304 GEOLOGY. 



ful mind as Hayden's and Leidy's descriptions of these Bad Lands 

 and their animal remains. 



FUEL FROM THE SURFACE-DEPOSITS. 



It is not yet absolutely settled, as already stated, how much de- 

 pendence can be placed on the coal-supplies of the Carboniferous, 

 Cretaceous, and Tertiary deposits, in each of which thin beds have 

 been found and worked to a limited extent. Hayden and Meek in- 

 cline to the opinion that no beds of coal thick enough and of suffi- 

 ciently good quality to be profitably worked will be found in the 

 State. (Hayden's Report for 1870, p. 134, etc.) This subject has 

 already been discussed in the chapter on Carboniferous Age. 

 There is, however, no question about the great quantity of peat in 

 Nebraska, which subject is discussed in the next chapter. 



Wafer Resources of Nebraska. This subject, which would natu- 

 rally come in here, is omitted in this connection, as it has already- 

 been fully discussed in the chapter on Physical Geography. 



Timber in Modern Geological Times. It is natural to suppose 

 from well-known natural causes that when the Loess age was- 

 drawing to a close, and the lower portions of the area covered by 

 these deposits were yet in a condition of a bog, the climate was much 

 more favorable than the present for the growth of timber. Rain- 

 fall and moisture in the atmosphere must then have been much 

 more abundant. In July, 1868, while walking along the edge of 

 one of the Logan peat-bogs in Cedar County, my Jacob staff struck 

 some hard body in the peat. Examining it more closely I found a 

 log buried in the peat at least sixty feet in length. Following up 

 this discovery with a careful search, I found in this and other bogs 

 a great many buried logs of various length and thickness. Most of 

 them were found where there was no existing timber within twenty 

 miles, and from which they could not have floated in flood- times, 

 I regret that I had no means of extricating some of those logs, and 

 ascertaining the species to which they belonged. That would no 

 doubt have thrown much light on the changes that haye taken 

 place since they were buried in the bog. But they evidently grew 

 on the shores or banks, and after falling into the bog they were 

 protected from decay by the well-known antiseptic properties of 

 peaty waters. Another fact that shows the greater prevalence of 

 timber within geologically recent times is the remnants of old pine 

 forests yet buried in the ground. In the summer of 1868, when 



