A CENTURY OF GEOLOGY IN INDIANA. 107 



rock formation which I have just been describing, 1 consider as belonging to 

 the strata inferior to the black, bituminous, aluminous slate, and belonging 

 to the Devonian and Upper Silurian Periods of European Geologists." 



Under "Carroll County" he describes the black shale outcrops near 

 Delphi, correlating them with those at New Albany, and under "Montgomery 

 County" he mentions the notable crinoid beds near Crawfordsville. Sections 

 of important coal deposits in Fountain, Parke and Vermillion Counties are 

 then given and the deposit of iron ore near Brouillett's Creek, where a large 

 blast furnace was afterward erected, he states is the finest he had seen in the 

 State. 



Continuing southward, he examined more closely the coal seams of Clay, 

 Vigo and other counties, and gives much information regarding their thick- 

 ness and qualit3^ No mention is made, however, of the block coal after- 

 ward developed in Clay County. 



Sometime during the summer of 1838 he made a trip to the then cele- 

 brated salt region Of Virginia on the Kanawha River, in order to study the 

 strata in which the salt was obtained. This study, he asserts, convinced him 

 that the area in western Indiana, immediately adjacent to the base of the 

 coal measures, is almost the equivalent of that on the Kanawha and Musk- 

 ingum and that "there is a tolerably fair prospect that the formation at the 

 margin of the coal fields of Indiana will yield a profitable brine." Bores 

 Avere afterward sunk near the mouth of Coal Creek, Fountain County, and a 

 good quality of brine which yielded a pound of salt to the gallon was obtained, 

 at a depth of 700 feet ; but the industry never developed into one of importance, 

 the opening of the Wabash and Erie Canal bringing in the Onondaga salt 

 and putting a stop to the enterprise.* 



In his summary at the close of the Second Report, Dr. Owen states 

 that the best coal which he had seen in the State was near the Sugar Creek 

 foundry in Parke County, and that the two thickest seams observed are on 

 the Patoka between Pike and Gibson Counties and on Brouillett's Creek in 

 Vermillion County. He says that the bituminous coal of Indiana shows its 

 vegetable origin more distinctly than any coal he ever inspected, and that 

 along the eastern margin of the coal formation he found "excellent fire-clays, 

 potter's clay, furnace hearth-stones and slates, from which copperas and alum 

 can be manufactured on a large scale." Limestones, he says, "are not abun- 

 dant in our coal formation but are locally present a,nd often afford good ma- 

 terial for macadamizing turnpikes," a statement borne out by tests the writer 

 had made at the Road Material Laboratory at Washington in 1905. 



One prophecy which Dr. Owen made, which has not been fulfilled, was 

 that "When this country becomes older and produce more valuable, the 

 marls of the Lower Silurian could be transported by water with great ad- 

 vantage from Jefferson, Switzerland and Dearborn, to the counties on the 

 Ohio and Wabash, which are deficient in lime, phosphoric acid, potash and 



*Report of K. T. Brown. 18.'>3, 317. 



