182 GEOLOGY OF ILLINOIS. 



following succession of beds in a vertical exposure, for about sixty rods along 

 the side of the bluffs : 



FKET. IN. 



1. Shale passing downwards into black slate 25 



2. Coal 1 6 



3. Fire clay, passing downwards into nodular limestone 11 to 12 



4. Limestone 3 



5. Sandstone, exposed for only a few inches. 



It seems to me probable, that the vein of coal observed here, is still above 

 both of the poal seams which are worked in this region ; the distance between 

 this and the next vein below it, I should not judge to be more than forty or 

 fifty feet. The limestone which almost always overlies the coal No. 6, is en- 

 tirely wanting here, although, as may be seen by the section, a bed of limestone 

 occurs below its under clay, and farther down the creek. Below the exposures 

 from which the above section was made up, numerous thin beds of limestone 

 are to be seen, intercalated in sandstone outcrops. These limestone bands ap- 

 peared to be somewhat fossiliferous, but no good specimens were obtained. 



In the northeastern part of section 24, township 25, range 5, on a northern 

 fork of Lick creek, I noticed a small quarry in a ledge of soft, light gray and 

 brown micaceous sandstone, generally thin bedded and shaly, but in some 

 places with the beds thick enough to answer for building purposes. The total 

 vertical thickness of the exposure was less than twelve feet. Passing farther 

 down the branch, in a general westerly and southerly direction, we find the 

 hill-sides along its banks strown thickly with fragments of similar sandstone, 

 indicating the probable existence of the same beds, but a short distance under 

 the soil. At a point on the immediate bank of the creek, near the center of the 

 section, 1 observed an exposure of about twenty feet of sandy and argillaceous 

 shales, containing a thin seam of coaly matter, not over one or two inches thick 

 at its best development, and from that down to nothing. About half a mile 

 further east, near the center of the eastern line of the section, alongside of the 

 road which crosses the creek at this place, and well up the bluffs, I observed 

 the outcrop of a coal seam, which had been' worked to some slight extent, and 

 which I take to be the upper workable vein of this region, No. 6 of the Illi- 

 nois river section. The whole exposure at this point, presented the following 

 section : 



FKET. 



1. Shale 9 



2. Limestone (light colored) 2 



3. Dark colored shaly beds, in some portions approaching black slate in appearance and 



texture 2 



4. Bluish shaly clay 1 



5. Coal.. . 3 



