Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 167 
drill that had prospected the Goodfellow tract, a seam 
of lignite of uneven thickness being struck at a depth of 
42 feet. In the N. W. 4 of sec. 27, a hole 279 feet deep 
was drilled at an elevation of about 50 feet above that in 
sec. 28, and a bed of lignite about 14 inches thick was 
found at 99 feet. In sec. 28 the bed was uncovered by 
digging a well 4 feet in diameter. This shaft laid bare 
a succession of clays, shales, and sandstones with one bed 
of lignite, 5 to 7 inches thick, at a depth of 26 feet, and 
another bed of pure lignite at 40 feet, only 6 inches thick, 
below about a foot of black, carbonaceous, earthy mate- 
rial, somewhat shaly. The drillings from this material 
had evidently been mistaken for the genuine article, and 
had given it its false thickness. The lignite may have 
been somewhat thicker at other places in the vicinity, 
but the continuance of the drillings in the washings 
after the seam was passed probably caused the drillers 
to overestimate its thickness. Above the carbonaceous 
matter was a grayish shale familiarly known as ‘“soap- 
stone” to the drillers, and below the lignite was a gray, 
sandy clay which was penetrated for only 2 or 3 feet be- 
low the lignite. 
Very little water was encountered in this shaft. Its 
elevation is above that of the heavy water horizon 
farther north in the county, but a spring flowing a steady 
one-inch stream emerges from the middle of the ravine 
at a level above that of the bottom of the shaft, probably 
fiowing on the upper thin bed of lignite. The lignite at 
the bottom of the shaft was drifted into for about 10 feet, 
but in this distance it did not vary much in character or 
thickness. This development was carried no farther, the 
fruitlessness of such work becoming readily apparent. 
Correlation Owing to the considerable distance of 
16 miles in an air line separating the two localities 
where lignite is known to exist, and the absence of 
intermediate outcroppings, it is plainly impossible to 
state with positiveness that there is a continuity of 
the beds from one locality to the other. The beds in 
the Homer locality are in the Dakota, which is there 
relatively higher than north of Jackson, and it is prob- 
able that the bed at 40 feet is the equivalent of the 
second bed north of Jackson. It is not improbable 
