. Of course, all the above marked coal lands are not underlaid by heavy coal deposits. Wherever coal or its traces were detected by the

108

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HENRY COUNTY.

engineer in charge - Mr. J. C. Abbott, to whom I am under many obligations, for favors extended - the same was marked coal lands on the map. My own personal examinations confirm the general correctness of this map.

The following worked mines in this coal field should not be passed over without notice. On or between Sections 17 and 18, Township 17, Range 2 East, Mr. Shepherd is successfully operating several shafts; on Section 22, Township 17, Range I East, Perry's mine is also now in successful operation ; Glen's mine, on Section 20, in the same town and range, and some mines on Section 21, Township 17, Range I East, now are or have been successfully worked. The seam is from four to six feet thick in this group of mines. It has an easterly dip, and appears to be lower at Shepherd's mines than at the mines of Mr. Perry.

In one of these mines, where a drift is driven into the seam, the coal is separated into two bodies, the upper three feet thick, the lower two feet, sep- arated at the outcrop by seven feet of clay parting. These two parts of the seam approach each other under the hill, and unite in a distance of about six hundred feet.

Shepherd's mines are located about two miles south of Green River Station, on the railroad. He is operating two shafts, and driving one drift mine. The shafts are sunk near the base of Mineral Creek bluffs. The roof here is stone, same as at Cleveland. The shafts are about sixty feet deep. The coal seam is thickest on bottom or low land, and thins when followed under the hills, same as at Cleveland. One shaft is operated by a steam engine, one by a gin; both have what the miners call a "sump" in the bottom, for convenience in lift- ing water out of the mines. The drift is an inclined plane, extending from the surface to the level of the coal. The heavy, overlaying sandstone is higher above the coal than at Cleveland. The shafts and drifts both extend into the same seam. The coal is supposed to be stronger and duller in color than that mined at Cleveland. In Shepherd's mines there is a black shale in places below the coal.

At Minersville, the mining was all done by driving drifts into the seam from and near its outcrops. These mines are well worked out. Others may be found, when the demand for coal becomes greater. The competition, at the present time, between Cleveland and Minersville coal on the one hand, and Coal Valley coal on the other, is spirited. The latter has a little, and but little advantage, in the item of transportation to market.

Perry's mines, almost adjoining the latter mines, still furnishes coal in pay- ing quantities. This inine is also reached by drifting into the coal seam. The most noticeable feature here is the basins or "horsebacks," filled with a con- glomeration of nodular masses of clay and sulphuret of iron, which are charac- teristic of this mine. Some of them are several yards in extent.

The seam under Green River and its valley, in the townships above named, contains a great deal of coal; but the roof is poor. This has prevented its being strongly worked.

· From what has been said, it will now be seen that there is a large supply of coal stored away in the northwestern part of Henry County, for the present and for future generations. The mineral resources of this part of the county will not soon be exhausted, but will, as they now are, continue to be a source of wealth and material prosperity to the county.

Another heavy coal deposit lies in the southeastern part of the county about Galva and Kewanee. Between this and the Cleveland and Mineral Creek mines, and over a diagonal strip across the county from the northwest to the southeast corner, which averages from ten to fifteen miles in width, coal has been found in many places. The seams, however, are thinner than at the two corners. Some of the shafts have been abandoned, and some never were worked

109

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HENRY COUNTY.

at all. I propose to briefly notice some of the coal mines discovered in this portion of the county, before describing the important coal mines about Galva and Kewanee.

About one and a half miles northwest of Geneseo, there is an abandoned shaft, where a coal seam from one and a half to three feet thick was found at a depth of about sixty feet. This, I believe, is the old Allen's mine. Indurated clay, limestone and sandstone were all penetrated in sinking the shaft. The coal was of good quality ; bright iridescent in color ; hard, even fracture, and rhomboidal cleavage. The seam was considered too thin for profitable working.

At Atkinson, the next station east of Geneseo, on the Rock Island and Chicago Railroad, the well dug to supply the large steam mill standing near the depot, passed through a seam of coal three feet thick, and twenty feet below the surface. One-half mile east of this well there is a shaft still worked, out of which has been taken about ten thousand bushels of coal. The seam is here three and one-half feet thick, and twenty-two feet below the surface, and is operated by a horse gin. There is in this locality a good slate roof over the coal, ten feet thick, and it is underlaid by a bed of fire clay.

About four miles northwest of Cambridge, in the Township of Oscoe, Mr. A. A. Crane has put down a coal shaft, striking a seam from thirty-two to thirty- six inches thick, at a depth of eighty-seven feet. The seam appears to thin out towards the north and thicken towards the south.

On the farm of Samuel Dixon, in Munson Township, eight miles east of Cambridge, coal is mined to some extent, the seam being the same as at Atkin- son, and twenty-four feet below the surface. Two miles south of Cambridge, a shaft was being put down, when I was there. A boring previously made was reported to have indicated coal, at a depth which I do not now remember.

Coal is mined in this vicinity about Round Grove, equally distant east from Cambridge and north from Galva, and in considerable quantities. It is hauled in wagons to Cambridge and over the surrounding prairies, and thus finds a ready market at the mines.

In a few more places over this broad strip of country between Cleveland and Kewanee, coal has been discovered; but sufficient has been said to indi- cate the general character of the seams here mined. I come now to the most extensively worked locality in the county, and perhaps the heaviest deposit of coal within its limits. Galva and Kewanee, both in the southeastern corner of the county, but a few miles apart, are widely known as coal-mining localities ; but at the latter place the mines are worked to much the greatest extent. Five or six shafts are put down at Galva, known as the shafts of Messrs. Knox & Co., Cummings, Johnson, Lindsey and Barnum. The following section, made at one of them, illustrates the character of all. They are in a group, within a radius of a mile or two, and are as much alike as coal shafts usually are, pene- trating the same seam, and put down near together through essentially the same formations and superficial deposits.

SECTION OF GALVA COAL MINES.

I. Yellowish drift clay 32 feet.

2. Hard rock, bottom softer and sandy I2

3. Soapstone, top light color, bottom dark color 14

1. Black or dark colored slate 2

5 . Coal, with clay seams No. 6 4

6. Fire clay, about 9

The coal here is of good quality, and similar to the Kewanee coal. The seam is probably identical with coal No. 6, of the general section of the Illinois Coal Measures. At Galva the clay and shale partings are not so well marked as at other points, and at some of the shafts indications of cannel coal may be seen along the top of the seam.

110

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HENRY COUNTY.

At Kewanee, much capital is employed in the coal mining business. Dur- ing the past year (1867) fifty-three thousand tons were raised here, of which thirty-two thousand were shipped on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Rail- road to various points, fourteen thousand were used by the railroad company, and seven thousand were used for home consumption in Kewanee and neighbor- hood. The revenue thence derived, amounted, during the year, to over one hundred and forty thousand dollars. The productive mines are within a radius of three miles north and east of the town. Within this small area, some eight shafts have been put down, and twenty drifts driven in. The shafts are sunk from the general level or face of the country; the drifts are driven upon the out- crops in some deep ravines, passing up from a good-sized brook three or four miles north of the town. The face of the cotintry, among these mines, is rough, and covered with a scattering growth of barren oak timber.

The shafts are operated by the following companies and individuals: The Platt Coal Company, Messrs. Walker & Co., Breckens & King, McCartey & Kirby, K. Murchison, J. C. Bowerman, H. Martin, W. S. Carnly, and one or two others of less note. Of these the Platt Coal Mining Company, whose mine embraces about one thousand acres of land, located one mile east of the village, does by far the largest business, and by some arrangement handles and markets all the coal dug in all the mines in this vicinity. Their shaft is near the railroad track, and they have a very convenient mode of loading the coal into the cars. At the depot, there is also a large elevator-shaped building, used for the purpose of feeding passing locomotives with their supplies of coal. A section of these mines, made at the Platt Coal Company's shaft, is as follows :

I. Soil, subsoil and yellow clay 5 feet.

2. Oily looking quicksand .. 20

3 . Soapstone, light and dark color 25 ..

4. Upper coal seam No. 7 2 1/2

5. Fire clay. IO

6. Soapstone ?

7. Sandstone, same as at Galva. 30

8. Middle coal seam No. 6 4 1/2

9. Alternating soapstone and sandstone 80

IO. Carbonaceous shales and coal traces (No. 4 ?). A few inches.

The four and a half foot vein is the same as the Galva seam, and is, prob- ably, identical with the upper seam at La Salle, and with coal No. 6 of the general section of the State. The upper seam, some forty-two and a half feet above the lower, is perhaps No. 7 of the same section. The lower eighty feet of the foregoing section was prospected by boring an artesian well in the bottom of the Coal Company's shaft, and ought to be regarded with some doubt as to whether it shows correctly the indications of coal in the bottom. The bed of quicksand or shifting sand, No. 2 of above section, was struck near the depot, in a shaft now abandoned.

The supply of coal at Kewanee and vicinity is very large, and will not become exhausted for many years. Newly discovered mines will replace those worked out, and the revenue derived from this deposit of mineral wealth will build Kewanee into a place of consequence.

In Norwood's report upon Illinois coal, I find a description and analysis of cannel and bituminous coal, taken from the same seam, at a place then called " Serrell's Mine," which it may be well to insert, in this place, for convenience of reference :

SERRELL'S MINE, KEWANEE.

" Thickness of the bituminous portion of the bed, four feet, underlaid with fire clay. Coal bright and dull in alternating layers ; hard, compact fracture tolerably even. Contains thick seams of carbonate of lime, which cross each other at nearly right angles, causing the coal to break into slightly irregular cubes. Has sulphuret of iron disposed both horizontally and verti-

111

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HENRY COUNTY. 3 1

cally. The layers of coal are thick and separated with carbonaceous clod. Coke very bright and good, but swells in coking.

Specific gravity 1.232

Loss in coking

42.2

Total weight of coke

57.8

ANALYSIS.

100.0

Moisture

9.0

Volatile matter

33.2

Carbon in coke

52.8

Ashes (gray)

5.0

Carbon in the coal.

52.2

CANNEL COAL IN SAME SEAM.

Thickness of the bed from eight inches to one foot ; overlaid with black slate ; underlaid with four feet of bituminous coal. No analysis of this coal has yet been made ; but judging from its texture and general appearance, it does not differ from the Wataga cannel coal. The coal is dull, hard, compact ; fracture slightly conchoidal ; layers thick ; contains bright, yellow, vertical plates of sulphuret of iron."

NOTE .- While engaged during the past Spring In examining the coal deposits of Rock Island, I was indneed to extend my examinations Into Henry County, In part to coufirm observations previously made In adjoining territory, and partly to satisfy myself as to the general development of our workable coal scams along the north western confines of the Illinois coal field.

Commencing at the north west corner of the county, coal No. 1 of the Illlnols River section is opened and worked at various points in the bluffs of Rock and Green Rivers, as at Cleveland and near Colona, as shown by Mr. Shaw. In the sections given ou the preceding pages, and It presents the same general characters here as at Carbon Cliff, Coal Valley, and other points In Rock Island County. It is overlaid by a peculiar dark-gray sillclons limestone, and His accompanylug band of flint or chert, that enables any one to Identify It without difficulty. This seam is worked by the Messrs. Perry, at Briar Bluff, gear Green River, In Henry County, by a tunnel driven Into the hill side. The coal Is somewhat varlable In tinckhess, and Is sometimes cut off altogether by what the mluers term a "horse-back." About loity fect below the coal the shaly limestones of the Hamilton group outerop but a short distance to the northward of the mulnes. A curlons phenomenon was observed at ilese nincs in a remarkable gcode-like cavern or pocket, occurring partly in the coal, and extend- Ing Into the five clay beneath. The cavity was ovate In shape, and about ten feet long by five feet In width and two or three feet In deptht, and surrounded by a solid crust. The luclosed cavity was filled with water and gas, and when the pick broke though the ernst an explosion followed like the firing of a blast. On breaking into the cavity It was found to be thilekly set with magnificent crystals of dogtoollt calclte, from six to eighteen Inches lu length, the points all directed towards the center of the cavity like the crystals on the inner surface of a gende. Unfortunately many of these fine crystals were broken up and destroyed In removing them ; but a few were preserved, and I was fortunate In securlog some of them for the State Cabinet.

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History of Henry county, Illinois : it's taxpayers and voters, 1877, Part 11

Author: Publication date: 1877 Publisher: Chicago : H. F. Kett Number of Pages: 604

Author:
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Chicago : H. F. Kett
Number of Pages: 604