LARGE GLACIAL BOWLDERS 379 



a half-mile or more, and back from the stream a half-mile, all wells 

 strike rock at some twelve to sixteen feet. Below the rock at the quarry 

 is clay, a soft sticky yellow body, called by the quarrymen " soap- 

 stone." Examination showed it to be glacial drift. No large 

 pieces of rock can be obtained in the quarry, for the whole mass 

 is shattered. The pieces vary in size from ten or fifteen to two 

 hundred and fifty pounds, rarely larger than can be handled by 

 one man. At the quarry the rock is from ten to fifteen feet thick, 

 and two or three nearby wells are reported passing through it, 

 one rinding sixteen feet of rock. 



The rock seems to be almost exactly horizontal in the quarry, 

 and it is struck at quite uniform depths in the neighboring wells. 

 Inquiry for this stratum in the coal shafts, two in number, at 

 Fairbury, failed to reveal its presence. One about a mile distant 

 encountered a piece of rock at a depth of forty feet, but below it 

 was more clay. The other about one and one-quarter miles 

 distant found no rock for at least ninety feet. 



At McDowell a little quarry is operated in rock which has 

 almost precisely the same characters as the one at Fairbury, 

 but it is of less extent — -ten or twelve feet thick, shattered and 

 local. West and south of McDowell about two miles from Ocoya 

 there are two or three little quarries opened. One near a little 

 stream is operated by two men who have taken out over a hundred 

 cords of rock in a single summer. The rock is eighteen feet thick 

 at a maximum, but in places only five or six feet thick. Some 

 parts of it are shelly or shattered, but toward the bottom, this 

 mass is firmer than any other yet considered. Sometimes pieces 

 twelve to sixteen inches thick and six to eight feet long are removed, 

 but no blasting is done. The near proximity to the stream caused 

 some trouble with water seepage, so a sumpf was dug through 

 the rock and a pump put in. A crowbar was thrust down easily 

 in the bottom of this sumpf two or three feet. The quarrymen say 

 the substratum is "soapstone of variable character," but it seems 

 to be a well-packed, blue, pebbly clay with a greasy feel. That 

 it is not one of the soft argillaceous layers of the Coal Measure 

 rocks is shown by its pebbles. The edge of the rock is known 

 in two directions. The edge along the stream is slanting, the other, 



