22 =o. A. Kloos—Cretaceous Basin in the Sauk Valley. 
be traversed before the clay was reached, the opening of the — 
shaft lying considerably above the plateau or level prairie on 
which Richmond is built, but I have no means of ascertaining — 
the thickness of the different strata. This boring has since — 
been abandoned at 180 feet, when no more coal had been 
encountered than what the old drift had brought to light. 
earer the river another shaft and boring had been sunk. 
Here I found several fragments of shale containing scales of 
cycloid-fishes, which had been met with near the surface. 
oring was afterwards continued to a depth of 112 feet, when 
the borer struck a hard rock, which proved to be granite. 
was drilled for eight feet, and the fragments brought to light by 
the pump consist of feldspar, quartz and pyrites, such as are 
found in varieties of pegmatite or graphic granite, which I also 
found at the nearest outcropping ridges of the crystalline rocks. 
The profile of the strata on a line running nearly northeast 
and southwest, going through the different points where investi- 
gations have been made, would show as in the annexed wood- 
cut : 
x 4 oe 
- Sa}. | ~—6 Ve 
a —— AGEN TEES r= =F ae 
——— — —— — 
$3 3SS])Y0]u'’vUime Se Ve , 
a = a Sag ee 
—=} + 
a go as ae a 
ey NN \ yet ae ee 
ee tN sok 5 < oe 
aks Fd eS ~~ 
ane, ES ee ea oe a et oe a 
ee Ge ee Aenea POF -\ \ I 
1, drift 60’ long; 2, 3. shafts 112’ and 180’ deep, a, a, granite; 6,b, kaolin; ¢, ¢, 
plastic clays and shales of the Benton group Cretaceous ; d, d, drift. 
Having heard that fossils had been found in digging wells on 
some farms situated on the timbered hills south of Richmond, 
I extended my investigations in that direction. There are no 
further exposures on the surface, which is exceedingly broken 
but entirely shaped out in deposits of a Post-tertiary age. Two 
miles south of Richmond I came to a farm, where a well had 
excited “the wonder and curiosity of the neighbors. This well 
was 30 feet deep, from where a hole had been sunk a further 
distance of 10 feet. Ata depth of eight feet the blue clay (c. c. of 
e profile) was struck, passing into shale near the bottom of 
the well and containing a number of fossils. The water of this 
well was strongly saturated with sulphureted hydrogen, but lost 
the taste and smell almost entirely after having been exposed 
‘for some time to the atmosphere. When at the place, I was 
not able to obtain more than fragments of the shells, which I 
had, however, no difficulty in recognizing as belonging to the 
genus /noceramus. Afterwards the well was dug down further, 
