VERMILION COUNTY. 249 



Above the synclinal axis, the coal accompanying these beds is pretty con&tant, 

 with a thickness of six to twenty inches; further east, it is very thin, and in 

 some cases disappears. Near the west line of section 35, town 19 north, range 

 14 west, I also found a point where the whole of these beds had been removed 

 by erosion, and the shaly sandstone of No. 2 had been deposited directly upon 

 No. 13. These beds also occur just above the mouth of Stony creek, with six 

 inches of coal. In ascending this creek, no rock was found above No. 2, which 

 forms the banks just above the crossing of the State road, in section 22. 



In descending Salt Fork, the black, slaty shale of No. 14 is found in the tops 

 of the hills below Major's mill, accompanied by large concretions of black, cal- 

 careous ironstone, containing CardiomorpJia Missouriemis, Orthoceras, Nautilus, 

 and fish-scales. 



The shales of No. 15 are generally green and red. The limestone bands ac- 

 companying them are in some places crowded with fossils, such as Myalina, 

 Nucula, Lt>da, Monopteria, Aviculopecten, Bellerophon, Macrocheilus, Hemipronites 

 crassa, Athyris subtilita, Productus scabriculus, etc. The best locality is about 

 eighty rods below Major's mill, on the north bank of the Oxbow bend. 



No. 18 is a shaly sandstone, which furnishes a good horizon for recognition-, 

 since it is characterized by a great abundance of more or less perfect fronds 

 of the fucoid Caulerpites marginatus, Lesqx. This is found to occupy nearly 

 the same position in the section in Edgar county. 



No. 19 is analogous in character with Nos. 3 and 9, and contains the same 

 fossils, with the addition of Myalina, Orthis carbonaria, and scales and teeth 

 of fishes. 



No. 21 is generally a very compact, fragmentary to semi-crystalline limestone, 

 ringing under the hammer, and marked by the presence of numerous bony scales 

 and teeth of fishes. At Rock Ford, below Major's mill, in the northwest quar- 

 ter of section 25, township 19 north, range 13 west, this bed presents a very 

 curious structure, having been apparently coarsely broken up by some violent 

 action, and afterward reconsolidated by the deposition of a cement of a calca- 

 reo-ferruginous material, mingled with some sand. I have been unable to con- 

 ceive of any circumstances which could have produced just such a bed of rock. 

 It has been named to me as the result of volcanic action, but that is impossible. 



Apparently belonging at the bottom of this bed, though the connection could 

 not be clearly made out, is a bed of impure, concretionary limestone, which has 

 occasionally been burned for lime in a ravine just east of Finley chapel, on the 

 southwest quarter of section 18, town 19 north, range 12 west. Only a small 

 outcrop is here exposed, and only a few fragmentary fossils were detected ; but 

 at Garrett's (formerly Swank's) old mill, on the Little Vermilion, in the north- 

 west quarter of section 14, township 17 north, range 12 west, we find a consid- 

 erable outcrop of the whole of this bed, except the peculiar conglomerate just 



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