172 GEOLOGY OF ILLINOIS. 



side and got very good coal ; a spring of water issues from beneath. 

 At Lilly's mill it occurs very favorably for side drifting, but no work 

 has yet been undertaken there. Formerly a very good quality of coal 

 was dug a quarter of a mile below the mill. A good deal of side drift- 

 ing has been done on the land of Nichols and Whitfield, on Long 

 branch. A few years ago quantities of coal were taken out at low 

 water, one mile south of Shelbyville, but at present the miners have 

 retreated to a short distance back on the bluffs and sunk shafts. 

 Sam. Kelly's, on Jefferson Brewster's laud, is fourteen feet deep to coal; 

 the coal is twenty-four to twenty eight inches thick and of good quality, 

 with three feet of underclay. Near this there are two other shafts. 



J. J. Oline Las run in two drifts, one for one huudred and fifty feet, 

 with six rooms at the side from sixteen to twenty-one feet wide, one of 

 them fifty feet long ; it was opened in October, 1866. Since then he 

 has taken out one hundred and fifty thousand bushels of coal. He has 

 to haul it one mile to the railroad, or about four miles to Shelbyville. 



Near Robinson's creek station and one mile from Cline's coal banks, 

 a good deal of coal has been taken out, mostly by drifting into the hill- 

 side. 



Litton Smith's coal lies mostly beneath the creek bed ; a great many 

 pits have been dug and about forty-three thousand bushels taken away. 

 The creek only runs a few months in the year, so that water is no serious 

 drawback to the miner. At the other openings up the creek, near 

 Prairie Bird, but little mining has been done. At Elliott's, on the Terre 

 Haute railroad, they have drifted and also sunk pits, where the coal is 

 only sixteen inches thick. 



I now come to speak of the Beck's creek or Pana coal, No. 14. On a 

 small branch leading into the West fork of Beck's creek, in the south 

 part of sectiou 15, township 9 north, range 1 east, on laud of the heirs 

 of Samuel Roberts, some mining has been done. I observed several old 

 pits, now filled with water and rubbish ; the coal was said to be sixteen 

 inches thick. On Beck's creek, in sec. 31, T. 10 N., R. 2 E., tweuty-one 

 feet of shales and thin bedded sandstone were observed resting on two 

 feet of bituminous shale at the water's edge. I was informed that coal 

 had been taken out of the creek at this place. Six miles north the coal 

 appears a few feet above the water in Coal Bank creek. None of these 

 places are now worked. 



Building Stone. — The silicious limestone on Copperas creek appears to 

 be excellent and durable for heavy work. For the construction of cul- 

 verts on the Illinois Central railroad a good deal of sandstone was 

 quarried on the west side of the East fork of Little Wabash river; the 

 rock appears to be durable, but is hard and irregularly bedded. Two 

 miles south-east of Shelbyville good gray sandstone has been quarried. 



