MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES. 209 



Economical Geology. 



Coal Under this head I can add very little to what has already been 

 said about the coal of Marshall county. The seam already worked has 

 produced a la rye amount of coal, chiefly mined for local purposes ; but no 

 statistics were gathered as to the amount of coal already mined. But 

 from the number of banks which have been opened and worked, and 

 the extent to which some of the drifts have been carried, and the num- 

 ber of years the banks have been known, there can be no doubt that 

 the coals of Marshall county have added largely to her material re- 

 sources. Sparlaud is almost a mining village, and other localities sup- 

 port many families engaged in mining coal. All this mining, however, 

 has been carried on in primitive style. Few heavy capitalists, and no 

 heavy companies have engaged systematically and scientifically in the 

 development of these coal seams. Nearly all the mining done has been 

 in the upper seam : and that, I think, has not been exhausted, except at 

 certain spots. The miners believe, and experience will prove, that many 

 loeal deposits belonging to this seam are richly worth the working. 

 The seam outcropping immediately below this appears to be thick 

 enough to justify the belief that it. too, will afford a fair supply of the 

 useful mineral. It is high enough to be easily drained, and in other 

 parts of the coal field not remote it has proved a valuable seam. 



Nothing, however, but the actual test of proving these seams at any 

 locality desired can be depended on in making an estimate of the 

 amount and quality of coal in them. They thin out and disappear in 

 some localities, and the productive coal beds in even the best portions 

 of Northern Illinois are somewhat local in their character, so that an 

 examination of the exposures to be met with in this part of the State 

 cannot be depended on in predicting results. A few hundred yards, or 

 a few hundred rods drifting in any direction in our heaviest coal seams, 

 may come to the productive limits of a local coal field in which parties 

 may be at work. Shafts over some of the prairie portion of the State 

 may disclose only traces of the coal seams outcropping in considerable 

 thickness near the Illinois river, just as the shafts at Rutland and Mi- 

 nonk. in and near the eastern limits of the county, have disclosed traces 

 of unproductive coal seams ; but it by no means necessarily follows that 

 these unproductive measures extend over any considerable area of the 

 Illinois coal field. 



BuiMi.Hy xtonc. A limited supply of rather poor building stone may 

 be obtained along the western bluff range of the Illinois river for a few 

 miles above and below Sparlaud. and in and about all the outcrops of 

 the coal seams. The heavy, soft sandstone about Sparland is quarried 

 in considerable quantities for foundations and ordinary farm and cellar 

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