GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF THE TEERITOEIES. 13 



City, eight miles below Nebraska City, the lithological character of the 

 beds seems to change, so that we have red shales aud clays passing up 

 into soft, yellow sandstones, with comparatively little roch useful for 

 building purposes. There is here also a bed of slate and coal about 

 eight inches in thickness, which has been wrought to some extent, and 

 the coal used in a blacksmith's shop. Still higher up in the bank is 

 another thin bed of black Carboniferous shale, which has been worked 

 to some extent. 



At Peru, about six or eight miles further south, there is another com- 

 plete lithological change in the beds exposed. The bluff? along the 

 Mi,ssouri seemed to be formed of irregular beds of soft sandstone and 

 laminated arenaceous clays. High up in the hills, at some distance from 

 the river, there is a bed of limestone, twelve to eighteen inches in thick- 

 ness, which is quarried extensivelj^ and profitably. On the Missouri bot- 

 tom, about on a level with high- water mark, a well was dug sixteen feet 

 in depth ; a seam of coal was penetrated, which is represented as four 

 inches thick on one side of the well and about ten on the other. These 

 beds in the vicinity change rapidly, both in thickness and texture, within 

 very short distances. Again, at Brownsville there is a seam of coal 

 accompanied by many of the plants which are i)ecuriar to the Carbonif- 

 erous rocks in other States. There are from four to six inches of good 

 coal ; the whole bed of black shale and coal is about twelve inches in 

 thickness. There is a fine quarry of limestone at this point, which is of 

 very superior quality for building purposes, but there is too much sand 

 and clay in it to be converted into a good quality of lime. The bed is 

 about three feet in thickness near the water's edge, concealed by high 

 water at this time. There is a bed of micaceous fine-grained sandstone, 

 which cleaves naturally into most excellent flag-stones, which are much 

 nsed here. These rock-quarries are of great value to the people of Ne- 

 maha County. The materials for making brick abound everywhere in 

 this region 5 clays, marl, and sands are abundant, and of excellent 

 quality. 



Should the future prosperity of the country demand it, there are 

 abundant materials for the manufacture of what is called in England, and, 

 recently brought into use in this country, " patent concrete stone." It 

 is composed of suiall fragments of stone or sand reduced to a paste by 

 a fluid silicate, then molding the material into any required form and 

 dipping it into the chloride of calcium. The little particles of sand are 

 thus cemented together, and it is wonderful how rapidly this rock can 

 be formed, and how durable it becomes. This is a matter which seems 

 to me worthy of notice in the final report. 



Several kinds of peat occur in small quantities in Otoe and Nemaha 

 Counties, which, as fuel, will rank next to coal. There are several 

 marshes or boggy j^laces about six miles west of Nebraska City, from 

 which I have obtained some excellent specimens. On Long Branch, 

 Franklin, in Nemaha County, twenty-four miles southwest of Browns- 

 ville, there are spring-places where a pole may be thrust through the 

 peat to the depth of ten or fifteen feet. About ten miles west are sev- 

 eral other peat-bogs, which have attracted more or less attention. 



At Aspinwall, in Nemaha County, we discovered the most favorable 

 exhibition of coal yet observed in the State. The, general dip of the 

 beds seems to be up the Missouri, or nearly north or northwest. It is 

 difiicult to determine this point with precision. The rocks at Aspinwall 

 are all geologically at a lower hor-izon than the Nebraska City beds, aud 

 mostly beneath the Brownsville beds, so that the inclination must be 

 considerable — eight or ten feet iier mile. Two seams of coal are met 



