MORGAN COUNTY. 159 



FKET. IN. 



1. Rotten black slate 2 6 



2. Coal 2 



3. Fire clay , 12 4 



4. Shale 1 



5. Coal 2 



6. Fire clay '..... 1 3 



7. Sandstone and shale ... 16 7 



8. Shale with bands of ironstone , 56 



9. Black slate (fossiliferous) 3 10 



10. Soft sandstone 15 



11. Shale 14 



12. Limestone 1 



13. Slate 2 



14. Coal 2 10 



1 5. Fire clay 6 



Ninety-two feet below the lowest coal in this section, another two inch seam 

 of coal was reported by the borers, the intervening strata below the fire clay, 

 being argillaceous limestone six feet, and eighty feet of shale. If the lower coal 

 in the shaft is No. 4 of the Illinois river section, as given by Prof. Worthen, as 

 seems quite probable, it would indicate a remarkable thinning out of all the coal 

 seams in this particular region, and a considerable local variation in all the 

 strata at this point. 



The only point which remains to be mentioned, in Morgan county, as a lo- 

 cality where the beds of the Coal Measures have been penetrated, is at the city 

 of Jacksonville, where a bed of coal, thirty inches in thickness, is reported to 

 have been struck by a boring made on the grounds of the Insane Asylum, at 

 the depth of one hundred and ninety feet. Another boring, which was made 

 near the track of the Toledo, Wabash and Western railroad, just without the 

 eastern city limits, is reported to have struck coal at very nearly the same depth, 

 but with the remarkable thickness, according to a journal of the boring, which 

 was kindly furnished by the proprietors, Messrs. Davenport & Berry, of eighteen 

 feet. This, it seems probable, is a mistake, but the shaft which was being sunk 

 at this place, at the time of my visit (Nov. 30th, 1868), had not penetrated the 

 Drift, which here is over one hundred and forty feet in thickness, and no more 

 reliable data could be obtained.* 



*Since this report was made, a section of the Jacksonville shaft has been obtained from 



Messrs. Davenport & Berry, and is as follows : 



FEET. IN. 



Drift clay and gravel , 142 



Quicksand 10 



Hard, green sand, with a trace of coal 2 



Soapstone (clay shale) 14 



Sandstone . . 3 9 



