THE CHESTER SERIES IN ILLINOIS 401; 



but in the Kiskaddon well, near Bremen, there are eighty-five 

 feet of strata referable to the formation. The average thickness 

 may be assumed to be about seventy-five feet. In the southern 

 counties the formation is somewhat thicker. In one measured 

 section north of Golconda it is essentially one hundred feet, and 

 that seems to be about the thickness of the formation commonly 

 represented in the southern belt. 



Palestine sandstone.^ — The Palestine is the first of the sand- 

 stone formations of the Chester series which is present with 

 essentially equal development both in the Mississippi River 

 counties and in the southern counties of Illinois. The sandstone 

 resembles the other Chester sandstones in its general features, but 

 in only a few regions does it include notably massive beds, though 

 such beds are present in the vicinity of Chester, Illinois, where it 

 has been quarried for building stone. In general this sandstone is 

 rather thinly bedded, in some regions including much shale which 

 is more or less arenaceous in character. As commonly exhibited, 

 the color of this sandstone is somewhat paler than most of the 

 older sandstones of the series, and much of it, at least, is rather 

 finer textured. None of these characteristics, however, are per- 

 sistent enough to enable the formation to be readily recognized 

 by its lithologic characters, and the only sure means of identifying 

 it is from its relations with either the underlying or overlying lime- 

 stones. Fossil tree trunks of the genus Lepidodendron occur more 

 commonly, perhaps, in the Palestine than in any Other sand- 

 stone of the Chester series, and one specimen six or seven feet 

 long has been observed. No other fossils have been seen in the 

 formation. 



The thickness of the Palestine is not so great as that of some 

 of the earlier Chester sandstones, although its geographic distri- 

 bution is wider. In two measured sections in the Mississippi 

 River counties the formation is sixty and sixty-seven feet respec- 

 tively. In some other sections it is probably somewhat greater 

 than this, perhaps as much as eighty feet. In the southern counties 

 the maximum thickness of the formation is eighty feet, but in 



' Weller, Trans. III. Acad. Set., Vol VI (1914), p. 128; also ///. Stale Geol. Surv., 

 Monog. I (1914), p. 2Q. 



