History of Hickory, Polk, Cedar, Dade, and Barton counties, Missouri, Part 2

Author: Goodspeed, firm, publishers, Chicago (1886-1891, Goodspeed Publishing Co.)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, The Goodspeed publishing co.
Number of Pages: 998

USA > Missouri > Cedar County > History of Hickory, Polk, Cedar, Dade, and Barton counties, Missouri > Part 2
USA > Missouri > Dade County > History of Hickory, Polk, Cedar, Dade, and Barton counties, Missouri > Part 2
USA > Missouri > Barton County > History of Hickory, Polk, Cedar, Dade, and Barton counties, Missouri > Part 2
USA > Missouri > Hickory County > History of Hickory, Polk, Cedar, Dade, and Barton counties, Missouri > Part 2
USA > Missouri > Polk County > History of Hickory, Polk, Cedar, Dade, and Barton counties, Missouri > Part 2

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CLAYS.

Clays are dark, bluish-gray strata, more or less mixed with particles of flint, limestone and decomposed organic matter. When the floods of the Mississippi and the Missouri subside, lagoons, sloughs and lakes are left full of turbid water. The coarser substances soon subside into a stratum of sand, but the finer particles settle more slowly and form the silico-calcareous

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

clays of the alluvial bottom. Thus, after each flood, strata of sand and clay are deposited, until the lakes and lagoons are filled up.

Then a stratum of humus, or decayed vegetable matter, is formed by the decomposition of the annual growth and of the foreign matter which falls into the water, and every succeeding crop of vegetation adds another such stratum. Thus are rapidly formed thick beds of vegetable mold, yielding support to the magnificent forest trees which grow upon the sites of those ancient lakes and morasses. In this manner have been formed the vast, alluvial plains bordering upon the Missouri and Missis- sippi Rivers, which comprise about 4,000,000 acres of land, based upon these strata of sand, clays, marls and humus. The soil formed upon these alluvial beds is deep, rich and light almost beyond comparison, and is constantly increasing by the filling up of lakes and sloughs as above described.

THE BLUFF OR LOESS.

This occurs in the Missouri bluffs forming a belt of several miles in width, extending from the mouth of the Missouri to the northwest corner of the State, where it is found just beneath the soil, and also in the bluffs of the Mississippi from Dubuque to the mouth of the Ohio. Thus while the bottom prairie occupies a higher geological horizon, the bluff is usually several hundred feet above it topographically. The latter is generally a finely comminuted, siliceous marl, of a light, brown color, and often weathers into perpendicular escarpments. Concretions of lime- stone are often found, and to the marly character of these clays may be ascribed the richness of the overlying soil. It is to this formation that the Central Mississippi and Southern Missouri valleys owe their superiority in agriculture. Where it is best developed in Western Missouri the soil is equal to any in the country.

DRIFT.

This formation exists throughout Northern Missouri. The upper members consist of stiff, tenacious, brown, drab and blue clays, often mottled and sometimes containing rounded pebbles,

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

chiefly of granite rocks. The lower division includes beds of dark blue clay, often hardening on exposure, frequently overlaid and sometimes interstratified with beds and pockets of sand, sometimes inclosing leaves and remains of trees. Good .springs originate in these sand beds, and when they are ferruginous the springs are chalybeate.

TERTIARY SYSTEM.

There is a formation made up of clays, shales, iron ores, sandstone, and a variety of fine and coarse sand, extending along the bluffs, and skirting the bottoms, from Commerce, in Scott County, westward to Stoddard, and thence south to the Chalk Bluffs in Arkansas.

The iron ore of these beds is very abundant, and exceedingly valuable. The spathic ore has been found in no other locality in Southeastern Missouri, so that the large quantity and excel- lent quality of these beds will render them very valuable for the various purposes to which this ore is peculiarly adapted.

The white sand of these beds is available for glass making, and for the composition of mortars and cements. The clays are well adapted to the manufacture of pottery and stoneware.

CRETACEOUS ROCKS.

These strata are very much disturbed, fractured, upheaved and tilted, so as to form various faults and axes, anticlinal and synclinal; while the strata, above described as tertiary, are in their natural position, and rest nonconformably upon these beds. In these so called cretaceous rocks no fossils have been observed.

CARBONIFEROUS ROCKS.

This system presents two important divisions: The upper carboniferous, or coal measures; and the lower carboniferous or mountain limestone.

The coal measures, as seen by the table, are composed of nu- merous strata of sandstone, limestone, shales, clays, marls, spathic iron ores and coals. About 2,000 feet of these coal measures have been found to contain numerous beds of iron ore, and at least eight or ten beds of good, workable coal. Investigation shows

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

a greater downward thickness of the coal formation in Southwest Missouri, including beds whose position is probably below those of the northern part of the State. These rocks, with the accom- panying beds of coal and iron, cover an area of more than 27,000 square miles in Missouri alone.

The geological map of the State shows that if a line were roughly drawn from Clark County on the northeast to Jasper County in the southwest, most of the counties northwest of this line, together with Audrain, Howard and Boone, would be included in the coal measure. There are also extensive coal beds in Cole, Moniteau, St. Charles, St. Louis and Callaway Counties.

The Missouri coal basin is one of the largest in the world, including besides the 27,000 square miles in Missouri, 10,000 in Nebraska; 12,000 in Kansas ; 20,000 in Iowa, and 30,000 in Illi- nois ; making a total of about 100,000 square miles.

The fossils of the coal measure are numerous, and distinct from those of any other formation. This latter fact has led to the discovery of the existence of coal measures and the coal beds contained in them, over an area of many thousand miles, where it had been supposed that no coal measures and no coal existed.

Of the lower carboniferous rocks, the upper Archimedes lime- stone is developed in Ste. Genevieve County.

The ferruginous sandstone is generally found along the eastern and southern limit of the coal fields, passing beneath the coal formation on the west. It varies from a few feet to 100 feet in thickness. In Callaway it occurs both as a pure white sand- stone, a ferruginous sandstone, and a conglomerate. In Pettis and Howard Counties we find it a coarse, whitish sandstone. In Cedar, Dade and Lawrence a very ferruginous sandstone, often containing valuable deposits of iron ore. In Newton County it occurs in useful flaglike layers.

The St. Louis limestone, next in descending order, forms the entire group of limestone at St. Louis, where it is well marked and of greater thickness than seen elsewhere in this State. It is more often fine grained, compact or sub-crystalline, sometimes inclosing numerous chert concretions, and the beds are often separated by thin, green shale beds.

Its stratigraphical position is between the ferruginous sand-

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

stone and the Archimedes limestone, as seen near the Des Moines, and near the first tunnel on the Pacific Railroad. It is found in Clark and Lewis Counties, but, as has been said, attains its greatest development at St. Louis-hence its name.

The most characteristic fossils yet described are palæchinus multipora, lithostrotion canadense, Echinocrinus nerei, Poterio- crinus longidactylus and Atrypa lingulata.

The lower Archimides limestone includes the "arenaceous bed," the "Warsaw or second Archimedes limestone," the mag- nesian limestone, the " Geode bed," the " Keokuk or lower Archim- edes limestone" of Prof. Hall's section, and the lead-bearing rocks of Southwestern Missouri; which last, though different from any of the above beds, are more nearly allied to them than to the encrinital limestone below. All of the above beds are . easily recognized in Missouri, except, perhaps, the Warsaw limestone, which is but imperfectly represented in our north- eastern counties, where the "Keokuk limestone," the "Geode beds," and the magnesian limestone are well developed.

This formation extends from the northeastern part of the State to the southwest, in an irregular belt, skirting the eastern border of the ferruginous sandstone. The extensive and rich lead deposits of Southwestern Missouri are partly in this forma- tion, these mines occupying an area of more than one hundred square miles, in Jasper, Newton, and the adjoining counties.

The upper beds of encrinital limestone are gray and cherty. The top beds in St. Charles County include seventeen feet of thin chert beds with alternate layers of red clay. The middle beds are generally gray and coarse, the lower ones gray and brown with some buff beds.

Crinoid stems are common in nearly all the beds, hence it has been appropriately termed encrinital limestone.

The lower beds often abound in well preserved crinoidc. This rock occurs at Burlington, Iowa, Quincy, Ill., Hannibal and Louisiana, Mo., and is well exposed in most of the counties on the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, and from the western part of St. Charles to Howard County. South of the Missouri River and along its southwest outcrop it is not generally well developed.

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

In Green County it is quite cavernous. It has not been rec- ognized east of Illinois, and is not separated from other carbon- iferous stones of Tennessee.

DEVONIAN ROCKS.

The devonian rocks occupy a small area in Marion, Ralls, Pike, Callaway, Saline and Ste. Genevieve Counties; also narrow belts along the carboniferous strata to the south and west.

In the Chemung group, the Chouteau limestone, when fully developed, is in two divisions.

Immediately under the encrinital limestone, at the top of the formation, there are forty or fifty feet of brownish gray, earthy, silico-magnesian limestone in thick beds, which contain scattered masses of white or transparent calcareous spar.

The upper division of the Chouteau limestone passes down into a fine, compact, blue or drab, thin-bedded limestone, whose strata are considerably irregular and broken. In the northeast- ern part of the State, the Chouteau limestone is represented only by a few feet of coarse, earthy, crystalline, calcareous rock, like the lower division of the encrinital limestone.

THE VERMICULAR SANDSTONE AND SHALES.

The sandstones of this division are generally soft and calca- reous. They are easily recognized, being ramified by irregular windings throughout, resembling the borings of worms. This formation attains a thickness of seventy five feet near Louisiana in Pike County. It is seen in Ralls, Pike, Lincoln, Cedar and Greene.

The lithographic limestone is a fine grained, compact lime- stone, breaking with a free conchoidal fracture into sharp, angu- lar fragments. Its color varies from a light drab to the lighter shades of buff and blue. It gives out, when struck with the ham- mer, a sharp, ringing sound, and is therefore called "pot metal" in some parts of the State. It is regularly stratified in beds varying from two to sixteen inches in thickness, and often pre- sents, as in the mural bluffs at Louisiana on the Mississippi, all the regularity of masonry.

Where elsewhere seen, it somewhat resembles the upper beds

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

of the group. At Taborville, St. Clair County, it is of a salmon drab color, occurring in thick beds having an open texture, and contains a characteristic fossil-Pentremites Ræmeri. This lime- stone is found in Pike, Ralls, St. Clair, Cedar and Greene Counties.

THE HAMILTON GROUP.

This is made up of some forty feet of blue shales, and 107 feet of semi-crystalline limestone, containing Dalmania, Callite- les, Phacops bufo, Spirifer mucronatus, S. sculptilis, S. Congesta, Chonetes carinata and Favosites basaltica. The Hamilton group is found in Ralls, Pike, Lincoln, Warren, Montgomery, Calla- way, Boone, Cole and probably Moniteau; also in Perry and Ste. Genevieve.

ONONDAGA LIMESTONE.

This formation is usually a coarse gray or buff, crystalline, thick bedded and cherty limestone, abounding in Terebratula, reticularis, Orthis resupinata, Chonetes nana, Productus subacu- leatus, Spirifer euruteines, Phacops bufo, Cyathophyllum rugosum, Emmonsia hemispherica, and a Pentamerus like galeatus. Gen- erally it is coarse, gray and crystalline; often somewhat com- pact, bluish and concretionary, having cavities filled with green matter or calspar; occasionally it is a white saccharoidal sand- stone; in a few localities a soft, brown sandstone, and at Louis- iana a pure white oölite.

ORISKANY SANDSTONE.

In spite of its name, this is a light gray limestone, containing the Spirifer arenosa, Leptoma depressa, and several new species of Spirifer, Chonetes, Illonus and Lichas.

SILURIAN ROCKS.

This system is divided into the upper and lower silurian. Of the former are the following: The lower Helderberg group, which is made up of buff, gray, and reddish cherty, and argilla- ceous limestones, blue shales, and dark graptolite slates. The Cape Girardeau limestone, found on the Mississippi River, about a mile above Cape Girardeau, a compact, bluish gray, frangible limestone, with a smooth fracture, in layers from two to six inches in thickness, with thin argillaceous partings.

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

There are at least ten formations belonging to the lower silu- rian series. There are three distinct formations of the Hudson River group, as follows: First-Immediately below the oölite of the Onondaga limestone, in the bluffs both above and below St. Louis, there are forty feet of blue, gray and brown argillaceous, magnesian limestone. Above, these shales are in thick beds, showing a dull, conchoidal fracture. Below, the division becomes more argillaceous, and has thin beds of bluish-gray crystalline limestone. Second-Three and one-half miles northwest of Louisiana, on the Grassy River, some sixty feet of blue and pur- ple shales are exposed below the beds above described. Third -Under the last named division are, perhaps, twenty feet of ar- gillo-magnesian limestone resembling that in the first division, and interstratified with blue shales. These rocks crop out in Ralls, Pike, Cape Girardeau and Ste. Genevieve Counties. On the Grassy, a thickness of 120 feet is exposed, and they extend to an unknown depth.

Trenton Limestone .- The upper portion of this formation comprises thick beds of compact, bluish gray and drab limestone, abounding in irregular cavities, filled with a greenish substance. The lower beds abound in irregular cylindrical pieces, which quickly decompose upon exposure to the air, and leave the rocks perforated with irregular holes, resembling those made in tim- ber by the Toredo navalis. These beds are exposed between Hannibal and New London, north of Salt River, and near Glen- coe, St. Louis County. They are about seventy-five feet thick. Below them are thick strata of impure, coarse, gray and buff crys- talline magnesian limestone, containing brown, earthy portions, which quickly crumble on exposure to the elements. The bluffs on Salt River are an example of these strata. The lowest part of the Trenton limestone is composed of hard, blue and bluish-gray, semi-compact, silico-magnesian limestone, interstratified with soft, earthy, magnesian beds of a light buff and drab color. Fifty feet of these strata crop out at the quarries south of the plank road bridge over Salt River, and on Spencer's Creek in Ralls County. The middle beds sometimes develop a beautiful white crystalline marble, as at Cape Girardeau and near Glencoe.

The Black River and Birdseye limestones are often in even

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

layers; the lower beds have sometimes mottled drab and reddish shades, often affording a pretty marble. Near the base this rock is often traversed by vermicular cavities and cells. These may be seen from Cape Girardeau to Lincoln, and in St. Charles, Warren and Montgomery Counties, thinning out in the latter.

The First Magnesian Limestone is generally a buff, open-tex- tured, thick and even bedded limestone, breaking readily under the hammer, and affording a useful building rock. Shumard es- timated its thickness in Ste. Genevieve County to be about 150 feet. In Warren County, in North Missouri, it is seventy feet thick. It is found in Ralls, Pike, Lincoln, St. Charles, Warren, Callaway and Boone. Southwesterly, it is not well marked-in- deed it seems to be absent in some counties where, in regular sequence, it should be found. It occurs in Franklin, St. Louis, and southwardly to Cape Girardeau County.

Saccharoidal Sandstone is usually a bed of white friable sand- stone, sometimes slightly tinged with red and brown, which is made up of globular concretions and angular fragments of limpid quartz. The formation is well developed in Lincoln, St. Charles, Warren, Montgomery, Gasconade, Franklin, St. Louis, Jefferson, Ste. Genevieve, Perry and Cape Girardeau Counties. Besides the above, it is also developed in a more attenuated form, in Callaway, Osage, Cole, Moniteau and Boone. This sandstone is probably destined to be one of the most useful rocks found in Missouri. It is generally of a very white color, and the purest sandstone found in the State, and is suitable for making the finest glassware. Its great thickness makes it inexhaustible. In St. Charles and Warren Counties it is 133 feet thick, and in Southeast Missouri over 100 feet thick.

The Second Magnesian Limestone occurs in all the river counties south of Pike as far as the swamps of Southeast Missouri, and is more often the surface rock in all the counties south of the Mis- souri and Osage Rivers, to within fifty miles of the western line of the State. It is generally composed of beds of earthy mag- nesian limestone, interstratified with shale beds and layers of white chert, with occasionally thin strata of white sandstone, and, near the lower part, thick cellular silico-magnesian limestone beds. The layers are more often of irregular thickness and not

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

very useful for building purposes. It is often a lead-bearing rock, and most of the lead of Cole County occurs in it. It is from 175 to 200 feet thick.

The second sandstone is usually a brown or yellowish brown, fine-grained sandstone, distinctly stratified in regular beds, vary- ing from two to eighteen inches in thickness. The surfaces are often ripple-marked and micaceous. It is sometimes quite fri- able, though generally sufficiently indurated for building pur- . poses. The upper part is often composed of thin strata of light, soft and porous, semi-pulverulent, sandy chert or hornstone, whose cavities are usually lined with limpid crystals of quartz.

The Third Magnesian Limestone .- This also is an impor- tant member, occurring in nearly all the counties of Southern Missouri. It is generally a thick-bedded, coarsely crystalline bluish gray, or flesh-colored magnesian limestone, with occasional thick chert beds. It is the chief lead-bearing rock of South- east and Southern Missouri. In some counties it is as much as 300 feet thick.

The Third Sandstone is a white, saccharoidal sandstone, made up of slightly-cohering, transparent globular and angular par- ticles of silex. It shows but little appearance of stratification.

The Fourth Magnesian Limestone .- This formation presents more permanent and uniform lithological characters than any other of the magnesian limestones. It is ordinarily a coarse- grained, crystalline magnesian limestone, grayish-buff in color, containing a few crevices filled with less indurated, siliceous matter. Its thick, uniform beds contain but little chert. The best exposures of this formation are on the Niagara and Osage Rivers.

This magnesian limestone series is very interesting, both from a scientific and an economical standpoint. It covers a large part of Southern and Southeastern Missouri, is remarkable for its numerous and important caves and springs, and comprises nearly all the vast deposits of lead, zinc, copper, cobalt, the limi- nite ores of iron, and nearly all the marble beds of the State. The lower part of the first magnesian limestone, the saccharoidal sandstone, the second magnesian limestone, the second sand- stone, and the upper part of the third magnesian limestone be-

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

long, without doubt, to the age of the calciferous sand rock; but the remainder of the series to the Potsdam sandstone.

AZOIC ROCKS.

Below the rocks of the silurian system there is a series of siliceous and other slates, which present no remains of organic life; we therefore refer them to the Azoic age of the geologist. They contain some of the beds of specular iron. In Pilot Knob we have a good exposition of these Azoic strata. The lower fossi- liferous rocks rest non-conformably on these strata.

IGNEOUS AND METAMORPHIC ROCKS.

Aside from the stratified rocks of Missouri, there is a series of rounded knobs and hills in St. Francois, Iron, Dent and the neighboring counties, which are composed of granite, porphyry, diorite and greenstone. These igneous and metamorphic rocks contain some of those remarkable beds of specular iron, of which Iron and Shepherd Mountains are samples. This iron ore often occurs in regular véins in the porphyry.

HISTORICAL GEOLOGY.

When the continent of North America began to emerge from the primeval ocean, Pilot Knob, Shepherd Mountain and the neighboring heights were among the first bodies of land that reared themselves above the surrounding waters. When Pilot Knob thus grew into an island, it stood alone in the ocean waste, except that to the northwest the Black Hills, to the northeast a part of the Alleghany system, and to the southwest a small cluster of rocks lifted their heads out of the flood. These islands were formed in the Azoic seas by mighty internal convulsions that forced up the porphyry and granite, the slates and iron beds of the great ore mountains of Missouri.

COAL.

The Missouri coal fields underlie an area of nearly 25,000 square miles, including about 160 square miles in St. Louis County, eight square miles in St. Charles, and some important outliers and pockets, which are mainly ' cannel coal, in Lincoln,

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

Warren and Callaway Counties. This area includes about 8,400 square miles of upper coal measures, 2,000 square miles of exposed middle, and about 14,600 square miles of exposed lower measures.

The upper coal measures contain about four feet of coal, in- cluding two seams of one foot each in thickness, the others be- ing thin seams or streaks.

The middle coal measures contain about seven feet of coal, including two workable seams of twenty-one and twenty-four inches, one other of one foot, that is worked under favorable cir- cumstances, and six thin seams.

The lower measures contain about five workable seams of coal, varying in thickness from eighteen inches to four and one half feet, thin seams varying from six to eleven inches, and sev- eral minor seams and streaks, in all, thirteen feet, six inches of coal. We therefore havein Missouri, a total aggregate of twenty- four feet, six inches of coal. The thinner seams are not often mined, except in localities distant from railroad transportation.

All beds over eighteen inches thick are workable coals. The area where such may be reached within 200 feet from the surface is about 7,000 square miles. Most of the State under -. laid by the coal measure is rich farming land. That under- laid by the upper measure includes the richest, which is equal to any upon the globe. The southeastern boundary of the coal measure has been traced from the mouth of the Des Moines through Clark, Lewis, Scotland, Adair, Macon, Shelby, Monroe, Audrain, Callaway, Boone, Cooper, Pettis, Benton, Henry, St. Clair, Bates, Vernon, Cedar, Dade, Barton and Jasper Counties into the Indian Territory, and every county on the northwest of this line is known to contain more or less coal. Great quantities exist in Johnson, Pettis, Lafayette, Cass, Chariton, Howard, Put- nam and Audrain. Outside the coal fields, as given above, the regular coal rocks also exist in Ralls, Montgomery, Warren, St. Charles, Callaway and St. Louis, and local deposits of cannel and bituminous coal in Moniteau, Cole, Morgan, Crawford, Lincoln and Callaway. In 1865 Prof. Swallow estimated the amount of good available coal in the State, at 134,000,000,000 tons. Since then numerous other developments have been made, and that es- timate is found to be far too small.

HISTORY OF MISSOURI.

LEAD.

This mineral occurs in lodes, veins and disseminations, which are, as yet, only partially determined. Enough, however, is known of the number, extent, dip and thickness of these de- posits to show that their range and richness exceed those of any other lead-bearing region in the world.

Galena occurs in this State in ferruginous clay, that becomes jointed, or separates into distinct masses, quite regular in form, when taken out and partially dried; also in regular cubes, in gravel beds, or with cherty masses in the clays associated with the same. These cubes in some localities show the action of at- trition, while in others they are entirely unworn. Lead is found in the carboniferous rocks, but perhaps the greater portion is ob- tained from the magnesian rocks of the lower silurian, and in one or two localities galena has been discovered in the rocks of the Azoic period. At Dugals, Reynolds County, lead is found in a disseminated condition in the porphyry.

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History of Hickory, Polk, Cedar, Dade, and Barton counties, Missouri, Part 2

Author: Goodspeed, firm, publishers, Chicago (1886-1891, Goodspeed Publishing Co.) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Chicago, The Goodspeed publishing co. Number of Pages: 998

Author: Goodspeed, firm, publishers, Chicago (1886-1891, Goodspeed Publishing Co.)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, The Goodspeed publishing co.
Number of Pages: 998