USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. I > Part 2
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SURFACE GEOLOGY RELATED TO NATURAL WEALTH
The geological formations exposed in Adams County comprise the lower carboniferous limestone about 300 feet in thickness, 100 feet of the lower part of the coal series and deposits of a more recent age. Outside the field of science-in other words, to the average person- the last named are of more interest and importance than the more aged strata which lie deeper and are more solid. Surface geology, which deals with the soils and subsoils from which man draws his physical life and wealth, explains the origin and properties of nature's raw material from which are evolved through her mysterious processes
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guided by the cunning mind and hand of man, those many forms of vegetation which are at the basis of human existence.
These invaluable contributions by nature inelude the surface soil and the subsoil of the nplands, in Adams County; the alluvial deposits of the river valleys; the Loess along the Mississippi bluffs; the drift proper, including all the thick beds of unstratified elay and gravel and inelosing boulders of large size, and the subordinate clays, usually stratified, which rest immediately on the stratified rocks.
ALLUVIAL DEPOSITS
The alluvial deposits of the Mississippi Valley consist of partially stratified sands, alternating with dark bluish-gray, or chocolate-brown elays, deposited by the annual floods of the river. In the vicinity of the bluffs these deposits are annually increased by the wash from the adjacent hills and the sediments that are carried down by the small streams during their overflows.
The Valley of the Mississippi has been excavated in solid limestone strata to the depth of from 150 to 300 feet and from 5 to 10 miles in width; and as we frequently find some portions of the valley still occupied by the beds of unaltered drift material, like that which covers the adjacent highlands, we have evidence that it was not formed by the river, which now, in part, occupies it, but is due to some ageney mueh older and more widespread. It is evident, that the surface of the strati- fied roeks in this portion of the state has been subjected to the pow- erful dennding forees of periods long antedating the deposit of super- fieial materials and soils, as in many localities the rocks have been ent into deep valleys which form the permanent river eonrses, or have been filled with drift.
THIE LOESS
The next older division of this system is the Loess, a term originally applied to a similar formation which caps the bluffs of the Rhine in Germany. In Adams County, it is a deposit of marly sand and elay, ranging in thickness from ten to forty feet. It attains its greatest development where it eaps the river bluffs, thinning rapidly toward the adjacent highlands. The Loess is usually of a light buff brown, or ashen gray color, frequently showing distinct lines of stratifieation and always overlies the drift elays when both are present in the same seetion. It is usually quite sandy on the upper surfaces of the cliffs but as the beds get thinner it becomes ealeareous. The Loess is well exposed in the bluffs at Quiney, where it is forty feet in thickness and overlies some beds of plastic clay and sand. Immediately above the limestone at this locality is a few feet of what is called "local drift," consisting of angular fragments of chert embedded in a brown elay. This is overlaid by a few feet of blue plastie elay and stratified sands on which the Loess is deposited.
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THE REAL DRIFT
The real Drift in Adams County is composed of yellowish-brown or bluish elays, with sand, gravel and large boulders of water-worn rock, the whole mass usually showing little or no trace of stratification, and ranging in thickness from thirty to eighty feet. It is a mass of water-worn fragments of all the stratified roeks that are known to oceur for several hundred miles to the northward, and embedded in brown or blue clays, and most of the boulders are of sandstone, granite and various igneous rock found on the borders of the Great Lakes. Associated with the latter are also smaller and rounded boulders de- rived from the stratified rocks of Illinois and adjacent states. Inter- mingled with these masses are fragments of native copper, lead, coal and iron, which does not indicate that such minerals were ever mined in any near seetion of the country, for they have often been transported hither from far-distant localities by the same powerful agencies to which the Drift itself owes its origin.
The old eoal shaft at Coatsburg penetrated the thiekest bed of drift which has ever been nncovered in Adams County. The sections were of the following thickness: Soil and yellowish elay, 6 feet; bluish- colored elay and gravel, 45 feet; elay, with large boulders, 40 feet ; black soil, 21% feet; clay (stratified), 6 feet; very tough blue elay, 20 feet. The bed thus analyzed contains therefore eighty-five feet of what may be considered true Drift, consisting of unstratified elays intermixed with gravel and boulders. The upper six feet of the forma- tion probably represents the age of the Loess, and its origin is ex- plained by Professor Lesquereaux in his chapter on the formation of the prairies, which will be hereafter noted.
FORMATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE DRIFT
A pause is here taken in the simple deseriptive narrative to dwell somewhat at length on the probable origin of those variegated deposits grouped as Drift, which form the solid basis of the alluvial and surface soils from which spring the germs and finished products of the vegetable world. The greatest agents in the formation and distribution of the Drift and the general modification of the surface of the earth, have been glaciers and ice sheets; and this statement applies with partie- ular signifieance to Illinois. When it is remembered that these iee sheets were hundreds and possibly thousands of feet thiek, and were hundreds of miles in width and length, some adequate idea may be formed of their power to plow up and completely change the surface structure of the earth.
The debris which they brought from the Laurentian Mountains of Canada was distributed over Illinois generally, greatly to the enrichment of its soils. This material, which eventually became the wonderfully productive soil in all the glacial areas, was transported in several ways. Much of it was pushed along mechanically in front of the advancing
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ice-sheet, so that when the forward movement began to be retarded. this material was left scattered along the edges of the advancing body. Much material was carried along under the ice-sheet and was grounded and distributed over the glacial area. Other material, again, was carried to the surface of the ice-sheet, and often deeply inbedded in it. When the movement was finally checked, the superimposed ma- terial becoming heated by the sun, worked its way through the ice and rested on the ground, the whole body of ice eventually melting.
Vast quantities of material were also carried by the streams which continually flowed from the melting ice. Much of the detritus was left on the broad, flat prairies, but much was carried into the streams which overflowed their banks and deposited as alluvium.
The material which these glaciers brought into the State of Illinois, as the basis of her vast material wealth, goes under the general name of Drift. Its composition varies, but its main constituents are clay, sand and boulders. This drift is sometimes found stratified, but more generally is without definite layer formation.
GLACIAL MOVEMENTS AND ICE SHEETS
Without going into details as to authorities, it may be stated that, in North America, there seems to have been three great centers of glacial movement-one known as the Labrador ice sheet; a second called the Kewatin iee sheet, and the third, the Cordilleran ice sheet. The first sheet had its center of movement near the central point of the peninsula of Labrador; the second, near the western shore of Hudson Bay, and the third moved from the Canadian Rockies.
The ice sheet, the center of which rested on the Labrador peninsula, moved northeast, northwest, south and southwest, the movement in the , direction last named starting a large section of the vast body toward what is now the State of Illinois. The Labradorean sheet reached its extreme southern limit in Southern Illinois, some 1,600 miles from the point of departure. The advancing front in Illinois took the form of a gigantic ereseent, and its extreme southern reach, according to the most recent geological surveys, may be traced from Randolph County southeast, through the southern side of Jackson eastward through Southern Williamson, east and northeast through Southeast- ern Saline, northeastward to the Wabash through the northwest corner of Gallatin and Southeastern White. That line also marks the southern limit of the prairie arcas, and is coincident with the northern foot- hills of the Ozark Mountains, which trend east and west across the state through Union, JJohnson, Pope and Hardin.
According to the more recent investigations, Ilinois was subject to at least four ice-sheet invasions. In the order of time, these were (a) the Illinois sheet, which covered nearly the entire state; (by the lowan sheet, moving over the area bounded by the Rock River on the west, Wisconsin on the north, Lake Michigan on the east, and on the
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south by a parallel extended from the southerly bend of that body of water; (c) the Earlier Wisconsin, covering the northeastern fourth of Illinois, and (d) the Later Wisconsin, plowing out the western borders of Lake Michigan and extending some fifty or sixty miles west- ward. The Illinois ice-sheet is the one, obviously, which included Adams County in its operations.
ORIGIN OF THE PRAIRIES
Nothing in the New World was more interesting to the European than the broad prairies between the Mississippi and the Ohio. In 1817 Gov. Edward Coles, then a young man returning from a diplo- matie mission to Russia, stopped in France and England. He was a Virginian, but had traveled through the West and had himself been greatly charmed by the rich grandeur of the prairie lands. The French and the English never tired of his graphie descriptions of them, and among his charmed anditors was Morris Birkbeck, a prosperous tenant farmer of England, who was thereby induced to come to America and settle in Edwards County, Southeastern Illinois. In later years Diekens went into raptures over his first sight of a "western" prairie, revealing his sentiments in his "Notes on America."
When the first French explorers reached the Mississippi Valley, they were amazed at the great sweep of timberless areas, although they originally applied their word, "prairie," to describe the flat bottom lands of the river valleys. Nor is the application of the word to such tracts inappropriate, as it has been shown by geologists that the forma- tion of the prairies of Illinois is identical in character with the formation of the bottom lands along the Mississippi, the Ohio, and other smaller rivers.
When the first settlers came to Illinois country they are said to have found about one-fourth of it timbered and the remainder timber- less, or prairie lands. They designated the largest timberless area the Grand Prairie, and it was virtually limited by the great watershed which divides the basins of the Mississippi and the Ohio. It extends from the northwestern part of Jackson County through Perry, part of Williamson, Washington, Jefferson, Marion, Fayette, Effingham, Coles, Champaign and Iroquois, crosses the Kankakee River and extends to the southern end of Lake Michigan. Adams County was therefore just west of the Grand Prairie, in the broad Mississippi Valley; and therefore of rather a composite nature.
The origin of the prairies has been a debatable question for many decades. Three general theories have been advanced to account for their existence at the time of the coming of the earliest settlers into the limits of Illinois. One explanation is that the great prairie fires which annually swept over the Grand Prairie effectually kept the trees from making any headway. But there are two scientific explanations which seem to go more to the bedrock of the matter.
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SWAMP LANDS TRANSFORMED INTO PRMRIE
Says a later writer on this subject, "Professor Whitney holds to the theory that the treeless prairies have had their origin in the ehar- acter of the original deposits, or soil formation. He does not deny, in faet admits, the submersion of all prairie lands formerly as lakes or swamps, but he holds that while the lands were so submerged there was deposited a very fine soil, which he attributes, in part, to the underlying rocks, and in part to the accumulation in the bottom of immense lakes, of a sediment of almost impalpable fineness. This soil in its physical, and probably in its chemical composition, prevents the trees from naturally getting a foothold in the prairies.
"Professor Lesquereux holds to the theory simply stated that all areas properly called prairies were formed by the redemption of what was onee lake regions and later swamp territory. He points out that trees grow abundantly in moving water, but that when water is dammed the trees always die. His theory is that standing water kills trees by preventing the oxygen of the air from reaching their roots. He further shows that the nature of the soil in redeemed lake regions is such that without the help of man trees will not grow in it. But he further shows that by proper planting the entire prairie area may be covered with forest trees.
"As rich as was the soil of our prairies, the first emigrants seldom settled far out on these treeless traets. Most of the early eomers were from the timber regions of the older states and felt they could not make a living very far from the woods. Coal had not come into use and wood was the universal fuel. There was a wealth of mast in the timber upon which hogs could live a large part of the year. Again, our forefathers had been used to the springs of New England, Ken- tueky, Tennessee and Virginia, and they did not think they could live where they could not have access to springs. The early comer, back in the '30s, therefore, rode over the prairies of Central Illinois, and then entered 160 in the timber, where he cleared his land and opened his farm." In line with the Lesquereux theory Adams County, with the gradual disappearance of its swamp lands, is gradually becoming a prairie tract.
After a careful investigation of the subject, some of the most eminent geologists of Illinois have arrived at the conclusion that the extensive prairies of the West, with their peculiar soil, have been formed in the past pretty much as prairies on a smaller seale are being formed at the present day. The black, friable mold, of which the prairie soil is composed is due to the growth and decay of successive erops of coarse swamp grasses, submerged in spring, and growing luxuriantly in summer, only to be submerged again, and returned, in a rotten condition, to the annual accumulations before made. It is not difficult to believe that in a few hundred years, more or less, as the great sheet of water that onee covered the entire valley of the Missis- sippi and tributaries, gradually receded to the present water courses,
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and left the prairies in the condition of alternate wet and dry swails, that a black, mucky soil was produced to the depth now found upon the prairies. In process of time, by more complete recession of the waters, the surface of the prairies became dry, and adapted to the wants of animals and men. The fact of there being no trees on the prairies is accounted for on the ground that such a condition of the soil as is here deseribed is not favorable to their growth, as may be often noticed in the marshy spots of timbered regions.
THE COAL MEASURES
Although geology recognizes "coal measures" in Adams County, no carboniferous deposits have been commercially developed. Upper seams, or outeroppings, have been stripped in a small way from such localities as the south fork of Bear Creek, Little Missouri Creek and other small streams near Clayton, in the neighborhoods of Columbus and Camp Point and along Mill Creek, as well as near the Pike County line. It is estimated that about one-half the area of Adams County is underlaid with coal measures, its central and eastern sec- tions being considered the most promising from an economic or com- mercial standpoint.
THE LIMESTONES OF THE COUNTY
The coal measures rest on three main strata of limestone-the St. Louis, Keokuk and the Burlington. The first named is a light or brownish gray variety, and contains many beautiful fossil corals and marine shells. Noteworthy outcrops of the St. Louis limestone have been found along McGee Creek near Columbus, at Coatsburg and in the vicinity of Mendon. The Keokuk group is usually bluish-gray or grayish-brown, and presents remarkable specimens of crystallized min- erals. It comes to the surface at Coatsburg, along the creeks men- tioned, and a few miles northeast of Quiney. That variety has been quarried considerably, furnishing the foundation for Governor Wood's historie mansion. From Quincy to the north line of the county it out- crops at various points along the bluffs, and is well exposed on Bear Creek, near the Lima and Quiney Road, where it forms a mural cliff from 40 to 50 feet in height. It is also found along all the small streams in the western part of the county as far south as Mill Creek, on the forks of that stream. The regularly bedded lime- stones of the Keokuk group are mainly composed of organic matter; the calcareous portions of the molluses, erinoids, corals and other small forms of marine animals which swarmed in the ocean depths. The Burlington limestone, which underlies the lower stratum of the Keokuk group, differs but little from the latter. It is usually of a lighter gray color, variegated with beds of buff or brown stone, and devoid of the bands of shale which separate the strata of the Keokuk series. The Burlington variety outerops at Mill Creek, a few miles southeast of
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Quincy, and from that point to the south line of the county it comes to the surface quite continuously.
Commercially, the Burlington limestone is usually considered the most valuable of the three varieties. It has been rather extensively quarried at and near Quiney, and as the aggregate thickness of the group averages 100 feet, nearly all of which may be used as building stone, the Burlington is considered virtually inexhaustible. It cuts easily when free from chert, and is considered an excellent stone for dry walls, as well as for caps and sills. The buff and brown layers contain a small pereent of iron and magnesia, and the surface be- comes more or less stained by exposure to the atmosphere, but the light gray beds are nearly pure carbonate of lime and generally retain their original color. The brown magnesian limestone of the St. Louis group is an evenly stratified roek, well adapted for use in foundation walls, bridge abutments and enlverts, where a rock is required to with- stand the combined actions of frost and moisture. Most of the stone used in the manufacture of quiek lime is obtained from the Burlington limestone, near Quincy, although the bluish-gray strata of the Keokuk group and the upper beds of the St. Louis series have been utilized considerably.
THE COMMERCIAL CLAYS
The clays of the county have been developed economically to some extent, although some of the potteries in which they have been used are outside of its limits. The best deposits of fire and potter's clays are found in the shape of light blue shale between the coal seams. On exposure it becomes a fine plastie clay, or good material for the man- ufacture of fire brick. The subsoils intermingled with the fine sand of the Loess form an excellent material for the manufacture of com- mon briek. The combination may be found almost anywhere in the western part of the county, and there are few localities in the state which have prodneed a better variety of building briek than that man- nfactured in the neighborhood of Quiney. In the eastern part of the county, where the Loess is wanting, the sand may be obtained in the alluvial valleys of most of the small streams.
SOILS AND THEIR NATURAL PRODUCTS
But when all has been said, a return is made to the original state- ment-that the great contribution made by nature to the comfort and happiness of man is in her virtual guarantee that he shall not suffer if he depends primarily upon her returns to his labor and skill. Con- fining the survey of such natural advantages to Adams County, it may be said that its western portions include a belt of country from 5 to 10 miles in width adjacent to the bluffs of the Mississippi, and extend- ing throughout its entire length from north to south, which is under- lain with marly sands and clays of Loess. It possesses a soil of
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remarkable fertility, with an undulating surface which furnishes a free drainage, so that with a rather porous subsoil it is less subject to the deleterious influences of remarkably dry or wet seasons than the other upland soils of the county. The natural growth of timber on this variety of soil consists principally of red, white and black oak, pignut and shell-bark hickory, elm, black and white walnut, sugar maple, linden, wild cherry and honey locust. These lands are also well adapted to the growth of fruit.
On the banks of MeGce's Creek and its tributaries the surface of the country is considerably broken, and the soil, which is mainly de- rived from the drift clays, is a stiff clay loam, better adapted to the growth of wheat and grass than almost any crop usually grown in this latitude. The growth of timber on this kind of soil consists of two or three varieties of oak and hickory, which are characteristic of the so-called "oak ridges" which are so frequently seen along the small streams in Adams County 'and other section of Illinois. In the northeastern portion of the county is a considerable area of com- paratively level prairie, covered with a deep black soil rich with the annual decay of the surface shrubs and grasses. This black prairie soil is underlaid with a fine silicious brown clay, which does not permit the surface water to pass freely through it and, until drained, the lands are so flooded during the wet season as to be very difficult of cultivation. When the season is favorable, or after they have been well drained, there are no lands in the county which grow better erops of cereals, both as to quantity and quality. The alluvial bot- tom lands bordering the Mississippi are generally similar in their char- acter to those in Pike County and are heavily timbered with the same varieties. Where these bottom lands are elevated above the annual overflow of the river, or properly drained, they, also, are exceedingly productive.
HEALTHFUL CLIMATE
There is another blessing for which the people of Adams County are indebted to mother nature; that is their climate, which is, on the whole, equable and pleasant. Healthful, cool breezes usually circu- late through the Mississippi Valley, which keep it comparatively free of fogs and miasmatic mists. The rainfall is generally season- able and abundant, averaging about thirty-eight inches, and droughts of severity arc rare. There are exceptions to these rules, of course ; but as the years come and go this section of the state is conducive to good health, good erops and all-around blessings.
BIRD LIFE IN ADAMS COUNTY
The Mississippi Valley is the great natural highway of travel for the United States. Not only the Mound Builders have scattered evi- dences of their migrations along its mighty courses, and the Indian
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tribes of history floated on its waters or wandered and warred along its shores, but the very birds of the air have made it their great trunk line in their search for fitting habitations in which to live and rear their families. All the Mississippi River counties, especially if they possess such a variety of topography aud lands as Adams, are therefore rieh in bird life. With the progress of natural history and seientifie farming, the feathered kind have been found to be not only fascinating studies, but agents of valuable protection to the cereals, fruits and vegetables. Of course, they have keen appetites and eat some things of value, but all-in-all the farmers are commencing to fully realize that they much more than "pay for their keep."
C. L. Kraber, whose father was one of the pioneers of Quincy- a carpenter who built the courthouse and other well known structures of an early date-lived on the old homestead farm just northeast of the county seat for some sixty years. Very observant and especially fond of birds, Mr. Kraber has written considerably regarding those who have frequented Adamus County during his long period of resi- denee within its borders. He has noted at least one hundred varieties, among the chief of which he lists the paroquets, wild Muscovy dueks, the green head mallard, the blue eoot, the pineated woodpecker, red- headed woodpecker, blackbirds, red-eyed wild pigeon, sand hill cranes, plovers, the Canadian wild goose. the brant, wild turkey, grossbeek, English sparrow, turtle dove, cardinal, bluebird, the brown thrush, French robin (euckoo), whippoorwill, will-o-the-wisp, red-winged blackbird, meadow larks, eow-blackbirds, black crow, robin red breast, cat bird, quails, oriole, wren, pheasants, swallow, turkey buzzard, blue heron, humming bird, erossbills, bald eagle, owl, scarlet tanager, wild white swan, buteher bird, the pewee, kingfisher, hawk, ground sparrow and an army of other small birds. Some of these are now rare, or nearly extinet. In the early days, the Mississippi bottoms near Quincy contained numerous paraquets, or green parrots; but they appear to have departed with the Indians. The wild Muscovy duck is now very rare, but the mallard is the game duek of the open season.
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