STEPHENS )X COUNTY. 67 



friable aud crumbling, that hand specimens will hardly remain in shape. 

 The second quarry exposes an outcrop of about twenty-four feet. The 

 third is exactly similar to the second. Both of them are somewhat 

 shaly towards the top, but rapidly grow massive and solid as they are 

 worked into. These three quarries are within a short distance of each 

 other. A few feet of reddish clay, with small stones intermingled, 

 covers the strata where these quarries are opened. These are the last 

 outcrops upon the Illinois Central Railroad. The Western Union Rail- 

 road enters the county on a line almost exactly south of Freeport, and 

 1 Kisses out of it about four miles south of its north-east corner. Three 

 miles south-west of Freeport it cuts through the top of the rock under 

 consideration, exposing the usual red clay, and over this a gravelly sub- 

 soil. This cut is a small one. About three miles north-west of Free- 

 port there is an exactly similar cut. About a mile further on towards 

 the north-west is another, which measured one thousand feet long and 

 twenty-four feet deep in the middle. Further on, and a little over a 

 mile west of Rock City, is another cut three hundred and fifty yards 

 long, and fifteen feet deep in the solid stone at the deepest place, and the 

 stone covered by about ten feet of the usual gravelly clay. Here the 

 stone is hard, glassy, conchoidal in fracture, and begins to assume the 

 characteristics of the Blue or Trenton proper. One-half mile further 

 on and nearer Rock City there is a cut about twelve feet deep, the low- 

 est part exposing the real Blue limestones. Further on, and one mile 

 east of Dakota, there is another cut into the Yellow Galena. The cut 

 is not a large or important one. Further on, at the railroad bridge, 

 over Rock run, there is a cut about twenty-two feet deep. The first five 

 feet is the usual reddish clay; the next twelve feet is Galena limestone, 

 assuming characteristics of ,the Blue, aud the last five feet is into the 

 real Blue itself. The union of the Galena and Blue, passing into each 

 other almost imperceptibly, may be satisfactorily examined here. The 

 next and last cut is about one-fourth of a mile east of Davis, almost on 

 tlic county line. It is over one thousand feet long and about thirty-one 

 feet deep ; the upper seven feet is the usual clay, with some gravel in 

 it ; the low*er twenty -four feet is Galena limestone, solid, a little bluish 

 in color, and of a somewhat conchoidal fracture. In fact, all these ex- 

 posures along the eastern part of the county, in their blue color, con- 

 choidal fracture, and hardness, differ considerably from the Freeport 

 quarries. They are lower down in the series, and assimilate somewhat 

 into the character of the Blue below. So true is this, that in some of 

 the exposures it is hard to fix upon the line of separation between the 

 two. 



From Freeport south, along this railroad track, no other exposures of 

 the Galena limestone are visible. 



