JASPEE COUNTY. 31 



Jasper county contains an area of 4S4 square miles, and is bounded 

 on the north by Cumberland, on the east by Crawford, on the south by 

 Eichland, and on the west by Clay and Effingham counties. The 

 Embarras river traverses the whole extent of the county from north- 

 west to south-east, and drains nearly the whole of its surface except 

 the south-west corner, which is drained by Mud creek, a tributary of 

 the Little Wabash. About one-third of the county was originally tim- 

 bered land and the remainder prairie, the latter occupying the broad 

 areas of upland between the valleys of the streams, and elevated from 

 sixty to eighty feet above the water courses. From Robinson to New 

 Liberty the country is rather low and comparatively level, seldom rising- 

 more than twenty or thirty feet above the beds of the small streams. 

 The Embarras river runs through a low, flat bottom, from three to five 

 miles in width, with some swampy areas, though generally dry enough 

 to admit of cultivation, but subject to overflow from the high water of 

 the river. Eock exposures are but rarely to be met with in the county, 

 owing, in part, to the soft and yielding character of the sandstones and 

 shales that form the bed rock over the greater portion of the county, 

 and in part to the wide valleys in which the streams have their courses, 

 seldom impinging upon the bluffs sufficiently to expose the stratified 

 rocks. 



The superficial deposits of this county consist mostly of brown, grav- 

 elly clays, and a bluish-gray hard pan, the whole aggregating from 

 twenty to forty feet in thickness, and presenting the same character as 

 in Crawford county. These beds thicken to the westward and are con- 

 siderably heavier in the western part of the county than in the eastern. 

 Small bowlders of metamorphic rock are frequently met with in the 

 creek beds or on the hill sides weathered out of these deposits, associ- 

 ated with those derived from the sandstones and limestones of the Coal 

 Measures. 



Coal Measures. 



From the limited exposures, and the widely separated points where 

 the bed rock can be seen in this couuty, no general section of the strata 

 was possible, but enough was seen to indicate their general character, 

 and to determine very nearly their relative position in the Coal Measures. 

 The main watercourses traverse broad alluvial valleys which gradually 

 slope up to the level of the adjacent highlands, rarely impinging upon 

 the bluffs on either side so as to show the character of the underlaying 

 formations. The lowest beds in the county are probably the shales and 

 shaly sandstones outcropping on the lower courses of the North Fork, 

 and on the Embarras in the vicinity of St. Marie, which probably 



