1Y2 LOWER PENINSULA, 



reous shales. These are uncovered in some old quarries not far from 

 the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad depot, and are used for lime- 

 burning ; the fossils inclosed are Allorisma clavata, Productus 

 Flemmingii, Lithostrotion proliferum, Lithostrotion mamillare, 

 numerous Bryozoa, Phillipsia, and a few others. In the river bed 

 west of the Milwaukee depot, other limestone ledges of a reddish 

 color and of silicious character overlie the former, but the river is at 

 present rarely low enough to allow of their being seen. North of 

 Grand Rapids the limestone formation is soon lost under the 

 heavy drift masses ; also eastward, through the towns of Ada and 

 Cascade, all is covered by drift, but the numerous limestone frag- 

 ments intermingled with the drift make it probable that the forma- 

 tion underlies these towns. Westward from Grand Rapids the sand- 

 rock ledges of the Waverly group form the surface rock under the 

 drift, and are denuded in a few limited spots. The supposed ex- 

 tension of the carboniferous limestone belt passes northward 

 over Newaygos, curves diagonally through Osceola County, and, 

 taking an eastern direction near the second correction line, strikes 

 with a curve southeastward toward the north shore of Saginaw 

 Bay. The first outcrops of the limestone along this described 

 course are found at the headwaters of Rifle and Aux Grees rivers, 

 whence they continue to the lake shore. The rest of the inter- 

 val exhibits no rock ledges of any kind, and the drift is so deep 

 that erosions by rivers, or ordinary wells or other artificial excava- 

 tions never reach the underlying older strata. 



Southward from Grand Rapids the opportunities for following 

 the carboniferous limestone belt are not more favorable than to 

 the northward ; we find it first denuded at Bellevue, 60 miles 

 southeast of Grand Rapids. Borings at Middleville, Hastings, 

 and other places, lying in the supposed direction of the limestone 

 belt, did not reach to the rock beds at a depth of over 100 feet. 

 At Bellevue, over a space of about 6 square miles, the carbonif- 

 erous limestone is at the surface, or covered only by drift deposits 

 of moderate thickness. In the bed of Battle Creek, and in a rail- 

 road cut south of Bellevue village, we find as the lowest strata of 

 the exposures a greenish-white sand rock of middling fine grain, 

 partly soft and friable by pressure with the fingers, partly hard, and 

 firmly cemented by an abundance of sparry calcareous material. 

 Such calcareous sand rock reflects the light from its fractured sur- 



