CHAPTER XVII. 



MACOTJPIN COUNTY. 



This county lies a little to tbe south-westward of the geographical 

 center of the State, and embraces a superficial area of twenty-four 

 townships, or eight hundred and sixty-four square miles. It is bounded 

 on the north by Sangamon and Morgan counties, on the east by Mont- 

 gomery, on the south by Madison, and on the west by Jersey and Greene 

 counties. 



The principal streams in the county are Macoupin creek, and its 

 tributaries, which intersect the central and northern portions of the 

 county, and Cahokia creek traversing its south-eastern townships. 

 Heavy belts of timber occur on either side of these water courses, which 

 furnish an adequate supply for the prairies that occupy all the high- 

 lands between the streams, and cover fully two-thirds of its entire area. 

 The prairies are generally nearly level or gently rolling, and are elevated 

 from fifty to one hundred and fifty feet above the beds of the principal 

 streams. 



Surface Deposits. The Quaternary beds of this county consist mainly 

 of drift-clays, with some interstratified beds of sand and gravel, and 

 some local deposits of loess along the bluffs of the Macoupin. They 

 range in thickness from forty to two hundred feet or more, their greatest 

 development being restricted to the ancient valleys, excavated anterior 

 to, or during the drift epoch, and subsequently filled with drift accumu- 

 lations. The lower course of the Macoupin south and west of Carlin- 

 ville appears to occupy in part one of these valleys, and three miles 

 south of Carlinville, a shaft was sunk by T. L. Loomis, Esq., to the 

 the depth of one hundred and sixty feet, without reaching the bed rock, 

 all but a few feet at the top being through a blue hard-pan. At this 

 point a stream of water broke through, probably from an underlaying 

 bed of quicksand, and filled the shaft in a few hours to the depth of 

 about eighty feet, and the work was consequently abandoned. 



At Naylor & McPherson's coal shaft, one mile south-east of Bunker 

 Hill, the superficial deposits were only twenty-eight feet thick, while at 



