The history of Adams County Illinois : containing a history of the county - its cities, towns, etc. a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion; general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men, Part 33

Author:
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : Murray, Williamson & Phelps
Number of Pages: 1254


USA > Illinois > Adams County > The history of Adams County Illinois : containing a history of the county - its cities, towns, etc. a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion; general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men > Part 33


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The next older division of this system is the Loess, a deposit of marly sand and clay, which ranges in thickness from ten to forty feet, and attains its greatest development where it caps the river bluffs, thinning out rapidly towards the adjacent highlands, which form the summit level of the inte- rior portion of the county. It is usually of a light buff-brown, or ashen- gray color, frequently showing distinct lines of stratification, and always overlies the drift clays, when both are present in the same section. It is usually quite sandy where it caps the river bluffs, but becomes more agil- laceous at other points, where the beds are thinner, and, locally, it becomes quite calcareous. The Loess is well exposed in the bluffs at Quincy, where it is about forty feet in thickness and overlies some beds of plastic clay and sand, which are probably of Post Tertiary age, and older than the true drift. Immediately above the limestone here we find a few feet in thick- ness of what might be called "local drift," consisting of angular fragments of chert, embedded in a brown clay, which have probably been derived from


242


IIISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.


the subordinate limestones. This is overlaid by a few feet of blue plastic clay and stratified sands, on which the Loess is deposited. At one point, near the base of the bluffs, in the northern part of the city, we observed underlying the Loess what seemed to be a chocolate-colored soil, about a foot in thickness, which may represent the Post Tertiary soil, penetrated in the shaft at Coatsburg, underlying the Drift deposits. Here the true Drift is wanting, and the Loess directly overlies these older Post Tertiary beds. Notwithstanding the unsolidified character of this deposit, it is sufficiently coherent to present a vertical cliff where it is intersected by artificial cuts, and often remains for years in nearly perpendicular walls where.it has been cut through by running streams or in grading the streets of the cities that have been built upon it. It is everywhere a fine sedimentary accumulation, and usually contains numerous terrestrial and fresh-water shells, which, not- withstanding their fragile structure, are found entirely perfect, showing that they have not been subjected to any violent movements before they were buried in the marly sand of this formation.


The remains of the Mammoth, Mastedon, Megalonyx, Casteroids, and other extinct animals, occur in the Loess, indicating that it is a deposit formed in a fresh-water lake into which the bones of land animals and the shells of terrestrial molluscs were swept by the streams running into it from the adjacent land. The term "Loess " was originally applied to a similar formation which caps the bluff's of the River Rhine, in Germany, and has been generally adopted by the American geologists to designate beds that are similar in their character and origin to those on the Rhine, and that appear to have been formed about the same time.


Drift .- This formation is composed of yellowish-brown or bluish clays, 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, or more. It is a heterogeneous mass of the water- worn fragments of all the stratified roeks that are known to occur for sev- eral hundred miles to the northward embedded in brown or blue clays, and most of the large boulders which it contains are derived from the meta- phoric sandstones, granites, sienites, porphyries and other metaphoric and igueons strata that occurs on the borders of the great lakes. Associated with these there are also rounded boulders, usually of smaller size, derived from the stratified rocks of this and the adjacent States. Fragments of native copper, galena, coal and iron are often intermingled with the general mass, but are not indicative of mines of those minerals in the immediate vicinity where such fragments are found; for they have been transported from other localities by the same powerful agencies to which the drift for- mation owes its origin. The coal shaft at Coatsburg penetrated the thickest bed of drift that has, perhaps, been found in this county; and I am indebted to Mr. Joseph Edwards for the following section of the beds passed through in sinking this shaft:


243


HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.


FT.


Soil and yellowish clay


6


Bluish-colored clay and gravel.


Clay with large boulders. 40


Clay stratified ..


6


Very tough blue clay. 20


We have in this section eighty-five feet of what may be considered true Drift, consisting of unstratified clays containing gravel and boulders. The upper six feet of the section probably represents the age of the Loess more properly than any other division of the Quarternary system; and its for- mation is explained by Prof. Lesquereux in his chapter on the formation of the prairies.


The ancient Post Tertiary soil, which was reached at a depth of ninety- one feet from the surface, and the stratified clays which underlie it, are of no older date than the Drift proper, and were no doubt formed under very differ- ent conditions. So far as we are aware, this was the first point in the State where a bed resembling the surface soil was observed below the Drift, as this shaft was sunk in 1859, but no public notice was made of it at that time, as it was then supposed to be merely a local phenomenon that might not be verified elsewhere. Fragments of wood and also of bones were also reported to have been found in it here, but we were not able to obtain specimens of them, and cannot vonch for the truth of the report. Subse- quent discoveries at other points, however, show that wood, in an excellent state of preservation, is often found in this ancient soil, as well as in the underlying stratified clays; and in the shaft at Bloomington, at the depth of one hundred and eighty feet, a considerable quantity of wood, some of which was perfectly sound, was taken from a similar deposit. These strati- fied clays and the sands frequently associated with them appear to have been entirely of fresh-water origin, the fossil shells which they afforded being all of lacustrine or fluviatile species.


At Camp Point, a few miles east of Coatsburg, the Quaternary beds were all penetrated in sinking a tank well at the railroad station. They were here only sixty feet in thickness, but no note was made of the char- acter of the different beds passed through. Probably the lower beds of stratified clays and the ancient soil above them, were not found here, and the beds passed through were only the surface soil and sub-soil and the true Drift deposits. From the soft and yielding character of the beds, a satis- factory natural section of them is rarely met with, and it is only when they have been penetrated in sinking coal shafts, wells, and other artificial exca- vations, that a correct section of the whole series can be seen. Along the breaks of the streams the drift clays and subordinate beds of superficial material are generally eroded into sloping hillsides, covered with soil and vegetation down to the fundamental rock on which they rest, and only very meager exposures of the beds are to be found on the water courses.


Fossils are but seldom found in the Drift accumulations, and they con-


45 Black soil


212


244


HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.


sist entirely of the remains of Mommalid; no shells, either marine or fresh- water, have yet been found in them in this State.


CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM.


All the Paleozoic rocks that appear above the surface in this country belong to this system and comprise the lower portion of the Coal Measures and the whole series of the lower Carboniferous limestones except the Chester series and the lower part of the Kinderhook group.


Coal Measures .- This term is applied to that portion of the Carbon- iferous system that contains the workable seams of coal and comprises shales. sandstones, bituminous slates and their bands of limestone, with seams of coal and the fire clar that underlie them. The whole thickness of these strata in this country, probably nowhere exceed about one hundred and twenty feet, and they include the three lower coal seains and the strata associated with them. The greatest development of this formation is in the northeast part of the county, on Little Missouri creek, where there is an exposure of some fifty or sixty feet of shales with two thin beds of limestone above No. 2 coal, which is worked at different points in the valley of the creek.


The following section will show the general arrangement and thickness of the coal strata as they are developed in this county :


FT.


Hard, gray. Nodular limestone.


3


to 6 30


Sandy shale and sandstone.


25


Black shale.


4


Coal No 3 sometimes wanting.


1%


Fire clay ..


25


30


Coal No. 2


3


Fire clay and clay shale.


4


10


Gray, Nodular limestone.


4


5


Shale


10


15


Bituminous slate.


1


3


Coal No. 1.


115


Shale and sandstone.


20


30


3


Clay shale.


The middle coal seam in the above section (No. 2) is the most regular in its development and furnishes altogether the best coal in the county. It ont-crops on the south fork of Bear creek, and is worked by Mr. Fer- guson, on the northeast quarter of section 17. township 1, north, range 6 west. The coal at this point ranges from two to three feet in thickness, and is of good quality. being generally quite free from the bi-sulphuret of iron. The roof is a bluish clay shale of which about fifteen feet in thick- ness is exposed at the mine. above which there is a thin seam of bituminous shale and soft coal, indicating the horizon of another coal seain which has been opened on another branch of the cut about a half a mile southeast of Ferguson's inine.


The coal on this upper seam which we refer to, No. 3, is only from highteen to twenty inches in thickness and is full of iron pyrites at the only point where it has been opened in this vicinity. It is overlaid with about two feet of black slate. and hy eighteen or twenty feet of sandstone.


245


HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.


A mile and a half southwest of Ferguson's, on section 19, coal has been mined for several years by stripping the seam along the valley of a small creek, a tributary of Bear creek, but the mines are now abandoned.


On Little Missouri creek, six miles northeast of Clayton, coal is dug in the same manner, by stripping the seam in the Creek valley. The seam is here is about twenty-eight inches thick and the coal is of good quality. This is on section 12, township 1 north, range 5 west, on the southeast quarter of section 12, township 2 north, range 5 west; this seam has been worked on Cedar creek. The coal here is about thirty inches thick and is underlaid by white fire clay and overlaid by fifteen or twenty feet of clay shale.


On the southwest quarter of section 34, township 1 north, range 5 west, about a mile southwest of Clayton, a thin seam of coal was opened in the early settlement of this part of the county where the coal outcrops on a small branch of McGee's creek. The coal was found to be only from four- teen to sixteen inches thick and was overlaid by four feet of black shale which contained a few fossil shells, among which were Discina nitida and an Aviculopecten. This is perhaps coal No. 3 of the above section. On the northeast quarter of section 36, township 2 north, range 8 west, coal was dug at an early day on Mr. Higby's land. The coal was found here in the bed of a small creek with no exposure of the bed associated with it, and was mined by stripping the seam of the overlying soil and clay. It was said to be from two to three feet in thickness with six inches of blue shale and about a foot of black shale above it. The coal was rather poor in quality, and was probably an outlier of No. 1. The coal was underlaid by sandstone which was exposed near by and half a mile 'southwest of this point, the concretionary limestone of the St. Louis group was found in situ.


South of Clayton the country becomes quite rolling and hilly, but the ravines seldom expose the bed rock, and no coal is found outcropping though it probably underlies most of the surface north of McGee's creek. After crossing the creek at Hughes' Ford, coal is found in the bluff on the south side, section 28, township 2 south, range 5 west; while below it are outcrops of the St. Louis and Keokuk limestones, the latter forming the bed rock in the creek valley. The coal seam has been opened by Mr. Luke Snow at two points; one in the face of the bluff, where a tunnel has been commenced, and the other on a small stream still further south, where the seam has been worked in an open trench on the outerop. The coal is here from eighteen to twenty inches thick, and is overlaid by about two feet of bituminons shale, above which about six feet of clay shale was seen. The beds immediately below the coal were not exposed, but we are inclined to regard this as an outcrop of the lower seam, No. 1. On the northeast quarter of section 31, township 2 south, range 5 west, there is an outcrop of coal that was known as Bassett's coal bank, and was worked at the time of our first visit to this part of the county, in 1853. The coal is here from


246


HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.


sixteen to eighteen inches thick, and is overlaid by about two feet of black shale, containing numerous fossils, among which were a large Discina, per- haps only a variety of Discina nitida Aviculopecten Coxana, A. pel- lucidus, Productus muricatus, Orthisina crassa, Orthoceras Rushensis and Pleurophorus soleniformis. On the southwest quarter of section 7, town- ship 3 south, range 6 west, there is a similar outcrop of coal and bitumin- ous shale, the latter containing the same fossils as Bassett's. South of Lib- erty and west of Kingston, coal outcrops at various localities on the head waters of McDonald's creek; and before the construction of the C., B. & Q. Railroad the beds were worked quite extensively, and the coal hanled . on wagons to supply the Quincy market. Since the construction of the railroad, however, coal can be more cheaply obtained from the mines in McDonough county, and those formerly worked in this part of the county have been generally abandoned. There is, however, a little coal still dng in this vicinity to supply the demands of the immediate neighborhood. An analysis of Bassett's coal, reported in Dr. Norwood's " Analysis of Illinois Coals," made by Henry Pratten, gave the following results:


Specific 1.2684


Loss in coking ..


Total weight of coke.


42.52 57.48 100


Analysis: Moisture 9.20


Volatile matters. 33.32


Carbon in coke. 51.48


Ashes, pale red. 6.00


Carbon in coal.


55.91 100


The coal measures in the south part of this county, as in Pike, are quite irregular in their development, and seem to assume the character of outliers from the main coal field. North of Columbus the three lower seams are found in their regular order, although not all equally constant in their development. Coal No. 2, or the Colchester seam, is by far the most constant, and will probably be found underlying nearly all the townships 1 and 2 north, in ranges 5 and 6 west, in this county; and may be reached by shafts, at a depth varying from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty feet, according to the thickness of the Quaternary beds at the different points.


At Camp Point, No. 2 was found at the depth of ninety feet, and at Coatsburg at one hundred and twenty-nine feet. Its general thickness is from two to two and a half feet, being the same here as in McDonough county. The quality of the coal is good, but the seam seldom has a good roof, and consequently requires considerable expenditure for cribbing where the mines are to be worked permanently. South of Columbus there is no development of coal in the county that would justify the expectation of its ever becoming a valuable mining region, though considerable coal may be found in the vicinity of Liberty and Kingston, extending south to the


247


HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.


Pike county line, perhaps sufficient for the local supply of that part of the county for some years to come. Mill creek, on the western borders of this region, and McGee's on the east, show continuous exposures throughout their whole course, of the lower carboniferous limestones that lie entirely be- low the coal measures, and clearly defined horizon, below which no workable coal seam has ever been found. These limestones may be reached anywhere over the coal field in this county at a depth of one to two hundred feet, and when reached a further search for coal, by going deeper, will only result in failure. In the northern part of the county the coal measures rest upon the St. Louis limestone, and hence the outcrop of this rock is a valuable guide in determining the boundary of the coal area; but in the southeast- ern part of the county this limestone is not found, and the coal measures rest upon a lower division of the lower carboniferous series, as they also do in Pike county; this has resulted from the erosion of the limestone strata before the coal epoch, by which the upper beds have been wholly or partially removed, allowing the coal measures to rest unconformably upon the lower divisions of the series. But whenever any division of this lime- stone series is reached in searching for coal it is entirely useless to extend the search below that horizon.


St. Louis Limestone .- This division of the lower carboniferous series, as has already been remarked, usually forms the sub-stratum on which the coal measures rest, and will be found outcropping immediately below the sandstone which forms the base of the coal measures, in the northwestern as well as the southwestern portion of the county. The upper division of this formation of this division is usually a light-gray concretionary or brecciated limestone, from five to twenty feet in thickness, below which there is usually bedded brown or brownish-gray magnesian limestone from ten to twenty feet thick, which locally becomes shaly and passes into a calcareous or argillaceous shale. The concretionary limestone sometimes contains irregular seams of green shale, or marly clay, disseminated through it, and at some points, as at Butt's mill on McGee's creek, is entirely replaced by green shales. At this point there is about thirty feet in thickness of this group exposed, consisting of regularly bedded lime- stones at the base, passing upward into green and bluish colored shales which are overlaid by ferruginous sandstone, the latter representing the base of the coal measures on Waters' Branch. A half mile south of this mill there is a fine exposure of the regularly bedded limestone of this group, about ten feet thick, forming a perpendicular wall along the banks of the creek. There is a bed of earthy gray limestone about four feet thick intercolated in it at this point that appears like a hydraulic rock. The concretionary member of this group ontcrops on the upper corner of McGee's creek, three miles southeast of Columbus, and with the regularly bedded limestones below continues along the bluffs of this creek through its whole course in this county. In the vicinity of Hughes' Ford, on sec-


248


HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.


tion 27, township 2 south, range 5 west, the brown magnesian limestone of this series is well exposed, the bed ranging from ten to fifteen feet in thickness. It is about thirty feet above the bed of the creek and overlies the geodiferous shales of the Keokuk group, which extend below the creek level. In the Coatsburg coal shaft this limestone was reached at a depth of about one hundred and forty-seven feet, and the shaft was carried on through it and into the geodiferons shales of the Keokuk group, where it terminated at a depth of about two hundred feet. On the Walnut Fork of Mill ereek, about four miles, a little south of west from Columbus, this limestone is exposed on the southeast quarter of section 21, township 1 south, range 7 west, and as it is only about seven miles to its outerop on MeGee's creek, east of that town, it is probable that it constitutes the bedrock entirely across the divide between these points, and separates the coal south of Columbus from that in the north part of the county. In the vicinity of Mendon this limestone was met with at several points, and is overlaid with the coarse quartzose sandstone of the coal measures; here the upper part of it is a light-gray, more or less coneretionary rock, from ten to twelve feet in thickness, below which we find the brown magnesian limestone and the shaly beds which form the lower division of the group. This limestone is also found well exposed on the tributaries of Bear creek, in township 2 north, range 8 west, and on the main creek, on its upper course for some distance further east, where it passes beneath the coal measures, and the latter becomes the bedrock over all the northeastern portion of the county.


This limestone may be readily distinguished from any of the lower divisions of the lower carboniferous series, either by its lithological char- acter, or the fossils which it contains. The light gray coneretionary lime- stone is characterized by two species of fossil corals, one or both of which may be found at nearly every locality where the rock is exposed, and are often met with in fine specimens weathered out of the limestone, and lying in detached masses in the debris along the streams. They are generally silicious, and where they have not been rolled and water-worn after being detached from the rock, they retain perfectly their original form, and are frequently of a reddish-pink color from the silicious matter which has replaced the carbonate of lime in the original coral. These corals belong to the genus Lithostrotion, and are known as the L. canadense and L. proliferum, and the former species, which usually occur in massive forms, is popularly known as "petrified honey comb," from the polygonal form of the numerous calyces of which it is composed. In the magnesian and shaly bed of this group, fossils are usually quite abundant, and among the most striking forms we may mention the screw shaped fossil known as the Archimedes, the axis of a peculiar form of Bryozoa. The largest form of this interesting genus, the A. Wortheni of Hall, is found abundantly through the shaly beds of this group, and some of the largest specimens


249


HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.


attain to a foot or more in length. Various other forms of Bryozoa also abound in this rock, and at some localities the magnesian beds of this group appear to be in good part composed of the delicate reticulated remains of this class of organic forms. Marine shells are also abundant in the same beds. among which are: Spirifer lateralis, S. sub-aequalis, Rhynchonella mutata, R. subcuneata, Retzia Verneuiliana, Orthis dubia, Terebratula hastata, Platyceras auctirostris and Productus Altonensis. A, knowledge of these species will enable the observer to identify this formation wherever it may appear, as some of them have a wide geograph- ical range, especially the Lithostrotion canadense, which is known to range from Illinois to Alabama, and on a recent visit to Utah, we found it imbedded in the highly metaphoric limestones of the Wahsatch moun- tains, within twenty miles of Salt Lake City. Hence, we may understand the great value of fossils to the geological observer, as they enable him to establish the identity of strata at widely separated points, where the litho- logical character of the beds are completely changed, and where it would be impossible to trace the continuity of the strata.


Keokuk Group .- This group immediately underlies the limestone just described, and usually appears in two well-marked divisions.


The upper one consists of bluish-gray or grayish-brown calcareo-argil- laceous shales, and shaly limestones, enclosing silicious geodes of various sizes, some of them a foot or more in diameter, a part of which are solid spheres of crystalline quartz, covered externally with a thin coating of chalcedony, while others are hollow and have their inner surfaces covered with beautiful crystals. of quartz, calcite, or dolomite, or with the mammil- lory form of chalcedony. Crystals of arragonite, iron pyrites and zinc blende are also occasionally found in these silicious geodes, and the finest cabinet specimens of the crystalized minerals above mentioned, to be found in this State, are obtained from this bed. The shales and shaly limestones in which the geodes, where originally imbedded, yield readily to the influ- ence of frost and moisture, and the silicious geodes, are readily weathered out, and may be found in great numbers in the beds of the small streams by which this formation is intersected. The Coatsburg coal shaft termin- ated in this bed, at a depth of about two hundred feet below the surface, and we obtained several finely-crystalized geodes here in 1860, from the material that had been thrown out of this shaft. This division of the group is about forty feet in thickness, and is well exposed on McGee's creek and some of its tributaries, and also on Bear creek, and some of the smaller streams in the western part of the county. Locally, this portion of the group becomes quite calcareous, and the beds are then filled with the same species of fossil-shells and corals that characterize the lower division. Another species of Archimedes, much smaller than that found in the St. Louis group, called the A. Owenana occurs both in the upper and lower




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