OF THE UPPER MISSOURI. 11 
1. That the portion of Nebraska east of longitude 98° possesses a very fertile soil, a 
sufficiency of timber for all immediate purposes, is well watered, and is surpassed by few 
portions of the West as an agricultural and grazing country. 
2. That, except in the southeastern or limestone region, there are very few good quarries 
of stone for building or other economical purposes. 
3. That from its geological structure, the existence of workable beds of coal in the 
southeastern portion of Nebraska is quite problematical. 
4, That, with the exception of iron in moderate quantities, no minerals will be found 
that can be rendered valuable for economical uses. 
CHAPTER ITItf. 
FROM OMAHA CITY TO FORT LARAMIE. 
July 3d. The country from Omaha City to Elkhorn river, as I have before mentioned, 
is mostly underlaid by limestones of the Upper Coal Measures. A great thickness of 
yellow marl, a modern deposit, covers the plain uniformly, concealing the limestones, 
except in a few localities. The prairie is as usual undulating. On the Elkhorn, the 
ferruginous sandstone (No. 1, Lower Cretaceous), occupies the country for about eighty 
miles up the Platte valley. It is seldom seen, owing to a great thickness of a 
superficial deposit composed of Post Pliocene marls. It is exposed in the valley of the 
Loup fork, near its mouth, and is exceedingly friable in its texture. On the distant hills 
remnants of No. 8 are seen, but No. 2 seems wanting. As we follow up the Platte 
valley from the Elkhorn, the timber gradually disappears in the same manner as on the 
Missouri. The bottom is broad and fertile, and the upland, owing to the yielding nature 
of the sandstone which underlies it, becomes more uniformly rolling than the limestone 
region near the Missouri. 
July 20th. Indications of No. 3 were seen in the bed of Beaver creek, near the water’s 
edge. 
July 21st. Near the old Pawnee village, I observed No. 3 close to the water’s edge, 
presenting its usual lithological characters, with a few specimens of Inocerumus problema- 
ticus ; and overlying it stray masses of a pebbly conglomerate cemented with a calca- 
reous grit, undoubtedly belonging to the upper beds of the Tertiary formation. After 
leaving Beaver creek I observed a change in the external features of the hills, more 
