USA > Indiana > Rush County > History of Rush 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 22
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All pikes and other roads leading out of Rushville are graveled to the out townships, and many of them to the adjoining county lines. The experiment of building free pikes is being tested in some parts of the county. The ordinary dirt roads are good, espec- ially for Indiana, and in summer nothing could be much nicer, but in winter they are fearfully muddy. I was struck with the almost total absence from the road side of the rank and vile weeds so commonly seen in a neighborhood of slovenly farmers.
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GEOLOGY.
TOPOGRAPHY.
TABLE OF ALTITUDES, RUSH COUNTY.
Cincinnati, Hamilton & Indianapolis Railroad.
Miles from
Points at which the elevations were taken.
above ocean.
32.3 Arlington
933
Little Blue River bridge, grade level.
927
Little Blue River, bed of stream. 905
Mud Creek, bed of stream 945
955
Summit 1,016
39.4 Rushville, level of grade. 983
Flat Rock River, bed of stream 957
44-3 Farmington 1,045
45.4 Griffin .
1, 062
47-4 Glenwood (Vienna). 1,092
Cambridge Branch of Jeffersonville, Madison & Indianapolis Railroad.
Miles from
Points at which the elevations were taken.
Indiana.
Columbus Depot, base of rail
642
23.86 Shelbyville crossing Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis & Chicago Railroad. 779
County line, Shelby and Rush, base of rail. 905
32.86 Manilla, base of rail
907
Mud Creek bridge, base of rail.
922
Mud Creek, bed of stream
908
37.72 Goddard's Station, base of rail.
952
39-79 Summit of grade, base of rail
1,002
42.19 Rushville station, base of rail
979
Crossing Cincinnati, Hamilton & Indianapolis Railroad, base of rail. 983 Flat Rock River bridge, base of rail. 983
Flat Rock River, bed of stream. 966
1,002
Turkey Ceeek, bed of stream. 976
48.31 Ging's Station, base of rail .. 1,013
49.68 McMillan's Station, base of rail. 1, 025
Plum Creek bridge, base of rail 1,029
Plum Creek, bed of stream 1,016
1,06]
55.12 Highest point on Cambridge Branch, base of rail. I, OS4
63.20 Cambridge City, junction Pittsburg, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railway 952
Vernon, Greensburg & Rushville Railroad.
Miles from
Points at which the elevations were taken. above ocean.
Greensburg Depot, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis & Chicago Railroad .. 954
S.S Williamstown, county line .. 954
Little Flat Rock Creek bridge. 958
Little Flat Rock Creek, bed of stream
11.8 Milroy 935
963
15.3 Bennett's 982
19.0 Big Flat Rock River bridge. 951
19.5 Rushville junction with Cambridge Branch Jeffersonville, Madison & Indian- apolis Railroad 955
Feet above ocean.
35.1I Homer, base of rail
923
Turkey Creek bridge, base of rail.
52.68 Falmouth, base of rail.
Feet Greensburg.
Feet
Indianapolis.
34.9 Brandon
Columbus,
250
RUSH COUNTY.
The striking geological facts bearing on the topography and surface configuration of Rush County, deduced from the above tables and others before published in connection with the Geological Sur- vey of Indiana, is the limitation of a part of the western border or crest of the ancient upheaval of the bed of old ocean that has given origin to the Cincinnati arch of the Lower Silurian rocks. The west- ern border of the Cincinnati arch can be readily traced from the summit, near Pearceville, in Ripley County, north through McCoy's Station and Clarksburg, in Decatur County, through Richland and Noble townships, Rush County; thence, north on the boundary line, and through the western part of Fayette County. The summit of the crest, one and one-half miles east of Glenwood (Vienna ), taken at the natural level of the surface of the country, has an elevation of 1116 feet above tide water, which ranks it in altitude as the second highest point yet reported south of Indianapolis, and second only to the celebrated Weed Patch Knob of Brown County, which has an altitude of 1173 feet above the ocean.
The next highest point (1084) reported in this connection, is taken at the base of the rail on the Cambridge Branch Railroad, two and a half miles northeast of Falmouth. This line of eleva- tion is not a high ridge in the sense of an abrupt elevation above the common level of the country; the so-called hills of Fayette, .Union and Franklin counties are realy not hills, the unevenness of the country being due to valleys cut below the surface. The top of the Lower Silurian outcrop in Indiana, in its early history, was a level plain. From the western border of this arch or plain the land falls away in a gradual slope to the west, and so gradual is the descent that it is not noticed by the casual observer. A refer- ence to the table of altitudes, however, shows a marked difference in the elevations on the east and west sides of the county. The Glenwood summit, it will be seen, is 159 feet above the bed of Flat Rock River, at Rushville, and more than 100 feet above the com- mon level of the country in the central part of the county. From Rushville, west, to the bed of Beaver Meadow Creek, the descent is eighty-eight feet, equal to a difference of 221 feet between the summit and the bed of the creek last mentioned. The Falmouth summit is 101 feet higher than Rushville, and 179 feet higher than the base of the rail at the point where the Cambridge branch crosses the Shelby and Rush county line. The elevations on the Vernon, Greensburg & Rushville Railroad show that there is but one foot difference between the level of Williamstown, at the Deca- tur County line, and the junction with the Jeffersonville, Madison & Indianapolis Railroad, and that the highest point on the road (Bennett's Station) is twenty-seven feet above Rushville. Two
25I
GEOLOGY.
and a half miles west of the Rushville depot, on the Cambridge Road, the top of the grade is twenty-six feet higher than at the depot, and on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Indianapolis road the difference is twenty feet.
Stretching away to the west, on a gentle slope, rests the broad and fertile acres of Rush County. Over the surface of an other- wise level expanse of country are short, low ridges, and slight mounds of gravel and sand, intermingled with a greater per cent. of clay. None of these elevations exceed twenty feet above the common level, and very few of them reach that figure-there is just enough rise and fall of ridge or mound to relieve the eye of the monotony of a dead sameness. An apparent exception to the above is seen in Anderson and Orange townships, where portions of the country are cut into bluffs and valleys by Big Flat Rock River and its tributary creeks and branches.
Drainage .- The western border of the Lower Silurian ( Cincinnati arch), besides its bearing on the topography of the county, determines the course of its rivers and creeks, causing those east of the border, or divide, in Richland and Noble townships, to flow into the White Water River, and those of the rest of the county to unite, as tribu- taries, with the East Fork of White River. With the exception of Big Blue River (which flows through Ripley Township, in the northeast corner of the county), all the rivers and creeks of the county have their origin within its limits or near the boundary lines. From this fact, it is manifest that the greater number of its streams are small. Flat Rock River is the most important stream of the county, and, with its many tributaries (the largest of which is Little Flat Rock Creek), drains the northeast, central and south- west portions of the county. The northwest and western portions of the county are drained by Big Blue River and its branches, Little Blue River and Mud Creek.
The flow of its streams to the west and southwest is deter- mined by the general lay of the land already described and the increasing depth and lower level, from the north to the south, of the Collett Glacial River valley, of which Rush County forms an integral part.
In all drift regions, especially where the drift is heavy, as is the case in the north half of Rush County, the rivers and creek channels seldom reach down to the country rock. Below Hunger- ford's dam, Section 4, Township 12, Range 9, the bed of Big Flat Rock River is generally rocky, and the same is true of Little Flat Rock Creek, below Milroy. With these exceptions, and appear- ance of stone in the bed of the river, four miles below Rushville, and in Little Blue River, below Arlington, the bed and banks of the
252
RUSH COUNTY.
streams are clay, gravel, or sand. Flat Rock River, where its bed . lies wholly in the drift, has well-marked, level terrace banks, or second bottoms, ranging in width from one-half to one mile, with an aver- age width of three-fourths of a mile in the vicinity of Rushville. The average width of the river-bed, or first bottom, is about 300 feet; height of bank is 10 feet; and the difference between low and high water is 8 to II feet. The bluff banks of the second bottoms vary in height from 10 to 50 feet, and, in a few places, may reach even So feet. The second bottoms of Big Blue River at Carthage, vary in width from one-half to one mile, with bluffs from 20 to 50 feet high. Here, the river banks average 10 feet in height, and the difference between low and high water is 10 to 12 feet. In the early history of the county, most of the streams, having their origin in the ponds and swamps of the flat lands, were everlasting brooks and branches, which wound their sluggish way beneath the protect- ing shadows of a dense forest, but, under the improving hand of man, many of them have been changed into artificial ditches that are dry one-half the year. In this fast age, even the creeks and rivers are required to do their work in a hurry; the barriers that once held back the waters have been removed, the very soil, by tiling, deprived of its superabundant moisture, and the floods sent rushing down to the ocean.
General Geology .- All the native stone, found in place, in Rush County, belongs either to the Niagara epoch of the Niagara group, Upper Silurian division of the Silurian Age, or the Corniferous epoch of the Corniferous group of the Devonian Age.
Connected Section-Quaternary Age-Alluvial Epoch .- Black soil and river deposits, 4 feet.
Drift Period .-- Bowlders, gravel, sand, yellow and blue clays, 60 feet.
' Paleozoic Time-Devonian Age-Corniferous Period .- Buff- colored magnesian limestone, lower division of the Corniferous epoch, used for making lime, 30 feet.
Upper Silurian Age- Niagara Period .- Waldron shale, 2 feet; gray or blue limestone, building rock, 25 feet. Total, 151 feet.
The thickness of each stratum, as given above, is an average of several measurements, made at different points. At some places, the Corniferous group stone has a thickness of less than one foot, at others it exceeds that given. In time but two ages are repre- sented, and the country rock underlying the drift forms but a small part of the great geological series. The top members of the Devonian, the whole of the Carboniferous, Reptilian and Tertiary ages are wanting; either they were never deposited over the sur- face of Rush County, or they have been removed by agencies that
253
GEOLOGY.
have worn away and comminuted their rocky substance to coarse gravel, sand and impalpable clay.
A practical inference from the absence of the rocks of the Carboniferous age, is that no true coal bed will ever be found within the limits of Rush County.
PALÆOZOIC GEOLOGY.
Upper Silurian Time-Niagara Period .- Commencing with the Niagara group, this limestone is, geologically, the oldest rock seen in the county. I found it an even bedded, crystalline stone, of a drab blue, or gray color, outcropping along the banks of Big Flat Rock River, below Moscow, and from Milroy, south, on Little Flat Rock Creek, in Orange and Anderson townships. It does not seem to form an exposed part of the bluffs on either side of the valleys, and, if it is ever discovered in them, will be found at their base, covered by a heavy stratum of the Corniferous group. As the drift, gravel, sand or clay covers all the stone of the rest of the county, with but a few exceptions in Posey and Rushville townships, it is not possible to exactly define the surface and boundary of the Niagara stone. From the reported results of borings made in the vicinity of Rushville, and the outcrop seen in Flat Rock River, below the city, it is safe to say that wells sunk through the drift in Richland, Noble, Union and Washington townships, will reach the Niagara limestone.
In the central tier of townships-Anderson, Rushville, Jackson and Center - the prevailing stone will depend largely on the irreg- ularity of the surface underlying the drift. The Niagara will probably be found in the low places, and the Corniferous capping the higher, with a preponderance of the latter. Mr. Geo. C. Clark, of Rushville, reports that three-quarters of a mile from the city, up the mill-race, the freshets have exposed a gray limestone, on a level with the bed of Flat Rock River, that is referred to the Niagara group. Driven and other wells, put down in the central part of the county, have struck a similar, if not identical stone.
No outcrop of the Hudson River group, Lower Silurian, was seen, nor has any been reported, but, possibly, it may be found in some of the ravines or creek bottoms, on the east side of Richland township, under the thinned edge of the Niagara. No opportunity offered to measure the dip, but the general topography of the county clearly indicates that it is to the southwest, at a rate of not less than sixteen feet to the mile.
In the region of St. Paul, Decatur County, the Niagara limestone has a thickness of not less than forty feet, and, in places, more: but it seems highly probable that, on the south line of this county, it
,
254
RUSH COUNTY.
thins out as it approaches the Cincinnati arch. Near the west- ern crest of the arch, the lithological characters of the top members are changed from cherty rubble to an even-textured stone, or the cherty portion has been eroded away; the former is the case with the outcrops seen in Rush County.
Chemically, the Niagara limestone is a carbonate of lime and magnesia, in variable proportions, together with alumina, silica, and oxide of iron in much smaller quantities. The reddish color of weathered specimens of the stone is due to a change of the oxide of iron from a lower to a higher oxide, by exposure. The percentage of silica is greatly increased in the flinty or cherty portions of the top strata, and is aggregated into irregular masses, nodules, and rough tables, that cause the stone, on exposure, to break into frag- ments. The Rush County stone seen by me is comparatively free from cherty matter, as I have before mentioned; and, hence, the upper ledges are more valuable than the outcrops at some other places. Uniformity of structure is an important element in a dur- able limestone for building purposes-hard and soft places differ widely in the amount of water the stone will absorb, and so, by freezing, subject it to very unequal strains and cause it to shell and break. Mr. Geo. C. Clark called my attention to the gradual crumbling, to fine fragments, of the court house foundation in Rush- ville, where frequently, as much as an inch has been worn away. Whether this erosion was due to atmospheric waste, acting on a stone deficient in the cement that holds the particles together, or irregularity in density, it was not possible to say with certainty, but probably the former; and it may be that the durability of a lime- stone, aside from the homogeneity manifest to an ordinary quarry- man can be thoroughly tested only by time and exposure. And while but few ledges of this stone seen in Rush County will come up to the high standard required of a first-class building rock, for use in expensive structures, all of it will be found valuable for the thou- sand-and-one uses to which stone is now applied. It can be econom- ically worked in roadmaking, to form a base on which to spread gravel. This experiment is being made on the Milroy and Ander- sonville pike with every prospect of it proving a success. In time, the south part of the county will be fenced with stone walls taken from the Niagara beds of Big and Little Flat Rock; and, but for its nearness to the quarries just south of Decatur County line, it would now be in demand for fence posts and bases. At present what s tone is taken out is mainly used for foundations and other purposes about light buildings.
It is evident that the Niagara limestone was formed at the bot- tom of a sea free from sediment, but subjected to currents suffi-
255
GEOLOGY.
ciently strong to reduce the crinoidæ and other organic remains found in it to fragments; and as corals do not flourish below the influence of the waves, their presence in the top ledges indicate a shallowing of the waters near the close of the period.
In this State the base of the Niagara is made up of shale, in strata ranging from a few inches to eight or nine feet in thickness. None of these beds are exposed in Rush County, but, as they out- crop northeast of Clarksburg, in Decatur County, they may be found near the surface in the southeast corner of Rush County.
The upper Niagara shale (or soapstone, as it is frequently called) is seen at Moscow and Milroy. This formation is generally known as the Waldron shale, for the reason that the outcrop, on Conn's Creek, in Shelby County, is largely made up of magnificent fossils that have given the locality a world-wide reputation. It does not seem to have an exact equivalent in any of the adjoining States, and in Indiana, so far as reported, the outcrops are confined to Flat Rock River, Clifty Creek and their tributaries. It is seen fre- quently from Moscow and Milroy, south, to Hartsville, and from Milroy and Sandusky, west, to Waldron. Aside from the fossils found in it and its marking the junction of the Upper Silurian and Devonian Ages, it has no special geological import of economic value. In this county, the Waldron shale contains more than the usual per cent. of argillaceous matter, nowhere showing imbedded nodules and flat pieces of limestone. Perhaps it was due to a want of carbonate of lime that no fossils were found in it, aside from a few fragments. In structure, the beds are made up of thin laminæe of friable shale and indurated clay. When not exposed the color is some shade of blue that weathers to yellow or ochrey, and the broken-down, disintegrated beds are scarcely distinguishable from the overlying yellow clay of the Drift period.
The conditions under which the Waldron shale was formed were in part a continuation of those of the shallow sea of the cherty Niag- ara limestone. The essential change in the conditions was the addition of currents loaded with a clay sediment. It has been sug- gested that, to the northward, the Waldron area was a more shallow sea, but, so far as yet reported, these beds are local, and, as indicated above, of no very great area, and it seems possible that the clay sediment also may have been of local origin. At this time in geological history the Lower Silurian limestone and shale of Indiana and Ohio, on the southeast, was either dry land or a wave-washed bank that may have furnished the alumina of the Waldron shale.
Devonian Age-Corniferous Period .- Geologists teach that the Devonian Age is the record of an invasion of the dry land,
256
RUSH COUNTY.
then in existence, by the sea. The Devonian sea was bounded on the southwest by the islands of the emerging Cincinnati anticlinal; on the west, the nearest land was the Lower Silurian mountains of Missouri; away to the north, the highlands of Canada were a part of a great and growing continent; on the east, in the States of New York and Pennsylvania, an extended area of dry land was exposed. Doubtless changes in the relative level of the land and sea were more frequent and well marked in their influence on the east, where the Devonian shales and sandstones have a total thickness of more than 15,000 feet, than in Central Indiana, where the formation is for the most part limestone of an aggregate thickness of 300 feet or less. But over all the interior space a warm sea prevailed, even its northern margin being studded with coral reefs and islands, and its shores having a tropical vegetation (Newberry).
The surface, extent and limits, east and west of the Corniferous group stone in Rush County, may be defined by reference to the description already given of the area covered by the Niagara epoch. Roughly stated, if all the drift materials were removed from the west half of the county, the exposed surface would be found to be buff-colored, magnesian limestone of the base or lower division of the Corniferous. Exceptions to this general rule are found in the valleys of the creeks and rivers. The stone exposed in the mound southwest of Rushville, Section 24, Township 13, Range 9, and near Swayne's mill, on Little Blue River, and in the vicinity of Arlington, are all outcrops of the Corniferous stone.
In the banks of Big Flat Rock, near Moscow, it has the same general character as the strata further south. It is a coarse, argril- laceous stone, having much the physical appearance of a sand-rock, and is frequentiy so called by the quarrymen; but the ease with which it is burned to lime proves that it is not a sandstone. Near the bridge over Little Flat Rock Creek, just west of Milroy, the Cor- niferous is the only stone seen in the outcrop, and has the same earthy color and appearance, but is in thinner strata that break into wedge-shaped pieces with feather edges. In general appearance it is identical with the outcrops of the same formation in the vicin- ity of Greensburg, and contains a higher per cent. of carbonate of lime than the equivalent beds on Big Flat Rock. In its western exposure, at Moscow, the bedding is from medium to heavy mas- sive, breaking into angular blocks that are rounded at the corners by weathering, and under certain conditions of constant moisture, disintegrate to a fine powder. One mile below Milroy, on Little Flat Rock, the Corniferous outcrops above the Waldron shale and has local characteristics that distinguish it from either of the two varieties before described. Here it is a thin-bedded, shelly, blue or
Very Respectfully George C. Clark.
259
GEOLOGY.
drab, crystalline limestone apparently free from admixture with earthy matter. In lithological appearance, it is the equivalent of the middle division of the Corniferous group that lies just under the North Vernon stone in many other parts of the State. No- where in the adjoining counties have I seen a stratum of so highly crystalline stone as this at the base of the group. These varieties, occurring withing a radius of a few miles, indicate that they were formed under local conditions acting near the margin of a surf- beaten coast.
The folowing is a list of fossils found in Rush County:
Upper Silurian-Niagara Group .- Favosites Forbesi (var. occidentalis), Favosites spinigerus, Streptelasma radicans, Streptel- asma borealis, Cyathophyllum radicula, Eucalyptocrinus crassus, Eucalyptocrinus cælatus, Lyriocrinus melissa, Lichenalia concen- trica, Anastrophia internascens, Retzia evax, Rhyncotreta cuneata (var. Americana), Rhynchonella Whitii, Rhynchonella Indianensis, Meristina Maria, Meristina nitida, Atrypa reticularis, Spirifera crispa, Platyostoma Niagarensis, Strophostylus cyclostomus, Gyroceras Elrodi, Orthoceras annulatum, Orthoceras crebescens.
Devonian Age-Corniferous Group .-- Cyathophyllum rugosum, Acervularia Davidsoni, Favosites hemisphericus, Favosites limitaris, Favosites epidermatis, Stromatopora tuberculata, Zaphrentis gigan- tea, Athyris vitata, Atrypa reticularis, Spirifera Oweni, Spirifera euruteines, Spirifera mucronata, Strophodonta demissa, Conocardium trigonale.
All the sedimentary stone of Rush County is fossiliferous, but not highly so; and no localities are known that offer attractions to the professional specimen collector. Just below the Decatur County line, on Big Flat Rock, Mr. Shaw showed me several fine fossils, found in the Niagara limestone of his quarry. One of them is, probably, an Eucalyptocrinus of very large size; another appears to be a large cystidian. He, also, has a fine specimen of Orthoceras strix, the only one I have seen from any of the Indiana beds. This locality is mentioned, with the hope that some good collector may visit and give it a thorough examination. The Waldron shale, so. far as seen, is nearly destitute of good specimens, and fragments by no means common. The Corniferous fossil beds present noth- ing specially different from those of other localities. Mr. Geo. C. Clark has some nice specimens of Spirifera mucronata (?) and corals, found in the Drift gravel near the Little Flat Rock Christian Church. I visited the locality, but did not find anything of interest.
Local Details .-- Following the banks of Big Flat Rock, north from St. Paul, the height of the bluffs gradually grows less, until, at Moscow, they are less than twenty feet. Generally, after cross-
2
260
RUSH COUNTY.
ing the county line, but one side of the stream shows a full bluff outcrop, the other side having been eroded away by the forces that, in ages gone by, excavated a valley many times greater than the rain storms of this day ever fill. Underlying some of these low bottoms, quarries can be opened and worked economically: the quarrymen will find but little stripping necessary, nature having done this part of the work for him.
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