GALLATIN COUNTY. 213 



Quaternary Formation. 



Drift and Loess. — The drift deposit occupies the hills and ridges all 

 over the county, resting unconforinably on the Carboniferous rocks, and 

 is from ten to / twenty feet thick ; composed chiefly of yellow, more or 

 less plastic, clay, containing small rounded gravel with occasionally a 

 granite or trappean bowlder. The largest erratic rock seen in the 

 county is a granite bowlder, about one foot broad and one and a half 

 feet long, lying by the side of the road from Shawneetown to Equality. 

 No fossils, scratches or groove marks were observed in this transported 

 material. 



Loess. — The loess is from ten to forty feet thick, and occupies the top 

 of the ridges along the road from Shawneetown to New Haven. This 

 deposit is usually characterized by a whitish-gray calcareous clay or 

 marl, that contains an abundance of land and fresh water shells, belong- 

 ing to species now living in this State, with the single exception of 

 Helicina occulta, Say, which has not, I believe, been found living north 

 of Arkansas. 



^Economical Geology . 



Besides the many beds of mineral fuel so extensively spread over 

 this county, and already discussed in a general way, there is an inex- 

 haustible reservoir of salt brine underlaying its surface. 



The brine springs of Gallatin county were worked at an early date 

 under the management of army officers, at a time when the General 

 Governmennt reserved from sale all lands containing salt springs. 

 Though there are outbreaks of saline springs at various places in this 

 county, and though the water courses, creeks and their branches, and 

 the river, all contain more or less salt, from which circumstance arose 

 the name of Saline river for the principal water course which runs 

 through the southern part of the county, yet, though thousands of 

 dollars have been spent and fortunes "lost in the search, there has never 

 been any profitable brine found in the county, except on the north side 

 of Saline river, about one mile south of the town of Equality, on section 

 19, township 9, range 8, and near what is known as the "Half-moon," 

 a semi-circular excavation as its name implies, that was made by the 

 buffalo and other wild animals that congregated in vast herds to lick 

 the muriatiferous earth. The diameter of this remarkable excavation 

 is about one hundred yards, and the depth varies from six to eight feet. 



