CLAY COUNTY. 91 



Ft. Tn. 



29. Black shale 15 



30. Flint rock? 10 



31. Shale : 1 23 



32. Hard rock 4 



33. Shale 11 



31. Sandstone •- 7 



35. Clay shale 6 



36. Sandstone 11 



37. Blue shale 6 



38. Gray sandstone 14 



444 9 



So far as ifc is possible to correlate this section with what is known of 

 the upper Coal Measure strata of Central Illinois, I am inclined to 

 believe that the 10 foot bed of hard rock described in the boring as flint 

 is the limestone of Shoal creek and Carlinville, which is usually a very 

 hard rock, and that the succeeding coals are 10, 11, 12, and 13 of the 

 general section. The small coal outcropping north of Hoag's quarries 

 about two miles, at Jacob Spiker's place, is probably No. 15, and the 

 next succeeding seam would be the Nelson coal of Effingham county, 

 which outcrops in this county about two miles north-west of Louisville, 

 and at several points north-west of there in the bluffs of the Little 

 Wabash and its tributaries, and will be more particularly described 

 further on in this chapter. 



One mile north of Xenia a fine evenly bedded freestone is extensively 

 quarried by Mr. Hoag. The rock is a rather fine-grained sandstone in 

 even layers from two inches to two feet in thickness, and can be easily 

 quarried in large slabs. It is partly brown and partly of a bluish-gray 

 color, dresses freely and hardens after being taken from the quarry, and 

 is the best building stone known in this portion of the State. The rock 

 is as evenly bedded as the magnesian limestone of Joliet, and the thin 

 layers make good flagstones, while the heavier beds afford a fine quality 

 of cut stone for ashlars, window caps and sills, lintels, etc. A large 

 quantity of this stone is furnished to the city of St. Louis, where it 

 bears an excellent reputation as a superior building stone. About 

 eight feet in thickness of this freestone is worked in this quarry, the 

 heaviest beds ranging from one foot to thirty inches in thickness. This 

 sandstone is overlaid in the vicinity of this quarry with twenty to 

 twenty-five feet of soft brown shale with numerous bands of iron ore, 

 closely resembling the shales on the waters of Raccoon creek south-west 

 of Flora and described in the report on Wayne county. The water of 

 a well sunk in this shale, about half a mile north of Hoag's quarry, 

 has the same taste as that at McGannon's spring near the north line of 

 Wayne county, and I have no doubt the shales are identical. The shale 

 here contains numerous bands of iron ore of good quality, and several 

 points were observed on the small branches north-east of the quarry 

 aud not more than a mile distant, where from twelve to sixteen inches 



