GEOLOGY OF SOTJTHWESTEKN IOWA. 656 



nevertheless thus far supplied a sufficiency of that kind of 

 fuel for which there is no substitute for working iron, etc. 



No reasonable doubt can be entertained that the Lower 

 coal-measure formation with its beds of coal extends beneath 

 Page county; and if the region were a densely populated one, 

 and capital abundant, the facts in the case, whatever they 

 may be, would soon be demonstrated. While, however, there 

 are such good reasons for believing that coal actually exists 

 beneath the county, it is proper to caution persons of limited 

 means against undertaking the enterprise of sinking a shaft 

 in search of it, with the hope of accomplishing the desired 

 result with the expenditure of only a few hundred dollars. 

 If beds of coal exist at all beneath the one now mined near 

 the surface, a profitable one will not probably be reached at 

 less than several hundred feet below the surface ; but at the 

 same time, there are good reasons for estimating the base 

 of all the coal-bearing strata at a less depth than that at 

 which coal is profitably mined in other countries. 



Although none of the stone thus far found in Page county 

 has proved to be suitable for lime, yet taking the county as 

 a whole it is very well supplied with stone for ordinary 

 purposes. 



Page county possesses much that is interesting to the 

 geologist, although the exposures of strata are fewer than 

 they are in many other regions. Many interesting and 

 characteristic fossils of the upper coal-measures have been 

 collected at the several exposures. The only bed of coal in 

 that formation worthy of the name is as well developed here 

 as in Adams county. In the valley of the Nodaway near 

 Clarinda some teeth of that huge extinct animal, the Mas- 

 todon, have been found. 



12. FREMONT COUNTY. 



Boundaries and Area. Fremont is the most southwesterly 

 county in the state, being bounded on the south by the State 

 boundary line, on the west by the Missouri river, and on the 



north and east respectively by Mills and Pa^e counties. It 



45 



