FREEBOKN COUNTY. 393 



Peat.] ^ 



west to southeast and about twenty feet high;ifc is yellowish in its upper ten 

 feet and gray below. This clay when excavated a,nd mixed from the upper 

 and lower portions of the bank, contains the right proportion of sand, and 

 none is used except for making the bricks slip from the mould. No fossils, 

 as shells or wood, have been found in this deposit. 



Bricks were formerly made at Geneva, and at a point about two and a 

 half miles east of that place. At Geneva the clay was taken from the bank 

 of Allen creek, about eighteen inches below the surface. It was a drift 

 clay, with small pebbles. That used two and a half miles east of Geneva 

 was of the same kind. In both places sand had to be mixed with the clay. 

 About Geneva sand is abundant, taken from the gravel and sand knolls, 

 and from the banks of the creek. 



Peat. In Freeborn county there is an abundance of peat. The most 

 of the marshes, of which some are large, are peat-bearing. In this respect 

 the county differs very remarkably from those in the western portion of 

 the same tier of counties, which, being entirely destitute of native trees, are 

 most in need of peat for domestic fuel. 



The peat of the county is generally formed entirely of herbaceous 

 plants, though the marshes are often in the midst of oak openings. The 

 peat-moss constitutes by far the larger portion. There is no observed dif- 

 ference in the peat-producing qualities between the marshes of the prairie 

 districts and those of the more rolling woodland tracts of the county. 



At Freeborn peat has been taken out on John Scovill's land. Here it 

 is eight feet thick, two rods from the edge, and it is probably much thicker 

 toward the center of the marsh. That below the surface of the water now 

 standing in the drain is too pulpy to shovel out; and after being dipped out 

 and dried on boards, it is cut into blocks and hauled to town. That above 

 the water is more fibrous, and can be taken out with a spade in convenient 

 blocks. Yet the level of the water varies, and that datum is not constant. 

 It appears as if there were here a stratum of more fibrous peat, about 

 twenty inches thick, that separates from the lower, and floats above it 

 at certain times. In the peat at this place a sound elk-horn was taken out, 

 at the depth of six feet. 



There is a large peat marsh in sec. 11. Hayward, which extends also on 

 much of sees. 12, 13, and 14. 



