GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 39 



this region, and exhibit their usual variability of texture and color. 

 The prevailing color is a deep drab rusty-brown, sometimes yellow or 

 nearly white. Some layers contain many impressions of dicotyledonous 

 leaves. I was unable to find as large and perfect impressions as I have 

 collected at many other localities. 



So far as the surface of the country is concerned, in Lancaster County 

 it may be regarded as remarkable for its beauty. 



It is always gently rolling, well drained, and from elevations the views 

 are very fine, forming most excellent building-sites. 



When the soil is not influenced by salt-springs, it is equal to any in 

 the State, but, in an agricultural point of view, there is no doubt that 

 Salt Creek, with the numerous salt-springs that issue forth near it, is a 

 disadvantage to the valley. 



That portion about two miles above Lancaster does not seem affected 

 by the salt. The farm of Mr. S. B. Mills, of over one thousand acres, 

 about ten miles above the county-seat, is one of the most fertile and 

 valuable in the State. Although the salt-springs in this county may 

 eventually be of some value to the State in the production of salt, yet 

 I am convinced that if there was not a salt-spring of any kind in the 

 county, the difference in the value of the lands for agricultural and 

 grazing purposes would much more than balance all income that will 

 ever arise from the salt-springs. 



In that case Salt Creek, instead of being almost useless, or rather an 

 impediment, would be a fine fresh-water stream, making it one of the 

 finest stock counties in the State. 



The surface of the uplands lies very beautifully, is very attractive to 

 the eye, but there is scarcely any timber in the county. 



The soil is excellent, and forest-trees may be planted with success 

 whenever settlers choose to do so, though very little has been done as 

 yet. 



Cass County is the best settled county in the State. It is covered 

 with fine farms, and many of them begin to show their capacity not only 

 in the production of the grains, as wheat, oats, and corn, but also of 

 fruits, forest- trees, hedges, «&;c. Along the Platte Valley, as well as the 

 Missouri, the surface is rough, the hills being sometimes very steep, and 

 the ravines deep and numerous; but the soil is of inexhaustible fertility, 

 and well watered with streams and multitudes of springs of the purest 

 water. 



In all that pertains to successful agriculture, and the raising of all 

 kinds of stock, I could not conceive of a more desirable district. 



There are rock-quarries enough in Cass County to sujiply all that por- 

 tion of the State south of the Platte, if it could be equally distributed. 



On the Platte, near the northwest corner of the county, a yellow mag- 

 nesian limestone is obtained, which is regarded with great favor as a 

 building- stone. It is very durable, with a tenacious texture, but so soft 

 that it can be cut with a knife or plane, thus rendering it easily worked 

 for caps or sills, &c. 



I have not observed this bed of rock in any other portion of the State. 

 The geological formations in this county are the Upper Carboniferous 

 beds, capped along the west and southwest portions with the sandstones 

 of the Dakota group. The Coal-Measure rocks appear near the edge of 

 the water, at the mouth of Salt Creek, near Ashland, the county-seat of 

 Saunders County. East of this point, for twenty to twenty-five miles, 

 the red sandstones occupy the hills along the Platte, but the limestone 

 •continues to rise higher and higher and assume more importance. 



