12 GEOLOGY OP ILLINOIS. 



Ft. 

 Clay shale (soapstone so-called) 23 



Ulack shale - 9 



Sandstone 12 



Coal 1 



Sandstone 90 



II ud stone J 2 



Hard rock 1 



Sandstone - 52 



314 



The upper part of this boring corresponds very well with our general 

 section, except in the absence of the Quarry creek limestone, which 

 should have been found where they report 20 feet of " mud stone," but 

 whatever that may have been, it seems hardly probable that such a 

 term would be used to designate a hard and tolerably pure limestone. 



This well was tubed with gas pipe for some 8 or 10 feet above the 

 surface, and water, gas and about a half gallon of oil per day was 

 discharged. All the wells, so far as I could learn, discharged water at 

 the surface, showing that artesiau water could be readily obtained here, 

 but it was all more or less impregnated with mineral matters and oil, 

 sufficient to render it unfit for common use. The 900 foot well must 

 have been carried quite through the Coal Measures, and, if an accurate 

 journal had been kept, the information it would have afforded would 

 have been of great value to the people of this, as well as the adjacent 

 counties. It would have gone far towards settling the question as to 

 the number aud thickness of the workable coals for all this portion of 

 the State, and the depth at which they could be reached from certain 

 specified horizons, as for instance, from the base of the Quarry creek 

 or Livingston limestones, or from either one of the thin coals of the upper 

 measures that were passed through in this boring. As it is, the expendi- 

 ture was an utter waste of capital, except in so far as it may have taught 

 those directly engaged in the operation the folly of boring for oil where 

 there was no reasonable expectation of finding it in quantities sufficient 

 to justify such an expenditure of time and money. 



The beds forming the upper part of the general section in this county 

 are exposed on Quarry creek south of Casey and one mile and a half 

 east of Martinsville, on the upper course of Hurricane creek, and the 

 Blackburn branch southeast of Parker prairie. At the quarry a mile 

 and a half east of Martinsville, the limestone is heavy bedded, and has 

 been extensively quarried for bridge abutments, culverts, etc., on the 

 old National road. The bed is not fully exposed here, and seems to be 

 somewhat thinner than at Quarry creek, where it probably attains its 

 maximum thickness, but thins out both to the north-east aud south-west 

 from that point. The upper part of the bed is generally quite massive, 

 affording beds 2 feet or more in thickness, while the lower beds are 

 thiuner, and at the base it becomes shaly aud locally passes into a green 



