Logan County, Illinois - Chapter 2, 1886

Chapter 2

Illinois is a magnificent empire; and in almost its exact center lies Logan County. It is bounded on the north by Tazewell and McLean counties, on the east by DeWitt and Macon counties, on the south by Sangamon County, and on the west by Mason and Menard counties. It comprises an area of a little more than seventeen townships, or about 618 square miles. Its physical^ features are so well described by the State Geologist in his three-volume report on economic geology that we need no apology for reproducing the greater part of his article here. Tazewell, McLean, Logan and Mason counties are treated together.

" The surface of the country over the greater portion of this district, including McLean, Logan, the greater part of Tazewell, and the eastern part of Mason County, is a high, undulating prairie, with here and there groves and belts of timber. The soil is generally a rich brown mold, 'varying somewhat in different localities, in the proportion oF clay, etc., which it contains, some portions being more argillaceous than others. In the timber, however, which occupies scarcely more than one-fifth or one-sixth of the entire surface, and in the broken country along some of the principal streams, the soil is of a somewhat different character, the lighter-colored and more argillaceous sub-soil appearing at or nearer to the surface.

*' In the greater part of Mason County, and over considerable tract in the southwestern part of Tazewell County, the surface configuration varies from that which we have just described; the prairies are low and comparatively flat, and in many portions were originally overflowed, or marshy, at some seasons of the year. The soil of these prairies is a rich alluvium, generally more or less arenaceous, which forms, when sufficiently elevated or drained, one of the best producing soils in this district. Along the Illinois and Sangamon rivers in this region, we find in some places rather extensive sandy tracts of river formation, and on the Sangamon River, in Mason County, and on the Illinois River, in Mason and Tazewell counties, the bald bluffs of the Loess are in some localities conspicuous features in the general landscape.

"The principal streams occurring in this district, besides the Illinois and Sangamon rivers, which form a portion of its borders, are the Mackinaw River, in Tazewell, Mason and McLean counties; Salt Creek, in Mason and Logan connties, and Kickapoo and Sugar creeks, in Logan and McLean counties. These, with many minor streams, and nameless tribntaries, drain nearly the whole surface of this district. With the exception of the Illinois and Sangamon rivers, none of the streams have very extensive adjoining tracts of bottom land, and even along these rivers the bottoms are frequently of inconsiderable width, or wanting altogether.

"The principal kinds of timber found in the upland wooded tracts of this district are nearly the same as those already enumerated as occurring in the adjoining counties, namely, the principal varieties of oak and hickory, black-walnut, butternut, maple, basswood, red-bud, sassafras, etc. , On the river bottoms, and in low damp lands generally, the sycamore, buck-eye, black-ash, elm, etc., are abundant. The sandy ridges are generally covered with a growth of scrubby oak and black-jack, with a thin admixture of other species.

"The geological formations appearing at the surface in this district consist almost entirely of the Drift and later formations, the older rocks outcropping only at a comparatively few localities, in Tazewell and Logan counties. The underlying rock, however, as far as can be ascertained from these outcrops, as well as from artificial exposures by shafts, etc., in various parts of the district, consists entirely of the different beds of the Coal Measure series.

" The Loess, the uppermost of the more recent'geological formations, appears only in the vicinity of the Illinois and Sangamon rivers, and consists here, as elsewhere, of buff or ash-colored marly sand, containing fresh-water shells of existing species. It is not everywhere equally well developed, and in various localities along the Illinois River, in Mason and Tazewell counties, it either does not appear or is not at all conspicuous. It may well be seen, however, along the Sangamon River, in Mason County, where it appears in the bald, rounded blufis, with occasional mural appearing escarpments covering their summits, which form so characteristic a feature in the landscape along the river below. In the northern part of Tazewell County, although this buflF marly sand appears to some extent in the bluffs along the Illinois River, it is not by any means as well exposed, or prominent, as in the counties farther to the south.

"The Drift formation, which covers the older rocks in almost every part of this district, is here composed of beds of blue and brown clay, sand and gravel, and varies in thickness, in different portions, from feet in the western part of Tazewell County, to 250 feet in the Bloomington shafts. It has been penetrated, however, at comparatively but few points, and over the greater portion of this region its depth can only be approximately estimated. It seems probable, indeed, that it may be of this thickness over considerable portions of McLean County, as a boring at Chatsworth, in the adjoining portion of Livingston County, was reported to have penetrated to a depth of 250 feet before striking rock.

" The material of the Drift in this region appears to be generally roughly stratified; alternating beds of sand, gravel and clay are frequently met with in wells and borings. The sand and gravel beds generally make up but a very small part of the total thickness, though sometimes single beds attain a very considerable thickness, as, for instance, at Chenoa, in the northern part of Mc- Lean County, where a boring for coal passed through a bed of sand and gravel thirty feet in thickness, overlaid by forty five feet of the usual clays of this formation. Occasionally, also, a bed of black earth or vegetable mold, still containing pieces of wood, trunks of trees, leaves, etc., only partially decayed, is met with, and a bed of quicksand, containing fossil-land or fresh-water shells of existing species.

"The following section of the Drift, afforded by a shaft sunk in the city of Bloomington, is of especial interest as showing both of these conditions at unusual depths. The shaft was sunk by the Bloomington Coal Mining Company, near the track of the Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, about half a mile north of the depot:

" Another shaft, a little over a mile distant from this one, passed through materially the same successionr of strata, with only local variations in'the thicknesses of the diiferent beds. The quicksand, No. 8 of the above section, resembles somewhat in appearance the sands of the Loess, and the only species of the contained shells which could be identified was the Helicvna occulta^ which is also not uncommon in the Loess of the river valleys in thi? State. Beds of black vegetable mold are met with at less depth than in this section at various places in this district, as, for instance, in the vicinity of Pekin, Tazewell County, where it is said, in a few instances, to have tainted the wells which penetrated it to such an extent as to almost render the water unfit for use.

" Sections of the Drift are also aflForded by the borings for coal which have been made in various parts of this district. In all cases they show variations of the material from blue to yellow clay, sand and gravel, but do not generally afibrd sections of such especial interest as the shafts at Bloomington, nor is the depth of the formation as great. At Chenoa its thickness was found to be ninety feet from the surface to the rock; at Lexington, 180 feet; at Atlanta, 126 feet ; at Lincoln, seventy feet ; at Cheney's Grove, 102 feet, and at several points in Tazewell County, from sixty to one hundred feet or more. Its thickness is quite irregular, but seems, however, to be greatest in the central and eastern portions of the district. In Mason County we have no reliable data upon which to base our estimates, but its average thickness in that portion, I think, may be safely put down at no less than fifty feet, and is probably much more.

'' In the western part of Tazewell County,in the ravines aud broken country along the Illinois Eiver, I observed, in a number of places at the base of the Drift, a bed of cemented gravel or conglomerate, showing sometimes an irregular stratification similar to that of beach deposits. A ledge of this material, nine or ten leet in thickness, may be seen in the northwestern quarter of section 7, township 25, range 4 west of the third principal meridian, up one of the side ravines which comes down through the Illinois Eiver bluffs, a little south of Wesley City, in Tazewell County, and other similar ledges appear in several places in the vicinity of Fond du Lac, and also on the Mackinaw, in the eastern portion of the county. Another similar bed of cemented gravel of, however, a comparatively insignificant thickness, may be seen about half way up the face of the bluff, at the steamboat landing in the city of Pekin, where it does not appear to be more than a few inches thick. I have not observed any similar deposits in the eastern portion of the district, either in Logan or McLean counties, nor have I heard of its having been met with in sinking the different shafts or borings.

" Coal Measures. - A.\\ the stratified rocks which outcrop within the limits of this district belong, as has been already stated, to the Coal Measures, and the actual surface exposures are confined, for the most part, to a thickness of about sixty to eighty feet of the middle portion of the formation. In the whole district there is but one boring which affords an artificial section of the beds down to the base of this formation. This one is that made by Yoris & Co. on the bottom lands on the Tazewell County side of the Illinois River, and directly opposite the City of Peoria. The first bed of the Coal Measures which is met with in the boring is about forty feet below the lower coal seam which is worked in this section, No. 5 of the Illinois River section, as given by Prof. Worthen.

" The following is a section of the first 459 feet of the boring. Below that depth the records kept by Messrs. Voris & Co. were not complete as to the thickness and material of all the different

Scientific

"As nearly as the limits of the formations can be made out from this section, I think that at least that portion between the base of the Alluvium and Drift, and the bituminous shale and limestone, No. 17 of the section, may be referred to the Coal Measures. The remainder is Devonian, with perhaps some of the upper beds Lower Carboniferous. The exact equivalents of the two beds of Coal passed through may perhaps not be stated with certainty ; the lower one, however, is probably No. 1 of the Illinois River section. The greatest depth reached in the boring was 774 i'eet, and the lowest rock was a gray porous limestone, the fragments of which, brought up by the instruments, were exactly similar in appearance to^ome of the upper limestones of the JSTiagara group, exposed in the northern part of the State, with which formation this bed may doubtless be properly identified.

" The coal seam which is worked in this immediate neighborhood ib No. 5, as has been already stated. A good exposure of this coal may be seen near the track of the Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw Railroad, at the point of the bluff where the road enters the valley of Farm Creek. It is here immediately overlaid by the Loess and Drift, and is about four feet in thickness, the same as its average in other localities thereabouts. It is worked in various places, both in the river bluffs and for a mile or more up the valley of Farm Creek, by horizontal drifts into the hillsides, some of which, in their various branches, are of considerable linear extent. The 'beds overlying the coal are not exposed at the surface at any point norch of Farm Creek, but the seam is generally found to have a roof of sandstone or sandy shale in the interior portions of the drifts. South of the creek, however, this sandstone is exposed in many places up the side ravines, and in R. A. McClelland & Co.'s shaft, in the center of the southern part of section 34, township 26, range 4, it was found to be twenty-eight feet in thickness between the coal and the overlying drift clay and gravel. This, however, is by no means to be taken as its full average thickness,

" Passing up a small branch,which comes down through the bluffs from the southward, just back of the village of Fond du Lac about half a mile, I observed a striking exposure of about twenty-five feet in vertical thickness of concretionary sandstone, sandy shales and soft argillaceous sand-rock, which belong to these same sandy strata overlying the lower bed of coal. The more shaly beds contained numerous iron-stone concretions, and I observed in the more massive portions what appeared to be indistinct vegetable impressions, but no other fossils. About half a mile or a little more still farther up the ravine the upper vein of coal has been worked to a very slight extent. In actual position it must be at this point at least seventy feet above the coal No. 5, and is possibly still more than that. It is here reported to be about three feet in thickness, and is overlaid by about two feet of grayish fossiliferous limestone, with occasionally an intermediate layer of black slate just over the coal, and forming its roof. Still another seam of coal about fifteen inches in thickness is said to outcrop further up the hollow, bat after a careful search I was unable to discover its outcrop, and concluded that it must have been covered by the sliding of the drift, gravel, etc., from the blufis above.

"Along the Illinois Kiver bluffs, between Fond du Lac aud "Wesley City, there are several points where coal is now or has been worked, and there are a few exposures of the overlying sandstones in the bluffs near the main wagon road. South of Wesley City there are scarcely any exposures on the river face of the bluffs, but up the side ravines they are more numerous. In one of these ravines some distance Irom the road, on the land of Mr. Davis, I observed the following succession of beds in a vertical exposure for about sixty rods along the sides of the bluffs:

" It seetns to me probable that the seam of coal observed here is still above both of the coal seams which are worked in this region ; the distance between this and the next seam below it I should not judge to be more than forty or fifty feet. The limestone which almost always overlies the coal No. 6 is entirely wanting here, although, as may be seen by the section, a bed of limestone occurs below its under clay and further down the creek. Below the exposures from which the above section was made up, numerous thin beds of limestones are to be seen intercalated in sandstone outcrops. These limestone bands appeared to be somewhat fossiliferous, but no good specimens were obtained.

" lu the northeastern part of section 24, township 25, range 5, on a northern fork of Lick Creek, 1 noticed a small quarry in a ledge of soft light-gray and brown micaceous sandstone, generally thin-bedded and shady, but in some places with the beds thick enough to answer for building purposes. The total vertical thickness of the exposure was less than twelve feet. Passing farther down the branch, in a general westerly and southerly direction, we find the hillside along its banks strewn thickly with fragments of similar sandstone indicating thp. probable existence, of the same beds but a short distance under the soil. At a point on the immediate bank of the creek, near the center tjf the section, I observed an exposure of about twenty feet of sandy and argillaceous shales, containing a thin seam of coaly matter not over one or two inches thick at its best development, and from that down to nothing. About half a mile further east, near the center of the eastern line of the section, along side of the road that crosses the creek at this place, and well up the bluffs, I observed the outcrop of a coal seam which had been worked to some slight extent, and which I take to be the upper workable seam of this region, No. 6 of the Illinois River section. The whole exposure at this point presented the following section:

"Farther to the eastward from this point, and higher in the bluffs, I observed limited exposures of a reddish shaly sandstone or arenaceous shale, which seems, from its position, to overlie the uppermost beds of the above section.

'- In the vicinity of Fekin there are but few natural exposures of the underlying rocks, but the lower coal is mined at several points in the neighborhood of the city. The coal isfgenerally overs \ laid by black slate, with, as is stated, in some cases a foot or two of limestone. Above the slate there is generally trom twenty to forty or fifty feet of sandstone or sandy shales, according to the locality of the shafts on the edge of the bluffe, or farther up toward the roiling upland. This sandstone may be seen in the bottoms of ditches at one or two points along the Tremont road, about a mile east of the city of Pekin and in the immediate vicinity of the principal coal mines.

"At Mr. Hawley's place, about five miles southeast of Pekin, a shaft was sunk, which passed through botli the upper and lower coals, affording a section of the intermediate beds, which, as reported to me, was as follows: Feet.

quarter of section 20, township 24, range i, on a branch called Lost Creek, there is said to be another exposure of brownish sandstone, of very limited extent. I failed to find this locality myself, but if a sandstone occurs here, it may be that overlying the lower coal, or possibly a still higher bed not represented in the above section.

" In the central and eastern portions of Tazewell County there are a few localities where borings, etc., have been made, but satisfactory records of the variation in the strata could not in all cases be obtained. At Rapp's Mills, near the center of the north line of section 20, township 24, range 4, a shaft was sunk to the depth of eighty-five feet, and as it was reported to me, struck limestone at that depth. If this be the case, it was very possible the limestone overlying the upper coal, but, without more reliable data, it is impossible to speak with certainty. The shaft was abandoned before completion, on account of the difficulty of keeping it free from water. At Delevan, in the southeastern portion of the county, a boring was made which was reported to have passed through sixty feet of sandstone, and below that, seventy-five feet more of arenaceous and argillaceous shales. No coal was reported in this boring.

" In Mason County there are no natural exposures of the older rocks, and, as far as I could ascertain, no good artificial sections aret afforded in shafts, wells, borings, etc. Passing eastward, however, into Logan County, we find along Salt Creek, some distance above Middletown, a few tumbling masses of bluish limestone, which have evidently come out of the bluffs, but no good exposures. In the southeast quarter of section 13, township 19, range 4, a boring was made in the side of the bluff, by Messrs. Boyd, Paisly & Co., of Lincoln, which passed through 130 feet of alternating beds of limestone, and arenaceous and argillaceous shales, passing through the Drift and surface deposits at the depth of only fifteen feet. A seam of coal was also stated to have been met with near the boring, but its thickness could not be satisfactorily ascertained. I also heard it stated that a seam of coal, about two feet in thickness, had been worked by the early settlers of the county in this vicinity, and afterward abandoned on account of its poor quality. No traces of the outcrop, or the old workings, are now visible, and I am not able to state, with any degree of exactness, the place in the series of this seam of coal, though it is undoubtedly among the upper beds of the Coal Measures.

"At Kankin's Mill, about two miles farther up stream, in the northwest quarter of section 7, township 19, range 3, the creek flows over a bed of limestone, which is also quarried at one or two places on the southern bank. The rock is a light gray, or bluishgray, irregularly bedded limestone, and contains a few of the common Coal Measure fossils, of which Spirifer cameratus, S. lineatus, Athyris suhtilita, and a few others only were collected. Its thickness here, as ascertained by means of a well dug in one of the quarries, was eleven feet ; and underneath it was found four feet of black slate, underlaid by seventeen feet of fire-clay, and then six feet of limestone. The hole was continued by boring to a depth of eighty feet from the surface, at which depth a seam of coal was struck, the thickness of which I was unable to ascertain. This, or a similar bed of limestone, outcrops on Lake Fork of Salt Creek, in section 23, township 19, range 8, in a ledge about three feet high, which has been quarried to a slight extent at one point, near the center of the section.

" The above comprises all the natural exposures within the limits of the district. There remain, however, various shafts, borings, etc., which, over the larger portion of the territory, afford us the only means whatever of ascertaining the character and thickness

Of the underlying beds. Of these, with one or two exceptions only the shafts alone furnish sufficiently reliable sections of the strata, and as yet but two or three have been sunk. At Lincoln the shaft afforded the following section, after passing through about seventy feet of soil and Drift :

"The black slate which had been taken from the shaft was too much decomposed at the time of my visit for me to obtain from it any well-preserved fossils, although among the rubbish I observed various undistinguishable fragments of what had apparently been fossil shells. The coal in this section is probably not below No. 6 of the Illinois River section, and may possibly be still higher. About four miles south of Lincoln, on the land of Mr. J. Braucher, near the center of the south line of section 14, township 19, rang'e 4, a hole was sunk by boring to the depth of near 250 feet, and three separate seams of coal were reported to have been met with. Unfortunately, however, the particulars of the variation and thickness of the beds could not be obtained, and we are therefore unable to form an opinion as to the equivalents of these seams. In a boring at Atlanta, in the northern part of the county, a seam three feet and six inches thick was reported at the depth of 242 feet, the overlying bed, as reported, consisting of alternating strata of ' slate,' ' soapstone,' ' rock ' (limestone ?), etc. This is probably coal No. 6 although, without more positive evidence thanis afforded by an isolated boring, nothing can be stated with absolute certainty.

"The two shafts at Bloomington, which have been mentioned in the remarks concerning the Drift, in a previous portion of this chapter afford us the most satisfactory section of any of the excavations in the district, enabling us to identify the two seams of coal which they penetrate, with numbers 5 and 6 of the general Illinois River section. The following section, made np from records afforded by both shafts, illustrates well the variation of the strata of the middle Coal Measures in this region. The section commences at the base of the Drift, and its upper portion, from 1 to 4 inclusive, was afforded by the Bloomington Coal Company's shaft.

' No. 2 of this section is a light-colored laminated sandstone, containing a few remains of fossil plants; in the more southern shaft it seems to be replaced by a conglomerate. No fossils were obtained from any of the other beds, excepting the black slate (No. 12) over the lower coal, which contained in great abundance Lingula mytiloides, Avioulopecten rectilaterarius, Cardina? fragilis, and other fossils characteristic of this coal. A rather peculiar

* Since this report was written, the McLean County Coal Company have extended their shaft down to a lower coal, which they struck at the depth of 513 feet 8 inches below the surface. The following is the section below No. 5 coal :

The distance between these lower seama is 133 feet 1 inch at this shaft, and from the thickness of the seam, and the character of the associated beds, I am inclined to regard the lower coal in this shaft as No. 3 of the Fulton County section. I.t is possible, however, that No. 3 is represented in this shaft by the 3 feet 7 inch bed of black slate, and that the lower coal here is really No. 3.

feature, however, is the comparative rarity of Discina nitida, usually the most abundant fossil in this slate, only one or two specimens being found in a rather protracted search.

" la the northern and eastern portions of McLean County we have only the records of several borings, which afford but few particulars as to the character of the underlying beds. Just over the county line, in Livingston County, about two miles from Chenoa, in a northeast direction, a ledge of bluish-gray, irregularly bedded limestone outcrops in the side of a ravine. In general appearance this rock is very similar to that noticed in the preceding pages as occurring on Salt Creek in Logan County, and, like it, is probably in the upper part of the Coal Measures.

" Goal. - From the preceding remarks it will be seen that although at least four or five different seams of coal underlie different portions of this district, but two of them have been worked to any extent. The upper of these two, No. 6 of the general section, is worked to a slight extent along the Illinois River, iu the neighborhood of Pekin and Peoria, and is also the upper seam in the Bloomington shafts. Its thickness in these localities ranges from three to four feet. The coal in this bed is generally softer, and often more impure, than that of the next seam below, and its workings have frequently been forsaken for those of the lower bed. The sixteen-inch seam of coal which has been mentioned on a preceding page as occurring on a ravine a short distance back of Wesley City, and which I have there considered as a still higher seam of coal, may possibly be this seam, in spite of its lesser thickness, as it is a characteristic of this bed in other parts of the State where it has been identified to vary considerably iu its thickness, in some cases, indeed, thinning out very rapidly within the distance of a few feet. The more reliable indications of the accompanying limestone beds, with the characteristic fossils, cannot under all circumstances be well observed, nor, indeed, do they appear to be invariably present.

"The lower coal, No. 5, is the seam which is now mined in nearly all the principal workings within the limits of this district, and will generally average here at least four feet in thickness. The coal is generally a harder and better heating material than that in the upper bed, besides being more reliable in its thickness. It, however, contains, in some parts, its share of impurities, but often so disposed in the vein as to be more easily separable. In some of the shafts near the city of Pekin, the seam of coal, which I have referred in the preceding pages to this horizon, contains in its lower portion, about sixteen or eighteen inches above the base, a thin seam of fire-clay separating it into two unequal portions, and sometimes a vein of slate or slaty coal is reported to occur only five or six inches above the bottom. In the tipper portion, also, there is frequently some thickness of what is called 'hickory,' or mixed coal and shale, or sand-rock. The thickness of good coal, however, is sufficient to render its working profitable.

"At Bloomington the shafts were first sunk only to the upper coal, which was worked for a short time, and then the shaft, having been deepened, the upper bed was abandoned, and only the lower seam was worked. The difference in quality was very marked at this place, the lower coal being very much superior to that of the upper seam.

' ' Beneath this coal, No. 5, we find by the boring opposite Peoria, by Voris & Co., two seams of coal at the depths of 120 and 230 feet, and respectively four and three feet in thickness, which are most probably the equivalents of Nos. 1 and 3 of the general section referred to. Although we have no positive data as to the existence of these or other beds under the coal No. 5 in other portions of the district, yet, from their existence at this point, and from our general knowledge of the development of the lower Coal Measures in this portion of the State, it seems quite probable that these seams of coal might be found at the proper depth in other parts of this and adjoining counties. A boring of from 200 to 250 feet below the known horizon of No. 5, or from five to seven or eight hnndi-ed feet from the surface in different parts of the district, would probably penetrate all the Coal Measures, and settle all the questions in regard to the existence and development of the underlying coal seams.

"The upper coal seams are perhaps represented in this district by the bed reached at the Lincoln shaft, and it may be also by the small seam near Wesley City, in Tazewell County, which I have, in the preceding pages, referred with doubt to a higher level than No. 6, though still admitting its possible identity with that bed itself. There are now three mines being worked in Logan County - two at Lincoln and one at Mt. Pulaski. These are mentioned with some detail in the histories of those towns.

but scantily supplied with buildino; stone, the greater portion of its surface being occupied by the Drift deposits, and containing no exposures whatever of the older rocks. Along the Illinois Eiver, however, in Tazewell County, the sandstones of the Coal Measures have been quarried to some extent to supply the local demand, and in some localities appear to aflford a stone suitable for foundations, cellar walls, etc. The limestone beds, which also occur in the Coal Measure strata in this region, though generally of inconsiderable thickness, may also furnish a limited supply for the same purposes, as well as for the manufacture of lime. The limestone ledges noticed as occurring on Salt Creek and Lake Fork, in Logan County, Iso furnish a fair material for the rougher kinds of masonry, and have been considerably quarried for this purpose. Dimension stone, etc., when used in this district, are brought from beyond its limits, in great measure, from the quarries at Joliet.

" Clay and loam suitable for the manufacture of a fair quality of red brick are found in nearly all parts of the district and have been made use of in most of the principal towns within its limits. Sand for building purposes is also sufficiently abundant.

'^Mineral Springs. - We may, perhaps, properly mention again, under this head, the artesian well sunk by Messrs. Voris & Co., on the edge of the bottom land, along the Illinois Kiver, opposite Peoria, in which a current of water, holding in solution sulphureted hydrogen, was struck at the depth of 734 feet. "When struck it was stated to have had a head of sixty or seventy feet, and the flow is said to be nearly as strong at the present time. This water appears to be derived from the upper portion of the Niagara group, but before the boring had reached its present depth a strong stream of saline water was met with at a distance from the surface of 317 feet.

"Copperas and saline springs occur in various places in this district, and occasionally give names to some of the minor streams. Such names as Salt Creek and Lick Creek occur here, as in other parts of the State. These springs, however, are few in number, and can hardly be considered of any economic value.

- It is, perhaps, superfluous to mention at length the agricultural capabilities of this district, since the capacity of its soils, etc., are so well known, and its territory is so generally taken up by actual settlers and now under cultivation. I may safely say, however, that with the exception of some sandy portions along the principal rivers there are no extensive tracts of what can be called poor land in the district. There are, indeed, some tracts of comparatively low bottoms and marshy land which are not at present available for all kinds of agriculture, but these are generally of limited extent, and are rapidly diminishing under an improved system of drainage, which places them at onee among the more valuable lands of the district. The numerous railroads now traversing this region, and others projected or in process of construction, by making all portions readily accessible to the centers of trade, will add greatly to its present wealth and guarantee its future prosperity."

The Prairies

We have glanced at the streams, the valleys, the elevations and general outline of the county, but the great bulk of its territory, the prairie that lies between and fills in the picture from stream to stream, remains to be noticed. It forms all the elevated portions of the county. The streams, of course, are on the lowest ground, and the larger streams, when running over the Coal Measures, are sunk, 100 feet or more, into the regular strata after leaving tlie Drift, and on the St. Peter's sandstone nearly as much sunk by the erosion of the water, and all showing that the amount of water that did that excavating was much greater than runs now. Whether that occurred when the ocean waters first receded from the surface, and, following all the depressions, scooped out and formed channels for all the future streams; or whether from the existence of a moist climate and heavy rainfall the same object was gradually accomplished, may never be known; but it is probable it was a combination of both. At all events, the cause was ample for the effect, and the streams are all placed in deep beds, with far more than ample room for the discharge of their waters in any contingency.

The prairie extends back from the borders of these valleys, and gradually rises to the ridges or highest ground between the streams - in Western parlance called divides, because they separate the water running to different streams. The timber being confined to the borders of the streams, is consequently on the lowest ground, and a person standing on one of these divides can look over the timber to the prairie forming the divide on the opposite side.

These ridges or divides when seen from a distance are easily located, but when a closer inspection is attempted they flee like an ignis fatuus; though some are so abrupt as to be well defined, they are mostly so near level as to be hard to locate.

itive state was such, from liilly New England or the mountains of Pennsylvania or New York, could have had no conception of the prairie region. In all these localities the land was covered with timber, except where the hand of man had removed it. They regarded that condition as the natural and normal state of any conntry. Add to this the uneven, rocky and broken surface of the land of their nativity, and the first view of the prairie State must have made a deep impression. In fact, the prairie is one of the wonders of the world. The steppes of Asia and the pampas of South America are wonderful in extent, but for richness of soil, beauty of ladscape, and all that is valuable to civilized occupants, neither they nor any other locality on the globe make any approaches to successful compatition with the prairie region of the North American continent. The deltas of the Nile, of the Mississippi, and of other great rivers possess a soil as rich and as level, but they are of limited extent, and the sun in its daily circuit does not shine on a country of the same extent, so rich, so grand and beautiful as the prairie before the hand of man had marred and defaced it.

That region with us is now transformed to a populous and cultivated country, and the future will never witness in its native wildness and beauty the fairest scenery that uncultivated nature ever presented to the view of man.

A timbered region, covered by the dark, primeval forest, is grand and impressive. Its dark and somber shades, and deep and tangled recesses are well calculated to foster a superstitious dread, and to people its unexplored depths with the witches and goblins of the past, or with the whispering ghosts of which Ossian sings so mournfully. But no such goblins haunted the prairie. An imaginative organization might have fancied the fairies sporting in the evening shadows as approaching night shut in the landscape, or departing from their midnight revels among the curling mist as they vanished before the glories of a prairie sunrise. The early occupants of the prairie will remember noticing circles on the prairie from fifteen to twenty or more feet across, distinguishable only by a ranker and heavier growth of grass, but very distinctly marked. What caused them was not known, though some ascribed them to lightning strokes. Similar phenomena exist in the natural meadow and grass land in England, and are there called fairy-rings, or fairy circles, vulgarly supposed to be caused by the fairies in their dances. If Sir Walter Scott had written in the midst of the prairie region instead of among the glens and wilds of the Scottish Highlands, where witchcraft and demonology have ever found their favorite fastnesses, his genius would not have been so deeply tinged with the supernatural, and warlocks and witches would not have danced so freely over his pages.

The quiet and sylvan beauty which clothes the vast, the limitless expanse, impressed and fashioned the imagination to cooler, more genial and happier thoughts - the grand and the peaceful occupied the mind, and left no room for those horrible creations of the fancy which destroyed the judgment and brutalized the occupants of the dark forests of Central Europe, and even found a foothold in the dense and tangled wild woods of rugged New England. A feeling of chastened personal dignity as the occupant of such a heritage, and of reverence for the power that fashioned it, forcibly impressed the mind, as standing upon the vast, illimitable plain which spread in all directions, wave succeeding wave, and undulation following undulation, far away, till the earth and sky met and shut in the power of vision, it seemed as if a boundless ocean, set in motion by a powerful storm and then quieted, the bosom of the water smoothly heaving, all in motion, forming the most graceful curves and swells, had been instantly chilled, hardened to solid land - such was the prairie.

Standing on a swell of the prairie on a clear day in early summer, the luxuriant grass waving in the wind, the shadows of the summer clouds fitfully chasing each other on beyond the power of vision, the observer could fancy the ocean restored and the long swells again in motion ; or, taking a stand in one of the numerous points of timber which extended either way from the large streams, an open grove, clear of underbrush and covered with a green sward, and the view taking in the alternation of timber and prairie, a scene was presented that for extent, beauty and grandeur art can never expect to imitate, and having once been destroyed can never be restored.

The question seems partially answered by the relative location of the timber and prairie. The timber grows on the alluvial bottoms where partially protected from the prairie fires, or on the thin soil of the bluffs, while the rich prairie soil and the alluvial, where exposed to the fires, grow grass and no timber. When the ocean receded from the rich and deep soil which had been deposited in its appar- ent quiet waters, as it was partially a swamp, the sedges and coarse grasses would soon grow with a luxuriance proportioned to the temperature, moisture and richness of the soil. Trees do not readily grow in such a soil, and if they did it would require a large number of years to enable them to withstand even a moderate fire; but grass grows in a single season, and, when dry, furnishes sufBcient fuel to efi'ectually burn up or destroy any young timber sprouts of one or two years' growth that might exist. Thus we might expect no trees, but an annual growth of grass on the richest soil, and where exposed to the annual fires; while a poor soil growing too little grass for fuel to sustain an annual fire, and localities sheltered or protected in any way from the fires, would grow up to timber - and such was found to be the fact. Narrow strips of land between streams or branches of streams were generally timber land. The soil on the top of the bluflfs and near the streams was, and is, invariably thin, and not as well adapted to grass as the prairie; this soil is nearly all timber, and has the additional advantage of protection in one direction by the stream. The smooth and level surface would facilitate the progress of the annual fires, while a rough, rocky and uneven surface would check them. The great extent of the region over which these conditions existed would aid the spread of the fire when started, and some part of so extended a region would be likely to take fire, while if divided into small and isolated tracts like the present fields fires would be seldom known. Lightning alone would be a sufficient cause for the annual firing of so large a tract, and this, at an early day^ was doubtless the agent that eflPected it.

It was the opinion of the early settlers that, at that time, the prairie was encroaching upon the timber; in fact, the blufi" timber was all old, and a majority of the trees injured by the fire, and there was no young growth; an ox gad or a hoop pole could not be found except in some sheltered nook of the bluflF, or on the sheltered alluvial bottoms, but as soon as the barrens, as they were termed, were protected from fire, they rapidly grew up with a thrifty crop of well-set timber, showing that the fire had been the only impediment to that result.

The prairie, although protected from fire, did not rapidly grow to timber, for the reason there were no roots or germs to start from, as there was in the barrens, but the principal reason was, that no tree will grow readily in the unbroken prairie sod, as most of the settlers found by dear experience. But the timber did spread to the prairie ; first a few hazel bushes - these would hold the leaves at the roots, thus mulching and killing the turf - then a few crabapples, then oak and hickory.

There was probably a time when, from recurrence of wet seasons, a general moist climate, or other cause, the timber had encroached upon the prairie, else there would have been no timber; but the whole history since the waters retired bad evidently been a contest for supremacy between the two.

At the date of the white settlements the timber had retired to the banks of the streams, to the thinnest soil and to the low bottoms, and in most cases were still retiring. As proof of this, it was noticed that in many instances the extreme points, the out-posts or picket lines of timber bad retired and left roots and stumps burnt to or under the surface, yet in reach of the plow, mementoes of its former status. Those trees burnt for several years, and a frequent crash and thud told that the monarchs of the forest, the growth of centuries, were yielding to their conquering foe - a most conclusive answer to the question. Why is it that timber does not grow on the prairies ? Oaks and hickory are the most hardy and least injured by fire, consequently were the only varieties on the blufis, and if these were receding before the common enemy it could not be expected that the more tender varieties could exist at all.

On the sheltered bottoms were found all the varieties of timber common to the climate, that is, where the timber had obtained the ascendency, so as to prevent the growth of grass sufficient to sustain the fire.

Points of timber occupying a bend or angle of a stream, well out on the verge of the timber point, and on the prairie soil, often consisted of walnut and other varieties of bottom timber, proving that such a soil was well adapted to the growth of difi'erent varieties of timber - a truth also proved by the successful cultivation of artificial groves and belts.

After the lapse of more than forty years the old timber has nearly all been removed, and the fires checked and finally effectually stopped by the improvements of the settlers; that which was then timber lands, or barrens, has grown a thrifty crop of young timber, not only of oak and hickory, but where the soil is deep and rich, a sprinkling of walnut, linden and other varieties of what was termed bottom timber, being then confined to such localities. The rapidity with which timber spontaneously starts wherever the germs exist and its rapid and thrifty growth show that our soil is inherently a timber soil, and that in the not very distant future our State will be better supplied with good timber than those States originally covered with a heavy growth.

It is a well-known fact that Western New York, Ohio and other heavily wooded regions, when once cleared seldom produce a valuable new growth, and the reckless waste made by the occupants of those States will be repaid by succeeding generations in high prices and a scarcity of the article.

The low price and abundance of pine lumber and the facilities for transportation have reduced the price of timber-land in Illinois, so that it will hardly bring the prices it did thirty years ago, and many are cutting off the second growth and putting the land under cultivation - all tending to a reckless exhaustion of the timber supply. There can be no question but that the immense demand over all the prairie region for lumber, and the readiness with which that want is supplied, must, within the life of another generation exhaust the supply, and the warnings of thoughtful and sagacious men, to guard against the danger, ought to be heeded. The supply once exhausted can not be restored for generations - the one to two hundred years required to produce a perfect growth of fullsized timber is quite an item in the count of time, and a long period to wait for the production of a crop - and it will be wise to husband our resources and save while we can, having at least a thought for the future. The timber growing in Illinois will all be wanted, and at a price that will pay for its culture. The railroads built and to be built, which have to renew their ties every eight or ten years, will consume all the timber the State can produce, and when the lumber region fails, as fail it must, there will be a still greater amount needed for building and fencing purposes.