USA > Missouri > Greene County > Past and present of Greene County Missouri, early and recent history and genealogical records of many of the representative citizens, Volume I > Part 8
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Between the Lower and Upper Burlington beds there is considerable un- conformity. At, or near, their contact are the finest and largest springs in this district. The porous, coarse-grained, cavernous Upper Burlington, with its- numerous sink-holes, forms a fine reservoir for percolating waters, which, meeting the compact Lower Burlington below, burst out as fine, cold springs.
UPPER BURLINGTON LIMESTONE.
By far the most important formation in Greene county is the upper divi- sion of the Burlington, which almost completely covers three-fourths of the county. The upper beds are well shown in many outcroppings, and in the large quarries, railroad cuts and bluffs around Springfield. In nearly all sec- tions that have been obtained the upper portions are made of chert or thinly- bedded alternating layers of shaly limestone and chert. These limestone beds are more compact in structure than those below, and occasionally they are somewhat oolitic. Where drainage is.slight the chert of the upper beds is left mixed with the residual clay, both from the limestone belonging to it and from the formerly overlying beds of Graydon sandstone, in such a manner as to form a wet, hard-pan soil, making the post-oak flats so common in many townships, and especially south of the Graydon-Northview fold.
74
GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
The chert throughout the whole Upper Burlington formation is usually soft, owing to its calcareous nature. It is much less compact than the chert of other formations, very ferruginous, fossiliferous and easily decomposed. These striking features are the guide in southwest Missouri that makes this chert a landmark. The limestone of this formation is usually fossiliferous, · decidedly more so than that of any of the other formations, varying from white to gray in color, and the upper beds weathering in such a way as to ex- pose innumerable sections of crinoid stems. The different beds of the Upper Burlington may be known by the following characteristics :
Ist. The heavy-bedded chert, or thin, alternating beds of shaly lime and chert already described, which vary from a few feet to about forty feet in thickness.
2nd. The limestone underneath, rather coarse-grained, crystalline, soft and greyishi in color, usually having white, rather soft lenticular masses of chert. from a few inches to a foot or two in diameter, though the chert is occasionally absent. The heavy beds are the ones that form the best quarries in this horizon, and the rock in these often approaches marble in character. The middle beds range in thickness from sixty to one hundred feet.
3rd. The lower beds are decidedly shaly in structure, though much hard- er than the upper ones, and, where exposed, they form shelving ledges, giving a rugged and barren appearance to the country. Frequently, long slopes are covered with these tumbled slabs, making a barren belt, left to the coarse grasses and the cacti. These shaly beds are excellent guides to the geologist in locating himself in this formation. The aborigines took advantage of this structure in making their burial mounds, which may be found at various points along the Sac and James rivers, especially near Delaware Town, in the bluff on the west side of the James, just above the iron bridge. In these lower beds, which have a thickness of from fifty to eighty feet, the chert in- creases toward the southeast. The limestone is remarkably pure, containing only traces of silica, alumina, magnesia and iron. It is freer from im- purities than any other limestone in the county. The thickness of this for- mation at Springfield, as given by the well at the St. Louis and San Francisco car shops, is two hundred and fifteen feet, which is about the maximum.
The decomposition of these alternating beds of limestone and chert forms a wonderfully rich soil. The breaking down of the very soft, porous, fossili- ferous and ferruginous chert, with the red argillaceous material derived from the weathering of the limestone, forms a most favorable condition for vegetable growth. This mixture of red clay and broken chert gives the stranger, at first sight, a very unfavorable impression; but the fine crops raised in this area, and the wonderful strength of the soil, bear ample evidence to the fertility of the region. The great springs of Greene county, which will be described in another connection, are all Upper-Lower Burlington contact springs.
75
GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
The numerous large and remarkable caverns found in the Upper Burling- ton formation, and the large number of sink-holes, which seem to have a greater or less regularity in trend, are further evidence of great erosion by underground streams. Even some of the surface waters sink and appear again as, for example, Wilson creek, which frequently disappears for short distances.
Natural bridges are occasionally found in this formation as on the Steury farm, about four miles east of Springfield. By walling up a part of the bridge over a spring the owner of the land has made a very fine milkhouse, from which an underground passage leads to his dwelling. This spring was probably a contact spring between the Upper and Lower Burlington, as the contact was noted just below in the shallow ravine, made by the falling in of the strata of a former cave.
Another natural bridge is found on the Mauzy farm, section 3, township 28, range 21. This beautiful bridge abruptly heads a narrow gorge about one hundred feet wide, which extends up from the bottom lands of the James river. The county road formerly passed over it. This bridge is fifty feet long, fifteen feet wide and twelve feet high. The bottom of the gorge is Burling- ton limestone. A fine spring issues from the bluff in the northeast corner of the gorge, and is conveyed by a trough to the interior of the bridge, which is now walled in and used as a milk-house.
This formation is noted in the Southwest as the richest of the lead and zinc horizons. In the South, the rocks being much harder, the deposits are not so rich nor as extensive as in the Joplin and Aurora districts, this hardness being less favorable to the deposition and segregation of ore. The Upper Burlington limestone forms a good building stone and is largely sought after for that purpose in numerous quarries in and about the city of Springfield. The stone from many of the beds is susceptible of a fine polish, the upper fossiliferous layers resembling marble. The rock is very beautiful and dura- ble, and may be seen in the Drury College chapel, the St. John Episcopal church and other buildings in Springfield. As a road material the surface chert is widely used for macadamizing, but it is neither as good nor as durable as that from the lower formations. Its soft texture causes it to break down quickly and pulverize. A very important industry is the manu- facture of lime from this rock. In the vicinity of Springfield and at Ash Grove a flourishing business has been built up and large quantities of lime are shipped. -
PENNSYLVANIAN SERIES-COAL MEASURES.
In Greene county the coal-bearing deposits are represented by only a few outliers, composed of shale, sandstone and conglomerate. Three small coal pockets have been found within the limits of this area. One of these is
76
GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
not of workable thickness, and the extent of the others has not yet been ascertained.
The coal measurers are arranged in about the following order : first, a rather coarse-grained, reddish sandstone, possibly thie ferruginous sand- stone of Swallow ; second, patches of micaceous sandstone and bowlder con- glomerate, overlying, in places, and apparently merging into the ferruginous sandstone, the conglomerate usually lying in elongated depressions in the micaceous sandstone- the Graydon sandstone, named from Graydon Springs, in Polk county, where it was first studied and named by the writer; third, in several localities small patches of alternating beds of highly inclined shales, from blue to greenish-black in color, occasionally mixed with thin seams of carbonaceous matter, and frequently containing tumbled bowlders of fos- siliferous limestone; fourth, and last, a peculiar knotted chert named the Republic chert, from its great abundance around the town of Republic. This covers most of the highest points and overlies, apparently, the highest forma- tion of Greene county. Of the shale, only a few pockets occur, and these are mainly confined to the western portion of the county.
The Graydon sandstone conglomerate is made up of two strikingly dis- similar deposits, and both may be present or either may be absent. The sandstone is usually a rather coarse-grained, more or less friable, micaceous rock. It varies greatly in color and texture. Usually, resting on this sand- stone are from twenty to eighty feet of the conglomerate, composed of rounded, polished, water-worn pebbles, varying from the size of a hickory nut up to several inches in diameter, cemented more or less firmly in a sandstone matrix. A typical outcrop of this formation is the well-known Fair Grove Mound, one of the most beautiful in the district. It stands as a land-mark for all the adjacent country. This mound is nearly two-thirds of a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, about one hundred and fifty feet high, and is capped by about eighty feet of the conglomerate. Other mounds dot the prairie to the west and north.
In the western part of the county the conglomerate appears in patches, stretching irregularly across the country. In many places the sandstone and conglomerate have been deposited in valleys gouged out of the Upper Burling- ton. This would indicate the agency of some powerful current of water, nothing less, in fact, than an immense prehistoric river, the course of which the writer has traced almost continuously from northern Arkansas to the Missouri, and which he has named the Schoolcraft river, in honor of Henry Schoolcraft, the earliest white explorer in this region. A current that would transport such an amount of bowlder material must have been very rapid and powerful. Its early action must have been to erode a channel which is well represented in the deep, narrow valley at Graydon, and northward. The trend and structure of the conglomerate deposits, in township 27, range 23,
77
GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
already described, is what one would expect to find in the dropping of debris in rapidly flowing streams, the small ridges corresponding to the currents of the streams. The variation in the size of the pebbles on different sides of the deposit is what one would expect to find where the current was retarded on the inner curve of a stream, the finer material would be deposited, and on the outer side the coarser would be dropped. This is well illustrated in the locality last referred to. Again, the deposits of clay, so characteristic in the depres- sions in this conglomerate, the tumbled bowlder masses of coal measures lime- stone associated with these clays, the fragmentary character of the plant re- mains found in this clay and shale (the last characteristic being especially no- ticeable in the clay deposited in the conglomerate at Billings), and the irregular and tilted bedding of the clay and shale, are all what one might expect to find in bends of great rivers and where the entering waters of tributary streams, retarding the main currents, would cause a deposition of the sedi- ment carried by the waters.
TERTIARY AGE.
Deposits closely resembling the gravels that collect on river beds today, but lying high above and frequently so distant from the streams that their origin can hardly be referred to recent stream deposits, are met with in places within Greene county. Several such gravel beds have been discovered in this area, notably the one found just west of Gates Station, on the Chadwick branch of the St. Louis and San Francisco railroad, southwest 1/4 section 20, township 28, range 21. This is situated at an altitude of from forty to one hundred feet above the James river, and from a quarter to about a half a mile west of that stream. The deposit has been exposed for about a quarter of a mile along the right of way of the railroad, and the county road running south- west from Gates indicates its extension for something less than a mile in that direction. Other small outcrops of this deposit have been noticed not far from the Rockbridge road, east of the iron bridge which crosses the James : one thousand feet south of Brighton, on the Presley Hill road. and one on the road just east of Winoka Lodge. These have been named by the writer the Winoka gravels.
PLEISTOCENE.
No evidence of Pleistocene or glacial drift has been found in this county, as the area lies too far to the south. This formation is well represented, how- ever, by the usual residuary deposits of soils, clays and cherts, the beds varying in thickness from a few inches to thirty or forty feet, being much thicker and more widely distributed over the Upper Burlington limestone than over the other formations. The variations, as represented by the different hori-
.
GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
zons and their important relations to agriculture, have been discussed in con- nection with other formations.
Frequent reports have been made in regard to bones found in the caves of this region. Only one case has been investigated, and this was on the Owen farm northwest of Springfield, northeast 14 section 35, township 30, range 22. In this cave were found a large number of bones of pleistocene age. In 1885, in excavating just south of the round-house of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis railroad shops, in Springfield, a well preserved mastodon's tusk, eight feet long, was found in a horizontal crevice in the limestone. It was imbedded in black mud.
The two following well-sections, that of the Springfield Traction Com- pany ard the well at the pump station of the Springfield City Water Com- pany, give accurate vertical sections of the rocks underlying the city of Springfield, and vicinity. As these two deep wells are a little over four miles apart, they also show that slight variations occur in the thickness of the dif- ferent beds.
Log of the Springfield Traction Company's second deep well, at south- cast corner of the power house, southeast corner of Phelps avenue and Main street, Springfield, Missouri, altitude 1268 feet, A. T. June to October, 1910.
Thickness of horizon Total depth Feet
Thickness of horizon
Total depth
Feet
155 Upper Burlington I55
I5
Joachim limestone 365
40
St. Peter sandstone 405
190 Jefferson City limestone. 595
300 Roubidoux sandstone 895
18- Gasconade limestone. 913
Log of deep well No. I of the Springfield City Water Company, located at the Fulbright Spring pump station, about thirty feet south of the engine house, near the northeast corner section 3, township 29, range 22. Drilling commenced July 18, 1914. and completed to a depth of fourteen hundred four and one-half feet January 2, 1915.
Thickness of horizon Total depth Feet
Thickness of horizon
Feet
IO Soil IO
30 Upper Burlington
40
40 Lower Burlington 80
20 Chouteau limestone. 100
45 Hannibal sandstone and
35
St. Peter sandstone. 315
shales 145
175
Jefferson City limestone 490
Feet
Feet
90 Lower Burlington 245
35 Hannibal sandstone and
shale 280
40 Louisiana limestone .320
30 Devonian Limestone, sand-
stone and shale -350
Feet
Total depth Feet
71/2 Louisiana limestone __ 1521/2
2712 Devonian limestone,
sandstone and shale_ 175 Joachim limestone_ 280
IO5
79
GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
Thickness of horizon Total depth Thickness of horizon
Feet
Feet Feet
Total depth Feet
300 Roubidoux formation_ 790
I2I
Decaturville, or Proc-
I68 Gasconade limestone. 958
tor, limestone III4
35 Gunter sandstone 993
2901/2 Bonne Terre forma-
tion 14041/2
By courtesy of Mr. H. B. McDaniel, Vice-President of the Springfield City Water Company, we are able to publish the following complete log of their deep well, a summary of which has just been given. Samples of the drillings from this well have been collected by the writer, and are preserved in the office of the company :
Feet
IO
Soil, red clay and broken chert.
IO-20
Coarse-grained limestone, 20% white compact chert.
20-30
Coarse, gray limestone, 25% white compact chert.
30-40
Compact gray limestone, 40% white compact chert.
40-60 Hard white, compact, knife-blade chert.
60-70
Dark gray, hard, compact, silicious limestone, trace of white chert.
70-80
Coarse-grained, bluish, hard, silicious limestone, 3% white chert.
80-90
Dark bluish gray, hard, compact limestone, 5% hard white chert.
90-100
Light bluish gray, compact limestone, 10% hard white chert. Dark blue, silicious shale.
100-105
Coarse fragments of light blue shale.
120-130
Large fragments of light blue shale.
I30-140
Small fragments of light blue shale.
140-145
Gray silicious shale and lime, some chert and considerable marcasite.
145-15212
Coarse particles light gray silicious dolomite.
1521/2-1571/2 Very light gray particles silicious dolomite, with rounded dark, water-worn sand grains, considerable marcasite, some silicious particles.
1571/2-160
160-1621/2
Dark, silicious, dolomitic lime, small rounded grains of drusy quartz (sand), some marcasite, a few rounded dark pebbles. Mixture of highly silicious gray dolomite, some silicious shale, some marcasite, small rounded quartz grains.
Light gray, silicious dolomite.
16212-176 176-180 Dark gray, silicious dolomite, few fragments of blue shale.
105-120
:So
GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
Feet
180-185
Gray quartzite, some dolomite.
185-190
Mixture of highly silicious dolomite, quartzite and some white flint.
190-200
Light gray, highly silicious dolomite, larger particles of brown shale.
200-220
Coarse fragments highly silicious gray dolomite.
220-230
Fine particles gray, silicious dolomite, trace of marcasite.
230-240
Fine particles white dolomite (cotton rock).
240-250
Irregular particles of bluish to light gray dolomite, trace of marcasite.
250-260
Mixture of light gray dolomite, bluish chalcedonic flint and some marcasite.
260-270
Light gray dolomite.
270-280
Fine particles grayish, silicious dolomite, some marcasite, small amount chert.
280-290
Fine particles mixture of light gray dolomite, white chalce- donic chert, some marcasite, trace of sand.
290-300
Mixture of quartzite, sand-grains, silicious dolomite, marcasite, white chert.
300-305
Mixture silicious dolomite, white and chalcedonic flint, some marcasite.
305-307
Highly silicious, compact dolomite, some grains sandstone and zinc.
307-320
Coarse crystalline dolomite, some sand.
320-330
Fine, light gray to white dolomite (cotton rock).
330-350
Fine, compact, light-gray dolomite, 10% chert or quartzite.
350-360
Light gray to white dolomite, 5% blue to brown shale.
360-370
Light gray white silicious dolomite, large particles, no chert. Very fine sand-like translucent dolomite.
370-380
380-390
Coarser-grained, light gray to white silicious dolomite, traces chalcedonic chert.
390-400
Gray silicious dolomite, 5% white chert.
400-410
Gray to white silicious dolomite, 10% white chert.
410-420
Gray silicious dolomite, 5% milk-white chert.
420-430
Dark gray silicious dolomite, 2% white chert.
430-440
Dark gray silicious dolomite, trace of glass-like quartz and granular chert.
440-445
Mixture gray to white silicious dolomite, 5% shaly white chert.
445-450
Light gray to white silicious dolomite, trace iron pyrites.
450-460
Gray silicious dolomite, 10% white chert.
460-470
Gray silicious dolomite, translucent white chert.
81
GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
Feet 470-480 480-490 490-500
Dark gray silicious dolomite, 20% white chert.
Fine, pinkish sandstone, 10% quartzite.
Very fine reddish sandstone, Roubidoux s. s.
500-510
Honey-combed or pitted brown silicious dolomite and sand- stone, 10% chert.
510-515 515-520 520-530
Very fine brown sandstone, rounded to angular grains.
Very fine pellucid sandstone, rounded to angular grains.
Chalcedonic to white quartzite and chert, some s. s.
530-535
Mixture of above, smaller particles, 20% silicious dolomite.
535-540
Mixture of above, with sandstone, quartzite and silicious dolomite.
540-550 550-555
Fine sandy pellucid silicious dolomite.
Dark gray silicious dolomite, white quartzite, translucent sand- stone.
555 -- 560 560-565 565-575
Brownish silicious dolomite, some quartzite.
Light gray chalcedonic quartzite, some sandstone.
Fine-grained, light brown pellucid sandstone.
575-580
Fine-grained sand and quartzite, trace chert.
580-590
Fine-grained sandstone and quartzite, trace chert. .
590-595 596-600 600-618 618-622
Fine-grained chalcedonic quartzite, some oölite.
Fine-grained chalcedonic quartzite, 20% s. s., some dolomite.
Fine-grained grayish dolomite, some quartzite.
Fine-grained, reddish-brown silicious dolomite, 10% white chert, trace iron.
622-627 627-660 660-670
Light brown, fine-grained silicious dolomite, 10% white chert. Light gray sandy silicious dolomite, some sandstone.
670-700
Light gray compact silicious dolomite.
700-710 710-720 720-725
Light brown silicious dolomite, some chalcedonic chert.
Gray silicious dolomite, some sand and white chert.
725-727
Same, plus 20% blue chalcedonic flint.
Same, with small amount of flint.
Light gray crystalline dolomitic limestone, trace of flint.
Same, plus 15% bluish chalcedonic flint.
Same, plus 10% bluish chalcedonic flint.
Same, plus 5% bluish chalcedonic flint.
Brownish silicious dolomite, 10% white chert, 1% quartzite.
780-790
Light gray silicious dolomite, 5% chalcedonic chert.
790-800
Coarser particles of gray silicious dolomite, 30% chalcedonic flint and white chert.
(6)
Highly crystalline silicious dolomite, some white chert.
727-737 737-747 747-757 757-765 765-772 772-780
Light brown compact silicious dolomite.
S2
GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
Feet
Soo-810
Light brown silicious dolomite, 15% chalcedonic flint and white chert.
SI0-S20
S20-830
Light gray silicious dolomite, 20% white chert and quartzite. Light gray silicious dolomite, fine-grained, 10% white chert and quartzite.
830-840
Fine-grained, sandy dolomite, quartzite and foetid sandstone.
840-865 Fine-grained sandy dolomite, foetid limestone, quartzite and sand.
865-875
Fine-grained dolomite, foetid limestone, quartzite and sand.
875-885
Fine-grained pellucid dolomite.
S85-910
Fine-grained pellucid dolomite, trace chert and sand.
910-920
Same as above, with trace of quartzite.
920-930
Gray granular silicious dolomite, some chert.
930-940
Mainly chert, quartzite, 10% silicious lime, trace of sand.
940-950
Fine particles grayish dolomite, 10% chert.
950-994
White, medium coarse, translucent to transparent, angular to. rounded grains of quartz sand.
994-1000
Plain bluish quartzite sands, some dolomite.
1000-1020
Granular, bluish gray, translucent, silicious dolomite.
1020-1040
Fine-grained to compact magnesian limestone (cotton rock).
1040-1060
Milk-white cotton rock, slightly silicious.
1060-1090
Missing.
1090-1100
Silk-white cotton rock, slightly silicious.
1100-1105
Minutely crystalline white silicious limestone (cotton rock).
IIO5-IIIO
Finely granular or compact white silicious magnesian lime- stone.
IIIO-III5
Minutely granular white silicious magnesian limestone, dolo- mite.
III5-1I20
Compact cotton-rock, minute translucent white silicious par- ticles dolomite.
II20-1125
Same as above, but less compact.
1125-1130
Same as above, but very fine-grained.
II30-1140
Same as above, but very fine grained and slightly oölitic.
II40-1I46
Silicious magnesian limestone (cotton-rock), white and min- utely crystalline.
1145-1150
Same as above, but more compact.
1150-1155
Very compact minutely crystalline dolomitic magnesian lime- stone (cotton-rock ).
1155-1160
Coarser-grained translucent dolomitic magnesian lime-stone (cotton-rock).
1160-1165
Same as above, but more silicious.
83
GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
Feet
1165-1170
Missing.
1170-1180
Soft, compact dolomitic magnesian limestone (cotton-rock).
1180-1200
Same as above, but minutely crystalline.
I200-12IO
Same as above, chalky.
1210-1220
Same as above, but more granular and silicious.
I220-1230
Missing.
I230-1240
Soft magnesian limestone (cotton-rock).
I240-1250
Soft, compact white magnesian limestone (cotton-rock).
I250-1260
Soft, compact white magnesian limestone, chalk-like. (Several 1/4-inch openings or crevices at this level and drillings dif- cult to obtain. )
I260-1265
Light grayish, fine-grained dolomitic limestone.
1265-1270
Milk-white, chalk-like magnesian limestone (cotton-rock).
1270-1285
Light gray fine-grained silicious magnesian limestone.
1285-1290
Same as above, but slightly darker gray.
1290-1300 1300-1310
Light gray compact chalky magnesian limestone.
Chalk-like light gray dolomitic limestone (cotton-rock).
1310-1316
Chalk-like white gray dolomitic limestone.
1316-1320
Light brown, translucent silicious dolomitic limestone.
1320-1325
Gray fine-grained, silicious dolomitic limestone.
1325-1330
Very dark brown silicious magnesian limestone, 20% nearly black granulated limestone.
1330-1335
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