172 BULLETIN OF WISCOXSIX NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. VOL. 2 NO. 
at twenty-six feet on blue clay of the Cincinnati shale. Several of 
the above levels of the forest bed are from forty to fifty feet below 
the level of Lake Winnebago. Coming now back west to Apple- 
ton in Outagamie County it is found on the south side of the river 
at one place at a depth of twelve feet on blue clay. At Appleton 
in the Fourth ward on the south side of the river at a well drilled 
for Father Raster's Church or Hospital, the reading of the soil, 
made by Geo. Schwalbach, driller, was as follows : Red clay, 60 
feet ; hard logs, 2 feet ; blue clay, i foot ; soft logs, 2 feet ; gravel. 
We now come to the region north of Appleton which we might 
name the ''Gas fields of Outagamie County." I am informed by 
Mr. Picklin, well driller, that no forest bed is discovered in the 
town of Cicero ; but between this town and Appleton it is found 
in the towns of Black Creek, Center and Grand Chute. I have 
one reading of a well made in Center by Mr. Picklin : Red clay, 
15 feet; sand, 80 feet; blue clay, 25 feet ; wood, leaves and stumps, 
two feet ; gravel. At Linas' farm, north of Appleton, he found 
logs twelve to fourteen inches diameter at forty-five feet in depth. 
Mr. Joe Pringle, well driller of Binghamton, sends me reading of 
the recent gas well, so widely heralded in the public press : Clay, 
7 feet; sand, 15 feet; red clay, 40 feet; gravel, 12 feet; red clay, 
6 feet ; trees, stumps, leaves, 2 feet ; gravel, 10 feet ; rock. 
This well was located nine miles east of Wolf river, in the . 
town of Center, about seven miles north of Appleton. A number 
of wells in the surrounding country have been noticed to give off 
gas. A similar gas well was discovered several years ago in Grand 
Chute and created considerable flurry in speculative circles. This 
was marsh gas produced by decaying vegetation of the forest bed. 
The moss, leaves and wood from the forest bed are only partially 
rotted. The wood after being dried becomes hard and brittle. 
Some fragments supposed to be oak have turned partly into lignite. 
This snaps into fragments on slight pressure and is black and 
glassy on fracture, bearing the appearance of coal. 
At Green Bay some trace of this submerged forest is reported 
to us by drillers at twenty-four and fifty feet below the surface ; 
and Prof. Chas. Whittlesey in Foster's and Whitney's Report on 
the Lake Superior Land District, published in 185 1, part 2, page 
394, reports in a boring at Green Bay, at a depth of forty-three 
feet, a bed two feet thick, of rotten wood and leaves lying be- 
tween strata of red and blue clay. The wood being submitted to 
M. Lesquereux for examination was pronounced by him to be 
cedar. 
The vegetable remains of this ancient forest have never been 
subjected to expert investigation and the names above given may 
