318 GEOLOGY OF ILLINOIS. 



to Illinois for the means of rendering their vast deposits of iron avail 

 able as a part of the great industrial resources of the West. 



Springfield, with its system of railroads radiating in all directions, is 

 favorably located as a center of important iron and steel manufacturing 

 interests, and it only requires that a knowledge of the resources and 

 facilities here existing should be generally disseminated, to concentrate 

 here the capital and skill required for such enterprises. 

 . Building Stone. The central and western portions of the county are 

 tolerably well supplied with both limestone and sandstone for ordinary 

 building purposes. The limestone on Sugar creek, from which trie ma- 

 terial for the old State House was obtained, is a durable stone when 

 laid in a dry wall, but splits into thin fragments if subjected to the 

 combined influences of frost and moisture. The bed is from four to six 

 feet in thickness. It outcrops on all the tributaries of the Sangamon in 

 the south part of the county, and on Sugar creek it is met with at inter- 

 vals from the bridge north of Yirden, where the quarries are located, 

 near the Macoupin county line, to Crow's mill six miles south of Spring- 

 field. 



The best sandstone in the county for building material is that under- 

 laying the little coal (No. 8) of the general section, but in the section of 

 the formations outcropping in this county, given on page 309, it is num- 

 bered 11. Its entire thickness is about sixty feet, but only the middle 

 portion, some twenty feet or more in thickness, where the layers are 

 from six inches to two feet thick, can be safely used for a building stone. 



At Carpenter's mill, and at some of the outcrops west of the city of 

 Springfield, extensive quarries have been opened in this sandstone, and 

 when carefully selected it is a tolerably good building stone. At some 

 of the quarries the rock is partly concretionary, the concretions in some 

 cases being from six to eight feet in diameter, and exceedingly hard. 

 Other beds of sandstone appear in local outcrops at various points in 

 the county, and furnish some material suitable for cellar walls, etc., but 

 are of only local value. 



Limestone for .Lime. The best material for lime burning is to be ob- 

 tained from the upper bed of limestone on Sugar creek, north of Virden, 

 where a lime kiln was formerly located. The bed at this point is from 

 ten to twelve feet in thickness, the upper part being nodular and frag- 

 mentary, and the lower part even bedded in layers from four to twelve 

 inches thick. The upper part would furnish an excellent macadamizing 

 material for common roads, fit for immediate use. 



Ochre and Iron Ore. On Mr. David Miller's farm, four miles south 

 east of Springfield, in a cut on the Springfield and South-eastern rail- 

 road, a bed of brown ochre was exposed about fifteeirfeet below the 

 surface. It proved to be of good quality, and was used by him in paint- 



