< oi'NTY. 287 



Van Horst & Vugrs' shaft, east of Staunton, they were one hundred 

 and ten feet : at the Virden shaft twenty, and at Girard about seventy 

 feet. These figures illustrate the variable thickness of the drift deposits 

 in this county, and indicate the irregularity of the original surface of 

 the bed rock, which seems to have been intersected by valleys of erosion 

 quite as deep, if not as numerous as those which characterize the sur- 

 face at the present time. The upper thirty or forty feet of the drift 

 consists of brown or buff gravelly clays, which pass gradually into the 

 blue hard-pan below, which forms the lower division of this deposit. 

 The beds underlaying this hard pan were not passed through at Loomis 7 

 shaft, and consequently their characters are not definitely known, but 

 the great amount of water flowing into it in so short a time, indicates 

 the presence of a bed of quicksand immediately below the hard-pan ; 

 and quite probably other beds, including an original surface soil similar 

 to that met with at the Blooniiugtou shaft, and at various other locali- 

 ties in the State, may also be found to exist here. 



Strat ifi efl Rock -v . 



All the stratified rocks of this county belong to the Coal Measures, and 

 include all the strata from the horizon of coal No. 4. which outcrops on 

 Hodge's creek, just on the Greene county line, to coal Xo. 10, inclusive, 

 embracing an aggregate thickness of about three hundred and fifty feet. 

 The following section of the coal shaft at Virdeu. kindly furnished me 

 by J. W. UTT, Esq., one of the proprietors of the mine, will give a 

 general idea of the relative thickness and position of the strata, and 

 includes nearly all the different beds that outcrop in the county, except 

 a few feet in thickness below the coal worked in this mine, which out- 

 crop on the west line of the county, and also a few feet in thickness of 

 beds overlaying the highest in this shaft, which outcrop on the upper 

 course of Macoupin creek, east of Carliuville. 



Virden Shaft. Feet. In. 



Drift clay .' 20 



Xo. 1. Sandstone 5 



Xo. ". Bituminous shale 5 



Xo. 3. Coal 2 



Xo. 4. Fireclay 5 



Xo. 5. Bituminous shale 4 6 



Xo. 6. CoalXo.10 6 



Xo. 7 . Fire-clay or clay shale 6 



Xo. 8. Hard gray limestone 7 9 



Xo. 9. Bituminous shale 1 4 



Xo. 10. Argillaceous shale 5 6 



X". 11. Compact limestone (Carlinville bed) 7 



Xo. 12. Bituminous shale. Coal Xo. 9 1 3 



Xo. 13. Clayshale 6 



Xo. 14. Limestone 9 



Xo. 15. Sandy shale and sandstone 63 



