CHAPTEE III. 



CRAWEOED AXD JASPER COUNTIES. 



Crawford county contains seven full and several fractional townships, 

 making an aggregate area of about 43S square miles. It is bounded 

 on the north by Clark county, on the east by the Wabash river, on the 

 south by Lawrence and Eichland counties, and on the west by Jasper. 

 Located on the western side of the Wabash, and traversed by several 

 small streams tributary thereto, the surface is generally rolling, and 

 was originally mostly covered with timber. Subsequently a considerable 

 portion of this timbered area has been cleared and brought under culti- 

 vation, though there is still remaining an abundance of timber to supply 

 the present, and also the prospective demand for many years. The 

 south-west portion of the county from the Shaker mills, on the Ernbar- 

 ras, nearly to Eobinson, is quite broken, and there are also belts of 

 broken land of greater or less extent on all the small streams. The 

 principal water courses in the county tributary to the Wabash river, are 

 the Embarras, which runs diagonally across the south-western corner 

 of the county; the North Fork, traversing its western border from north 

 to south; Crooked creek, also in the southwest part; and Brushy fork, 

 Lamotte creek, Sugar creek, and some other small streams, in the eastern 

 portion of the county. 



The prairies are generally small, and are for the most part rolling, 

 and are mainly coiifined to the northern and western portions of the 

 county, and to the bottom and terrace lands adjacent to the Wabash 

 river. One of the earliest settlements made in the State was on one of 

 these bottom prairies in the vicinity of Palestine, in this county. 



Quaternary. — The beds referable to this formation in this county con- 

 sist of buff or drab marly clays belonging to the loess, which are found 

 capping the bluffs of the Wabash and attaining a thickness of ten to 

 twenty feet or more, and from twenty to forty feet of brown gravelly 

 clays and hard pan, the latter resting upon the bed rock, or separated 

 from it by a thin bed of stratified sand or gravel. If these beds were 

 found in a vertical section they would show the following order of 

 succession : 



