AND COAL-MEASURES OF MISSOU R I. 



137 



At Wayne City, the landing for Independence, a series of limestone benches, 

 with intervening marlites and shaly beds, extend to the height of two hundred and 

 sixty feet. (Section No. 19, M.) Near the lower bench of limestone, the Allorisma 

 sulcata was found, together with a small and probably undescribed species of Pro- 

 ductus. The highest wall of limestone presents a glistening surface, caused by the 

 reflection of minute facets of calcareous spar disseminated through the rock. The 

 middle beds are more schistose than those either above or below them. 



Towards Liberty Landing, the ridges decline to about eighty or one hundred feet 

 in height, where a wall of limestone, six to eight feet thick, is found at an elevation 

 of from thirty to forty feet above the river. Thence the corresponding strata, gra- 

 dually rising again, appear at Livingston and Sibley, or old Fort Osage, from fifteen 

 to twenty feet higher in the ridges. At the latter point, the base of the section is 

 composed of greenish, concretionary, argillaceous shale, and hard marlite covered by 

 a bed of limestone, eight feet above the water-level, which is partly made up of 

 well-preserved specimens of Ghceietes cajnllaris. (Section No. 18, M.) Near the 

 mouth of Fishing River, and above Napoleon, the same fossil is abundant in a gray 

 concretionary limestone, underlaid by sandstone, the position of which is shown on 

 Section No. 17, M. An undescribed species of Nerita occurs also at this locality. 



The first workable bed of coal which I encountered in my descent of the Mis- 

 souri River, was at Wellington. It is from twelve to fourteen inches thick, and 

 lies a few feet above the bed of the river, as shown on Section No. 16, M. 



At Camden, on the opposite side of the river, nearly east of Wellington, a bed of 

 coal has been exposed, fifteen feet above the river, corresponding probably to the 

 Wellington bed. It is also found at several places on the Snei, south of the Mis- 

 souri. 



The bed of gray limestone, which covers the principal coal-seam at Wellington, 

 containing Chcetetes capillaris, occupies the same relative position over the coal at 

 Lexington, but here it lies at a greater elevation above the river — fifty feet. (Sec- 

 tion No. 15, M.) I was informed by the men working the Lexington coal, that 

 another seam existed in the bed of the river, also overlaid by limestone. 



One to two miles below Lexington, the coal and Chaetetes limestone are seen on 

 the right bank of the river, forty-five feet above the water-level. The coal is here 

 two feet thick, and rests on indurated slaty clay. 



At the bold promontory on the right shore, fourteen miles below Lexington, 

 heavy beds of sandstone, from fifteen to twenty feet in thickness, extend down to 

 the river. Three to four miles further down, at the next promontory, the sand- 

 stone is more schistose, and only five feet thick, and rests on four feet of argilla- 

 ceous shale, seen just above the margin of the river, partly concealed by blocks 

 of limestone which have fallen from above, and which appear to be derived from 

 two calcareous bands over the sandstone. (Section No. 14, M.) 



At Waverley, which lies between Mount Hope and the Great Pass, there is said 

 to be coal in the bed of the river ; this probably corresponds to the twenty-inch 

 seam at Lexington. Salt has been obtained by the evaporation of springs of brine 

 on the Salt Fork of Riviere la Mine, which heads within a few miles of the same 

 place. 



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