USA > Illinois > Ogle County > The history of Ogle 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 history of the Northwest, history of Illinois etc > Part 20
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A little brook runs toward the east on either side of the gravel hills, being, perhaps, a quarter to half a mile apart. About the middle of the range, the brook on the north side breaks through an abrupt gap and joins its sister on the south, and together they seek Leaf River, skirting along the south side of the gravel beds. To the north and the south of the small valleys through which these little streams flow, the prairie gradually rises until it attains almost the elevation of the gravel hills themselves.
These hills resemble strongly the central morraines of a vast glacier, or where two glaciers meet and mingle in one ; but they also give evidences of the sifting and assorting agencies of water. They are, doubtless " mor- raine hillocks," such as are found in many parts of Northern Wisconsin.
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HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
If the surface of the underlying Trenton rocks could be examined, over a dozen miles in extent in this locality, they would, we think, in many places be found plowed, grooved and scratched, or planed smooth, by the slow, silent force of the irresistible glacier or iceberg.
If the phenomena in this interesting locality indicate glacial action, and we think they most unmistakably do, it was probably combined with aqueous forces, and the two causes contributed to the results observed. We have sought for the manifestations of glacial action in many places, while examining the drift through these counties ; bnt while evidences of the floating iceberg and ice-floe, with their freight of boulders, of peaceful atmospheric or strong agneons forces are constant and recurring, this is the only locality where we could find phenomena that looked like the work of the glaciers.
I examined with care the materials of which these gravel beds are made up. Much of it is composed of metamorphic rocks, brought from the regions of Lake Superior. But a large portion, from one third to one half perhaps, is derived from the Niagara, Galena and such other limestones as are found in the lead basin. They are much rounded and water-worn, but are not transported from the great distances from whence came the granites, syenites, and other boulders and gravels : Tentaculites, from the Niagara ; fragments of Orthocera and Orthis, from the Blue ; Pleuroto- marias and pieces of Trilobite shields, from the Galena, were noticed among the piles of gravel-imperfect as fossils, of course, but sure indications of the neighboring formations from which they were derived.
A mixed mass of gravel, like the one under consideration, would seem to indicate that forces from a distance and forces near at hand, operating in every conceivable direction, with great force and over long periods of time, all contributed to gather together these heaps of abraided materials, some from the distant regions of the granite and the traps, and some from the neighboring limestones of a by-gone geological age ; but all equally worn smooth by the grinding of the waters and ice.
But, leaving this interesting accumulation, we still find evidence of the drift gravels all over the northern part of the county ; but the beds become comparatively thin, and are underlaid by the usual clays of this part of the state. The blue clays, belonging to the base of the drift, we failed to detect through Ogle County. It doubtless exists, if proper exca- vations were made, but the common, light-colored, yellowish clay is by far the most common.
Remains of the Mastodon have been found closely connected with this formation. In 1858 the tooth of one of these animals was found in a little tributary of Stillman's Run. The locality is low-somewhat marshy. The streamn has cut a channel through the black alluvium of the low prairie. The tooth was washed out and lodged against a clump of willows when found. It is a ponderous grinder, weighs seven and one half pounds, is covered with a black, shining enamel, and is a fine fossil, in a high state of preservation. The fortunate finder carefully preserves it, and can not be induced to part with his treasure.
Other mastodon remains doubtless exist about the marshy springs of Stillman's Run.
Some years ago a large bone, supposed to be from the fore-leg of one of these animals, was found two or three miles above Byron. The bank of Rock River had caved down for some distance back from the stream ; som e
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HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
five feet below the surface of the high land coming up to the river, and perhaps fifteen feet above ordinary water level, the bone was found, stieking in the bank. The bank seems to be a sort of a modified drift, made up of somewhat marly, dark colored alluvial elay, intermixed with river sand and a considerable quantity of gravel. The formation is hardly alluvium, but seems to be a kind of a river drift. The fossil is light, porous, and whitish in color, in a rather poor state of preservation. We obtained it through the courtesy of Mr. Mix, and sent it to the State Geological Cabinet.
Among the mineral substances found in the drift of this connty, bits of lead and pieces of pure Lake Superior copper are occasionally met with.
THE CINCINNATI GROUP.
This formation is but lightly developed in Ogle County. No exposed onterop, that we are aware of, exists at all. The high prairie, however, east and northeast of Polo, lying between Pine Creek and the Illinois Cen- tral Railroad, and extending a few miles north towards Adeline, is under- laid by the shales of the Cincinnati group. At several recently dug wells, piles of these eream colored and blue shales and elays attracted our atten- tion. They are generally struck at a depth of fifteen or twenty feet, and soon erumble to pieces when exposed to the rains and frosts and other atmospheric influences. The exact thickness of this group I am unable to state, but think it exceeds rather than falls below twenty-five feet. The area indicated is covered by the usnal light colored, finely comminuted clays, which nearly always rest upon the rocks of this group. It generally forms the subsoil of a good agricultural region, but sometimes it is inclined to be a little too stieky and wet.
Ever living wells of reasonably pure water are found without difficulty where ever the Cincinnati shales lie near the surface. In some cases masses of sticks and decayed drift wood lie between the shales and superimposed elays, separated from the former by only a few feet of marly, blackish elay. In such cases the water of the wells is neither sweet nor pure.
THE TRENTON GROUP.
The Galena Limestone .- Next in tlie descending series comes the np- per division of the Trenton grouge, known generally in the books as the Galena limestone. It underlies a considerable portion of the county, emerging along the face of the ravines from beneath the concealing drift, and even rising like mural walls along some of the streams. The lines of demarcation between this and the nether Blue limestone is not always easily distinguished. Layers, partaking of the characteristics of each of these divisions, are often found intermingled for some distance, although the characteristics of the mass of the two formations are very distinet. This peenliarity is not so marked in this connty as in the eastern part of Stephenson.
The rock here usually preserves its usual coarse-grained nature towards the top of the quarries, changing into a deeper sub-crystalline mass towards the bottom of the formation. It preserves its usual dull, greyish, cream-colored. chrome-yellow tints. No outerop of it appears along the banks of the Rock River, unless it may be near the Winnebago County line. But as we go back from the river the older formations sink down and run under, and this becomes the prevailing surface rock.
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HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
It is an important member of the series of Illinois strata, both on ac- count of its many economical nses, its historic interest, and the lead-bear- ing character of certain portions of its basin.
The superficial area underlaid by the Galena limestone in this county is quite large. South of Roek River the older formations come to the sur- face a few miles back from the stream, and onterop along the ravines cut down into this belt of rough, rolling country. But the Galena runs on al- most as soon as the level prairie is struck ; and all the eastern and south- eastern townships are underlaid by it, and would show it, eould the con- cealing drift clays be removed. The township of White Rock takes its name from a low outerop of light-colored Galena about the head waters of Stillman's Run, near the centre of the township. It is quarried to some extent, and hauled over the surrounding prairie. The stone is rather soft and crumbly, but is used extensively by the farmers for cellar walls, foun- dations and other similar uses. Killbuck Creek running north through the southeastern portion of the county, cuts into the same rock and even touches the Blue limestone, but no good outerop is shown. About Payne's Point, in the Township of Pine Rock, along a little timber ravine, stone are quarried whose conchoidal fracture and ash color show beds of passage between the Galena and the Blue.
North of Rock River the same phenomenon is observed, only on a more extensive scale. The older formations sink as the distance from the stream increases, until the Galena runs on, forming surface rock where the river enters the county, but before reaching Byron it strikes these older formations. Leaf River and Pine Creek cut deep into the surface deposits, and show ontcrops of the St. Peter's sandstone, the Buff and Blue lime- stones respectively, for some distance after the Galena becomes the under- lying rock of the surrounding country ; but even along the banks of these streams the Galena ontcrops long before the sources are reached. All round the head waters of Leaf River the gravel beds rest directly upon the Galena limestone. The road from Polo to Mt. Morris crosses Pine Creek abont the middle of its course. At the crossing, Galena escarpments, crowned with the white pine and red cedar, overhang the creek as it washes their basc. In going down stream the Blue Trenton is soon struck ; but in going up stream, even to its very sources, massive time-worn outcrops of the real lead-bearing rocks add picturesqueness to the scenery. At the forks of Pine Creek, a few miles northwest of the residence of Hon. D. J. Pinckney, there is an outerop thirty-six feet thick, the upper half of which is quarried into. A lime kiln is here in successful operation, and stone is quarried for common building purposes.
The western part of the county, between the Illinois Central Railroad track and county line, are principally underlaid by the limestone under con- sideration. Elkhorn_Creek, which just touches the county about Brook- ville, and Buffalo Creek, a small stream west of Polo, both ent into the Blue limestone, as the exceptions to the above statement. At the quarry one mile west of Polo ._ on_the Mount_Carroll road, the Galena composes the top layers ; the middle is beds of passage and the bot- tom is the Trenton Blue. Following the creck down past the large Blue limestone quarries southwest of Polo, the Galena is again struck before the county line is reached, and at Sanfordsville, a short distance beyond the county line in Whiteside County, displays itself in a massive quarry, worked extensively in former days. The same rock prevails about Woosung.
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HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
At White Rock and at the forks of Pine Creek a few characteristic fos- sils were to be seen ; but the rock is not worked enough in this county to afford many fossils or good specimens. Where a Galena quarry is exten- sively worked for months at a time, and carefully examined during all its workings, fossils worth gathering may be found ; but a visit of a few hours to outerops little worked at the time, can not be very satisfactory so far as the acquisition of fossils is concerned.
The Blue Limestone .- This, the Blue limestone of the western geolo- gists, or the Trenton limes one of the New York survey, is, under present classification, the Blue or Middle division of the Trenton proper. In a descending order it next succeeds the Magnesian beds of the Galena division. It is variable in appearance. The upper parts of its outerops are thin-bedded, almost shaly, and of a buff or lead-white color, often break- ing into fragments when quarried. The lower layers are compact and thick enough to make a good building stone. They break with a glassy fracture; and some of the layers near the bottom are of a deep ultra-marine blue color. This fine color fades a shade or two lighter when the stones have been quarried and exposed to the weather.
In the region of country underlaid by this rock, pit-holes, or sink-holes, are of frequent occurrence. These curious depressions in the face of the country are from one to three rods in diameter, and run to a point in a funnel-shape, at a depth of from six to fifteen or twenty feet. The rock also contains vertical crevices, through which subterranean streams of water often rush after heavy rains or springy thaws.
Along Buffalo Creek, west of Polo, for three or four miles there is an upheaval of the Blue limestone. The top of the first quarry, the one on the Mt. Carroll road, as already stated, is composed of Galena limestone, shading down into beds of passage into the underlying division ; but the bottom is the genuine blue " glass rock " of the Trenton. Two miles below this, on the creek, several other quarries are opened and heavily worked. They, and in fact all worked exposures of this rock examined in this county, show substantially the following section :
Chocolate-colored clays and subsoils, with fragments of rock and some gravel 5 feet. Thin-bedded, buff-colored, fragmentary limestone, sometimes light lead- colored 14 4 Heavy-bedded, blue, glassy layers, breaking with cloudy, conchoidal 6 fracture
These Polo quarries are worked to a depth of about twenty-five feet. The blue layers in the bottom are sometimes a foot thick. When lifted from their watery bed they look as if dyed in blue ink. A large public school house is now building in Polo from stone obtained at this locality. The blue color is conspicuous, and the effect striking and beautiful.
This limestone also outerops about Brookville and west of Foreston a short distance, where it is quarried on some of the small feeding streams of Elkhorn Creek.
On the map of Ogle County I have marked, in colors, several long, narrow strip on either side of Rock River. They extend diagonally nearly across the county, preserving the general course of the stream. The broad blue band represents the part of the county along the stream underlaid by the Blue limestone. All the small streams falling into Rock River from both sides, so far as I examined them, present the following succession of
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HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
the rocks. At their mouths, especially from three miles above Oregon to Grand de Tour, the St. Peter's sandstone comes to the surface ; a short dis- tance up stream the Buff limestone outcrops along the banks and on the sides of the ravines ; farther np, the limestone under consideration is met and continues to outerop for two, three or four miles; then the Galena rises like a rocky wall along the water's edge, and continues the surface rock until the head waters of the streams are reached. Some of the hill sides show all three of these resting comfortably upon each other, as in the ravines about Oregon, and along the lower part of Pine Creek. Kite River and the next stream below it south of Rock River, Leaf River, Pine Creek, and almost any of the small brooks, present the same succession of the rocks.
On Pine Creek, from a mile below the crossing of the highway leading directly east of Polo, to about Sharp's Mill, the upper thin-bedded layers of the limestone under consideration outerop in rocky-faced, abrupt bluffs, reaching a thickness of forty or fifty feet. The heavier blue layers of the Polo beds were not here observed. They resemble the outerops of the same rocks above Dixon, except the fossils are rare, and the rocks have a dry, baked appearance. At Sharp's Mill, the St. Peter's sandstone and the Buff limestone begin to outcrop along the base of the hills. Above Byron the river hills are capped with the Blue, changing into the Buff toward their bases.
The Blue limestone at Dixon and many other places is full of fossils. Slabs of thin stone are there found covered so thickly with fragments of small trilobites, corals, stems of encrinites, and mollusca of various genera and species that one can not help wondering at the great abundance of the lower forms of animal life, which swarmed in the ocean of the lower Silu- rian era. These thin fossiliferous strata are compact and solid, and when dressed and polished look like a beautiful variegated marble. Dr. Everett, of Dixon, has in his cabinet specimens of this polished marble which will compare in beauty with any marble we ever saw. In Ogle County, how- ever, we could nowhere find in the Blue limestone the same abundance of fossils. At Polo, a large chambered shell known there as an Ammonite, but probably the Lituites undatus of Hall, is occasionally found ; also an Orthoceras, which sometimes reached the great size of nine inches in diame- ter and eight or ten feet in length. Thin fossiliferous layers have recently been found in the quarries at Oregon. A heavier working of the outerops along Pine Creek might also disclose them. A barrenness of good fossils seems to characterize all the formations in Ogle County.
The Buff Limestone .- The lower division of the Trenton, or the Buff limestone of Owen, next succeeds in the descending order. It crops out in many places in close proximity to the St. Peter's sandstone. In some places it is separated from the overlying division by a few feet of shale and blue clay ; in others, the transition from the one to the other is not easily distinguished. In the former, it is thick bedded, compact, and the heavy layers are divided by thin, fossiliferous layers and thin, blue bands of clay ; in the latter it is shaly, shingly, yellowish buff colored, resembling much, certain parts of the Blue division.
Dr. Everett's description of this rock corresponds with our own obser- vations, so far as outerops in close proximity to the St. Peter's sandstone were examined. In the ravines above and opposite Oregon ; at Sharp's mill, on Pine Creek ; at Moore's quarry, in Lee County ; on Kyte River, and in one or two other places, this is true. At Sharp's mill, and near
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HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
Oregon, the lower layers are of a dull, earthy color and fracture, with con- siderable sand in their composition, and on being struck with the hammer, give a heavy, dead sound or thud, as if striking a mass of frozen earth.
This description would hardly apply, however, to the outeropat Byron. This corresponds exactly with Whitney's description of the Buff limestone outerops at Winslow and Beloit ; and these are exactly like many outcrops of the Blue division, except that the fossils do not seem to be identical.
Fossils .- At Moore's farm, in Lee County. many fossils were observed, mostly imperfect casts on the thin layers of shaly matter separating the massive lavers, and also on the surface of some of the massive layers. But in the Ogle County outerops we could hardly detect a fossil except at Bryon. There we found a part of a large Orthoceras, six inches in diameter, per- haps. The animal to which it belonged must have been six or seven feet long.
THE ST. PETER'S SANDSTONE.
This very interesting formation outcrops heavily in this county. It is the prevailing rock along Roek River, from about two and one half miles above Oregon to three miles below Grand de Tour, a distance of about fifteen and one half miles. Where the bluffs and high land come up to the river this rock nowhere outcrops more than a mile or two back from the stream. Even the river bluff's along the sandstone region, in places, are capped by the limestones of the upper Blue and Buff. But up the tribu- tary streams, low onterops may be noticed extending miles back from Rock River. Up Pine Creek it may be traced as high as Sharp's mill, some five miles from the river. Up Kyte River, for perhaps as great a distance, it shows itself along the base of the bluff's and hills, often just above the water's edge. Up the smaller streams it can be traced lesser distances. Many of these hills we found capped with the Blue limestone lying upon the sandstone unconformably ; many others exhibit the Buff and Blue lying upon each other conformably ; some are capped by the Buff alone ; some are nothing but hills of sandstone, uncapped by even the overlying drift, weathered into shapes resembling the pictured icebergs of the Arctic seas. The high bluffs, at the base of which the Town of Oregon stands, with the exception of a light limestone cap on the top, are composed of light-colored St. Peter's sandstone. At this locality it is about one hundred feet thick. It rapidly dips for two miles and a half up the river, and finally runs out of sight, the last outerop observed being half a mile up the little stream, and abont twelve feet thick. As we go down the river the thick- ness increases. About four miles below Oregon, at the fantastic shaped "Indian pulpit," the sandstone peaks rise higher than at Oregon, and before the month of Pine Creek is reached, the elevations measure from one hundred and seventy-five to two hundred feet. After reaching the mouth of Pine Creek, the formation dips rapidly and soon runs under the over- lying formations.
Two or three miles above Oregon, on the west side of Rock River, the bluffs rise in a long line along the stream to a height of perhaps one hundred feet. The debris and talus of these hills present an abrupt, grass- covered slope to within twenty feet of the top. The rest of the height is a long, low, Ecetling mural escarpment of frowning Buff and Blue limestone. The talus covers the St. Peter's sandstone, which doubtless forms the base of the hills. Opposite Oregon, in a low hill, a sandstone quarry and a Buff limestone quarry exist within a few rods of each other.
.
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HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
Peculiarities noticed while examining this interesting sandstone suggest a few observations.
In many instances hard metallie-looking layers, or bands, like the red cornelian bands in the trappean rocks of Lake Superior in their modes of occurrence, are found running in somewhat parallel planes through the softer material of which this sand roek is composed. These are from one half an inch to two inches in thickness, and are often within a few inches of each other. As the softer material erumbles away these remain project- ing, giving the rocky face of the outerop a pietured or horizontally-veined appearance. The frost breaks these off and they accumulate in the ravines. They give a hard and ringing sound when struek with the hammer, and almost resemble old pieces of castings in both color and hardness. These layers are ferruginous in texture, and were formed by the oxide of iron cementing together and hardening thin layers of the sandstone, while in course of being deposited. At a little ravine between Oregon and Mt. Morris they lay in piles, as if an old pot foundry had once existed there. At the crossing of a small stream between Dixon and Daysville, where a mill-dam had once been built, and a low outerop of red St. Peter's sand- stone may be noticed at the right of the crossing, they lav over the hillside and in the road in great abundance. On many of them ripple-marks, as perfeet as when made in the soft sand of the old Silurian beach, still exist. They are the eddies and ripples of the Silurian seas turned to fossils, and preserved in the embrace of iron and sand.
Again, these sandstone hills resist atmosplierie agencies in a wonderful degree, considering the soft and friable nature of their composition. Often- times where they are most abrupt one ean piek holes in their perpendicular sides with his knite, or strike his piek into the solid-looking mass. One would expect that such masses would crumble to pieces and sink into low, white sand banks, but such is not the case. They preserve their forms as well as the limestones, and have quite as little debris and talus piled about their bases.
The color of this sandstone is of all shades, from the whiteness of erushed sugar to chrome yellow, and the many tints of brown and red. The color is a stain produced by the oxide of iron held in solution in the waters, which have at various times percolated through the sandstone mass. Where this dye was absent in the percolating water, a sandstone as white as granulated snow was the result; as the dye was present in the water, in that proportion are the sandstones colored and stained.
In consistence this sandstone is saccharoidal, or sugary, and much of it is held together by the slightest cohesive attraction. In many places, especially where the sandstone was very white, I found difficulty in obtain- ing cabinet specimens. Every blow of the hammer would shiver the block to pieces. But this is not always true. I saw houses built from this ma- terial which seemed to be hardening into a fair building stone, and Dr. Everett gives an account of an arehed railroad bridge built over Franklin Creek. in Lee County, from the same sandstone. In a few places it seems to have become hard and crystalline; in a few more it has cohesion enough to make an indifferent building stone; but its general character is soft, friable and uncohesive.
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