GEOLOGY OF LA SALLE COUNTY. 



161 



made dowu to this stream or reservoir the water, m 

 obedience to well known laws, rushes up and we have 

 an artesian well. Xow, as the supply comes from the 

 rainfall at some point, if that source varies to any 

 g-reat extent,- so must the quantity furnished increase 

 or diminish. Thus a succession of dry years in the 

 reofion of supply lead to a lesser flow, a series of damp 

 to a stronofer discharg-e. 



This well proves that the source of the water 

 must be some 200 feet above the Court House Square, 

 or not less than 700 feet above sea level after it reaches 

 the confining- strata, which is probably not until it has 

 descended a hundred feet or more, so that we must 

 have heig-hts of 850 or 900 feet. But these are reached 

 in the northwestern part of Illinois, and considerably^ 

 exceeded in Northern ^Yisconsin, and the source of 

 our deep artesian wells ma}' be there. It certainh^ 

 cannot be Lake Michigan nor even Superior, for water 

 never climbs up hill. 



COAL. 



About the time the pag-es on Coal were printing-, 

 it was announced that in a boring about a mile and a 

 half northeast of Ransom — southwest quarter of Sec- 

 tion 10, Township 31 north, Ranoe 5 east — coal had 

 been found. We find the facts to be that at 300 feet 

 a coal seam one and one-half feet thick is believed to 

 have been passed throug-h, and at 350 feet a second 

 seam three and a half feet thick and about fiftv feet 

 below the coal, 398 feet from surface, a soft bed of 

 rock was struck, after wdiich a considerable flow of 

 g-as was observed. The g-as gave a pressure of 65 

 pounds per square inch on a steam g'aug-e. The well 

 was carried down through hard white rock to 425 feet 

 and abandoned. 



