CHAPTEK VIII. 

 CUMBERLAND, COLES AXD DOUGLAS COUNTIES. 



Cumberland county contains eight full and four fractional townships, 

 making a total area of 336 square miles, and is bounded on the north 

 by Coles county, on the east by Clark, on the south by Jasper and 

 Effingham, and on the west by Effingham and Shelby. The Embarras 

 river traverses the county from north to south, and this river and its 

 tributaries are the only streams of any note within its borders. The 

 central portion of the county along the river and its affluents is well 

 timbered, while the eastern and western portions are mainly prairie. 

 The bottom lands along the river are usually from a half mile to a mile 

 or more in breadth, and heavily timbered with the usual varieties of 

 timber found growing upon the bottom lands in Central Illinois. The 

 prairie lands are from seventy-five to one hundred feet above the level 

 of the river, and are generally rolling, though occasionally tracts of 

 level prairie are to be found. 



The superficial deposits of this county comprise the alluvial bottoms 

 of the Embarras and its tributaries, and a considerable thickness of 

 gravelly clays and hard pan which increases in depth to the northward. 

 In the southern portion of the county the drift deposits range from 

 twenty to forty feet in thickness, consisting mainly of brown or buff 

 gravelly clays with numerous bowlders ; but to the northward this 

 thickness is increased to fifty or seventy-five feet, the lower portion 

 being a bluish-gray hard pan similar to that seen in Clark, and described 

 in the report on that county. Bowlders of considerable size are not 

 uncommon, and native copper and also specimens of the sulphuret of 

 that metal are said to have been found in the drift gravel in this county. 

 A bed of potters' clay of fair quality is found in the drift clays in the 

 vicinity of Greenup from four to six feet in thickness, from which a fair 

 article of stoneware is made. 



Coed Measures. — All the rock formations of this county below the 

 drift belong to the upper Coal Measures, and include the beds interve- 

 ning between the Quarry creek limestone of Clark county and the 



