Fig. 22.-- Fults hill prairie, southeast of Fults, Monroe County, as seen from the adjacent bottomland. Several rare 
species of plants and animals live on this bluff. 
Fults hill prairie and bluff are in private owner- 
ship. On the northwest section of the bluff-top is a 
cemetery surrounded by pastureland. The remainder 
of the brow slope has not been pastured and has 
been little disturbed by man. 
14. FOUNTAIN BLUFF 
Fountain Bluff, in Jackson County, is located 
south of Gorham and north of Grand Tower. It is an 
outlier of the bluffs of the west side of the Missis- 
sippi River valley; it was isolated by the diversion 
of the river from its main valley on the east into a 
narrower valley on the west. The older valley on the 
east is 4 miles wide; the one on the west is about ] 
mile wide. 
Fountain Bluff is 4 miles long and 1.8 miles 
across at the widest point; it has a perimeter of 
slightly more than 10 miles. Limestone of the Chester 
series, which scarcely outcrops at the south end of 
this outlier, is overlain with Caseyville sandstone. 
This massive sandstone forms the spectacular cliffs 
of Fountain Bluff. In a number of places the sand- 
stone has been eroded to form large ravines or small 
valleys, some of which have been named. Loess caps 
the sandstone. The highest elevation on Fountain 
Bluff is 779 feet above sea level or 419 feet above 
18 
the floor of the valley to the east and about 430 feet 
above the Mississippi River to the west. 
Approximately a dozen farm homes are located 
at the base of the cliffs and in the largest ravine, 
known as Happy Hollow. A road follows the creek 
through Happy Hollow for a mile before it ascends to 
the top of the ridge on the west and then trends about 
a mile northeastward to the point of highest eleva- 
tion, the site of Fountain_ Bluff Lookout Tower, a 
structure removed before 1950. On the east side of 
Fountain Bluff, three cemeteries, Goodbread, Henson, 
and Hudson, occupy small areas. A railroad, a branch 
of the [Illinois Central from Carbondale to Gale, skirts 
the base of Fountain Bluff on the north and west. 
Years ago a station, Fountain Bluff Station, stood at 
the mouth of a beautiful ravine on the northwest side 
of the bluff, fig. 23. Later a dam was constructed 
across this ravine, near its mouth, to impound water 
for a swimming pool. Both station and pool have dis- 
appeared. The pool was filled by silt carried in by 
running water. The silt now supports semiaquatic 
and mesic plants. 
On the west side of Fountain Bluff is another 
large ravine, Trestle Hollow. On the southwest, not 
on the bluff but on the riverbank and adjacent bottom- 
land, several industries-- a grain loading dock, a sand 
