78 GEOLOGY OF ILLINOIS. 



the north-eastward. These two coals, and possibly a still higher seam, 

 !No. 12 of the general section, mast underlay the north-west corner of 

 Hamilton county, and where there is no outcrop they will probably be 

 found at a depth of less than a hundred feet from the surface. 



Five miles south-west of McLeansboro, on the old Lockwood estate, 

 there is a thin coal from six to fifteen inches in thickness, overlaid by 

 bituminous shale, which passes upward into gray silicious shale and 

 sandstone, the latter but partially exposed. The coal is rather slaty, 

 and has only been worked to a limited extent by stripping at the out- 

 crop in the banks of a small branch. Neither the quality nor thickness 

 of the coal would justify any attempts at systematic mining here. 



On Esq. Twiggs' land, about three miles west of Rectorsville station, 

 a thin coal was found in sinking a shallow well near a sandstone quarry. 

 The coal and a few inches of bituminous shale forming its roof lies 

 immediately below the sandstone, but no outcrop of it could be found. 

 It is probably too thin to be of any practical value. The sandstone 

 quarry shows a space of about three feet in thickness of soft micaceous 

 evenly bedded rock in layers from one to six inches thick, and contains 

 fragments of plants and numerous casts of Aviculopccten rectilaterarius. 

 Quarries have been opened at several places in this vicinity iu this sand- 

 stone, and the coal has been found in several wells, but always too thin 

 to be of any practical value for mining purposes. 



At Hood's old mill on the North Fork, about two miles and a half 

 south-east of Eectorsville station, the following beds outcrop in the 

 bluffs of the stream : 



Ft. 

 Brown shale 2 



Hard chocolate-brown, shaly, micaceous sandstone 5 



Sandy micaceous shale 14 



The chocolate-colored sandstone at this locality resembles somewhat 

 the brown calcareous saudstone found in the bed of the creek at Carmi, 

 but it is less calcareous here if they are equivalent strata, and contains 

 but few fossils, and none of the species most characteristic of that bed 

 in White county. The fossils observed iu it here were Produotus Prat- 

 tenianus, P. Nebrascensis, Terebratula bovidens, Belleroplion, Feaestella, 

 and joints of Grinoidea. Hand specimens of this sandstone, which is 

 here ferruginous and perhaps slightly calcareous, very closely resemble 

 those from the White county localities, and it is quite possible they may 

 represent equivalent strata, and if so this is probably about the lowest 

 bed outcropping in this county. 



The following outcrops are reported by Prof. Cox: 



" On sec. 23, T. 5, E. 5, on Knight's prairie, coal is found reported to 

 be eighteen inches thick, overlaid by argillaceous and silicious shale. 

 At J. M. McDaniel's well on sec. 5, T. 5,E. 6, passed through eighteen 



