USA > Illinois > Jersey County > History of Jersey County, Illinois > Part 3
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Gray shale, partially exposcd, west of Brighton. 10 feet
Compact brownish-gray limestone. 6 feet
Brown calcareous shale . 3 feet
Green and blue argillaceous shiales 8 to 10 feet
Coal No. 6. 21/2 to 3 feet
Shaly clay 11/2 feet
Calcareous shale 6 feet
Clay shale 8 to 10 feet
Limestone and bituminous shale. .3 feet
Coal No 5. 3 to 4 feet
Shaly fine clay. 1 to 2 feet
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
Nodular argillaceous limestone. 4 feet
Gray shales 30 feet
Bituminous, probably representing the horizon of coal No. 3 4 feet
Sandstone and shale 40 to 50 feet
Coal No. 1. 2 to 3 feet
Clay shale .3 feet
Nodular dark blue limestone. 3 to 5 feet
Shale and sandstone 10 to 20 feet
The upper beds of this section, including the two upper coal seams, can be seen in one locality near the town of Brighton. The coal beds in the state of Illinois are numbered from one to twelve, commencing with the lower seam which is known as No. 1. In the rocks, in immediate connection with each one of these coal seams, are certain fossils that are peculiar to them, generally in the shale, limestone or sandstone that form the roof over the coal. By these fossils, with which anyone can with a little study become familiar, the position and proper horizon of each coal vein is ascertained.
BRIGHTON COAL VEINS
The two coal veins near Brighton, on the eastern side of the county, are known by the associating fossils as Nos. 5 and 6 in the series of veins in the great coal fields in the state. These are the best workable beds in the state, being the greatest in thickness, and furnishing the most valuable coal.
These two beds both crop out along the eastern portion of the county, and are separated by twenty to thirty feet of shales. They are both underlaid by a calcareous clay shale, passing into limestone. The lower bed is overlaid by a brown limestone, which sometimes forms the roof immediately over the coal, or is separated from it by a thin bed of bituminous shale. The coal bed No. 5 furnishes most of the coal mined in the county, as it does in the state. It no doubt underlies the greater part of townships 7 and 8, in range 10, and may be found still further west, but so near its outcropping edges its presence is uncertain.
COAL SEAM NEAR DELHI
Coal beds Nos. 2, 3 and 4 of the series seem to be wanting in Jersey County : at least we have failed to find any evidence of their presence.
JOHN R. AYLWARD, JR. (In U. S. Army)
THOMAS F. AYLWARD (Home Guards)
JAMES AYLWARD (In U. S. Army)
,
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
There is, however, a third coal seam exposed on the Piasa Creek, near Delhi. This coal seam has been opened at various localities along the banks of the creek, and varies in thickness from two to three feet, and is overlaid by a few inches of bituminous shale, which passes upward into a brown clay shale. It is underlaid by from four to five feet of fire clay and about ten feet of sandy shale and sandstone, which lies directly upon the St. Louis limestone. There is no coal seam below this one, and it is probably the lowest one in the series, and equivalent to No. 1. It is not so good a coal as Nos. 5 and 6.
In sinking a well for a mill in the city of Jerseyville, a few feet of micaceous sandstone was passed through which in all probability belongs to the coal measures. The rocks exposed in the streams north of Jersey- ville belong below the coal measures. The irregular borders of the forma- tion, without doubt, run in a northeast direction from the city. There is plenty of coal in Jersey County for the future use of the inhabitants. Its easy access, on account of being near the surface, and consequent ,small outlay for sinking shafts, should make it very cheap to the con- sumer. Better roads will bring it nearer to the markets.
CHESTER LIMESTONE
Passing below the coal measures we come directly upon the lower or subcarboniferous rocks. In several places about the head branches of Otter Creek are exposed thin outlines of the Chester group. It is not perhaps more than fifteen feet thick. On a branch of Otter Creek, near Beaty's Mound, there is a stratum of white sandstone, three or four feet thick; below this several feet of thin-bedded sandstone is seen, which rests on the St. Louis limestone. The sandstone, which, however, is really a siliceous limestone, contains many beautiful fossils, among which are Retzia vera and Athyrus ambigua, familiar forms in the Chester group. At Cooper's quarries, three miles southwest of Jersey- ville, the same beds are partly changed into a brown, ferruginous, shaly sandstone, in which are curious nodules of good iron ore. In this forma- tion we found several beautiful pentremites, with a triangular base, and of an undetermined species.
ST. LOUIS LIMESTONE
This formation seems generally to be the underlying rock along the outcropping edges of the coal measures. It has a considerable de-
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
velopment through the central portion of the county, and its maximum thickness reaches from 100 to 150 feet. This rock, from its central position, is more generally used than any other rock in the county for building purposes. It has the greatest development on the Piasa, and thins out in the northern part of the county until it is not more than about thirty feet thick north of Jerseyville. There are many good quarries on the Piasa, and the abutments of the railroad bridge across that stream are built of this rock from quarries in the vicinity. There are excellent quarries both south and west of Beaty's Mound on Otter Creek, and about three miles southwest of Jerseyville.
It is the underlying rock beneath the city of Jerseyville, and is sometimes reached in digging deep wells in that locality. Magnificent quarries of this rock are worked in the cities of Alton and St. Louis. In both places it is the same rock that is used in the manufacture of lime.
In the lower part of this formation in Jersey County there is a bluish, dove-colored hydraulic limestone, which is so soft in some places as to have the appearance of a bed of blue clay. It outcrops on the Piasa near its mouth, where there is a manufactory for making cement. It is simply burned in a kiln to deprive the stone of water, and then ground into flour. It makes an excellent article of cement, which, mixed by water with two-thirds its bulk of clean sand, will soon harden into a body having almost the consistency and firmness of rock.
The bed worked at the hydraulic mills on the Piasa, is eight feet in thickness. Overlying the hydraulic limestone is a brownish mag- nesian limestone, in which are found Orthis dubia, Spirifor lateralis, and a beautiful little pentremite peculiar to the formation.
This hydraulic limestone seems to be present wherever the St. Louis limestone is found in the county. Beds of it are exposed near Beaty's Mound, and it underlies the city of Jerseyville, where we have seen it brought up from the bottom of wells that were less than 100 feet in depth. The western limits of the St. Louis group of rocks in Jersey County, could form an irregular line from the Mississippi about mid- way between the mouth of the Piasa and the town of Elsah, north, one mile west of Beaty's Mound, thence to the Macoupin Creek. Five miles above Grafton, the St. Louis limestone is found, forming a part of the river bluff. It is not, however, in its original position, but seems to have been thrown down by the dislocation of the original strata caused by the upheaval of the Cap Au Grey axis, which crosses the Illinois River a short distance above. These rocks at Dinsmore's lime kiln
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
resemble the upper beds at Alton, and make excellent lime. This group of rock will at some future day be a great source of revenue to the people of the county. The wealth treasured up in these quarries does not at present seem to be realized. A deposit of hydraulic limestone is a great treasure to any county.
Mines of both iron and lead are worked in the St. Louis group in Hardin County, in the southeastern part of the state, but in this county we have seen no indications of any mineral of value.
KEOKUK LIMESTONE
This group underlies the St. Louis limestone, and has a thickness in the county of about 150 feet.
It is generally thin-bedded, seldom affording strata more than a foot in thickness. Almost the entire thickness of these rocks can be seen in the Mississippi bluffs above the mouth of the Piasa Creek. Fine ex- posures are also to be seen on Otter Creek and its affluents, between Jerseyville and Grafton. The rocks on Otter Creek at the iron bridge, for half a mile above and a mile below, belong to this group; it is also exposed on the Macoupin, northwest of Jerseyville. The rocks of this group are not near so valuable as the St. Louis limestone, being shaly, thin-bedded, easily broken, and liable to crumble on exposure. It was formerly used to some extent in walling cellars and wells, for which purpose, as well as for small foundation walls, it answers very well.
One peculiarity of this group of rocks, is its beds of geodes, which occur in the shaly limestone strata, sometimes so thickly dispersed as to press against each other. These geodes or siliceous globes or spheres, are from half an inch to a foot and a half in diameter. Many of them are hollow spheres of quartz, calcite, dolomite, gypsum, aragonite, pyrites, pearl spar, silicate of alumina, and many other minerals in a crystaline form. It is said that there is no formation in the state that presents such attractive and interesting specimens of crystalized minerals as are to be found in the geode beds of the Keokuk limestone. On some of the branches of Otter Creek after a severe rain storm, hundreds of these geodes can be seen lying loose in the bed of the stream. The Keokuk group of rocks is noted for its fossils and the beds of this formation in this county are rich with the remains of ancient life. Fossil shells, corals, encrinites and bryozoans of many beautiful and varied forms are abundant. Among the fossil shells, the most abundant are Spirifer Keokuk, Spirifer cuspidatus, Productus punctatus and Platy-
2
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
ceras equilatera. Of the corals, the most abundant are Zaphrentis Dalii, Sphenopotera. Of the bryozoans, the curious screw-shaped Archimedes Owenana is the most common. A familiar acquaintance with the specific character of the above named fossils, will enable anyone to identify the Keokuk rocks wherever they may be observed. Forty-eight species of fossil fishes have been determined from this group, and are figured in the state reports.
In some other part of the state this rock forms a good building stone. The "Mormon Temple," built at Nauvoo, at one time the most imposing building in the state, was entirely constructed of this stone.
BURLINGTON LIMESTONE
This group of rocks lies below the Keokuk limestone, from which it is separated in this county by cherty layers of considerable thickness, and which form beds of passage from one limestone formation to an- other. On a farm in Otter Creek, a good section of this chert bed, some twenty feet in thickness, can be seen with the overlying Keokuk beds, and between in the ravines and river bluffs north and west of Fieldon.
Among the numerous fossils, those characteristic and generally seen are Euomphalus latus, Spirifer Grimesi, Orthis Michelini, with Actino- crinus turbanatus and many beautiful and singular crinoids.
The Burlington rocks forming the bluffs on the Mississippi River in this county, form perpendicular cliffs nearly 200 feet high. These being capped by forty to fifty feet of Loess, make the entire elevation from 225 to 250 feet high. From the river they present a picturesque and beautiful appearance, the whole formation being weathered and worn into straight columns and buttresses that at a distance have the appear- ance of being the ruins of some old feudal castle, with towers and bastions, and buttressed walls; indeed the early French voyageurs who first ex- plored the Mississippi, on first catching sight of the picturesque bluffs at a distance, mistook them for ruins of great habitations made by human hands. Father Marquette in his diary speaks enthusiastically of their picturesque beauty, when first beheld by white men.
KINDERHOOK LIMESTONE
This formation forms the basis of the Lower Carboniferous lime- stone series in this county, and rests directly on shales belonging to the Devonian epoch. Between Elsah and Grafton where this group is
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
exposed in the bluff, it seems to be about 100 feet in thickness. It con- sists of thin-bedded ash-colored, impure earthy limestone, with an occa- sional heavy layer of dolomitic limestone. At Grafton, in the hollow up which the road runs to the north, the formation is represented by fifty feet or more of gray, impure limestone, sometimes magnesian, with marly partings between the beds. These beds contain nodules of crystal- ized carbonate of lime, with a siliceous crust, resembling geodes in appearance, but containing no cavity within. At Grafton, in the Kin- derhook, which overlies the upper quarries, there is a heavy-bedded, bluish compact limestone, called by Professor Swallow, in Missouri, litho- graphic limestone, from the general resemblance to the celebrated German stone used in lithography. The Missouri lithographie limestone in all probability occupies the same horizon as those compact beds of the Kinderhook in this county. This rock breaks with a smooth, conoidal fracture, and from its compactness and fine texture no doubt would receive a high polish. Fossils are found in this group, but not in such abundance as in the Keokuk and Burlington. Some beds of the Kinder- hook furnish good building stone, and no doubt some of the strata would make good lime.
BLACK SLATE
The Devonian system is not very extensively developed in this county, the whole extent not exceeding forty or fifty feet. It is divided into two groups, the first of which is known by the name of Black slate.
This group comprises a series of dark-blue, green, or chocolate colored shales, which pass locally into a black bituminous shale, from which it derives its name, which was given it by the early investigators of western geology.
In the deep hollow, going north from Grafton, this formation can be seen on the eastern slope, of a deep-blue color, and somewhat re- sembles the hydraulic limestone in the St. Louis, but is without its constituents, being a shale. In the same hollow the black slate changes its local color from blue to a greenish, brownish-hued shale. In Graham's Hollow, five miles northwest of Grafton, this formation is a black shale, highly bituminous. On Otter Creek, near the bluffs, in the lateral branches, are fine exposures of this formation. These black shales have a resemblance in color to coal, and at a distance had very much the appearance of an outcropping seam of bituminous coal. This has led many people to believe that coal existed in the vicinity, and much search
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
has been made, and money and time expended uselessly. Almost every coal miner who has visited the localities where the black shale is ex- posed, has been decided in his opinion relative to the presence of coal in the vicinity. Coal miners generally have a very limited knowledge of geology.
This formation occupies the horizon of the great oil producing zone of Ohio and Pennsylvania, but the bituminous beds in this county are not thick enough to promise any considerable yield of oil. The ex- posures of this formation extend in this county only from Grafton to the mouth of Otter Creek, the lines of the outcropping groups becoming · shorter and more narrow as we approach the center of the upheaval.
HAMILTON LIMESTONE
This group also belongs to the Devonian, and together with the Black slate comprises all the deposits of that system in the county. It may be proper to state here, that the scarcity of fossils from the Black slate makes it questionable whether it belongs to the Lower Carboniferous series, or to the Devonian. There seems to be a plain line between the Black slate and the Hamilton group; indeed the line of demarcation is more clearly observable than between the black slate and the Kinderhook. There is found a Lingula in the Black slate that is identical with a Lin- gula found in the Devonian in other states, and its stratographical posi- tion would seem to place it in the Devonian.
The Hamilton limestone furnishes many fossils characteristic of the Devonian system. A thin strata of the group exposed in Graham's Hollow, a few miles northwest of Grafton, is literally made of the fossil inhabitants of that old Devonian sea. Some of these fossils are very per- fect. Slabs of this fossiliferous strata make beautiful cabinet specimens. In some of the deep ravines, near the mouth of Otter Creek, many of these fossils are weathered out, and can be picked up from among the debris.
In this locality corals are seen in remarkable profusion, being at one time possibly a coral reef in the shallow Devonian ocean. The fossils most characteristic of the Devonian rocks of Jersey and Calhoun counties is a coral of the genus Heliophyllum, of which there is one or more unde- scribed species. These Heliophyllum are called by some of the local collectors, "petrified cows," and in fact they greatly resemble a short, thick, curved cow's horn.
The Hamilton in this locality is almost merged into a sandstone, is
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
quite soft, and the fossils are quite easily weathered out, making the vicinity a most excellent one for collecting cabinet specimens.
The Hamilton group is exposed in a narrow belt in the ravines and crceks between Grafton and the mouth of Otter Creek. It is not more than ten to fifteen feet in thickness in the county.
In Graham's Hollow, a few miles from Grafton, this formation is saturated with petroleum. Upon taking a portion of the rock, freshly broken from the bed, it has the smell of coal oil, and the petroleum can be scen filling the cavities in the rock. At two or three points in this locality borings have been made through the Black slate, Hamilton lime- stone, and some distance into the Niagara rocks below, in search of coal oil, but no paying quantities were discovered. These rocks are, however, in the same horizon as the petroleum districts of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The unmistakable presence of petroleum in the upheaval and outcrop- ping edges of this system, in its limited exposure in this county, is sig- nificant at least. All the rocks of the county have a strong inclination downward towards the northeast, on account of the upheaval mentioned at the beginning of this paper. If these rocks were tapped by boring on the east side of the county, where the rocks lie conformable and in a horizontal position, who knows but that coal oil may be found in quan- tities ?
NIAGARA LIMESTONE
Underlying the Devonian system of rocks in Jersey County is the Niagara group of the Upper Silurian system. This group of rocks is important, from the great value of its material as a building stone. This formation is well exposed in the deep hollows and ravincs, from the mouth of Otter Creek to the town of Grafton, where it forms the prin- cipal part of the bluff on the Mississippi. A mile below Grafton it disappears beneath the bed of the river, and we believe is scen no more in northern Illinois. It has thickness in this county of about 120 or 125 fcet, and is a buff-colored dolomitic limestone, in regular beds, which vary in thickness from four inches to three feet. At Grafton the group is very even bedded, and dimension rock, almost any required size, can be easily obtained from the quarries, which are situated directly on the bank of the Mississippi River, with the very best shipping facilities. The rock has a firm, even texture, cuts easily when freshly quarried, and can be readily worked into forms for ornamental purposes. It hardens on exposure, and is remarkably free from chert or deleterious material.
·
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
A chemical analysis of the rock gives the following result :
.
Carbonate of lime 50.15
Carbonate of Magnesia. 42.20
Peroxide of iron and alumina 2.10
Insoluble inatter 5.15
Loess .40
100.00
Beautiful fossils are found in the quarries at Grafton, the most abundant of which is a trilobite, Calymanbachii, and a large multivalve shell, Orchoceras annulatum. There are six or seven species of these curious crustaceans, known as trilobites, some of them very large. There are also several species of orthoceras, with bivalve shells, crinoids, and corals. These fossils, especially the trilobites, are found in great per- fection, apparently in the exact positions as when living; in some in- stances a mark is left behind them, apparently the track of their travels, the whole indicating sudden death.
The crevices and apertures, caused by the shrinkage in the strata in this formation, often contain the most beautiful stalactites, or a beau- tiful encrustation of stalagmite on the floors and sides of the caverns. Fine crystals of calcite are frequently met with. This formation con- tains the most valuable building stone to be found in the state, and from the fact of the quarries being situated near the river, with the best of shipping facilities, ought to and will be a source of wealth to their owners some day. Some of the finest buildings erected at St. Louis had their walls made from stone taken from the Grafton quarries; not- ably among those buildings were the Lindell and Southern hotels.
CINCINNATI LIMESTONE
This group of the Lower Silurian system is represented in this county by forty or fifty feet of argillaceous shales. It appears to be mainly a soft, bluish, clay shale, that weathers on exposure about where it outerops, to a pure clay, that apparently might be suitable for a potter's clay. This clay has somewhat the appearance of some of the fire clays of the coal measures, but has not the same consistency. This clay is filled with innumerable, small lancet-shaped crystals of gypsum, ·or phosphate of lime. Many of these crystals are double ; some are half an inch in length, perfectly transparent, and exactly resemble the point of a physician's lance. Many of the crystals are found adhering to-
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
gether, forming variously complicated groups. Great numbers of these crystals are seen wherever we have seen these clay shales weathering out in the county. No analysis of these crystals or the clay has ever been made, to our knowledge. They may prove to be of commercial value.
Owing to the soft argillaceous nature of these shales, good exposures are not often seen, they being generally covered up with debris from the bluffs or soil.
The outcrop extends from Mason's Landing, or Upper Grafton, where the blue clay is exposed at the base of the old quarry back of the mill, to within a short distance of Coon Creek. In Graham's Hollow and the adjoining ravines, at the base of the bluff at Wheeler's Ferry, are good exposures of this formation.
Although this formation furnishes characteristic fossils in adjoin- ing counties, we have found but few in Jersey, enough, however, to know it occupies the same horizon.
TRENTON LIMESTONE
This group of the Lower Silurian rocks has a limited outcrop in the county. It is well exposed on the farm of S. P. Dinsmore, and extends in a northeast direction less than a mile, and is mostly confined to section 9, township 6, range 13. Forty to fifty feet of this formation is to be seen in this locality.
The rock is thin-bedded, compact, and of a light gray or white color, splitting easily, with uneven cleavage. It has been quarried and burned for lime, of which it makes a good quality, but not equal to that made from the St. Louis limestone. It is filled with the peculiar and char- acteristic fossils of the Lower Silurian age. Among those most familiar are Orthis testudinaria, Spirifer lynx, Strophomena alternata, S. del- toidea, two or three species of Pleuromaria, Orthocertites, and a large species of Receptaculites, or "sunflower coral," with remains of trilo- bites and crinoidea.
A good collector, might in a few hours, gather quite a collection of the fossil remains of the inhabitants of that ancient world represented in the old Lower Silurian seas.
The Trenton limestone is the oldest formation of which the little county of Jersey can boast. We have traveled over the edges of the upheaved strata from the coal measures to the Lower Silurian. The halfcircling limits of these exposures were growing more narrow as we
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HISTORY OF JERSEY COUNTY
approached the center, until we could stand on the bluff of the Trenton limestone and easily see all the Lower Silurian in the county.
A collection, comprising a good specimen of all the rocks in the county with their accompanying fossil remains, would be of great in- terest to whoever should behold it. The little county has hidden away beneath her fertile soil an undeveloped wealth that but few realize. These natural resources are unequaled by any in the state or in the west, on account of their easy accessibility and nearness to market, as well as their great variety and adaptability for different purposes.
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