Miscellanies > 195 



ter's clay for the more common ware. Coal exists abundantly in 

 the vicinity in several places, and some of it (on Deer creek, 

 near Troy) is cannel coal. A party of forty potters from Stafford- 

 shire, under Mr. Clue, and a company formed in Louisville, have 

 already begun this important manufacture of stone ware, and 

 the first kiln was burning in June, 1837. Carbonic acid exists 

 abundantly in the waters of this country ; much iron and lime 

 are held in solution by it, and again deposited as the carbonic acid 

 evaporates, the former as bog iron, which in one place (Misha- 

 wakee) is fifty or sixty yards wide, and from seven inches to 

 three feet deep, and so firm as to require an iron bar to raise it. 

 The lime is deposited as tufa, and it is a curious fact, that, as the 

 limestone rocks are buried deep under diluvium, and are there- 

 fore in a great measure inaccessible, the inhabitants resort to the 

 calcareous tufa and calcareous bowlders, for materials to afford 

 quick lime by burning. 



Mr. Owen justly concludes that three geological formations ex- 

 ist in Indiana. 



1. A bituminous coal formation, occupying that portion of the 

 State west of the second principal meridian. 



2. A limestone formation, (similar to the mountain limestone 

 of European geologists,) prevailing in the counties east of that 

 meridian. 



3. A diluvium, consisting of deposits of clay, sand, gravel and 

 bowlders, overlying, and in many places covering up, the two 

 other formations, to a greater or less depth, particularly in the 

 northern part of the State. 



He infers on unanswerable grounds, that Indiana was long un- 

 der an ocean, which furnished the innumerable marine organ- 

 ized bodies, found in such profusion enclosed in the solid rocks, 

 especially the lower limestone. 



There are some very judicious remarks on the useful materials 

 found in the State, and on the nature of its soils, and the causes 

 of their great fertility. This is attributed to the position of Indi- 

 ana, near the middle of the great valley of North America, which 

 has been the receptacle of a vast variety of the ruins of rocks, of 

 many formations, thus affording the requisite materials for the 

 best soil, among which lime, clay and sand, are conspicuous, with 

 a portion of iron, and abundance of carbonated calcareous waters, 

 and better materials could not be desired, especially for the growth 



