M< -noNOUCrll COUNTY. 255 



This is probably twice as much as the average thickness of these de- 

 posits in this county the drill having evidently penetrated an old 

 valley, where from sixty to seventy feet of Coal Measure strata had 

 been removed by erosion, and the valley thus formed subsequently 

 filled with the transported material. The average thickness of the 

 drift deposits in this county probably does not exceed fifty feet. 



Coal ircnxtirex. All the uplands in the county are underlaid by the 

 Coal Measures except a limited area on Crooked creek, in the south- 

 western corner of the county, embracing nearly the whole of township 

 4 north, range 4 west, and the south-western portion of township 5 

 north, range 4 west. The beds composing the lower portion of the 

 the Coal Measures, as they are developed in this county, give the fol- 

 lowing section: 



No. 1. Sandstones and sandy shales, partly ferruginous 20 to 30 feet. 



Xo. i. Band of calcareous shale, with lenticular masses of dark-blue limestone, con- 

 taining Cardiomorpha Missouriensis 2 to 3 



Xo. 3. Coal Xo. 3 2to 3 



No. 4. Sandy shales and soft sandstone 35 to 40 " 



Xo. 5. Bluish clay shale, filled with fossil ferns. J to 2 



Xo. 6. CoalXo. 2 2 to 2J 



Xo. 7. Bituminous fire clay 2 



Xo. c. Gray clay shale 6 



No. 9. Septaria limestone 3 



Xo. 10. Variegated shales, purple, yellow and blue 18 to 20 



Xo. 11. Sandstone, passing locally into shale 10 to 15 



Xo. 12. Coal Xo. 1. sometimes replaced with slate or blue shale 1 to 3 



Xo. 13. Fire clay, sometimes replaced by a sandy shale 2 to 3 



Xo. 14. Quartzose sandstone, (conglomerate) 5 to 20 



These beds have a maximum thickness of about 150 feet, and conse- 

 quently a boring anywhere in the county, carried down to the depth of 

 two hundred feet from the surface, would pass entirely through the 

 Coal Measures, and determine the amount of coal that could be found 

 at that point. No coal seam is worked at the present time, except No. 

 L.'. or the Colchester coal ; and it seemed to us quite probable that 

 neither 1 nor 3 is developed in this county so as to be of any value to 

 the industrial intere>ts of its people. In the vicinity of Colchester the 

 limestone and calcareous shale usually found above coal No. 3 outcrops 

 in the breaks of the ravines west of the town, but no indications of the 

 presence of the coal was seen. The concretionary or lenticular masses 

 of dark-blue limestone were found quite abundant here, and they af- 

 forded Cardiomorpha Mi.sxourien.si.s in great numbers, associated with 

 Itixrina nitirfa, Productm murk-atus, P. Pratienianus, Pleurotomaria 

 sphwnilata, Ariculo2)ecten rectalaterarea, two or three species of small 

 (iuniatitefs. fossil wood, and the spine of a fish ( Lint r acanthus hystr'uc). 

 We also obtained from one of these limestone concretions, associated 

 with the fossil wood above mentioned, a fossil fruit, shaped somewhat 



