OHAPTEE II. 



CLARK COUNTY. 



Clark county is situated on the eastern border of the State, and is 

 bounded on the north by Edgar and Coles counties, on the east by the 

 Indiana line and the Wabash river, on the south by Crawford, and on 

 the west by Cumberland and Coles counties. It contains ten full and 

 eight fractional townships, making a total area of about five hundred 

 and thirteen square miles. 



The surface of the country in the western portion of the county is 

 generally rolling, though some of the prairies are rather flat. The east- 

 ern portion is more broken, especially in the vicinity of the Wabash 

 bluffs, where it becomes quite hilly, and is often broken into steep ridges 

 along the courses of the small streams. The general level of the sur- 

 face of the highlands above the railroad at Terre Haute, which is a few 

 feet above the level of high water in the Wabash, is from one hundred 

 and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty feet. The principal streams 

 in the western part .of the county are North Fork, which traverses the 

 western portion of the county from north to south, and empties into 

 the Embarras river in the eastern part of Jasper county ; and Hurri- 

 cane creek, which rises in the south part of Edgar county, and after a 

 general course of south 20° east, discharges its waters into the Wabash 

 river near the south-east corner of the county. In the eastern part of 

 the county Big creek, and two or three of less note, after a general 

 south-east course in this county, empty into the Wabash river. The 

 North. Fork, throughout nearly its whole course, runs through a broad, 

 flat valley, affording no exposures of the underlaying rocks, and the 

 bluffs on either side are composed of drift clays, and rise from thirty to 

 fifty feet or more above the valley, and at several points where wells 

 have been sunk these clays and underlaying quicksands are found to 

 extend to an equal depth beneath the bed of the stream. The creeks 

 in the eastern portion of the county are skirted by bluffs of rock through 

 some portion of their courses, and afford a better opportunity of determ- 

 ining the geological structure of the county. 



