20 GEOLOGY OP ILLINOIS. 



Murphy's place, near the Wabash river, and at Mr. Howe's and Mrs. 

 Brant's, southeast of Casey, the coal varies in thickness from a foot 

 to eighteen inches, and though of fair quality, the beds are too thin to 

 justify working thein except by stripping the seams along their outcrop 

 in the creek valleys. The coal at Mr. Mtjbphy's place has a good roof 

 of bituminous shale and limestone, and could be worked successfully 

 by the ordinary method of tunnelling if it should be found to thicken 

 anywhere to 24 or 30 inches. The higher seams, found at the localities 

 above named, south-east of Casey, are thinner than that at Mr. 

 Mtjepht's, though one or both of the upper ones are said to have a 

 local thickness of IS inches. I see no good reason to beMeve that the 

 main workable seams that are found outcropping in the adjacent 

 portions of Indiana, should not be found by shafting down to their 

 proper horizon in this county, notwithstanding the reported results of 

 the oil well borings in the north-western portion of the county. I have 

 observed that in borings made for oil or for artesian water, which are 

 expected to come to the surface whenever they are reached by the 

 drill, it is only in exceptional cases in this State, that any accurate 

 knowledge was obtained even by the persons in charge of the work, of 

 the character of the rocks passed through in the boring ; and in many 

 cases the work is placed in the charge of those who are utterly incom- 

 petent to determine the proper characteristics of the strata through 

 which the drill was passing. Hence, when the enterprise was abandoned, 

 the expenditure proved to be utterly valueless, for the want of a correct 

 and reliable record of the strata penetrated, which, if kept and preserved, 

 might have been of great value to the public at large, as well as to 

 those for whose special benefit the work was prosecuted. 



Building Stone. — Clark county is well supplied with both freestone 

 and limestone suitable for all ordinary building purposes. The sand- 

 stone bed on Hurricane creek, south-east of Martinsville, is partly an 

 even bedded freestone, that works freely and hardens on exposure, and 

 is a reliable stone for all ordinary uses. The abutments of the bridge 

 over the North Fork on the old National road were constructed of this 

 sandstone, which is still sound, although more than thirty years have 

 passed away since they were built. The sandstone bed overlaying the 

 limestone at the old Anderson mill, below the mouth of Joe's fork, also 

 affords a good building stone as well as material for grindstones, and 

 the evenly^bedded sandstone higher up on Joe's fork, which overlays 

 the green shales, is of a similar character, and affords an excellent 

 building stone. Each of the three limestones in this county furnish an 

 excellent macadamizing material, and the Quarry creek limestone, as 

 well as the beds near Livingston, furnish dimension stone and material 

 for foundation walls of good cpuality. 



