126 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, 



of such counties as well as those more fa'vorocl "Rath mineral wealth. Franklin 

 County was selected on account of being the home of the assistant, who was 

 thus enabled to accomplish the same amount of work at a less cost than if 

 sent to some distant county." 



"Prof. P^'rank 11. Bradley, late of Hanover College, Ind., was engaged 

 to make a survey of Vermillion County, he ha\dng previously acquired an 

 extensive knowledge of the geology of that county from examinations made 

 while surveying the adjoining counties in the State of Illinois." 



Thus was begun a survey of the State \)y single counties often isolated one 

 from another, and often selected to satisfy the demands of some politician 

 or other person of temporary prominence. The rocks and mineral resources 

 of Indiana were formed or deposited where they now lie when the only 

 boundary lines were those of the ocean's beach, and the only politician the 

 "fittest" inhabitant of the seas. Therefore a county boundary line and a 

 politician have, or rather should have, no connection whatever with a geological 

 survey. The county boundary line was in great part banished from the 

 Survey in 1895. The politican still has much to say regarding the office and 

 at present I see no practical waj' of getting rid of him. 



The first mention of Indiana Block Coal under that name is also made in 

 the Introduction to his first i-eport by Mr. Cox, as follows: "On my first 

 visit to Brazil, in Claj' County, the general imjm'ssion seemed to prevail 

 that the i)eculiar Aariety of coal familiarly known as 'l)lock coal,' or 'Brazil 

 coal,' was confined to a small basin, isolated from the great bituminous 

 coal fields of Indiana and Illinois, and limited to an area of a few 

 square miles. Indeed, I found at Brazil, those who were presuming enough 

 to stand in the door of Kigby's Hotel and point out to me the e.Ytreme limits 

 of the "Block coal" field in every direction. <)!' ihc fallacy of this prevailing 

 opinion 1 felt it to be my first duty to disabuse the public mind, and the splint 

 or 'block coal' has been traced from the southern limits of (Jlreene (^ounty 

 to Warren County on the north." It has since been shown that the true 

 block coal extends northward from Brazil only to Raccoon Creek in Parke 

 (\)unty and that the coals farth<'r north mentioned by Mr. Cox are a semi- 

 block of somewhat inferior quality. 



The body of the first or 1869 Report of ( "ox is largely devoted to the geol- 

 ogy of the coal fields and iron deposits of Clay, Greene, Parke, Warren and 

 Fountain Counties, prepared by himself, and those of Vermillion County by 

 I'rof. Bradley. It was accompanied by a i)ortfolio containing outline maps 

 of CJreene, Clay and Vermillion Counties, on which were shown tlu; appro.xi- 

 mate bounds of each of the workable veins, and the location of all mines and 

 outcrops of coal and iron ores. A colored "vertical section of the geological 

 formations from Oreencastle to Terre Haute, made from outcrops and sec- 

 tions of bores along the line of the T. II. & I. (now Vandalia) railroad" was 

 also included. 



Regarding the character and value of the surveys of the various coal- 

 bearing counties published in the reports of the State Geologist from 1869 to 



