CLAY COUNTY. 89 



there is a gradually sloping surface from the bottoms up to tbe level of 

 the adjacent prairie. The bottoms along tbe Little Wabash vary in 

 width from one to three miles, and are subject to overflow during the 

 annual spring freshets, and hence have not been brought under cultiva- 

 tion, but are still covered with primeval forests of excellent timber. The 

 alluvial soil of these bottoms is exceedingly rich, and if subdued and 

 brought under cultivation would produce abundant crops of corn, and 

 all the cereals usually cultivated in this latitude. 



Drift Deposits. — The uplands are covered with blue and yellow drift 

 clays ranging from ten to forty feet in thickness, and possibly along 

 the bluffs of some of the streams they may attain even a greater thick- 

 ness than that above indicated. The surface of the bed rock was often 

 eroded into valleys of considerable extent before the drift was depos- 

 ited, and being subsequently filled with these gravelly clays, the deposit 

 is not uniform, but is much thicker in some places than in others. 



In the borings at Xenia and Flora, the bed rock was struck at the 

 depth of thirteen or fourteen feet, and generally upon the prairie in 

 sinking wells, the drift clays and gravel beds are found to range from 

 ten to twenty feet. In the bluffs at Elm creek south of Flora and at 

 some other points in the county, they attain a thickness of thirty to 

 forty feet. The upper part is generally a brown or buff gravelly clay 

 with occasional bowlders of a foot or two in diameter, and the lower 

 part where the deposit attains its greatest thickness consists of bluish or 

 ash-gray clay or hard pan as it is usually denominated, from its being 

 more compact and harder to penetrate than the brown clay above it- 

 Bowlders of granite, shnite, greenstone and quartzite are not uuconi. 

 mon, and occasionally nuggets of native copper and small specimens of 

 galena are to be met with in these gravelly clays in this county. 



Stratified Mods — The rock formations proper in this county all 

 belong to the upper Coal Measures, and the only seam in the county 

 that has been worked to any extent is No. 16 of the general section, 

 and the highest seam but one known in the State. There have been 

 three borings made in the county, one at Xenia and two in the vicinity 

 of Flora, but none of them were carried down far enough to reach the 

 main workable coals of the lower measures. The Flax mill boring on 

 the eastern edge of Flora, is reported as follows : 



Ft. In. 



1. Soil and drift clay 13 



2. Sandy shale and gray sandstone 47 



3. Black sbale and coal, No. 14? , 3 



4. Hard sandstone 84 



5. Clay shale (soapstone) 33 



6. Black shal e 3 



7. Shaly limestone 2 6 



8. Coal! No. 13? 7 3 



192 9 

 -13 



