A FEW WORDS ON GEOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS --- MANY INTERESTING SUGGESTIONS --- THE OUTLINES OF GEOLOGY --- PRAIRIES, AND ABOUT THEIR FORMATION --- THE GEOLOGY OF WAYNE COUNTY --- PROBABILITIES OF FINDING COAL HERE, ETC., ETC., ETC.
A FEW words of the agricultural history of the county is not an inappropriate introduction to the story of the people who were here when the white man discovered the country, and their passing away, marking, as they did, every step of their sullen, backward movement before the faces of the white man, with bloody and cruel carnage, as well as the interesting account of the brave pioneers and their fierce conflicts with the savages, the wild beasts and deadly diseases that afflicted the early settlers of the Mississippi Valley.
The soil is the Alma Mater---the nourishing mother, indeed, of all animate life in this world. The hopes, the ambitions, the wealth and joys, the beauties of both art and nature, the sweet maiden’s blush, the love-lit eye, the floating Armada, the thundering train, the flaming forge and the flying spindle, the rippling laughter, and all there has been or will be in this bright and beautiful world is directly or remotely from the dull soil upon which we tread. Here is the fountain head, the nursing mother of all and every conceivable thing of utility or beauty, mentally or physically, that a wise God has given to man. This page, reader, you are now perusing, the sweet girl’s melody that you may or have so passionately worshiped, the angel mother’s voice, that will linger in your heart till the close of life’s great final tragedy, are, with everything else, from the same source---the soil. The Sun worshipers were not base in their adored ideal, the warmth and sunlight were a near approach to the fountains of life, and yet it was only as the husbandman, who aids the soil with his labors, and a world grows vocal with joys. It was the soil at last and not the husbandman who created, fructified and produced, not only our possessions, but life itself. Yet in the gray dawn of the traditions we find no account of the Soil worshipers, and the fact is now unquestionably plain that the soil has not been appreciated, its all commending value in this world not at all understood; and in the progress of civilization it was eventually relegated to the world’s "drudges," the fit companion and associate only of serfs and slaves, and finally in a country whose air was too pure for a slave to breathe, inaugurated the long reign of the Feudal system, where the laborer and the soil he cultivated came to be considered one and the same, and the title to the so-called free man passed with the deed to the land on which he lived. While the soil has found no worshipers, it has been carefully ignored, and it has gone on increasing its bounties, showering its benefits upon us until it has lifted us from dull and dirty savages to this age of steam and electricity, until space itself has ceased to be in the transactions and social life of the world.
Why should we teach our children to understand the dull, stupid, uninteresting soil? Build schoolhouses and teach your children metaphysical mathematics seems to be the idea that has held sway in the world for all the ages. It’s but dirt that flies as dust and soils your clothes, or as sticky mud seizes upon you and clings wherever it touches, and thus it comes to be considered but an evil of life. And from infancy to old age it is the same old story of
"The yellow primrose on the river’s bank,
A yellow primrose is."
The soil comes from the rocks, and hence to the intelligent eye that examines the underlying rocks of a country it is at once plain enough of what the elements of the soil are composed, and what, if any, vegetation it will best sustain. Our people are agricultural, their relation and interest in the soil is primary, and in the natural order of things one would suppose that this would be the first subject they would set about mastering, or at least understanding the practical and hourly subjects of vital interests to which it is the eternal basis and foundation. Amazing as it may seem, the very reverse of this is true, and the evils it has inflicted are but too plainly visible in this wide tendency of the young men reared on farms to rush to the villages, towns and cities, and become clerks, tradesmen, or "learn a trade," and thus advance themselves beyond the station to which they were born. They see and feel the real and imagined refinement, elegance and ease and culture of the wealthy of the cities, and they look with contempt upon all forms of country life. They are not much to blame. The whole world has been falsely educated on this point. The farmer has been told to educate his family---send them to college and have them taught to read Latin and Greek, and thus they can live without work, etc. The three or four years at school has taught him to know nothing about farming certain, and if there he has acquired a single idea that he can utilize in the practical affairs of life, he has surely been the fortunate on in a thousand. Teach them abstruse mathematics, through all the arithmetics, algebras, geometries, trigonometries, the calculus, etc., and then he may become a starving professor, and drool out his useless life in a clean white shirt and an empty stomach, and imagine such a half-mendicant existence is eminently respectable. He left home a bright farmer boy, he returns a cheaply veneered gentleman---but little else, in fact than an incipient tramp, prepared to soon spend what little fortune may be left him, and then enter upon that nightmare life of an educated young man looking for a "situation." Many years ago, Horace Greeley, in a well considered article in the Tribune, estimated there were then in the city of New York 5,000 college-bred young men hunting for "situations" and half-starving. Here were the gathered fruits of this most vicious cardinal idea that is inculcated in all the schools of getting an education and living without manual labor. To a sane mind, what a monstrous idea it is to call an institution a school where the child is taught that manual labor, farming especially, is both low and degrading. But all the schools will claim that this charge does not apply to them; that they are the latest patent improvement, and they teach the pupil to think for himself. And they will in all earnestness tell you of the hundreds of devices they have invented, all tending to this divine perfection. After duly listening to all they claim, we deliberately repeat what we have said above. The young mind is not taught to think. We are not convinced that this is among the human possibilities yet. It may be done some day, it has not yet been done most certainly. In our judgment, there has not been a school ever yet taught where there was any approach toward this wonderful invention of teaching the mind to think. The incontestible evidence of this is given in the fewness, the rarity of philosophical thinkers there are now or have been in the world. Read the books, the newspapers, the sermons, the discussions, of which the world is full, and about all of it, to the trained philosophical thinker, is but words, words, words, signifying nothing. For instance, if you go and listen to a joint discussion between two men, the most eminent in the country say, upon any subject, political, polemical or otherwise, and they divide the time, and by the day, week or month carry on the discussion, and you listen to it all from the first word to the last, and you finally come to the end and go home and in your quiet add up what new knowledge you have gained. And what is it? If you are frank with yourself, you will acknowledge that after it all you really know less about it than you did before. There is a reason for this. The speakers or writers were empirics and so were their audiences. An empiric is a man who forms a judgment upon a subject from a one-sided view. His judgment may be correct, but it is so by accident. A philosopher bases his judgment upon the fullest possible investigation of everything, immediate and remote, that can possibly bear upon the subject, and still he doubts, or leaves room for possible doubts. The empiric is always very positive, and he loves to tell you how he hates a man who has no positive opinions. Educated empiricism may be a little better that downright ignorance, but it is not much, and mankind as yet has produced little else. It is said that the newspapers, the stump speakers, and the widespread discussions of political questions that precede our elections, make the best posted people on questions of political economy in the world. Is this true? There is no question but that Washington and his compatriots left us the best government in the world, and there is just as little question but that we have allowed it to retrograde to some extent. If this is true, it is a marvelous fact, an amazing commentary upon our boasted civilization, a biting irony upon the election and Fourth of July hulabaloos that do so abound and are so link the plunging of Niagara.
Last summer we dropped in for an hour and listened to the proceedings of a teacher’s institute. There were present 100 teachers, and we understood they were being taught how to teach school, how to teach the best possible school and in the best way. During the hour we were present, there was a teacher at the black-board, and he was elucidating the subject of the "Equation of Payments," when probably not a teacher present nor a single future pupil of any of them, no matter what his business in life might be, would ever have a single occasion to use the rule or anything connected with it, except in case he or she should become a school teacher. Years and years are spent in the school room in this way, and not perhaps a graduate who could return to his father’s farm and pick up a clod of earth, and give you any idea at all about it. And yet in that simple clod are the destinies of all mankind and knowledge that is of endless and immeasurable value. Some gentlemen once applied to Agassiz for information on the subject of how to breed for the best horse. "It is a question of rocks," was his sententious reply. The learned Professor was right. He knew the soil came from the rocks, and certain kind of rocks would produce a certain kind of vegetable growth and water, and that this determined not only the kind of horses that it would eventually produce, but the kind of people. In short, that he who understands the rocks and the soil will not only be the best farmer in the world, but he can tell the kind and quality of the civilization it will eventually produce and sustain. There is no witchery about this, but it is the simple result of knowledge, being really educated upon one of the most practical and important subjects of life. The proper teacher can soon teach the children of his school the necessary elements of geology and botany, so they would make men and women who would place farm life where it should be, in the front rank of social existence; take it out of what it is now mostly is, a life of dull drudgery and poorly paid toil. The agricultural people should possess a full share of the worlds wealth---an abundance to give them the ease and leisure for education, travel, culture and refinement that would make it the most inviting and enviable position in life. The present state of affairs is the result of mistakes in education, and a false political economy that enslaves and cruelly oppresses. Suppose for the mostly foolish, if not silly, questions that are now required to be answered by the School Supertintendents, and which all applicants to teach school are required to be able to answer before they can get a certificate to teach, there were substituted a few common sense question upon practical subjects of life. For instance: Tell us about the rocks in the county; and certain rocks given, what kind of soil do they make? And what the plant food they give, and about the water? When certain vegetation is seen, what kind of soil does it indicate? An intelligent answer to these questions would indicate that the teacher could be able to take your children and ramble through the woods (to their infinite delight and permanent benefit), and in the flowers, the trees, and the babbling brooks, gather lessons they would never forget---that would be of inestimable value to them. Any ordinary intelligent child can readily be taught lessons such as these, and understand it much better than they can the "rule of three," or any rule of English grammar. But it must be taught by a teacher who could do more than is now required of teachers in the school room, namely, to make the child memorize its lessons, and when this is done enough, give him a diploma and pronounce his education complete.
When we come to give an account of the schools of the county, we may then take occasion to more specifically point out the faults that have found their way into, and permanent lodgment in the school systems. We only wish here to point out the importance of an understanding of the geology of your immediate locality at least, or of that part of the geology that bears its vital and practical lessons of wisdom and results in benefits to all mankind. If our views upon the subject are at all correct, are we not right in saying that the chapter on the topography and geology of the county should be recognized by the reader as being one of the most important chapters in the book?
The world’s history going back through its millions, probably billions of years, of existence, is written in the rocks to be read and interpreted with almost unerring accuracy. At one time it was so hot that everything in the world was not only melted, but fused into the original gasses---the sixty-one elementary substances which variously combining, produce every form and quality of existence. The simplest designations of the rocks are the stratified and the unstratified. The unstratified are called igneous rocks, because they have been melted by intense heat and occur in irregular masses. The disintegration of the elements carried a sediment from these igneous rocks, and the waters carried these into the earth’s depressions, and here it settled in parallel layers and thus formed the stratified rocks. This process of building the stratified rocks commenced upon the earth’s first surface and extended upward. In the silent depths of the stratified rocks are the former creation of plants and animals, which lived and died during the slow, dragging ages of their formation. These fossil remains are fragments of history which enable us to extend our researches into the past, and determine their modes of life. We find that such has been the profusion of life that the great limestone formations of the globe consist mostly of animal remains cemented by the infusion of mineral matter. A large part of the soil spread of the earth’s surface has been elaborated in animal organisms. First, as nourishment, it enters the structure of plants and forms vegetable tissue. Passing thence as food into the animal, it becomes endowed with life, and when death occurs, it returns to the soil and imparts to it additional elements of fertility.
Wayne County forms the dividing line between the heavily timbered belt of Southern Illinois and the great prairie ranges of the central and northern parts of the State. The true prairie is found here, but in small patches, and their whole extent in the county is only about twenty per cent of the area. How these prairies have been formed has long been one of the most interesting questions for discussion among the scientific men of the country. Gov. Reynolds in his history tells us how the caravan with which he came to Illinois was impressed with the view when the people first looked out upon the broad and undulating prairie, with its tall waving grass like the gentle roll of the waves of a great sea. He then proceeds to summarily settle these questions by saying there is no doubt but they were formed by the annual fires that swept over the tall grass and burned up the young timber in its attempts to grow out over the prairies from all the edges of the timber. He thinks this is well demonstrated by the fact that since the fires have been subdued the timber has been rapidly encroaching upon the prairies. The "old ranger" was mistaken. There has been no extension of the timber where it has been left to nature’s forces. There are two theories that have advocates, one contending that the amount of rainfall determines the question of growth of timber, and that always where there is the greatest rainfall there is always the heaviest timber growth. According to the other view, prairies are at the present in the process of formation along the shores of lakes and rivers. During freshets and in flowing rivers, the center of the stream is always the highest and the heaviest particles carried in the waters are deposited at the outer edges of the channel, and thus by repeated deposits the banks are formed and are elevated above the floods. These natural levees, when sufficiently high, are overgrown with timber, and inclose large areas of bottom land back from the river and form sloughs frequently of great extent. The shallow and stagnant waters are first invaded by mosses and other aquatic plants grow under the surface and contain in their tissues lime, alumina, and silica, the constituents of clay. They also subsist immense numbers of small mollusks and other diminutive creatures, and the constant decomposition of vegetables and animals forms a stratum of clay corresponding with that which underlies the finished prairies. As the marshy bottoms are by this means built up to the surface of the water, the mosses are then intermixed with coarse grasses, which become more and more abundant as the depth diminishes. These reedy plants, now riding above the surface, absorb and decompose the carbonic gas of the atmosphere and convert it into woody matter, which at first forms a clayey mold, and afterward the black mold of the prairie. The same agencies now operating in the ponds skirting the banks of rivers, originally formed all the prairies of the Mississippi Valley. The present want of horizontality in some of them is due to the erosive action of water. The drainage, moving in the direction of the creeks and rivers, at length furrowed the surface with tortuous meanders, resulting finally in the undulating or rolling prairies. The absences of trees, the most remarkable feature, is attributable first to the formation ulmic acid, which favors the grow of herbaceous plants, and retards that of forests; secondly, trees absorb by their roots large quantities of air, which they cannot obtain when the surface is under water or covered by a compact soil or sod; and thirdly, they require solid points of attachment which marshy flats are unable to furnish. When, however, they become dry and the sod is broken by the plow, they may then only produce trees, but not otherwise.
This is a mere statement of the different theories upon the subject of the formation of prairies, without any effort to give the arguments upon which either are based. So far as the writer now remembers, the subject was commenced about twenty-five years ago by Judge Walter B. Scates, of this State, and has since been taken up and carried on by some of the most eminent scientists of the country. The discussion is interesting and full of facts and valuable information.
The surface of the county is generally rolling, and elevated 50 to 100 feet above the bed of the streams. The bottoms on Skillet Fork and Little Wabash are rather low and flat, and are heavily timbered. The geological features are very similar to Wabash and Edwards, the drift deposits and the upper coal measures being the only formations exposed. In the southern portion of the county, the drift clays seldom exceed a thickness of fifteen to twenty feet, and in sinking wells the bed-rock is often found at a depth of ten to twelve feet below the surface. Toward the northern boundary of the county they are somewhat heavier, and on Elm Creek there are bluffs thirty feet or more in height that seemed to be composed entirely of drift. Here the lower portion consists of the bluish-gray hard-pan, where it is sometimes found from fifty to seventy-five feet or more in thickness. The upper portion of these superficial deposits may be represented along the bluffs of the Little Wabash by a few feet of loess, but generally it consists of yellowish-brown gravelly clays and sands with numerous rounded pebbles, and occasionally bowlders, of metamorphic rock, of moderate size. Locally, the gravelly clays are tinged by a reddish-brown color, with the red oxide of iron, derived by the decomposition of a ferruginous sandstone that forms the bed-rock in many places in the southern part of the county. The undulations of the surface often take the form of long ridges from thirty to forty feet in height, with a direction nearly parallel with the course of the streams. These ridges usually have a nucleus of sandstone or shale, but their sides are so gently sloping, and the drift clay covers them so evenly that the bed-rock is seldom exposed to view. The streams are sluggish, and meander through wide, flat valleys, seldom showing any outcrop of the bed-rock along their courses. This renders the construction of continuous sections very difficult, and the determination of the true sequence of the strata can only be made in a general way by the examination of isolated outcrops.
Coal Measures.---At the iron bridge on the Little Wabash, on the stage road from Fairfield to Albion, the following section is to be seen on the east bank of the stream:
| FEET | |
| Sandstone, partly in regular beds and partly massive | 25 |
| Pebbly conglomerate, with fragments of coal and mineral charcoal | 2 to 4 |
| Black laminated shale, with concretions of bituminous limestone | 3 |
| Dove-colored clay-shale, with fossil ferns | 2 to 3 |
| Shaly-sandstone appearing some distance below | 3 to 4 |
No fossils are found here that would enable us to fix the horizon of these beds, but they present nearly the same lithological characters as the outcrop at Hamiaker’s old mill on the Boupas, in Edwards County. At Beech Bluff, three or four miles above the bridge, the sandstone is more massive and extends to the river level, showing no outcrop of the underlying beds.
At Massillon, on the west bank of the Little Wabash, on the northwest quarter of Section 15, Town 1 south, Range 9 east, the bluff is composed mainly of sandstone and sandy shale, with a few feet of argillaceous shales near the river level, containing several bands of clay iron ore. This outcrop seems to be identical with that at the old ford three miles above, in Edwards County, and it is quite probable the thin coal found there is little below the river bed. A thin coal is found here in the sandstone some twenty feet or more above the river level; but it is probably only a local deposit, or pocket, such as may be frequently met with in the sandstones of the coal measures.
Mill Shoals is situated on the Skillet Fork, just over the line in White County, but the section made in this vicinity is partly in Wayne, and is as follows:
| FEET |
|
| Sandstone in thin beds, partial exposure of
about |
6 |
| Bituminous shale, with streak of impure coal near the top | 2 1/2 to 3 |
| Sandstone and sandy shale |
40 to 50 |
| Space unexposed | 15 to 20 |
| Hard, shaly sandstone in the bank of
Skillet Fork |
3 to 4 |
| Hard, black laminated shale, passing
locally into clay shale |
6 to 8 |
| Shale with a thin coal | 2 to 3 |
| Hard-grained limestone without fossils | 2 to 3 |
| Greenish, pebbly shale | 2 |
| Sandy shale | 1 |
The three upper beds in the foregoing section are found in Wayne County, about three-quarters of a mile northeast of Fairfield. Prof. Cox reports a section six miles southeast of Fairfield which seems to be nearly a repetition of that at Mill Shoals, as follows:
| FEET. | |
| Yellow clay and drift | 15 |
| Sandstone, and locally some shale | 45 |
| Gray silicious shale | 10 |
| Thin coal | 0 |
| Limestone without fossils | 2 |
These two sections will give a general idea of the prevailing character of the rocks in the south part of Wayne County. The following is a section of a well bored for oil by Maj. Collins on Section 25, of Township 2, Range 7:
| FEET. | |
| Soil and subsoil | 3 |
| Sandstone | 50 |
| Slate (shale?) | 27 |
| Coal | 3 |
| Clay and blue shale | 2 |
| Hard, gritty rock | 4 |
| Hard yellow rock | 4 |
| Hard sandstone | 8 to 10 |
| Dark slate (shale?) | 28 |
| White sandstone | 66 |
| Black shale | 4 |
| ______ | |
| Total | 206 |
Reports have gone out from this county, as they have frequently from other counties, of the discovery of oil wells. These are to be taken with due allowance, in consideration of the fact that the persons having the work in charge were seldom qualified to determine the true character of the beds through which their drill was passing, and we see in the above section that no attempt was made to define the character of two beds of hard rock, while the beds denominated slates were probably shale, with possibly a thin bed of slate intercalated therein. In this way bituminous slate is often mistaken for coal, and where the substance is reduced to an impalpable powder by the drill no one but an expert can fully determine the one from the other by the material brought up in the sand pump. At Mr. Black’s place, about two miles northwest of Fairfield, there is an outcrop of hard, dark bluish-gray limestone weathering to a buff color, which is overlaid by a clay shale, with a thin coal or bituminous shale intercalated therein, as indicated by a streak of smutty material, to be seen a few feet above the limestone. A thin coal, sometimes as much as eighteen inches in thickness, occurs another locality under a limestone similar to this, and the same may be possibly found here by digging a few feet below the rock. The limestone has been quarried here as well as on the adjoining farm for building stone and for lime, and ranges from two to three feet in thickness.
On Mr. J. H. Thomas’ place, on Section 7, Township 1 south, Range 8 east, a thin coal has been found below a limestone similar to that above mentioned. The coal was opened a few years since by sinking a shafts some fifteen or twenty feet in depth, and the coal is reported to have been eighteen inches thick, and the limestone two feet. The shaly portion of the limestone contained a few fossils, among which we identified Orthis pecosi, Spirifer cameratus, Chonetes vernenilianus and Lophophillum proliferum.
On Mr. E. Pilcher’s land, in Section 20 of the same township, a bead of black shale crops out on a hillside, at an elevation considerably above the coal shaft above mentioned and was penetrated to the depth of fifteen feet in search of coal, but without findin it. On the opposite side of the hill and below the level of the black shale, a calcareosilicious rock has been quarried for building stone. It has a slaty structure, and is filled with fragments of broken plants, and appears to be the exact equivalent of the arenaceous limestone found at Mr. Boden’s place two miles and a half south of Flora. The bituminous shale at Mr. Pilcher’s place contains rounded bowlders of black limestone that weathers to a bluish dove color, and similar concretions were seen at the exposure south of Flora, which leaves no reasonable doubt of the identity of the beds at these points. A short distance south of Mr. Pilcher’s land, limestone was formerly quarried for lime-burning, but the outcrop is now covered up. The relative position of the beds above described is represented by the following section:
| FEET. | |
| Bituminous shale, with concretion of black limestone | 15 to 20 |
| Shale partly exposed | 10 to 15 |
| Slaty arenacious limestone with broken plants | 2 to 4 |
| Dark limestone | 2 |
| Shale (thickness not determined) | 0 |
| Coal | 1 |
On Mrs. Williams’ place on northwest quarter of Section 29, Town 1 south, Range 7 east, about seven miles northwest of Fairfield, there is an outcrop of 15 to 20 feet of sandy and argillaceous shale, containing numerous bands of kidney iron ore of good quality. A thin coal has been passed through in digging wells in this neighborhood, and either underlies these shales or is intercalated in them. This outcrop closely resembles those at the McDaniel place, near the north line of the county, hereafter to be mentioned, and the well water in this neighborhood is impregnated with epsom salts, like wells and springs in the locality above mentioned. Between this locality and Fairfield, and about three miles a little north of west from the town, an even-bedded sandstone is quarried for building purposes, similar to that at Hoag’s quarry north of Xenia. This sandstone probably underlies the shale outcropping at the Williams place, three or four miles to the westward, and the coal there is probably a local deposit.
On Section 21, Town 2 north, Range 6 east, in the bluffs of Bear Creek, near the north line of the county, a massive sandstone outcrops for a long distance along the course of the stream in perpendicular cliffs from twenty to thirty feet in height. This sandstone was struck in the boring at Flora, at the depth of about sixty feet, and was penetrated to the depth of about eighty-four feet. The outcrops on Bear Creek probably represent only the lower portion of the bed.
On Section 27, Town 2 north, Range 6 east, argillaceous and sandy shales with bands of kidney iron ore crop out in the slopes of hills at various points, showing an aggregate thickness of twenty feet or more, with a bituminous shale or impure coal at the top of the exposure. A well sunk here struck a vein of water at the depth of twenty-two feet so strong that it soon rose to the surface, and has been flowing ever since. It has a strong taste of epsom salts, and produces and effect similar to that drug upon those who use it. At Eli McDaniel’s place adjoining the above, a spring of the same kind of water is found, somewhat stronger in mineral properties than that in the well. The water here seems to derive its mineral properties from the bed of argillaceous slate which forms the bed rock in this vicinity, as the wells sunk in the overlying sandstone afford pure water. The following additional notes and sections are reported by Prof. Cox in this county: "At Liberty they pass through sandstone in digging wells from ten to forty feet, and obtain pure water." On Section 30, Town 2, Range 7, limestone is obtained for building and for lime bed three feet thick, upper part shaly contains Productus longispinus, Machroheilus primigenius, Athyris subtilita, Productus costatus, and joints of Crinoidea. The same limestone is exposed at Whittaker’s on Section 25, of Town 2, Range 7. A thin coal is usually found beneath the limestone, and impure coal or bituminous shale is frequently seen in the shales above it. Clay iron ore occurs in a grayish shale, seven miles north of Fairfield, exposed by a wash on the hillside. On Section 34, Town 1 south, Range 9 east, the following beds are seen:
| FT. IN. | |
| Heavy beaded sandstone | 25 0 |
| Arenaceous shale | 10 0 |
| Black slaty shale | 2 0 |
| Pyritiferous shale, with fragments of shells | 10 3 |
| Fire clay (good quality) | 1 0 |
| Clay shale | 0 6 |
| Shaly sandstone in river bed | 2 6 |
From the foregoing sections and remarks, it will be seen that there is but little diversity in the character of the rocks exposed in this county. They probably represent a thickness of 175 feet to 200 feet or more, comprising mainly sandstone and shales, most of which decompose readily on exposure, and are therefore seldom found in bold outcrops.
Building stone.---Sandstone of a fair quality for building purposes, is tolerably abundant, and quarries have been opened in nearly every township in the county. Three miles a little southwest of Fairfield, an excellent sandstone is quarried on a small branch tributary to the Skillet Fork. The rock is in smooth, even layers, and resembles the sandstone in Hoag’s quarry, near Xenia. Along the Little Wabash, a heavy bedded sandstone is found throughout the course in the southeastern part of the county, which, from the bold cliff it forms at many points along the bluffs of the stream, will no doubt afford a large amount of building material. Six miles southeast of Fairfield, a good flag-sandstone is quarried in large slabs six inches thick. Three and a half miles north of Jeffersonville, on Section 30, Town 1 north, Range 6 east, a grayish sandstone of good quality is quarried in large slabs from a foot to eighteen inches in thickness. A similar stone is also quarried by Mr. Philips, on Section 16, Town 1 north, Range 7 east. There are some of the most valuable quarries opened at the present time, but others equally good may be opened at various places in the county, as the wants of the people may require. The limestone over the eighteen-inch coal seam has been quarried at almost every spot where it outcrops, but the bed is thin and the supply to be obtained from it, without too great expense in stripping, is rather limited.
Coal.--- The only coal in the county that promises to be of any value for practical mining, is the eighteen-inch seam north and northeast of Fairfield. This might be worked in a limited way either by stripping, or by an inclined tunnel near its outcrop. But the seam is too thin to furnish an adequate supply for the general market. The main coals of the lower measures may be reached in the southern portion of the county, at depths varying from 4 to 600 feet, and in the northern part from 5 to 800.
Iron Ore.---Bands of iron ore of good quality occur at several places in the shales of this county, and have been noted in the sections already given. They seem to be in sufficient quantity in several localities to eventually become of some economical value. In Great Britain, bands six to eight inches thick are said to be worked successfully, and we find many localities in the coal measures where from twelve to eighteen inches of good ore can be obtained, from a vertical thickness of five or six feet of shale. The shale containing the iron ore observed in this county, underlies a considerable area in the center and western portions, mainly in Ranges 6 and 7 east. At Mrs. Williams’ place on the northwest quarter of Section 29 of Township 1 south, Range 7 east, iron ore of good quality seemed to be quite abundant, and also at several places, in the ravines near Mr. McDaniel’s place, not far from the north line of the county. Prof. Cox also notes an outcrop of clay iron ore in a grayish shale seven miles north of Fairfield, and also on Section 15, Town 1 north, Range 8 east.
Potters’ Clay.---A good clay, suitable for pottery or fire-brick is found on Section 32, Township 1 south, Range 9 east, but at the outcrop it was only one foot thick. Possibly it may be found at some other locality near by, where it is thick enough to be utilized for the manufacture of pottery or fire-brick.
Clay or Sand.---Materials for brick can be obtained from the subsoils of the uplands, almost anywhere in the county, and from the abundant supply of wood for fuel, brick can be made in sufficient quantity to supply all future demands for this indispensable building material.
Soil and Agriculture.---The soil in this county is mainly a dark ash-gray or chocolate-colored clay loam, less highly charged with organic matter or humus than the black prairie soil of Central Illinois, but yielding fair crops of corn, wheat, oats and grass, both clover and timothy, and with judicious treatment will retain its fertility without any expense for artificial fertilizers. The ridges afford excellent fruit farms.
Recent developments have taught the people of Wayne County that here is the home of the apple in all its varieties. The soil and temperature made it the favored spot in the great valley for the production of this valuable fruit. Either further north or further south than this, and the advantageous grounds are left for apple raising. The present season, 1883, has been marked in many parts of Illinois by a failure of much of the wheat and corn crops. It was too wet in the spring and too dry in the summer, but the apple crop in Wayne County has nearly compensated our people for the failure of corn and wheat.
| Visit Our Neighbors | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Marion | Clay | Richland | |
| Jefferson |  |
Edwards | |
| Franklin | Hamilton | White | |
