26 



GKOIvOGY OF LA SALLE COUNTY. 



coal. At. La Salle there are three workable beds and 

 seven beds, one very thin. A little south of the 

 entrance to Deer Park canon there are three, all work- 

 able. 



If now we study the Vermillion re^-ion carefully we 

 shall observe five strata that are very persistent, and 

 retain certain features throug'h the whole area wherever 

 they are found. One of these is a peculiar limestone, 

 hard, gray, nodular, rougdi and readily yielding- to frost 

 and moisture, and abounding- in a small spinous shell, 

 Naticapsis; two sandstones, the hig-her called by Dr. E. 

 Evans, deceased, of Streator, whose report on this sec- 

 tion we follow. The Newton sandstone is compact, 

 hard, bluish, andin rhomboidal or rectangular blocks; 

 the second, lying- about sixty feet below it, is softer, 

 buff brown, not in blocks and breaks irreg-ularly, 

 is more porous and the upper layers shaly, the 

 whole containing- much more pyrite than the former, in 

 some places surcharged with this salt from top to bot- 

 tom, in others containing- immense nodules, three to five 

 feet in diameter, hard as hardened steel and striking- fire 

 with steel like flint; and two black slates, upper and 

 lower, which split into very thin, even sheets, three to 

 four feet square. Observing- these landmarks there is 

 no difficulty in proving" that the g-eolog'ical survey 

 of Illinois made most remarkable work of the Vermil- 

 lion coal field. In Economical Geolog-3^ of Illinois, p. 

 213, we find the following- statement: 



" The lower La Salle coal. No. 65 of the section, 

 has been traced with its associated strata to the 

 vicinity of Morris, in Grundy county. It is undoubt- 

 edly coal No. 2 of the Illinois river section," etc., and 

 " the middle La Salle coal. No. 46, in the section, is coal 

 No. 5 of the Illinois section, according to Prof. Worth- 

 en's general section of the coal measures in Central 



