Stoux City Academy of Science and Letters. 163 
LIGNITE. 
At various times during the history of Sioux City, 
Iowa, has the “coal fever” seized a few local business 
men who hoped to open a field nearer at home than that 
of south central Iowa. Reports handed down by the 
earliest settlers of outcrops of coal having been discov- 
ered by Lewis and Clark, and by Owen, Hayden and 
others, although these explorers themselves speak very 
disparagingly of the character of the fuel they noticed, 
have given rise in many minds to the belief that good 
coal should be found at a depth within a few hundred feet. 
Prospecting has therefore been done from time to time 
in pursuit of this fancy, to the extent of digging wells 
and cutting shallow drifts into the hills. This belief was 
further strengthened by the outcroppings of thin seams 
of charcoal-like, carbonaceous material, often lignitic in 
character, from the bluffs bordering the Big Sioux north 
of Sioux City, and at Sargent’s Bluffs, on the Missouri 
about seven miles below the city, and by the occasional 
finding of similar material in digging sand pits and 
wells. 
No encouragement has ever been given to the idea of 
the existence of coal by men of the vicinity who are 
acquainted with its geology, nor by the early Govern- 
ment and State survey reports, and in the latest of these 
Dr. H. F. Bain? dismisses the matter as being highly im- 
probable, after having shown that the coal measures, if 
they ever overlaid the region must have been almost 
entirely removed by erosion before the present deposits 
were laid down, and that if any such outliers yet existed 
below the several hundred feet of Cretaceous strata and 
later deposits that the expense of finding such by drilling 
would far exceed the returns that might be expected. 
Dr. Bain also makes brief reference to the lignites that 
are known to occur in the Cretaceous at this locality, and 
makes very accurate predictions as to their general 
worthlessness. 
aBain, H. F., Geology of Woodbury County: Iowa Geol. Survey, 
Vol 5, 1895, pp. 296- 297. 
