Kane County, Illinois - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 11 of those read), 1908

Geological

Kane county occupies a position nearly in the nortlieast corner of the state of Illinois, is thirty miles long by eighteen broad, and has an area of 540 square miles. It is bounded north by JNIcHenry county, east by Cook and DuPage, south by Kendall, and west by DeKalb. Being in such close proximity to Chicago, it is traversed by several of the great trunk lines of railway, which pass through in seeking an entrance to the metropolis. It consists of fifteen congressional and sixteen civil townships, and ranks, in point of wealth, population, manufactures, dairy and farm products, and other respects, among the first in the state. A large portion of its population has clustered into the numerous thrifty cities, towns and villages which lie within its borders. These include Carpentersville. Dundee. Elgin. South Elgin, St. Charles, Geneva. Bata\-ia, North Aurora, Aurora and Montgomery, all rm Fox river, and Sugar Grove. Big Rock. Kaneville, Elburn, !\Iaple Park, Hampshire, Pingree Grove, Rutlandville and several lesser settlements in the interior of the county.

The county is well watered l:)y Fox river and its tributaries, while the drainage from the northwestern portion finds its way ultimately to Rock river, the immediate outlet being Coon creek, in the townships of Burlington and Hampshire. Fox river is, for a prairie region, a remarkably steady stream, but this is accounted for in the fact that it drains Lake Geneva, in Wisconsin, and Fox and Pistaka lakes, in north.ern Illinois, and numerous other smaller bodies of water in the same region, besides being fed by springs all along its course. Its principal tributaries in this county are Tyler, Ferson, Blackberry, Big Rock and I\IilI creeks, from the west, and Brewster, Norton and Indian creeks, from the east, with a number of smaller ones discharging a greater or less quantity of water into the parent stream. Fox river furnishes excellent water power from one end of the county to the other and dams have been constructed across it at Carpentersville, Elgin, South Elgin, St. Charles, Geneva, Batavia, North Aurora. Aurora and Montgomery, while others which existed in an early day were located at other points along the stream and were not of extensive proportions. The general course of the river is southerly and the scenery along its banks is remarkably fine. Its channel is dotted with numerous islands, some of which are very large and have become valuable property, as is the case at Batavia and Aurora.

At the great bend, in St. Charles township, the stream sweeps along the north shore of a low wood-crowned limestone bluff, and with its islands and the beautiful shores present a most picturesque and inviting scene.

Fine drives have been constructed along both sides of the river throughout the length of the county, and the visitor to the region is greatly impressed with the beauties which lie spread before him.

A branch of the Kishwaukee river rises in Rutland township and flows northward, while another branch drains a considerable portion of Virgil. Nelson's lake, in Batavia and Blackberry townships, and Lilly lake, in Campton, once contained a considerable amount of water, but the system of drainage adopted in late years has robbed them of their dignity as lakes. The first settlers found in certain portions of the county quite extensive tracts of low, marshy lands, which were called "sloughs," but judicious drainage has reclaimed the land covered by them in most instances and heavy crops of corn, etc., are raised where once was only a miry bog.

Stretching away from Fox river, in either direction, lies a broad prairie region, exceedingly fertile and dotted with numerous groves of timber. The surface of the county is diversified more than is usually the case in a prairie country. The bed of Fox river lies from thirty to ninety feet below the surrounding country and in places its banks are bold and approach the magnitude of bluffs. In the central portion of the county, principally in the townships of Campton and Blackberry, and again in Dundee, Elgin, St. Charles and Plato, hilly ridges exist, from whose summits commanding views are had of a broad and fertile region. Johnson's Mound, in the township of Blackberry, formerly known as Beeler's Mound, is said to be the highest point of land in the county, rising to the height of ninety feet or more from the midst of the prairie.

In the north part of the township of St. Charles the Cincinnati group comes to the surface in a low anticlinal, which bears in a northwesterly direction and forms the ridge on sections 3 and 10, around which Fox river sweeps in a long curve toward the north and west and suddenly turns to the south, flowing along a channel greatly diminished in width from that above. The Cincinnati formation outcrops on both sides of the river for a half mile or more and abounds in fossils characteristic of the group. With one exception all the rock outcroppings are along Fox river. The exception is in the fork of Big Rock creek, in the township of Big Rock, and section 26, where the Niagara outcrops in several places.

The strata in the Niagara formation are of varying thicknesses, from an inch or less to two feet or more in the Aurora and Batavia quarries. From Montgomery to a point above Batavia the exposure is almost continuous. Between Geneva and Batavia the rock dips below the surface, but appears again at Geneva and is thence nearly continuous to \\'est St. Charles, when it again disappears for a distance of nearly three miles. It shows a fine exposure in North St. Charles. At South Elgin it appears and is extensively quarried for building purposes.

A verv good quality of lime has been manufactured from the Niagara at Aurora, Batavia, St. Charles and South Elgin, and the business is still carried on at some of these points.

The thickness of the Niagara formation varies from eighty to one nundred feet. It is sparingly supplied with fossils, the most prominent being Pentamerus Oblongus and Orthoceras Undulatum. It is usually of a light buff color, though in places it graduates to a bluish tinge, the latter being characteristic of the lower and harder layers. In Aurora and Batavia occur thick-bedded layers, which are extensively quarried for building purposes. Fair examples of buildings constructed from this rock are the old Kane county courthouse, the Aurora city hall and the Congregational church, private insane hospital and the two public school buildings in Batavia, and the high school building in Geneva. It is frequently ferruginous, and this is sometimes a very objectionable feature. It does not withstand the action of frost or heat well, but is durable and presents a fine appearance when not too much exposed. The thinner lavers make, in connection with good mortar, a very strong wall and withstand the action of the elements much better than tlie thicker-bedded stone.

The overlying surface formations of Kane county belong chiefly to the quaternary age, the deposits being made up of clay, sand, gravel, cobblestone and the boulders of the drift period.

The surface soil is largely composed of vegetable mold, the entire prairie portion being a mixture of loam and decomposed vegetation. In the timbered districts, which comprise possibly one-fourth of the total area, the soil is of a more clayey nature. \'ery few sandy tracts exist, though there are immense deposits of coarse and fine sand in the form of glacial moraines and deposits, of which Bald ( or Ball) ^lound and Johnson's Mound, in Blackberry, and the ridge of hills running through Campton, St. Charles. Plato, Elgin and Dundee are good examples. Brick clay abounds in many parts of the county and good molding sand is found in the Fox river Ijluffs, near the mouth of X'orton creek, in St. Charles and southeast of Elgin.

Owing to the limestone formations nearly all the springs and streams are of hard water. There are a few exceptions in the case of wells sunk wholly in gravel and deep mineral bearing springs which come up from sandstone formations, as in the case of artesian wells and the medicinal springs on the west side of the river in the city of St. Charles. The deepest wells are at the watch factory in Elgin, the grape sugar works and the courthouse in Geneva, and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy car shops at Aurora. \\'ater flows from them in a strong stream and is very soft and pleasant to the taste.

An extensive peat bed occurs between Dundee and Carpentersville, covering probably i6o acres, and there are lesser deposits in other places. One of the latest to develop was a short distance southeast of Aurora, which became fired accidentally during the drouth of 1887 and burned until heavy rains extinguished the fire.

Most of the timber now existing in Kane county is a second growth, the original heavy bodies having been principally cleared away. In many places groves of rapidly growing varieties of trees have been set out, thousands of evergreens have been brought in to beautify both city and farm property, and great numbers of orchards exist, mostly consisting of apple trees. Upon the soil of Kane county will grow almost every product of the temperate zone, but the changeable nature of the climate renders the winters too severe for the least hardy trees, plants, etc. For this reason less attention is paid to the raising of peaches, pears and other fruits than formerly.

The Site Of

Workmen on the drainage district ditch this morning on tlie farm of Will Campbell, three miles southwest of Oswego, hauled out one of the teeth of the prehistoric monster and it was discovered by Commissioner Watts Cutter, who was overseeing the work.

The tooth was a perfectly formed one about fourteen inches long and some six inches square at the large end. The discovery of the dental work of the prehistoric monster caused a sensation and after it had been examined by the party the workmen commenced to dig around in the hope of unearthing other parts of the animal's framework.

Soon their efforts were successful and a portion of the femur was tlug up. It was a piece about a foot and a half long and was apparently broken oft'. At the large end it was fourteen inches in diameter and tapered rapidly down to seven inches at the place where the fracture occurred. Soon another dipper ful of the big machine brought up a couple of foot bones and for several hours the finds were numerous. Part of the bones were quite badly decayed but a number of the specimens were in good shape and intact.

The finds were cleaned up and taken to the Cutter drug store in Oswego, where they attracted much attention among the people of the village. Owing to the fact that many of the bones are probably missing, having decayed and fallen apart, it is hardly probable that anything like a perfect skeleton can be constructed, but there will be enough bones found to give some idea of the size of the great animal which rambled over Kendall and Kane counties before the arri\al of the trollev car and other twentieth centurv creations.