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In the Great war, which the United States entered in 1917, Ken- tuckians maintained their enviable record as a fighting people. Almost 100,000 entered the different branches of the service, and 3,000 gave up their lives. Four thousand were wounded in battle. Kentucky entered loyally and energetically into every activity designed to win the war. A "Work or Fight" law was soon passed, and inability to get work was accepted as no defense. War drives of every kind and the various Lib- erty Loans were well taken care of and the state need never blush at the record it made in the greatest war of all time.
111 New International Year Book, 1914, p. 399; 1911, p. 383. Over 2,000 voters in the eastern counties of the state were charged with bribery in this election, and in the Circuit Court of Pikeville, eleven were convicted, fined $100 each, and dis- franchised. Ibid., 1915, p. 357.
112 The votes for the different elections are as follows: In 1900, Bryan, 234,899, McKinley, 226,801; in 1904, Parker, 217,170, Roosevelt, 205,277; in 1908, Bryan, 244,092, Taft, 235,711; in 1912, Wilson, 219,584, Taft, 115,512, Roosevelt, 102,766; in 1916, Wilson, 269,990, Hughes, 241,854, and in 1920, Cox, 456,497, Harding, 452,480.
Vol. II-20
CHAPTER LXVII GEOLOGY OF KENTUCKY BY PROF. ARTHUR H. MILLER, Department of Geology, University of Kentucky, Lexington
I GENERAL SURVEY
Present Surface of Kentucky: Its Age and History .- Kentucky is a part of a very old land surface. That portion of it lying east of the Tennessee River came up out of the sea virtually for the last time at the close of the period once known as Lower Carboniferous, but now called Mississippian. Since then it has oscillated considerably in level, having been worn down nearly to sea level by the beginning of the coal- making period for the eastern United States. During this period, which is called Pennsylvanian, it underwent aggradation by river sedimentation and wash from neighboring higher lands. There may also have been brief incursions of a shallow sea.
Since the close of Pennsylvania time, commonly estimated at from 10,000,000 to 20,000,000 years ago-according to J. Barrell (1917) from 215,000,000 to 285,000,000 years ago-the surface of Kentucky has been exposed to continued action of the weathering and denuding agencies. with the result that it has become overlaid with a deep covering of residual soil. This is thicker in the limestone regions, where the rocks decompose with great rapidity, causing the soil material to form more rapidly than it can be removed by rain and stream erosion; and thinner in the sandstone regions, where the rock is more resistant to weathering and where the products of disintegration tend to wash away about as quickly as they form.
That portion of Kentucky which lies west of the Tennessee River, or the "Purchase Region" as it is commony called, from the nature of its acquisition by the state, was not finally raised above sea level until late geologic time (Tertiary period), but remained for at least a portion of post-Mississippian time (late Cretaceous and Tertiary periods ) as the head of an embayment extending northward from an ancient Gulf of Mexico, and received estuarine deposits.
Very little of the state felt the effects of glaciation, only a narrow strip along the Ohio River from Campbell to Trimble counties having deposits ascribed to such agency. These consist of an imperfectly con- solidated dust deposit called loess, with which are mingled pebbles and occasional boulders of northern origin. Glacial out-wash deposits are also recognizable along the Ohio River, particularly in Jefferson County.
Character of the Bed Rock .- The rocks of Kentucky belong to the stratified and igneous series. The igneous rocks are of very limited extent in areal outcrop. They are of the very basic variety known as peridotite, which constitutes the dikes of Elliott and Crittenden coun- ties-the former in the northeastern and the latter in the southwestern portion of the state.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
The stratified rocks consist of the usual sedimentary sandstones, shales and limestones, which make up the consolidated members of that series, along with some that are unconsolidated.
The sandstones, or the siliceous rocks, vary in color and texture. Classified according to their texture, they maye be fine grained-such as freestones and Siliceous mudstones, or coarse grained-such as grits and quartz-pebble-conglomerates. The latter are known as hailstone grits, pudding stones, or simply as conglomerates.
The shales are the argillaceous rocks which show a marked cleavage parallel to the bedding. These vary in color from light to dark, the former often being called soapstones and the latter slates. The dark color is due to incorporated carbonaceous or bituminous matter. The term "slate" is inappropriately applied, as the rocks so called have never been metamorphosed, and they lack the hardness and durability of true slates.
The limestones are those rocks composed largely of carbonate of lime. They exist in great variety, and may be classified in a number of ways: In accordance with composition they are pure and impure, Mag- nesian, ferruginous, siliceous, etc. As regards color, they are light, dark, blue, gray and yellow limestones. According to texture, they are fine grained, coarse grained, crystalline, non-crystalline, etc. In accordance with their chief fossil content, we have crinoidal, coral, bryosoal, brachi- opodal and molluscan limestones. Chert is an impure flint which fre- quently accompanies limestone in the form of nodules and layers, or has resulted from the decay of siliceous limestones and is then found in the soil.
Besides the foregoing older and more consolidated sediments, there are the imperfectly consolidated forms known as sand gravels, clays, loams, silts and loess. Loess is a fine grained buff colored clay-like deposit, the origin of which is in dispute. It is generally considered to owe its deposition in its present position mainly to the action of wind.
Origin of Present Topography .- The variety of topography in the state is due more to the different degrees of resistance which the various rock formations offer to the eroding agents than to stages of develop- ment that have been reached in the erosion cycle; though certain physio- graphic features may be best explained as an inheritance from past base-level conditions.
Influence of Structure on Areal Geology .- The present areal geology of Kentucky is largely controlled by a broad low arch, the Cincinnati Anticline, or, as some prefer to call it because of its great extent, the Cincinnati "Geanticline." This arch stretches north and south across the central portion of the state and rises to a culminating point in Jessamine County, giving to this portion of it the name Jessamine Dome. The average dips of the strata on the flanks of this broad earth flexure are quite gentle, ranging from 10 to 15 feet per mile near the crest to 25 to 50, or even 75 feet, further down the slopes; and hence they are not detected by the eye. However, this arching and doming of the strata have so invited erosion that nearly complete truncation has taken place, exposing strata on the surface of the dome which are the oldest in the state, because they are formed in the sea before their bowing up, and so became deeply buried underneath later formed sediments.
Westward the strata sink in a broad syncline to their lowest level underneath the Kentucky-Indiana-Illinois Coal Field, the axis of the syncline extending from northeast to southwest near the middle of this. An examination of a geological map, showing the concentric arrange- ment of the formations from Champlainian to Pennsylvanian inclusive in the order of their age from the Jessamine Dome outward as a center, strongly suggests that the Pennsylvanian once covered all or nearly all
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
of the state; that this and the other formations back to the Champlainian first wore through on the Jessamine Dome to the next one below, and then had their series of areal outcrop retreat outward in enlarging cir- cles like fairy rings in the grass. The outer circle finally became broken into two separate areas or patches-the Eastern and Western Coal Fields.
TABLE OF GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS FOR NORTH AMERICA
Groups (Eras)
Systems (Periods)
Cenozoic.
JQuaternary
Tertiary
Cretaceous
Mesozoic
Comanchian
Jurassic
Triassic
Wanting in
Kentucky
Permian
Pennsylvanian
Mississippian
Devonian
Silurian
Ordovician
Cambrian
Proterozoic.
JKeweenawan
Animikean
Deeply
buried
in
Kentucky
Algoman
Temiskamian
Laurentian
Loganian
TABLE OF GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS FOR KENTUCKY
GROUP
SYSTEM
SERIES
STAGE
Cenozoic.
[Quaternary [Tertiary.
Pleistocene
Pliocene
Eocene
Mesozoic
Cretaceous
Ripley
(Tuscaloosa
Pennsylvanian
(Monongahela J Conemaugh Allegheny Pottsville
Tennessean.
Chester Ste. Genevieve St. Louis
Mississippian
Warsaw
Logan
Waverlian
Cuyahoga
Senecar
Genesee (Ohio Shale)
Devonian
Erian
Hamilton
Onondaga Louisville and Waldron
Silurian
JNiagaran
Alger and Osgood Indian Fields Brassfield
Oswegan
Richmond
Cincinnatian
Maysville Eden
Ordovician
Cynthiana
Trenton (Lexington)
(Champlainian.
[Highbridge
Paleozoic.
Archeozoic.
[Recent
Paleozoic
Kinderhook
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
II
AREAL GEOLOGY AND PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS
The Stratigraphic Series Represented in Kentucky .- As will readily be seen by an examination of the two foregoing tables not all the geo- logical formations known are represented by outcrops in the state. The series begins with a portion of the lower Ordovician, the formations earlier than this being buried beneath the surface. The next underlying formation-the Cambrian-has been struck in deep well drilling located along the crest of the anticline, or not too far down on the flanks. The deepest of these wells, the one located at Nicholasville, reached a depth of 3,160 feet. It passed through the Knox dolomite, in part Ordovician and in part Cambrian, and reached about 150 feet into a shale, which, from fragments of certain trilobites brought up in the sand pump, has been identified as Nolichucky, an undoubted Cambrian division.
The Permian, Triassic, Jurassic and Comanchian are entirely unrep- resented in Kentucky by deposits, because during these periods this portion of the Mississippi Valley was entirely above the sea and suf- fered loss by erosion instead of addition by sedimentation. Also during late Silurian and early Devonian time the region lying along the Cin- cinnati anticline was above the sea and suffered erosion. For this reason the Silurian and Devonian formations in Kentucky are relatively thin. A similar erosional explanation accounts for the thinness of upper Mis- sissippian in Northeastern Kentucky, and of the Cretaceous and Tertiary in the extreme western portion of the state.
The Bluegrass Ordovician Area .- The Ordovician rocks are exposed mainly in the north-central portion of the state, where they occupy an area of about eight thousand square miles. Narrow outcrops of this forma- tion also occur along the Cumberland River in the southern part. On account of the prevalence of limestones in this formation, and these generally phosphatic, the soils formed from its decay are relatively of high fertility. Bluegrass, if not indigenous, at least found here a soil especially congenial for its growth and rapidly carpeted the fields and woodland as fast as they became cleared of its natural wild growth (cane and wild rye), so that at an early date the name "Bluegrass Region" became the name by which it was generally known.1 It is also known as the "Burley Tobacco District" from the variety of tobacco which is so extensively cultivated throughout the area. This variety originated in Brown County, Ohio, which lies in that small portion of the Bluegrass extending north of the Ohio River
1 Filson in his history enumerates as the natural growth of the "Elkhorn Dis- trict" (name by which the Inner Bluegrass Region was then known), wild rye, clover and cane, but makes no mention of the bluegrass. Christopher Gist, who preceded Filson, visiting northern Kentucky and southwestern Ohio in 1751, makes no mention of this grass as found in Kentucky, but he noted its presence in the Miami Valley. Gilbert Imlay, in his trip from Limestone (now Maysville) to Lexington, an account of which appeared in his "Travels," published in London in 1892, noted the change for the worse in the character of the soil and country in crossing Johnson Creek, and again for the better in crossing Hinkston Creek. We now recognize these changes as due to the passage from the Maysville to the Eden outcrops in the first instance, and from the Eden outcrop to that of the Trenton, in the second instance.
The first attempt to give a geological explanation of the natural fertility of the "Elkhorn tract," was by J. Corra de Serra in the transactions of the Ameri- can Philosophical Society in 1818. He there suggests that the accumulation of vegetable material, which in the mountains of eastern Kentucky by being covered by deposits of other strata was formed into coal, also at one time extended over this "Elkhorn tract," but never having been covered by later deposits, decomposed, thus furnishing to the soil of this region the ingredients which made it so re- markably fertile :- A perfectly absurd explanation.
J. E. Worchester, in the same year in his Gazetteer of the United States refers to this region as the "Garden of the State."
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
All parts of the Bluegrass are not equally fertile. The central por- tion, that bedded upon the Trenton (Lexington) and Cynthiana forma- tions, are known to the pioneers as the "Elkhorn District," possesses a soil especially rich in phosphorus and enjoys therefore a reputation for fertility unsurpassed by any other soil in the world. Besides the crops for which the Bluegrass region as a whole is celebrated, it is especially adapted to the growth of hemp. As characteristic native trees of this region are the burr oak (Quercus macrocarpa) and the chinquapin oak (Quercus muhlenbergii). Wild cherry, white ash, hackberry, walnut and the Kentucky coffee tree are also prevalent. It is the only portion of the Bluegrass which possesses any mineral wealth other than its soil. It is traversed by numerous veins of barite and several of calcite and fluori e, all of which have been exploited to some extent. Also there are to be found in some places deposits of phosphate rock rich enough to be developed, as at Wallace in Woodford County. The region occupies an area of about two thousand four hundred square miles and is included mainly in the counties central about Lexington enumerated as follows : Fayette, Bourbon, Clark (eastern portion), Jessamine, Boyle (northern portion), Mercer (eastern portion), Anderson (eastern portion), Wood- ford, Franklin (eastern portion ), Scott (southern portion) and Harrison ( southern portion ).
Surrounding this region is a belt of relatively poor shale land-that of the Eden formation-comprising about two thousand five hundred square miles. This under the action of stream erosion has been cut into steep slopes presenting a rough topography which the removal of the native forest growth and subsequent cultivation has intensified. Bereft of its protective covering of timber or grass, winter rains and freezing and thawing cause the soil to slip down the slopes into the narrow val- leys, leaving behind yellow gullied hillsides strewn with thin slabs of limestone which were originally intercalated with the shale.
Beech is a conspicuous element of the original timber growth of this region. Sassafras, persimmon and hickory also thrive well upon it.
The main body of this Eden shale belt is comprised in a circle of counties enumerated as follows: Grant, Harrison, Pendleton, Robertson, Nicholas, Montgomery, Clark, Madison, Garrard, Boyle, Mercer, Ander- son, Shelby, Franklin, Henry and Owen.
Besides the main area of the Eden traced as above, there are two conspicuous linear outliers of it-one stretching for about thirteen miles from near Great Crossings in Scott to near Camp Pleasant in Franklin County, and the other from Union Mills in Jessamine through Fayette to near Hutchison Station in Bourbon County. An attempt was made in the early days to explain the infertility of the soil along these narrow strips (not over one mile in width) in comparison with the high fer- tility of the soil on either side of them upon the hypothesis that they constituted old buffalo trails. We now know that they are remnants of the Eden that formerly covered all of what is now the Inner Blue Grass Region, and have been protected from removal by denudation as the result of being down faulted. They constitute fault block strips included mainly between parallel primary and secondary faults. Blue- grass flourishes well on Eden shale land and prevents its washing, so that it would appear desirable to devote it largely to stock raising.
The outer belt of the Bluegrass, comprising 3,200 square miles, is constituted by the outcrop of the Maysville and Richmond formations. These are more largely limestone than the Eden, and in consequence give rise to better soil. Indeed, the soil is but little inferior to that of the "Inner Blue Grass Region" bedded on the Trenton limestone, and like it is well adapted to hemp raising. The counties including this region are as follows: Boone, Campbell, Kenton, Grant (northern por-
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
tion), Bracken, Mason, Fleming ( western portion), Bath ( western por- tion), Montgomery (northern portion), Clark (eastern portion), Madi- son, Garrard, Lincoln, Boyle, Marion (northern portion), Washington, Nelson (northern portion), Spencer, Shelby ( western portion), Henry (western portion), Owen ( western portion), Carroll, and Gallatin.
The Knobs Region .- That portion of north central Kentucky, about five thousand six hundred square miles in extent, lying between the Bluegrass and the Muldrows Mississippian-Pennsylvanian escarpment is characterized by the presence of elevations extending to a height of 300 to 400 feet above the valley floors from which they rise. They are gen- erally conical in shape and composed for the most part of a shale and sandstone formation known as the "Waverly." David Dale Owen, the first state geologist of Kentucky, called the formation the "Knobstone." The valley floors from which the knobs rise and the belt of level land between them and the Bluegrass region are composed of the Silurian and Devonian formations. The Silurian and the lower portion of the Devonian is mainly magnesian limestone with some light colored shale. They give rise generally to soggy, tenacious soils, often referred to as "crawfishy." They are naturally poor, but can be vastly improved by drainage and fertilizers. Occasionally there are bodies of very fine land in this area, as at Indian Fields in Clark County. The geological reasons for this are not apparent. The Knobs themselves are agricul- turally worthless, except for fruit culture. The Knobs belt may be de- scribed as lying within the circle of counties from Lewis on the north- east to Jefferson on the west. Enumerated in order they are as follows : Lewis, Rowan, eastern Fleming, eastern Bath, eastern Montgomery, west- ern Menifee, Powell, eastern Clark, eastern Madison, Estill, southern Garrard, Rockcastle, southern Lincoln, Casey, southern Boyle, Marion. Nelson, Bullitt, and Jefferson.
The native timber growth inclines to be scrubby. Conspicuous ele- ments of it are pine, chestnut, sweet gum, and a variety of oaks.
The Knobs, typically conical when composed exclusively of the Waverly formation, and flat topped when capped by the limestones of the upper Mississippian, or the basal conglomerate of the Coal measures (Pennsylvanian), are merely the detached outliers of the continuous out- crop of these formations, the inner edge of which retreating down the dip from the summit of the Jessamine dome, presents toward the Blue- grass a steep escarpment or cuesta known from early times in Kentucky as "Muldrow's Hill." 2
This name is especially applicable to the stretch of the escarpment along the south side of the Bluegrass where it is capped by the lime- stones of the upper Mississippian. Northeastward from Rockcastle County a still higher formation, the basal conglomerate of the Coal Measures, surmounts and adds to the heights of the escarpment. The most imposing outliers of the plateau, of which the Muldrow escarpment is the edge, are those still capped with these higher formations. These flat topped elevations are generally known as "Pilot knobs," because from them can be obtained a fine view of the surrounding country. It was from one of these, situated on the boundary of Clark and Powell counties, that Daniel Boone is said to have first gazed out over the Bluegrass region.
As has been stated, the Knobs Region as a whole is naturally poor agricultural land. There are, however, instances which demonstrate that
2 The earliest reference we have been able to find to this escarpment is in the account of his travels in Kentucky given by the younger Michaux (F. A.). In this account, published in London in 1805, he speaks of ascending "Mulder hill" and soon after entering the "Barrens." The point which he surmounted the escarpment was in the vicinity of New Haven along the line of the present Jackson Highway.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
even these naturally poor lands can be made by wise and patient tillage to produce abundantly. Two of these are the lands of the Trappist Monks of Nelson County and those of the German colony, Ottemheim, of Lincoln County. These stand out as agricultural successes in striking contrast to what has resulted from the efforts of the native Kentuckians in this strip. Eking a scanty subsistence from the products of a primitive agriculture supplemented by what can be obtained from the sale of a few railroad ties or loads of tanbark hauled over miserable roads to the nearest railroad station, they are proverbially backward people, living in sight of the Bluegrass, yet electing to remain where the conditions are primitive. Of them it can be said that natural selection has operated to bring them into harmony with their environment. Contributory to this adjustment is heredity in some cases resulting in degeneracy through too close intermarriage of families having original mental, moral and physical defects. An illustration of such degeneracy is afforded by the Willoughby community of Southern Montgomery County, which has recently attracted the attention of geneticists.
Little mineral wealth has as yet been discovered in the Knobs region, though the outer border of it has, as in Estill County, recently yielded oil in quantity, and the Devonian black shale, from experiments lately carried on, promises to afford by distillation an abundant supply of this substance in the future. Should the expectations of those engaged in these experiments be realized, this region may one day become the most prosperous of any in the state, for the supply of the crude material is practically inexhaustible .
This region is also the one in which mineral waters of reputed medic- inal properties are most abundant. These come mainly from the same black shale which has in it such large potential supplies of oil, and the springs affording them follow in the main pretty closely the outcrop of this formation. This outcrop may be approximately traced by the enumeration of summer resorts located at certain of these springs, as Esculapia, Fox, Olympia, Estill and Linnieta. The same line of springs follows the Knobs Region through Indiana, one of these, French Lick, having come to enjoy a national reputation. These springs are known from the chief ingredient as "sulphur," "iron," "alum" and "salt." In pioneer days the salt springs were known as "licks" and were resorted to by the early settlers for the purpose of shooting game which con- gregated there to lick the salt. The settlers also obtained from these licks salt for their own use by the evaporation of the water. Especially celebrated among the "salt works" in this Knobs region were those of Bullitt and Lewis counties.
Some iron smelting was also done in the early days in this portion of Bullitt and Nelson counties, the ore being obtained from "iron-stone kidneys" in the Waverly formation. Also at the same time, as well as earlier and later, iron smelting was carried on in the eastern portion of this strip in the Kentucky, Red and Licking River drainage systems. Of these the oldest one, the Slate Creek in Bath County, built in 1794, derived its ore from a rich deposit of Onondaga limestone ore in the neighborhood, known later as the "Preston Ore Banks." The others, though for the most part located in the valleys along the Waverly out- crop, derived their supply from an ore found lying on top of the upper Mississippian limestone in erosion hollows there which had been re- cently exposed by the removal of the basal conglomerate of the Coal Measures.
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