USA > Indiana > Bartholomew County > History of Bartholomew County, Indiana : From the earliest time to the present, with biographical sketches, notes, etc. : Together with a short history of the Northwest, the Indiana Territory, and the state of Indiana > Part 26
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All the members of the Niagara group are fossiliferous and the calcareous shale, highly so. The cephalopod shells, Orthoceras crebescens, H., O., aunulatum, Sow., and Gyroceras elrodi, White, by their size, form and members are the most conspicuous, and are characteristic of the Niagara blue limestone. They are found in greatest abundance near the top of the group in the thin flagging stone. Occasional specimens of Atrypa reticularis, Linn., Stro- phostylus cyclostomus, H., Meristina nitida, H., Eucalyptocrinus crassus, H., and a few very small Stephanocrinus gemiformis, H., are found in the upper members, but not in abundance, nor are the corals or trilobites common; Calymene niagarensis, H., has been found. No attempt will here be made to give a list of the fossils of the calcareous shale, suffice it to say that all the above named species are common, except the cephalopods and stephanocrinus.
The Niagara group limestone outcrops in the bed and banks of Clifty Creek from the southwest corner of Section 2, Township 9, North, Range 7, East, to the Decatur County line at Possum Glory, up Fall Fork Creek to Anderson's Falls, up Middle Fork to Long's Falls, in Boner's branch to the cemetery road east of the college, up Hiner's branch to the bluffs on the south, and up the valleys and ravines for a short distance on either side of Clifty Creek. No
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other outcrops are to be seen on Duck Creek or Haw Creek, and but for the valley of Clifty Creek all the members of the Niagara group would be buried out of sight by the superincumbent cornif- erous limestone.
As the Oriskany sandstone period has been referred to the upper Silurian rather than the Devonian age by most modern geol- ogists, perhaps a word may not be out of place as to its occurrence or non-occurrence in Bartholomew County. If it occurs it should be found between what has been recognized universally as the Niagara and corniferous groups of limestone. On lithological grounds it is excluded if we look for it as a sandstone. No sand- stone occurs on Clifty Creek where the two groups are in contact, the one above the other. In Southern Illinois the Oriskany is described as a " silicious limestone," in Ohio as a " coarse saccha- roidal sandstone," neither of which can apply to any of our rocks. The presence of the calcareous shale settles the age of the lime- stone below it. The stone above is used down to the very base, at the Arbuckle kiln, near Hartsville, as a lime rock, good speci- mens of Conocardium trigonale, H. Zaphrantis gigantea, Raf., and other well known corniferous corals have been found in the stone resting immediately on the calcareous shale. It is true the lower member of the corniferous group has a "rough and hard dirty look, especially after weathering" (Dana), but no other characters in common with the Oriskany.
Section at Anderson's Falls, Fall Fork Creek, Clifty Township.
oo ft. oo in. Soil.
Gray massive stone, lower division of the corniferou's group to the bed of creek above the falls 3 ft. oo in.
Massive gray limestone hard in appearance. 5 ft. oo in.
Calcareous shale, Niagara group, in their lamina fos- siliferous . 4 ft. oo in.
Even bended Niagara group limestone 2 ft. oo in.
Total
14 ft. oo in.
A few yards above the falls the corniferous gray stone that forms the bed of the creek, thickens in the bank to six and eight
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GEOLOGY.
feet, and on the outside has a "hard and dirty look " where covered with minute growth of lichens; here the characteristic appearance of the lower division of the corniferous may be seen in the rough bed of the stream caused by the weathered and rounded tops of the square and irregular blocks reminding one of a pavement of huge cobble stones. The Anderson Falls are remarkable as being in a small way the geological equivalent of the Niagara Falls shale and limestone. Here, as well as at the great Falls of Niagara, may be seen the same processes in action, that in the one case has carried the falls back from Queenstown, Canada, seven miles, and in the other two or three hundred feet by the more rapid erosion of the soft underlying shale and breaking down of the harder su- perincumbent rock, great blocks of which lie in the channel below the falls, and in both cases the streams cut across or against the dip. From the foot of the falls to the mouth of the Middle Fork, the creek runs north and apparently toward a cylindrical axis, that is due to an irregularity in the surface of the top members of the Niagara group, that are slightly unconformable with the strata above. At the falls the creek bed is over thirty feet wide with sharp overhanging mural front over which the water pours at flood height with a great roar, falling twelve or thirteen feet into the pool below, presenting a pleasing if not a grand spectacle. All the elements are present, of a first class picturesque resort, especially in summer, when the surrounding valleys are covered with ver- dure, but one, the lack of water to bring out the beauties of the falls, just at the time people feel most inclined to seek such places.
During ordinary summers, Fall Fork dwindles to a lazy rivulet, playing hide and seek with the rocks of its stony bed, in very dry seasons it vanishes into thin air. But while the dilettante pleasure seeker might be disappointed, not so the geological specimen hun- ter whose work would be favored by the absence of water, and the shale that the bed of the creek left bare. Good specimens of Eucalyptocrinus crassus, H., Glyptaster inornatus, H., Rhodocri- nus melissa, H., and very fine crinoid roots are not rare, and an occasional perfect trilobite has been found. All the various species of brachiopods common to the calcareous shale are abundant. Picnic parties will find one of the finest chalybeat springs in the
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BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY.
State below the falls in the bed of the creek, where a profusion of the coolest water bubbles up from an unknown depth.
Section at Long's Falls, Middle Fork Creck, Clifty Township.
Grayish and ocher colored shelly stone, lower division of the corniferous group 4 ft. oo in.
Calcareous shale Niagara group, non-fossiliferous, weathering further down the creek to a yellowish clay 2 ft. oo in. Yellowish shelly stone with chert bands at the top No. II, C. S. I ft. 6 in.
Massive, even bedded blue quarry limestone, in ledges
from two to fifteen inches thick, good building and flagging stone 8 ft. oo in.
Total 15 ft. oo in.
These falls are in a small way the counterpart of the Anderson Falls, and such cascades, rather than falls, are common to nearly all the valleys and ravines where the calcareous shale forms a part of the outcrop and has weathered so as to leave unsupported the overlying corniferous rock, that has a tendency to break in huge blocks with a square precipitous front. Examples of the square fracture may be seen on Boner's branch south of the college and on Webber's branch. No better evidence of the resistance, to the action of air and water of the blue limestone can be seen than is here presented, the running water more or less mixed with gravel and sand has scarcely left a ripple mark on the surface, level as a barn floor or rounded the square edge of the exposed strata.
In the east bank of Fall Fork Creek at David Anderson's mill the upper members of the blue Niagara limestone, are replaced by bands and nodules of white chert, that breaks into smaller frag- ments on exposure, in appearance not unlike an imperfectly slacked lime rock.
Devonian Age .- Corniferous Group .- The corniferous group limestones form the surface stone and underlie the Drift of nearly the whole of the eastern upland portion of the county. It is the
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GEOLOGY.
stone struck in digging wells in Rock Creek, Clifty, Clay and Haw Creek townships. It is the bed rock and stone exposed in the banks of Beaver Creek, Little Sand Creek, Duck Creek, Otter Creek, Ilaw Creek, and their tributaries, and on top of the bluffs on Middle Fork, Fall Fork and Clifty creeks. From its lithologi- cal characters, we have divided it into three subdivisions, upper, middle and lower corniferous. In relative thickness they stand in the proportion ten : twelve: forty, but the outcrop in the county is not in the same ratio. The upper division, blue limestone, equiva- lent of the North Vernon quarry stone, was seen at but three places; ' James Manley's Limekiln or Little Sand Creek, and at the Ever- rode and Yaley quarries in Clay Township. In thickness it is variable; at Manley's kiln it does not exceed three feet, and at the other outcrops scarcely reaches ten feet. The middle division is only found in force on Little Sand Creek; other exposures of thin plates were seen on the bluffs east of Robert Ketner's place in the road from Hartsville to David Anderson's mill, and at John E. Robbin's farm. The lower member near Hope has a much greater surface exposure and thickness from having been protected by the others from the general denudation to which they have been subjected.
In lithological characters the upper corniferous, North Vernon stone, is a hard, sometimes refractory, dark blue crystalline, mas- sive, even bedded, magnesian limestone, of uniform structure that weathers well. The middle is a light blue, crystalline massive or thin bedded, shelly magnesian limestone, of variable structure, banded and mixed with amorphous chert-geodes and weathers to thin plates and shelly fragments. The lower corniferous is a gray- ish, dark, dirty colored rock, never truly crystalline to the unaided eye, but showing, under a magnifier, very fine sand like specks, massive or thin, even bedded limestone of tolerably uniform struc- ture, except where mixed with or replaced by chert or pockets of calcite, that weathers into large angular blocks and rotten stone. At many points the lower division might be termed a true argilla- ceous limestone and is everywhere mixed with a considerable per cent. of alumina, and the manner in which it resists the action of water, and atmospheric influence is variable; where covered by a
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BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY.
thin soil or kept damp the outside crust is a dirty rotten stone in appearance like sand, that tested with mineral acids and the micro- scope is found to be free from silex, at other places where exposed to air and rains alone, the face of the bluffs and detached block are eroded into holes and crannies, as if long subjected to the action of waves and running water. That such has been the case seems probable from many of the blocks standing alone and away from the adjoining bed rock. On the west side of Clifty Creek north of John Graham's land are isolated masses with perpendicular fronts that measure from nineteen to twenty-six feet in height. On the outside these blocks and bluffs present to the eye a hard, gray, or blueish appearance in contrast with the soft and lighter colored in- terior. On the north side of Hiner's branch, a hundred yards or more above the mouth, the lower division limestone is replaced by a coral reef in which the fossils are not only silicified, but are im- bedded in a silicious matrix, the counterpart of what is mentioned by Professor Borden, in his report on Jennings County, as a buhr stone, locally called " millstone grit," from its very great resem- blance to genuine French buhr. Whether the bed reaches down to the top of the Niagara group stone it was impossible to tell as the lower part was covered, but that such is the case, is probable. The cellular buhr stone was seen at a number of places, and is · doubtless peculiar to the lower division of the corniferous group. At the base of the corniferous, overlying the calcareous shale or Niagara limestone, frequently occurs hard, refractory, ochery-col- ored stone, that in appearance and lithological characters is identi- cal with the top strata of the Niagara, both are equally persistent, and one or both may not show in the outcrop. Careful testing with acid and examination with the microscope fails to detect the presence of silex in either.
All of the corniferous group members are fossiliferous, especially the silicious cherty portion, in this last respect differing from the chert of the Niagara that seldom contains organic remains. Scat- tered all through the upper and middle divisions of the crystalline stone, fragments and occasional perfect specimens are found, and abundantly, in the chert. We have not found any of the Brach- iopods and only one Conchifer Conocardium trigonale, H., that is
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GEOLOGY.
common and seems to be peculiar to the lower corniferous divis- ion. At many places a part of the corals are replaced' by calcite, but as a rule the stony frame work of carbonate of lime has been replaced by silex, hard and durable as the everlasting hills, that, re- sisting the weathering process, are found mixed in the glacial clay and gravel, and scattered over the soil; geological records and monuments that have been torn from their settings, all that remains of the once massive stone that has yielded to the ravages of time. From the short time given to the study it is not yet possible to say with certainty what fossils are peculiar to each of the divisions, but enough is known to indicate in a general way the range of some of the more common species. No perfect specimens of crinoids could be had, but fragments of the base are not uncommon, and huge stems, some of them very singular in having prolongations, wings, growing from every fourth or fifth ossicle, are abundant and found only in the upper blue limestone. The fragments of crinoids are referred to the genera Megistocrinus, Synbathocrinus and Rhodo- crinus; Dalmanites ohionensis, Meek, was found only in these beds. The various species of Strophodonta have a wider range through all the upper and middle strata. Probably the lower division is best characterized by the absence of all higher forms of life than the corals, except Conocardium, which is common in some places.
A general subsidence of the ocean level took place at the close of the Silurian age, and that the lower coniferous was deposited from shallow water, more or less contaminated with impurities, seems evident from the per cent. of alumina contained in it; that it was a sea filled with coral reefs and islands is shown by the great beds of zoophites found in masses of so-called millstone grit; corals grow and form limestone only when they are in reach of the waves (Dana). The thin lamina of stone seen on Haw Creek and Duck Creek near Hope are the result of gentle wave action. These conditions were somewhat changed near the close of the Corniferous epoch, there must have been a slight subsidence of the interior continent, an increase in depth and clearing of the water favorable to the growth of higher forms of life, and the formation of pure crystalline limestone.
The most common fossils are Spirifera acuminata, Conrad,
1
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BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY.
S. mucronata, Conrad, Strophodonta hemispherica, H., S. demissa, H., an undetermined species of Murchisonia, and the calyces of Megistocrinus and Synbathocrinus, together with the pygidium of Proctus planimarginatus, Meek, and of Dalmanites ohioensis, M. The abundance of large and peculiar crinoid stems show that that form of animal life was once common.
Hamilton Period .- Black Shale, Gencsce Epoch .- The stone of this epoch is locally known as black slate, but as it is slate only in appearance, we use the better term shalc. It is the equivalent of the New Albany and Louisville black slate; Delphi, Ind., black slate; Huron shale of Ohio; Devonian black shale of the west; Genesee shale of New York, and the authors generally.
The eastern boundary of the outcrop is defined by the expos- ures in the banks of Little Sand Creek, one mile east of James Manley's lime kiln, at the Yealy and Everroad quarries in Clay Township, at the Manley lime kiln, and at the old saw mill near the residence of Martha Russell, in Rock Creek Township. At the latter place the dip has gained on the base of the creek, so that the shale forms the bed of the stream. It is reported to have been struck in digging a saw mill well south of Elizabethtown, and in a well at Petersville. West of these points no outcrop is seen till it is exposed by 'the bed of White River at the Valley mills west of Taylorsville, and down the river to the Catfish Falls below Lowell mills. The black shale was found and penetrated to a depth of thirty-one feet in digging a well at Krusee's garden in West Columbus.
The shale, where protected or unaltered by contact with the underlying rock, is a jet black stone, where exposed and weath- ered changing to lighter shades and splitting into thin foliaceous scales and plates. Imbedded in it, at the outcrop on White River are frequent nodules and masses of iron pyrites, ferrum sulphide, that rust and combine with the oxygen of the atmosphere. When quarried in large blocks they soon break and slack, the line of fracture being as often across the lamination as with it. It is said to contain ten or more per cent. of bituminous matter and by dis- tillation to yield from ten to twenty gallons of oil to the ton. Tak- ing the per cent. of organic matter at ten, the beds of this county
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GEOLOGY. 303
contain enough bitumen to form a coal seam seven feet thick. Thrown on a fire it burns for a few minutes like stone coal, but the bulk of stone never grows less, the oily matters is burned out, leaving the earthy residue undiminished and not a true ash. From this many persons are led to think that deeper in the hill or by boring, coal might be found, aside from geological evidence; fre- quent borings show that this is not the case; it is not even a sign of coal. Attempts have been made to utilize it, and at one time great hopes were had of its being useful as a roofing material, spread on felt, but expensive trials made by grinding it at Lowell mills, in this county, and at New Albany, proved financially disas- trous to the experimenters. It has been recommended as a road material, but its tendency to slack will preclude its use for this purpose. If of any practical value, other than as a part of the great mass of rocks necessary to the formation of the crust of the earth, we have not heard of it. In this age of cheap petroleum its distillation can not be made profitable.
The black shale at points south of this county, and especially in Ohio, has been found to be fossiliferous. Nothing of the kind has been found by us, but may be, as large masses of hard rock, probably limestone, are reported, that frequently contain remains of fish.
While the crystalline limestone strata of the latter part of the Corniferous epoch teach us that they were formed under deeper and purer waters than had prevailed earlier, the great thickness of the black shale, stratification and homogeneity of structure, all point to its formation under shallow seas of impure water, conditions favorable to the deposition of sediment mixed with mud, and that these conditions were unchanged for a long period.
The question as to the origin of the bituminous matter can not be satisfactorily answered, but the paucity of the lower forms of vegetable life that had as yet come into existence and limited ex- tent of dry land, would seem to show that it was derived from the organic remains so common in the preceding epoch, and not wholly wanting in this.
During the oil excitement, some years ago, Mr. C. C. Anderson sunk a well at the Valley mills on White River, and Mr. I. N.
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4
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BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY.
Smock, who lives in the immediate vicinity of the bore, has kindly , furnished a record of the strata passed through. The section is given in Mr. Smock's own language, our comments in parentheses :
C. C. Anderson Borc, Valley Mills, German Township.
Earth (first river bottom) Io ft. o in.
Slate (black shale, Genesee epoch) 40 ft. o in.
Appearance of coal (soot bed) .. 2 ft. o in.
Soft stone of same kind (black shale) of lighter color I8 ft. o in.
Stone resembling soapstone (black shale). IO ft. o in.
Hard rock, upper division of corniferous group. 2 ft. o in.
Total 82 ft. o in.
Deducting ten feet of earth and two feet of hard rock, we have seventy feet as the thickness of the black shale, which, compared with the estimated thickness from dip and bores made by Dr. Arwine and others in Brown County, we think the measurement rather below than above the maximum. The presence of the base of the Knobstone series resting directly on the shale below Cath- arine's Creek show that the deposit in this vicinity has not been much reduced by erosion.' If borings are ever made in the south- · west part of the county it will doubtless be found to increase in thickness, as most of our formations outcrop in greater force on the south.
We decide that " the stone resmbling soapstone,".is black shale mainly from stratigraphical position. No other than the black shale has been reported as occurring anywhere in the State, be- tween the corniferous limestone and Knobstone group.
The persistence of the " appearance of coal," at this bore, and at both bores in Brown County, the " soot " of the latter and the occurrence of soft black stone that could not be " picked " at the bot- tom of Krusees' well in West Columbus, at a depth of thirty-one feet, point to the conclusion that the black shale may be divided into two divisions, and that each of these may be of a different epoch, having fossils peculiar to each.
Carboniferous Agc .- Knobstonc Group or Epoch .- Many ob- stacles are met in trying to get a connected view of the sandstones
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GEOLOGY.
and shales of this group, as the great mass of the rocks are covered by detritus and soil on the hillsides, and the clay banks of the creeks and tributary branches never expose the stone so far as we saw, but by repeated measurements where an opportunity offered and the lithological characters of the strata, enough is known to deter- mine the general averages with a good degree of accuracy.
At Catfish Falls, between. Columbus and Lowell mills on the White River, the blueish gray calcareous shale, the equivalent of the Rockford Goniatite bed, has a vertical exposure of a few inches. The outcrop is fossiliferous and shows in thin even bedded, smooth homogeneous stones with a fracture at right angles to the bedding.
The blue aluminous shale, the equivalent of the New Providence shale of Prof. Borden, the next member of the Knobstone group in ascending order, has a thickness ranging from twenty-five to eighty-five feet. It is locally known as a soapstone, and' is the underlying stone of the whole of Jackson Township and the low hills of Wayne, Ohio, Harrison, Union and Nineveh, between the Wall ridge and the White River bottoms.
In structure, the blue shale is tolerable uniform, with a tendency to become ferruginous, near the base. In places it resists the action of the atmosphere and water better than the higher drab colored shales. Where weathered it forms a blue plastic clay, and cold subsoil.
Section at Noble Hill, Jackson Township.
Soil and covered space. . 40 ft. o in.
Blue shale, Knobstone group, No. 5, C. S. 5 ft. o in.
Blue shale and iron ore nodules. 5 ft. o in.
Blue shale to foot of the hill, No. 5, C. S. Io ft. o in.
Total.
60 ft. o in.
. This hill is said to be the highest above the average level of any in the township. The iron ore nodules of this section were in good shaped masses that readily shelled and broke under the hammer, but in amount were insufficient to be of any practical value.
The other shales and the sandstones of Knobstone group are very variable in both vertical and transverse section, ranging from
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a blue to a drab, from argillaceous to silicious, from friable, coarse sandstone, banded with iron ore to smooth homogeneous even bed- ded quarry stone. It is evident they were formed on the eastern shore and bed of an ocean generally quiet, whose currents came from the north or northeast burdened with sand and muddy sedi- ment, derived from the wasting disintegration of some other land than the non-silicious limestones of the Devonian and Silurian ages of Indiana. The changing, fitful currents of this epoch that left sand at one time and mud at another, and, again, both mixed to- gether, were not favorable to the preservation of fossil remains, even if marine life existed to any extent under such conditions.
Section at Taylor Hill, Harrison Township.
Soil. o ft.
Sandstone, coarse textured with shaley partings and cov- ered spaces, No. I, C. S. 75 ft. Sandstone, light colored, even bedded quarry stone, No. 2, C. S. 40 ft.
Shale, in thin beds and covered space, No. 3, C. S. 50 ft.
Iron ore, shale and sandstone, No. 4, C. S 90 ft.
Blue shale, No. 5, C. S .. 85 ft.
To level of Columbus Court House 20 ft.
Total. 360 ft.
The outcrop of the quarry stone at Taylor hill has not been worked sufficiently to develop the true character of the rock, but enough has been taken out to show that it is a beautiful even free- stone, with a square sharp angled fracture, and will split well. Whether this range of stone is the exact geological equivalent of the celebrated Berea grit and flagging of Ohio or not, it is found in the same geological group, and both were formed under similar if not identical conditions, and it should be fully developed. If once put on sale in quantities the demand for it would soon grow; it is a superior stone for many architectural purposes. Unlike many sandstones it does not retain dampness and become moss-grown. The exact equivalent of this bed has been extensively used in Brown County,
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