CHAPTER VI. 



WHITE AXD HAMILTON COUNTIES. 



White county has a geographical area of about four hundred and 

 eighty square miles, and is bounded on the north by Wayne and 

 Edwards counties, on the east by the Wabash river, on the south by 

 Gallatin county, and on the west by Hamiltou. The Little Wabash 

 traverses the county from north to south through its central portion, 

 and the Skillet Fork enters at the north-west corner, and after a south- 

 east course enters the Little Wabash near the centre of the county. 

 These streams, with their smaller affluents, and the main Wabash river 

 as its eastern boundary, drain nearly the whole area of the county. 

 South of Phillipstown there is a considerable area between the Little 

 and the main Wabash rivers of rather flat land, intersected by a chain 

 of ponds extending nearly due north and south, through townships five 

 and six south, range ten east, which probably marks the course of an 

 old river channel. This portion of the county is rather flat and heavily 

 timbered. The remainder of the county is quite rolling, and portions 

 of it south and west of Carmi are broken and hilly. 



Superficial Deposits. — The alluvium, loess and drift, the three principal 

 divisions of the Quaternary, or most recent of the geological systems, 

 are well developed in this county. Alluvial bottoms of considerable 

 extent skirt the courses of the main and Little Wabash and Skillet 

 Fork, but being subject to annual overflow, the land is only valued at 

 the present time for the fine body of timber which it sustains. The soil, 

 however, is a rich sandy loam, and when cleared and brought under 

 cultivation will prove the most fertile land in the county. 



The loess is very heavily developed along the bluffs of the Wabash 

 from Phillipstown to G-rayville, and ranges from thirty to sixty feet or 

 more in thickness. It comprises a bed of brown clay immediately below 

 the surface, of variable thickness, which is underlaid by the usual ash- 

 gray and buff marly sands, containing the characteristic fresh water 

 and land shells usually found in this deposit. 



The drift deposits in this county vary from ten to thirty feet or more 

 in thickness, and consist of brown gravelly clays, with some northern 



