GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 23 



of Turkey Creek, a branch of South Nemaha, this seam increased to 

 eight inches, but so impure and full of sulphuret of iron as to be quite 

 unfit for use. 



A company has been organized at Pawnee City, called the Pawnee 

 County Coal Cooipany, with Governor Butler as president, with the 

 object of searching for coal in this district. They had intended to com- 

 mence boring last spring, but waited for my coming to advise them of 

 t)he best locality to begin operations. I gave them the best information 

 in my power, but I could not risk my reputation upon any positive 

 statement in favor of the existence of coal at all in this region, or any 

 workable bed in the State. 



There are some reasons in favor of the existence of a bed of coal in 

 Nebraska, at a moderate depth beneath the surface, and there are others 

 against it. I am inclined to the belief that the Coal-Measures of Ne- 

 braska form a portion of the western rim of the great western coal-basin, 

 and that none but similar thin seams to those now cropping out along 

 the Missouri Eiver, and at other localities, will ever be found. But the 

 exact truth can never be determined except by boring. At Des Moines, 

 in Iowa, about one hundred and seventy-five miles east of Nebraska 

 City, a bed of coal six feet in thickness was penetrated at a depth of 

 two hundred feet. 



Professor White, of the Iowa geological survey, and Mr. Meek, paleon- 

 tologist of the Nebraska survey, traced the rock in which this bed of 

 coal is located from Des Moines, across the State of Iowa, to Nebraska 

 City. They made an estimate, by taking into account the general dip 

 of the rocks west or northwest, that this same bed would be reached at 

 from four hundred to six hundred feet beneath the surface at Nebraska 

 City. 



According to a section given by Major Hawu of the Missouri coal- 

 fields, there should be a 6-foot bed at a depth of five hundred or six 

 hundred feet beneath the surface at Eulo, for the rocks rise from beneath 

 quite rapidly in descending the Missouri. The reasons that cause me to 

 hesitate to give positive encouragement are, the entire want of success 

 in the borings made at Omaha and Nebraska City •, the failure, or only 

 partial success, at Saint Joseph, Missouri, at Leavenworth City, and all 

 over the northern part of Kansas, where the rocks hold a geological 

 position several hundred feet lower than at either of the points men- 

 tioned; the apparent thickening of the Coal-Measure rocks in their west- 

 ward extension from Des Moines ; the fact, also, that Mr. Brodhead, a 

 geologist and civil engineer connected with the Missouri survey, has 

 published a detailed section of the rocks of Northern Missouri, opposite 

 Nebraska, and finds about two thousand feet of Upper Coal-Measure 

 beds, with only the thin seams of coal already mentioned ; also, that in 

 these same Upper Coal-Measures, limestones are found thrown up by 

 the Black Hills, and exposed fully all along the eastern slope of the 

 Eocky Mountains, without the remotest indication, even by a slate-bed, 

 of coal having existed in them. You will, therefore, readily see why I 

 hesitate to give a positive opinion, and why I am inclined still again to 

 express the opinion, given some years ago, that the State of Nebraska 

 borders on the great western coal-basin. 



I have stated to the members of the Pawnee County Coal Company 

 that a boring may be made eight hundred feet for about one thousand 

 six hundred dollars, which will settle the question, for that depth, for 

 the whole county for all time to come. It would hardly be i)rotitable to 

 go any deeper, and the question would arise whether it would not be 



