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A Travertine Deposit in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. 



By Guy West Wilson. 



On the wesl bank of the Wabash River, near the Indiana Soldiers' 

 Home, a steep bluff skirts the stream. A short distance below the "Tecum- 

 seh Trail" the slope has been greatly modified by the action of the seep 

 water which trickles down the bank and makes a small marsh near the 

 level of the river. This region of a few square rods extent is the lodging 

 place of the leaves and twigs from the forest trees above, thus materially 

 impeding the flow of the small amount of seep water, which is highly 

 charged with carbonate of lime, causing it to make a deposit. As this 

 mass has been undistrnbed for a number of years a considerable amount 

 of travertine has been formed. The surface, and consequently the more 

 recent, portion of the mass is quite soft, crumbling easily in the hand, 

 while the deeper and older portion is hard enough to resist a sharp blow 

 with a small hammer. 



An examination of fragments of this travertine shows that at the 

 present time our own flora is being preserved in fossil form. The deposit 

 of lime is rapid enough to preserve the leaves and twigs of neighboring 

 trees and of the herbaceous plants of the immediate vicinity. The former 

 are principally oaks and maples whose leaves can be recognized both by 

 their form and by the arrangement of their principal veins. The latter 

 are chiefly grasses and sedges, although fragments of a few other swamp 

 plants also occur. In the more moist portions of the region a sterile moss 

 grows in abundance and is quickly encrusted with lime, forming a large 

 bulk of the travertine at this point, and resembling certain of the chain 

 corals (Halysitidae). Some of the moss noticed were growing at the tip 

 while completely encrusted at the base. 



A large area of this portion of the formation is covered by a luxuriant 

 growth of one of the thalose liverworts, Conocephalus conivux Dumort. As 

 the substratum upon which this plant groAvs is less compact than in other 

 portions of the deposit its fossil remains, which are the most interesting 

 of all those which were noticed, are not so perfect as might have been the 



