Logan County, Illinois - Chapter 2: Geological, 1911

Chapter 2: Geological

On the geological structure of a country depends the pursuits of its inhabitants and the genius of its civilization. Agriculture is the outgrowth of a fertile soil; mining results from natural resources; from navigable rivers spring commerce and navies. Where the soil and subjacent rocks are profuse in the bestowal of wealth, man is indolent and effeminate; where effort is required to live, he becomes enlightened and virtuous; where, on the desert sands, labor is unable to procure the necessaries of life, he is a savage. The civilization of states is a reflection of the physical condition of the rocks and soil which underlie it.

All the geological periods have worked intelligently and continuously to concentrate the rocks that shoutd supply the necessary materials for the formation of a durable soil, and later ages took care that they should be finely pulverized and well distributed. The finer, lighter and richer portions of this material remained long in suspension in the waters that once covered all the Mississippi Valley and was thus diffused over the surface of Logan County. The shallow lakes on the prairie levels received and deposited it. The shallow lakes became marshes and gradually filled up with a rich loam, supplied by decaying vegetation, through long centuries of vegetable growth and decay. This formed a rich, deep, surface mold, which made the county a garden for production. No region in the world can show a soil more carefully prepared, through vast geological times, with all the most valuable mineral and chemical supplies, for vegetable life and progress.

The formation of the soil of Logan County is due to geological and physical causes that have left their effects throughout the Mississippi Valley. This vast domain was, during long ages, a great sea of fresh water, extending into the regions of the north pole. During the glacial period, immense bodies of ice would break loose and float southward. In their passage they sometimes would dredge great channels, which would afterwards become the beds of streams. In their progress, as they reached the warmer latitudes, they deposited their accretions. Their ponderous weight, by attrition, pulverized the underlying masses, which settled and formed a sedimentary surface. Animal and vegetable organisms, existing in inconceivable abundance, added their remains to the fertility of the soil, and this process doubtlessly continued during a long extended period prior to the occupancy of man. Long before the prairies of Logan County clanked with the din of railroad trains, ice-formed navies plowed the seas in which they were submerged and distributed cargoes of sedimentary soil. No mariner walked their crystal decks to direct their course; no pennon trailed in the winds, from their glittering masts; yet they might have sailed under the flags of a dozen succeeding empires, each as old as the present nationalities of the earth.

The geological structure of Logan County, like that of all Central Illinois, embraces a representation, more or less complete, of the whole Paleonic series of formations, from thé Calciferous group of the Lower Silurian to the top of the Coal Measures. Overspreading these formations are beds of more recent age, comprising sands, clays, gravels and ' soil of varying thickness. These superficial deposits constitute the Quaternary system of modern geologists, and may properly be separated into four divisions: Post-tertiary sands, Drift, Loess and Alluvium. The first named occupies the lowest position in the series and consists of stratified beds of yellow sand and blue clay, of variable thickness, overlaid by a black or deep brown, loamy soil, in which are found leaves, branches and trunks of trees in a good state of preservation. Next above lie the drift deposits, consisting of blue, yellow and brown clays, containing gravel and boulders of various sizes, the latter the waterworn fragments of rocks, many of which have been washed down, from the northern shores of the great lakes. This drift formation varies in thickness and its accumulations are probably due to the combined influence of water currents and moving ice, as above stated.

The Loess is a fine mechanical sediment that appears to have accumulated in some body of fresh water. It consists of marly sands and clays, of a thickness varying from five to sixty feet. Its greatest development is along the bluffs of the streams. Fossils are often found in this formation, consisting chiefly of the bones and teeth of extinct mammalia, such as the mammoth, mastodon, etc. The term Alluvium is usually restricted to the deposits forming the bottom lands of the streams. They consist of irregularly stratified sand, clay and loam, which are frequently found in alternate layers, and contain more or less organic matter from decomposed animal and vegetable substances. In Logan County narrow belts of Alluvium skirt the larger creeks, especially the Lake Fork of Salt Creek. Many of these belts are subject to occasional overflow from freshets, and much of it is valuable by reason of the heavy growth of timber it sustains.

few places and the Alluvium being confined to the bottom land of the creeks. The underlying rock, as far as can be ascertained, consists entirely of the different beds of the Coal Measure series. The Loess can be said not to appear at all, except in a few isolated places along the creek bluffs, where it consists of buff or ash colored marly sand, containing fresh water shells of existing species. The drift formation, which covers the older rocks in all portions of the county, is composed of beds of blue and brown clay, sand and gravel, as before stated. It has been penetrated at comparatively few points and hence its depth can only be approximately estimated. The records of borings in the county given below will give an idea of the thickness of the drift. The material of the drift appears to be generally roughly stratified; alternating beds of sand, gravel and clay being met with. The sand and gravel beds generally make up but a small part of the total thickness, though sometimes the gravel beds attain considerable thickness, as for instance, on Salt Creek south of Lincoln, and on Kickapoo Creek, northeast of Lincoln, where gravel is being unearthed for commercial purposes and seems to be well-nigh inexhaustible. Occasionally, a bed of black earth or vegetable mold, still containing pieces of wood, trunks of trees, leaves, etc., only partially decayed, is met with, or a bed of quicksand, containing fossil land or fresh water shells.

Records Of Borings

The geographical strata in level localities, like Logan County, where there is little outcropping of older rocks and where the streams do not flow between high bluffs, can only be ascertained by the record of borings of wells, coal shafts and the like. The well from which the City of Atlanta obtains its water supply, being 151 feet deep, shows the following record of drift beds penetrated: Black soil, 3 ft.; yellow clay, 15 ft.; blue clay, 1o ft.; sand and gravel, 9 ft.; white clay and sand, 7 ft.; blue clay with gas, 3 ft.; dry sand and gravel with gas, 13 ft.; blue clay, 4 ft.; clay, sand, gravel and gas, 16 ft.; hardpan, 9 ft.; black drift, 6 it.; white clay, 2 ft.; green clay, 4 ft.; hardpan, 2 ft.; gravel and water, 12 ft.; total, 151 feet. In the vicinity of Atlanta, several wells reach a depth of 125 feet, and occasionally a well is sunk to a depth of fully 200 feet without entering rock. The well drillers report that the upper hundred feet is a softer clay than the lower hundred feet. A buried soil is not uncommon at the base of the soft clay. At Lawndale, at an elevation lower than Atlanta, several wells have been sunk to depths of 65 to 80 feet, mainly through hard till. Water is found beneath a cemented gravel, in loose gravel or sand. East from this village wells are in several instances 50 to 56 feet in depth and enter gravel below till.

In the vicinity of Emden, tubular wells are 85 to 200 feet in depth, without entering rock. They usually penetrate alternations of till, with sand and gravel. Well drillers report that west from Emden the wells frequently penetrate a dry gravel to depths of 90 to 115 feet. Southwest from Emden, a sand and blue silt frequently constitutes almost the entire section to a depth of at least one hundred feet. A well on Section 31, in Prairie Creek township, showed the following sections: Yellow clay, mainly loess, 16 feet; blue clay, nearly pebbleless, called blue mud, 150 feet; hard blue clay, probably till, 30 feet; gravel at the bottom; total depth, 196 feet. At Hartsburg, the public well reaches water in sand, below till, at 95 feet. Another well in the village struck rock at 100 feet. In the vicinity of Broadwell the drift is mainly a blue till and is 60 or 70 feet in depth. Wells are frequently obtained above the blue clay, at depths of 15 or 20 feet. At Elkhart, the drift is about 60 feet in depth. A generalized section of the drift at Elkhart is as follows: Loess and slightly pebbly clay, 12 feet; black soil, containing wood, 3 to 6 feet; yellow till, 5 to 10 feet; blue till, 30 to 35 feet. Records of several wells west from Elkhart show sections similar to the above and enter rock at about 60 feet.

The boring for the Citizens Coal Company's shaft, at Lincoln, gave the following record: Surface soil and clay, 18 feet; drift, 3 feet; blue clay, 8 feet; hardpan, 16 feet; sand and water, 16 feet; sand and water and hardpan, 24 feet; coarse gravel, 3 feet; hardpan, one foot six inches; fire clay, 3 feet 6 inches; lime rock, 20 feet; black slate, 1 foot 6 inches; fire clay, 2 feet; red and white clay, 12 feet; fire clay, 2 feet; conglomerate rock, 12 feet; brown slate, 30 feet; black slate, 4 feet; coal, 1 foot 6 inches; fire clay, 10 feet; blue sand rock, 18 feet; soap stone, 3 feet; fine blue sand rock, 7 feet; blue slate, 18 feet; brown slate, 5 feet; black lime rock, 1 foot 8 inches; black slate, 3 feet 4 inches; coal, 5 feet 6 inches; fire clay, 20 feet; blue and rock, 2 feet.

At Mt. Pulaski, the public water supply is from a well about 80 feet in depth, which is mainly through a sandy drift. On the plain near Mt. Pulaski, a black mucky soil is penetrated below yellow clay, at a depth of 16 or 18 feet and wells are obtained at about 30 feet, The boring for the coal shaft at Mt. Pulaski passed through 92 feet of drift clay and gravel and then gave the following strata: Sandy shale, 20 feet; limestone, 1 foot; fire clay, 1 foot; gray slate, 20 feet; sandy shale, 40 feet ; limestone, 2 feet; black shale, 1 foot; coal No. 8, 1 foot 6 inches; fine clay, 2 feet; clay shale, 4 feet; gray sandy shale, 6 feet; conglomerate limestone, 15 feet; clay shale, 2 feet; black slate, 1 foot; coal, 6 inches; fire clay, 6 inches; black slate, 10 inches; coal, 4 inches; fire clay, 8 inches; reddish shale, 10 feet; sandstone, 30 feet; sandy clay shale, 30 feet; black limestone, 8 feet; coal No. 5, 4 feet; fire clay, 4 feet; total, 351 feet 10 inches.

Coal Measures

The stratified rocks which outcrop in the county are very few, and, as has already been stated, belong to the Coal Measure series. Along Salt Creek, some distance above Middletown, are found a few tumbling masses of bluish limestone, which have evidently come out of the bluffs, but no good exposures. A boring was at one time made in the bluff, along the creek, in Section 13, on what is now the Beaver land, which passed through 130 feet of alternating beds of limestone, arenaceous and argillaceous shales, passing through the drift and surface deposits at the depth of only 15 feet. A seam of coal was said to have been met with, near the boring, but its thickness cannot be ascertained. It is also said that a two feet vein of coal had been worked here, by the early settlers, but there are now no traces of any coal outcrop or of any old workings.

At Rankins' Mill, farther up the stream, at well known Rocky Ford, the creek flows over a bed of limestone, which is quarried at one or two places, on the southern bank. Many of the older farm residences thereabouts and the houses in Postville, had foundations and chimneys constructed of this rock. The rock is a light gray or bluish gray, irregularly imbedded limestone, and contains a few of the common Coal Measure fossils. Its thickness here, as ascertained by means of a well dug in one of the quarries, was eleven feet, and underneath it, were found four feet of black slate, seventeen feet of fire clay and then six feet of limestone. The hole was continued by boring to a depth of 80 feet from the surface, at which depth a seam of coal was struck. A similar bed of limestone to the Rocky Ford bed, outcrops on Lake Fork of Salt Creek, in a ledge about three feet high, which has been quarried to a slight extent.

The South coal shaft at Lincoln, after passing through about seventy feet of soil and drift, afforded the following sections: Light blue arenaceous shale, 6 feet; hard, bluish, impure limestone, containing many small corals, etc., 3 feet; black slate, 10 inches; coal, 1 foot 6 inches; fire clay, 6 feet; arenaceous shale, 3 feet. About four miles south of Lincoln, a hole was sunk by boring to a depth of about 250 feet and three separate seams of coal reported. In a boring at Atlanta, a seam of three and a half feet was reported at a depth of 242 feet. In 1887, boring was made for gas at the site of the present Latham Company's Coal shaft, in North Lincoln, and ina distance of 610 feet, four distinct seams of coal were at the following depths and of the following thicknesses: At 290 feet, a five and three-quarters feet vein; at 470 feet, a six feet vein; at 580 feet, a ten feet vein, and at 610 feet, a six feet vein.

What is known as the lower coal, No. 5, is the vein which is now mined in all of the coal shafts in Logan County. The coal is generally. a harder and better heating material than that in the upper beds, besides being more reliable in its thickness. It, however, contains, in some parts, its share of impurities, but usually so disposed in the vein, as to be more easily separable. The following is the depth at which coal is being mined in the county at the several shafts: Latham Coal Company, Lincoln, 290 feet; Citizen's Coal Company, 290 feet; Lincoln Mining Company (South Shaft), 285 feet; Mutual Coal Company, Mt. Pulaski, 360 feet; Middletown Coal Company, Middletown (in the Menard County district), 210 feet. The thickness of the vein mined is uniformly about five feet.

Limestone rock, as before stated, is to a limited degree quarried at Rocky Ford, for rougher masonry work at near-by points. Clay and loam suitable for the manufacture of tile and brick are found in the county. Sand for building purposes is quite abundant. The gravel beds, now being used for commercial purposes, have been before mentioned. A very fine white sand found along Salt Creek, known as Kaolin, was utilized for a while by a local company in the manufacture of a scouring and polishing brick.

About 1880, Thomas H. Quisenberry, a "forty-niner," who dug gold in California and who resided at that time in Eminence Township, on Sugar Creek, washed out of the black sand in the creek, some excellent samples of flake gold. Near this location, several strong springs bubble from the earth and owing to the adjacent discovery of the flake gold, are now known as the "Gold Springs." Mr. Quisenberry also found some specimens of copper ore, while digging in the same neighborhood, at a depth of about three feet. More gold was washed out of the dirt around the Gold Springs in 1896. An analysis, at that time, obtained one-half grain of gold and silver combined from a pound of dirt. The loss is one-fourth by dissolving silver, leaving three-eighths of a grain of gold, or 1.56 ounce per ton, which at four cents per carat per pennyweight, would amount to $26.83 per ton; one-third of a grain of silver or .52 ounce per ton, at sixty cents per ounce is thirty-one cents, making a total of $27.14 per ton. In this connection it might be noted that it is a tradition among the early pioneers, that the Indians secured silver ore from somewhere in and around the region where the Kickapoo empties into Salt Creek. Indian graves, exhumed in earlier days, brought to light silver trinkets, crudely fabricated, buried with the bones of the departed. Jacob T. Rudolph, who came to Logan County as a child, a year after the deep snow, informed the writer that, after a heavy rain, he and his boy companions were in the habit of wandering along the creek, hunting for Indian relics washed down by the waters and were often rewarded by finding small beads and trinkets of molten silver ore. Frederick Ernst, in his description of his travels in the Illinois country in 1819, states that he was present at the signing of the Kickapoo treaty at Edwardsville, that year, and that the eighty Kickapoo warriors present wore silver rings and silver bands on their neck and arms. FOSSIL REMAINS.

At various times, mastadon bones and teeth have been found or exhumed in the county, particularly along the beds of the creeks. In October of 1877, workmen, while ditching on the William Gelsthorp farm, near Beason, exhumed the partial remains of a mastodon, in the clay of a small ravine, about two feet from the surface. One of the bones was seven feet in length and another was nine and a quarter inches in diameter. A tusk uncovered, measured about eight feet. It was estimated that the animal must have measured sixteen feet long. Several mastodon teeth have been found along the Kickapoo Creek in recent years. Near Illiopolis, in Macon County, but not far from the Logan County line, the remains of a mastodon were exhumed, beneath a black mucky surface soil, four feet in depth. The jaws contained the teeth intact, both tusks. The larger bones were found associated with the bones of the buffalo, elk and deer, all imbedded together in a bed of quicksand, that had probably once formed the bottom of a pool of water, to which these animals resorted and in which they perished. This would indicate that the mammoth and mastodon were coeval with species of mammalia, still existing in the Mississippi Valley. In digging a well near the old Christian church in Lincoln, in January, 1860, a piece of wood was found, seventeen feet under ground, bearing the mark of an axe or some other sharp instrument.

Glacial Moraines

What is known by modern American geologists as the Illinois Glacial Lobe, included a portion of the great ice sheet, which, in prehistoric times, extended from the highlands east and south of Hudson Bay, southwestward across Michigan and Illinois, to the axis of the Mississippi Valley, in southwestern Illinois. The region invaded by it, occupied the midst of the great interior basin between the Appalachian and the Rocky Mountains. The greater part of the Illinoian drift has a plane surface, destitute of the swells and ridges which usually occupy the Wisconsin sheet. There are however a few belts of sharply ridged drift found within its area, and one of those is found in eastern Sangamon and southwestern Logan County and has been called the Buffalo

Hart moraine, the village of Buffalo Hart being situated on it. Ina monograph, prepared by Frank Leverett, entitled "The Illinois Glacial Lobe," and published by the United States Geological Survey in 1899, the following description of the Buffalo Hart moraine is found:

"The Buffalo Hart moraine is well defined for a distance of about fifteen miles in eastern Sangamon and southwestern Logan Counties, passing from the Sangamon River near Mt. Auburn, northwestward past Buffalo and Buffalo Hart to Elkhart. It consists of knolls of considerable prominence, somewhat closely aggregated, many of which are 30. or 40 feet and a few 75 or 80 feet or more in height. Among the knolls there are sloughs and shallow basins, giving the surface a subdued type of knob-and-basin topography. This belt has an average width of nearly two miles. East from it, there are scattering knolls of considerable prominence, one at the town of Mt. Pulaski being nearly 30 feet in height. The connections of this belt with other moraines are rather vague. _ There is, however, toward the southeast, a series of mounds and short ridges, occupying the interval between the southern end of this moraine. The eastern line would lead northward, through western Logan County and eastern Mason County and embrace a series of knolls scattered over that region. The western line would follow the low ridge, westward, and cross the Illinois River, near the mouth of Sangamon River, and there connect with the small drift ridge mentioned above, which occupies southern and western Fulton County. The features are too vague to make a satisfactory correlation along either line. It seems preferable, therefore, to have the belt without an attempt at definite correlations.

"The drift in this moraine, like that in the bordering plain, consists mainly of till. Even the prominent Elkhart mound has till exposed where the road crosses its northern slope. There are, however, local developments of gravelly material in some of the knolls and ridges, as in the Kaskaskia moraine and the northern end of the ridged drift of the Kaskaskia basin. In case those ridges prove to have been formed by an ice sheet, occupying the district east of them, the Buffalo Hart moraine would seem to be a natural northward continuation of the belt.

"The northern terminus of the Buffalo Hart Moraine is in the form of a very prominent mound, rising 150 feet above the bordering country, or about twice as high as any of the other knolls in the moraine. It is known as the Elkhart mound, being situated about a mile east of the village of Elkhart and has been a landmark from the early days of settlement. It commands a view for twenty miles or more in all directions. From this mound a low ridge leads off westward about three miles, where it merges into the general upland plain. There are two lines of possible continuation for system of ridges. The moraine is covered with loess, usually to a depth of 12 or 15 feet, and this obscures the great underlying drift and renders it difficult to discover places where gravel may be obtained. The knolls scattered over southern and western Logan County, have been found in some cases to contain considerable sand, but they also, like the knolls of the moraine, appear to be composed principally of till."

The earliest moraine of the Wisconsin drift, so far as recognized, is one exposed to view in central and eastern Illinois and western Indiana. This has been known as the Shelbyville moraine, the name being derived from the Illinois City of that name, which is situated on the extreme southwest point of the morainic loop, The moraine passes through a portion of northeastern Logan County. The towns of Macon and Warrensburg, in Macon County, and Hallsville and Waynesville, in De Witt County, are on the moraine. From Waynesville, the course is northwestward, past Atlanta to Delavan, and then takes a northward course. In Logan County its course can only be ascertained by an examination of the drift.

By reason of all these geological and physical agencies, came the productive soil of Logan County. From long habit we have come to look upon the soil, apparently unappreciative of its wonderful importance in the economy of life. Unattractive, its productions transcend the most elaborate works of art; undiversified in appearance, an endless variety springs from its prolific abundance. Its mysterious elements, in the alchemy of nature, bloom in the flower, load the breeze with fragrance, blush in the clustering fruit, whiten the fields with harvest, and furnish the fabrics which clothe and protect the body of man from the rigors of the climes. Entering the domain of animal life, the same elements pulsate in the blood, suffuse the cheek with the glow of health, speak in the eye, render the tongue vocal with eloquence and music and fill the brain with glowing imagery and brilliant fancies. As from the soil all material things come, so to the soil all return. The lofty tree, spreading its canvas of leaves to the winds, finally dies and undergoing decomposition, enriches the earth in which it grew. The king of beasts, whose loud roar can be heard for miles, is unable to resist the fact, which, in the end, consigns his sinewy frame to the mold. Even man, lord of the lower world, must likewise suffer physical death and mingle his frame with the soil from whence he sprang. In the material world, the soil is lord paramount of all.