26 GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



6. Yellowish white limestone, rather soft, yielding readily to atmo- 

 spheric influences, 2 feet. 

 5. Slope, same as No. 3, 6 feet. 

 4. Yellow fine-grained arenaceous limestone, 18 inches. 



3. Slope, supposed to be laminated clay, but covered with grass, 20 

 feet. 



2. Yellow and gray limestone, portions of it filled with seams and 

 nodules of chert or flint. 



1. Bluish gray, laminated, calcareous clay, with numerous fragments 

 of fossils, as crinoids, corals,- &c., 30 feet above water. 



The outcroppings of the rocks form benches or terraces along the 

 streams, the hard layers yielding less readily to erosion. There is an 

 abundance of excellent limestone for all economical uses on the Otoe 

 reserve. 



The soil is very fertile all over the reserve, but there is the appear- 

 ance of the far western prairies to some extent — few springs, and long 

 intervals without wood or water. 



The cherty limestone bed extends beyond Blue Spring, and forms the 

 same bluff like bench along all the streams ; it then i)asses beneath the 

 water-level of the Blue. At this point it presents the appearance of 

 mason-work, the cherty material forming the cement between the blocks 

 of limestone. 



At the Blue Spring there is a fine mill-site, the banks and bottom of 

 the stream being formed of rock. A fine saw and grist mill is in pro- 

 cess of erection at this place. There are building-materials of all kinds 

 in this region sufiQcient for the wants of the settlers. 



A section of the rocks as exposed at Blue Spring may be of some in- 

 terest, as they soon pass beneath the water-level of the Blue and are 

 seen no more in our examinations westward : 



4. Two feet worn pebbles and sand, and the remainder yellow marl, 

 with about ten inches soil. The roots of trees pass all through this bed, 

 fastening into the bed below. 



3. Layers of cherty nodule of variable thickness, with intercalations 

 of fine gray sand, Productus, OrtMs, and other fossils, 2 to 2^ feet. 



2. Bluish ash-colored argillaceous limestone, easily decomjjosing on 

 exposure to the atmosphere; will not answer for building purposes ; 

 containing great numbers, of shells, especially a species of Productus of 

 large size ; 6 to 8 feet. 



1. Greenish, ash-colored clay, breaking into small, angular fragments, 

 and containing an irregular seam of argillaceous limestone, only about 

 twelve inches above water. 



Along the Blue the second terrace is sometimes cut by the river, re- 

 vealing thirty to fifty feet of alluvium. There is about two to two and 

 a half feet of vegetable soil or humus, and the remainder is yellow sili- 

 ceous marl. If any portion of this bed, throughout its entire thickness, 

 is brought to the surface, it produces vegetation, showing that it con- 

 tains more or less nutriment for i)lants. The bottom-land of all these 

 streams may be said, therefore, to have a soil from five to fifty feet in 

 depth, possessing the highest fertility. 



On our road to Beatrice were a number of exposures of limestone. 

 On Bear Creek, about four miles east of Beatrice, there is a ledge of 

 limestone fifteen to twenty feet thick, yellow magnesian, full of cavities 

 or geodes. This same bed is seen along the Blue to Beatrice 5 is cut 

 through by the little branches, so that it forms some of the most im- 

 portant quarries in this portion of Nebraska. 



Fine large columnar masses are w^orked for buildings, a foot or more 



