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 23
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SECTION AT MOSCOW, ORANGE TOWNSHIP. -
Covered space.
Corniferous limestone, massive earthy stone. 2 ft. o in.
Waldron shale (clay), Niagara group o ft. IO in.
Flag, even-bedded Niagara limestone o ft. 2 1/2 in.
Flag o ft. 3 in.
Flag
o ft. 3 in.
Flag
o ft.
412 in.
Flag, or dimension stone.
ft. IO in.
Flag, or dimension stone.
o ft. 9
in.
. Flag
ft. 5 in.
Flag
0 ft. 4 in.
Flag
0 ft. 3 in. in.
Flag
ft.
. 4
Flag
o ft. 2
in.
Flag
o ft. 2
in.
Flag
o ft. 4
in.
Dimension stone o ft.
5
in.
Dimension stone o ft. 4
in.
Dimension stone
o ft. 6 in.
Dimension stone
o ft. IO
in.
Stone to the level of river bed 6 ft. o
in.
Total
15 ft. 7 in.
This quarry is opened in the east bank of Flat Rock River, on the point of an angle formed by a ravine. The amount of work done has not been sufficient to develop the exact quality of the stone, that taken out being changed by exposure and atmospheric waste. So far as the quarry has been developed, the stone is very free from chert, so common in the top strata of the Niagara at other places. The bedding is loose, even, and generally free from vertical seams, and of sufficient thickness to make excellent flag and general-purpose building stone. The facilities for working the quarry are confined to an ordinary outfit of drills, bars, hammers etc. At the time of my visit, Mr. J. H. Jones, lessee of Jos. Owens' ,
26I
GEOLOGY.
the owner of the quarry, and two employes, were engaged in pros- pecting and preparing to take out stone in quantities. With a good gravel road from Moscow to Milroy, a local demand, at least, might be developed that would pay good returns on a quarry investment. That the citizens of Milroy and vicinity are a wide-awake, enter- prising people, is shown by the money they have spent in building the Milroy and Andersonville free pike; a continuation of the same spirit will macadamize a road west to Big Flat Rock. Let the proprietors of the quarries show what they have on hand, and those in need of stone will get it away.
SECTION ON LITTLE FLAT ROCK CREEK, ONE MILE SOUTH OF MILROY, ANDERSON TOWNSIIIP.
Covered space, drift, clay and gravel
Thin-beddded, crystalline limestone, lower division of the Corniferous group, fossiliferous. 3 ft. o in. Waldron shale, Niagara group, weathered to ochery- colored clay, and thin calcareous plates, very spar- ingly fossiliferous I ft. 6 in.
Thin-bedded Niagara group limestone, to the bed of the creek 3 ft. o in.
Total
7 ft. 6 in.
This section was taken in the bend of the creek, on the east side, where the wash of the stream has removed the crumbling Waldron shale, and left the Corniferous limestone projecting over the bank. Quite a number of fossils were seen in the overhanging rock at this point, and in the equivalent stone further down the creek. The Waldron shale is here intercalated with very thin cal- careous laminæ that, when found thicker, as is the case at other points, are invariably fossiliferous. Here, the amount of carbonate of lime and magnesia appears to have been insufficient to preserve the organic remains buried in it. Only fragments and crinoid stems of the species general to this horizon were found. The underly- ing Niagara limestone is in thin strata, so far as could be seen, and much less massive than at the Moscow quarry. The same remark applies to the quarry of Captain Rice, located a little lower down the creek. That better stone could be had by opening back into the bank or bluff, is very probable, but, from what I have seen of this stone further south, it is not likely that the bedding will be heavy. The Niagara beds in this vicinity will yield good, light flagging, fence posts, bases, and light building-stone. Nowhere, in hundreds of examinations of the base of the Corniferous, where
-
262
RUSH COUNTY.
it forms a junction with the Waldron shale, have I found the stone so highly crystalline and so nearly a pure limestone as here. Doubtless it will make excellent " hot" lime, but, on account of its tendency to shell, will not prove of value for any other pur- pose.
Quarternary Age, Drift Period .--- In Rush County, covering alike the Upper Silurian on the east and the Devonian on the west, to a depth ranging from ten to one hundred feet, and thus largely concealing them from view, is found a mixture of clay, sand, gravel, pebbles, angular, subangular, and rounded stones, generally unas- sorted, unstratified and unfossiliferous. Out of this apparently heterogeneous mixture, a careful study evolves a degree of order that, in its history, has been governed by the same invariable laws of antecedents and sequences as in the other domains of nature. The general arrangement of the drift materials is illustrated in the following sections:
SECTION IN FAIR GROUND WELL, ON THE LOW BLUFF ONE MILE EAST OF RUSHVILLE.
Soil
6 ft. 6 in. Hard, yellow, gravelly clay, with hardpan at bottom. 38 ft. o in.
Hard stone. 16 ft. o in.
Total 60 ft. 6 in.
SECTION OF MR. J. C. PARKER'S WELL, NORTH OF THE C., H. & I. RAILROAD DEPOT, RUSHVILLE.
Soil 9 ft. o in.
Clay and black carbonaceous soil (?) 25 ft. o in.
Black sand, slightly water-bearing S ft. 0 in.
Mixed gravel and clay, no water. 16 ft. o in.
Total
58 ft. o in.
SECTION IN MR. GEORGE C. CLARK'S WELL, ON THE EAST BLUFF AD- JOINING RUSHVILLE.
Yellow hardpan, similar to the blue clay hardpan only in color.
36 ft. o in.
Bed of fine gravel and water 6 ft. o in.
Stone 9 ft. 6 in.
Total
51 ft. 6 in.
263'
GEOLOGY.
AVERAGE OF ARTESIAN CHALYBEATE WELLS, WEST END OF RUSH-
VILLE.
Soil, yellow clay, and gravel 6 to 8 ft.
Blue clay, hardpan 14 to 15 ft.
Fine white sand and water . .
Total 20 to 23 ft. SECTION IN THE WELL OF JOHN F. MOSES, TWO MILES NORTH OF RUSHVILLE, IN JACKSON TOWNSHIP.
Soil, yellow clay, and blue clay hardpan. 91 ft. o in. Stone, probably Corniferous group; whitish, soft sandy
clay, Waldron shale(?); stone, probably Niagara group; total of stone 15 ft. o in.
Total 106 ft. o in.
This bore, one of the deepest reported in the county, was put down on the table-land back of the highest bluff. Water was found in the lower stratum of stone, and rose about sixty-seven feet in the bore.
AVERAGE OF WELLS IN CARTHAGE, RIPLEY TOWNSHIP.
Soil and yellow clay, mixed with large gravel 5 to 5 ft. Gravel. . 4 to 6 ft.
Blue clay hardpan IO to 25 ft.
Quicksand and water
.
. .
Total 19 to 36 ft. SECTION IN THE WELL OF LOUIS J. OFFUTT, SECTION 21, TOWNSHIP 14, RANGE 9, POSEY TOWNSHIP.
Soil
6 ft. o in.
Yellow clay, and very little gravel 32 ft. o in.
Hardpan, blue clay IS ft. o in.
Stone o ft. Io in.
Total
56 ft. Io in.
AVERAGE OF WELLS IN ARLINGTON, POSEY TOWNSHIP. Soil, free from gravel. 2 ft. 6 in.
Yellow clay, free from gravel S ft. o in.
Blue clay, hardpan 25 ft. o in.
Total
35 ft. 6 in.
264
RUSH COUNTY.
SECTION IN WELL AT MANILLA, WALKER TOWNSHIP.
Soil 3 ft.
o in.
Yellow, loamy clay
7 ft. o in.
Loamy sand.
IO ft. o in.
Blue clay
47 ft. o in.
Fine quicksand
3 ft.
o in.
Snow-white sand
I ft. o in.
Gravel and sand. 2 ft.
o in.
Total
73 ft. o in.
AVERAGE OF WELLS AT MOSCOW, ORANGE TOWNSHIP.
Soil
: to 2 ft. H
Yellow clay, slightly mixed with gravel IO to ro ft.
Blue and hardpan clay Fine sand and water
IO to 20 ft.
.
. .
Total
2I to 32 ft.
AVERAGE OF WELLS AT MILROY, ANDERSON TOWNSHIP.
Soil
H to 2 ft. Yellow clay, uniformly found in the village and sur- rounding country . IO to Io ft.
Blue clay, sometimes replaced by a stratum of sand. . S to Io ft.
Gray clay and hardpan, usually mixed with fragments of chert and pebbles . 6 to 8 ft.
Gravel, sand, or muck, water-bearing, and, from two wells, fair specimens of peat 3 to
5 ft.
Total 28 to 35 ft.
In one well dug at Milroy, 150 yards from Little Flat Rock, sand was reached five or six feet from the top; after going through ten feet of sand water was found, which filled the well so it could not be walled. In one of the village wells a bowlder fifteen inches in diameter was found in the muck stratum, and they are reported as of frequent occurrence in other wells. Along the southern border of Anderson Township there is a stratum of red clay that seems to replace the lower blue clay, as it comes from the bottom of the wells. The average of the wells above given is taken from wells dug on the uplands, above the first terrace or second bottom of the creek.
From the foregoing sections, it will be seen that there is an orderly succession of strata, from the bottom to the top of - (I) sand,
265
GEOLOGY.
quicksand or gravel; (2) blue plastic clay or gray hardpan, and occas- ionally, buried timber, muck or peat; (3) yellow or red clay; and (4) soil. Another conspicuous member (5) of the Drift, not men- tioned above, is the frequent occurrence, in places, of bowlders- exotic stones, derived from the Archæan rocks found native in the high land of Canada and on the south shore of Lake Superior. In some of the sections it will be noticed that one or more of the gen- erally found strata are wanting; either they were never formed, or by the action of local causes, they have been removed, or altered and blended, until it is impossible to identify them as the equiva- lent of any particular stratum; but however altered and changed, the order of succession remains the same in the Rush County Drift.
In the southern townships, Orange, Anderson and Richland, the average thickness of the Drift will not vary much from thirty feet. On the east side of the county, in Richland, Noble, Union and Washington townships, near the water-shed, the deposit grows thinner, and will not generally exceed twenty feet. At Rushville, Henry Ormes & Co., who have made many borings and wells, give forty-eight to fifty feet as the average depth of stone. North, northwest and west of Rushville the general depth will reach sixty feet and over. At Manilla, the well abovereported passed through seventy-three feet of Drift; and another, bored on an adjoining farm, is said to have been put down 123 feet before reaching the bottom of the blue clay.
The sand, glacial sand or gravel stratum resting on the country stone is not alike constant over high and low ground, but it seems to occur in greatest force in the surface depressions. Its compo- nent materials range in size from fine siliceous sand to gravel and angular chert fragments; in color, from snow-white to dark or black quicksand. Generally it is a water bearing bed of fine sand, but is occasionally replaced by dry, hard pieces of stone, that, from lithological and fossil evidence, are probably the debris of the eroded Carboniferous and Niagara group limestones. It is suggested that the agencies that reduced the flinty portions of the stone in one case to fine particles or sand, and in the other to coarse gravel, were not uniform in their action. Occasionally, as in some of the wells at Milroy, this and the next succeeding stratum are blended together.
The blue, plastic clay, bowlder clay, glacial clay, or hardpan, is a very generally diffused member of the Drift, occurring univers- ally, except in the valleys south of Rushville, where the rivers and creeks reach down to, or near, the bed-rock. Wells and borings sunk in the first river terrace on Big Blue River, at Carthage, and on Big Flat Rock, at Rushville, pass through the blue clay, show-
266
RUSH COUNTY.
ing that the forces which have excavated the valleys ceased to act at these points before reaching the bottom of the blue hardpan. Taking the average depth to stone of the Rushville wells at forty- eight feet, and comparing it with twenty feet, the average height of the bluff part of the city above the bed of Flat Rock, it will be seen that many of the wells go twenty-eight feet below the river channel before reaching stone. The exposure of stone, before men- tioned, on the west bank of the river, at the head of the millrace, on a level with the bottom of the stream, shows that Flat Rock does not reach down to the bed of the ancient valley. During the Drift period, the valley was filled with clay and gravel, and the channel of the present river subsequently formed near the close of the period. The well at the northeast corner of the court house yard (dug eighteen feet in the surface clay and gravel without striking the blue clay), indicates that the bed of the river may have shifted from the north to the south at a still later date in geo- logical history, or the bed of the modern Flat Rock may formerly have been much wider and gradually contracted, by silting, to its present limits. In physical appearance it is a blue or lead-colored clay, where protected from atmospheric change; where exposed, of a lighter shade. It usually occurs in compact beds, ranging from a soft, laminated, plastic, putty-like mass, to a dry, impervious hardpan, that can only be excavated with a pick. That these differences in consistency are largely due to moisture may be shown by subjecting different specimens to the same drying pro- cess. Chemically, it is an alumina silicate, mixed with fine, impal- pable sand and salts of iron; its color is due to the latter. At Rushville, Mr. Geo. C. Clark describes this stratum, by saying that " It is not properly ,blue clay, but a hardpan of dark bluish cast, very gritty, filled with coarse sand and pebbles or gravel, in- termixed like grouting. It has a very disagreeable smell, and, when it forms the wall of a well or the well is walled inside of it, the water has an offensive smell and taste for some months, but, finally, becomes palatable. In some places this bluish hardpan is forty feet thick, but generally less. " "Southwest of the city, four or five miles, a well, bored sixty feet deep, did not strike stone, but found real blue clay, tough and resisting the drill by elasticity. "
In some places, fair-sized bowlders of northern origin are found in this stratum, but, as a rule, they are small, worn, and occasion- ally striated. Not infrequently it contains intercalated beds of sand.
The occurrence of buried timber, or a bed of soil and carbona- ceous matter, is intimately connected with a description of the blue clay. In this portion of Indiana it usually occurs at the top of the
267
GEOLOGY.
statum, but at Milroy was found at the bottom. Buried soil or tim- ber is reported in nearly every neighborhood in the southern town- ships of the county. The soil bed, where it forms the top of the blue clay, is frequently overlooked in digging wells, or only remarked as a bed of black earth or clay, while the finding of a stick of wood or the root of a tree twenty or thirty feet below the surface, is something out of the usual line, and is reported; and the same is true of the muck beds. I am thoroughly convinced that the less conspicuous soil bed is of much more frequent occurrence.
The yellow or orange colored clay is found everywhere overly- ing the blue clay, except in the valleys and upland gravel ridges. Over the east side of the county, and in the vicinity of New Salem and Richland, it is so intimately associated with the top soil that it is not possible to separate them. Near the Fayette County line, the color is a reddish orange, and especially so in parts of Wash- ington Township. Generally, it is comparatively free from gravel in the uplands on the east and north sides of the county. Isolated points, low mounds and slight ridges, are not infrequent in which the proportion of gravel and sand is increased. This increase is, in part, due to the clay having been dissolved out by the rains. The gravel, pebbles, and bowlders distributed through the mass are identical in composition with those of the blue clay, but are less worn; especially is this true of the bowlders that are larger, seldom sub-angular, striated or flattened on one side by attrition. In struc- ture it is a heterogeneous, friable clay, much more pervious to water than the blue clay, and yet so tenacious as to be improved by tiling. The percentage of lime is quite large, as indicated by a vigorous growth of sugar maple. The calcareous matter and very fine sand incorporated with the orange clay, in parts of Richland, Noble, Union and Washington townships, give it many of the physi- cal characters of loess. Ten feet will cover its average thickness in Anderson Township, that gradually grows heavier on the north, until it will measure thirty feet or more. Near the southeast cor- ner of the county, the yellow clay is very thin; and over the line in Franklin County it fails as a factor of the Drift period, and leaves the blue clay exposed as the surface clay.
On the crest of the river bluff, west of Big Flat Rock, for five miles below Moscow, is a continuous ridge of imperfectly stratified gravel unmixed with clay. The stratification is seldom parallel with. the horizon, but more clearly conforms to the surface slope of the ridge. A transverse section shows the alternating strata of sand, gravel, sand and gravel, or sand, gravel and pebbles, running in irregular, increasing, and vanishing lines, that may or may not be conformable. The composition of a stratum is not uniform. It
26S
RUSH COUNTY.
may be made up of sand in one place, that gradually changes to gravel within a few feet. Here and there pockets are found, filled with clean, unstratified sand, or well-rounded metamorphic pebbles and bowlders. Occasional blocks of water-worn Niagara lime- stone occur, that seem to increase in size and number below the Decatur County line. By infiltration of water charged with car- bonate of lime, in favorable localities, the thin beds of polished gravel and pebbles are cemented into a mass of conglomerate. This ridge contains enough good road gravel to macadamize Rush County. Other beds of upland gravel are reported as occurring east of Moscow, but were not examined; and it is probable that some of the low gravel beds on the east side of the county are similar in origin and structure to that described.
Along the banks of the principal streams, as already shown, are terraces or bottoms, averaging something over one-half mile in width. These terraces are the direct result of the wash or scouring action of the river flow that has removed the previous de- posit of yellow clay.
Borings made in the bottom pass through what is left undis- turbed of the original Drift series, and show the same general sec- tion or borings on the uplands, minus a part of the yellow clay bed. In other places, the erosive action has been carried down to the blue clay, and sections show a partial replacement of the yellow clay by gravel or coarse sand. The terrace gravel beds are usually stratified, but not always so, and present the same alternating strata of fine and coarse materials, with increasing and vanishing layers, as the upland beds, but differ from the latter in having a strata nearly horizontal, more continuous, and showing less evidence of having been acted on by currents coming from two or more direc- tions. The stratified terrace beds, when unmixed with large frag- ments of Niagara or Corniferous stone, yield good road gravel. Fre- quently however, a few feet away from the channel of the stream, the gravel does not show stratification, and is too fine for macadamiz- ing purposes. Well-marked second terraces were not observed in Rush County, but something of that kind shows near the southern boundary line, above the confluence of Big and Little Flat Rock, where the latter stream cuts across the ancient flood plain. These terraces are supposed to be evidence of a greater flow of water, some time in the past, together with a gradual elevation of the land on the north, that gave greater velocity to its rivers and, hence, more power to scour deep channels.
The extension of the yellow clay and gravel layers over the summit of the divide between the White Water and White River valleys, east of Rushville, and much above the level at which the
269
GEOLOGY.
equivalent bends are wanting in other places not many miles dis- tant, is suggestive of some curious speculations on the geology of Indiana. If the yellow clay deposit is due to a submergence, it seems probable that these high lands must have been relatively lower than at present. Observations bearing on the history of the Cincinnati arch of the Lower Silurian, and the geological period or epoch in which its western border was uplifted to the present level, and omitted as too technical for presentation here.
Bowlders are scattered throughout the mass of the yellow clay and gravel beds, but the vast majority seem to lie on or near the surface. In size, they range from a few inches to two or three feet in diameter. In shape, they are angular and very seldom show a worn surface; especially is this true of the isolated specimens. On the side of the bluff bank, below Moscow, lies much the largest one I have seen in Southeastern Indiana; it will probably weigh over twenty-five tons. They are not common over the whole county, but are principally found in the southeast and west parts, and seem to occur as the continuation of a line of bowlders that reaches south, nearly to North Vernon. They are Archaan rocks, generally of the gneissoid variety.
Recent Period .- The soil of Rush County is almost wholly de- rived from the Drift deposits. Scarcely any of it is due to decom- position of the country stone found in situ; it is the combined result of the Quarternary Age acted on by the fertilizing agency of ani- mal and vegetable life. In color, it ranges through various shades from black to pale yellow; the former is locally known as the black land, and the latter as the clay land. The black loamy soil covers the greater part of the surface of the county, and is general over the central and western parts. The great body of the black lands were formerly wet and swampy, and the dark color is due to the humus and carbonaceous matter derived from the decayed vegeta- tion that grows luxuriantly over its surface. The yellow clay beds form the subsoil, except in the terrace bottoms, where the clay is sometimes replaced by gravel or sand. Outside the black lands, the distinction between the top and subsoil is not marked; the pale yellow surface clay grows brighter as it gradually grows deeper, and has more the character of a true tenacious clay. The tenacity of the subsoil explains why all the lands of the county are improved by tiling. A happy blending of calcareous matter, sand and clay in the subsoil, renders it peculiarly susceptible to the ærating in- fluence of under-drainage. Exposed to the fertilizing influences of air and rain, charged with carbonic acid, the calcareous matter locked up in the clay and fine limestone gravel is unloosed, the salts of potash and soda set free, organic matter taken up, and, di-
270
RUSH COUNTY.
rectly, it supports a vigorous growth of vegetation. The yellow clay subsoils of Indiana universally contain all the inorganic and a large per cent. of the organic elements of fertility; those of Rush County, in consequence of their fine state of division, readily yield their elements in bountiful harvest, the substantial foundation of all wealth. Practically, they are inexhaustible; they may deteri- orate under continuous cultivation and non-rotation of crops, but rest soon restores them to pristine productiveness.
Economic Geology .-- The wealth of Rush County is essentially agricultural, together with such commercial relations as necessarily grow out of the wants of a great farming community. Originally covered with a dense forest, and, in places, wet, the husbandman has nobly done his work of turning an unbroken wilderness into splendid farms. The virgin soil, without a rival, has been con- stantly growing more productive. The bountiful gift of nature has been carefully utilized, until, to-day, instead of a wild waste, the eye wanders over well-inclosed farms and growing grain, pasture fields dotted with blooded horses and cattle, huge barns and fine resi- dences. A moment's attention directed to agricultural statistics and land drainage will more forcibly and eloquently show, than mere words, what has been done for the farming interests of the county.
In 1882, the assessors of Rush County reported 446,00 rods of tiling against 442,000 rods in Shelby, 477,000 rods in Marion, and 693,000 rods in Decatur; giving to Rush the third place in the State in the number of rods of tile put down. Before a people can expend money in improvements they must first produce a surplus. That surplus is easily accounted for. In the number of bushels of corn produced per acre, Rush outranked any other county in the State and was third in aggregate yield, with 2,223,414 bushels grown on 57,669 acres. The two leading corn counties were Tippecanoe and Benton, both including extensive tracts of Wabash bottoms within their limits. With 55,070 acres sown in wheat, producing 997,772 bushels, it ranks fifth in the State, and is led by Gibson, Daviess, Posey and Shelby counties. In clover lands, it had 20,369 acres against 21,310 acres in Wabash County. No more direct proof could be adduced than the last item, of the atten- tion paid to the rotation of crops and keeping the land up to its high state of fertility. In 1881, 59,891 hogs were fatted for market, which is nearly thirty per cent. more than was produced in any other county in Indiana. The number of horses, mules and cattle owned in the county is well up with the best. In the lead- ing farm products and stock raising, Rush is found at the head of the list. A very few counties may exceed it in a single farm pro-
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