Boone County, Indiana - Chapter 3: Geology and Topography, 1914

Chapter 3: Geology and Topography

We place under this caption our knowledge of the earth's surface and its formation. All the history that we have is written on the rocks in the fossil remains. The position of the solid elements of the earth's surtace whether in the smooth plain or the upheaved or the broken, crushed and powdered portions, that constitute the drift portion of the earth's surface, all enter into what we understand under the science of geology. It is history that has been made by water, heat and cold. These solid substances have been broken off by wind, upheavals of internal force and moved about on the earth's surface by water and ice. Nature in its formation of the earth's history wrote the story, and what we term geology is the knowledge that men have gathered and classified as the science of geology. There is a great amount of speculation in regard to how this work was done and the time. We will not enter into the many theories of the world's growth and development, but let the reader look this matter up in books devoted to this special branch of history. Indiana is placed by the geologist in the Devonian Carboniferous and subcarboniferous ages. If we go deep enough we can find record of the Azoic age of Archaean time, the very oldest rocks that were formed, when there was neither vegetable nor animal life. Above this comes the Paleozoic time the "Aeon of ancient life," including the Upper and Lower Silurian ages also the Devonian and Carboniferous eras. The latitude and longtitude of Indiana was doubtless here at that time as it is now, but it was the bottom of the sea. How many thousands of centuries since that condition existed we can not tell and there is no certain way to ascertain. It must have been a broad expanse of ocean stretching far to the southwest and north and northwest over the great lake legion. It is under this wide expanse of country that the Trenton rock is found and it belongs to the Lower Silurian era which is a subdivision of the

Paleozoic time. This Trenton rock is the store-house of the natural gas and crude petroleum that have so lately blessed the world. Over this Trenton rock comes the sedimentary covering containing myriads of polyps and other low forms of animal life, which with the abundant and luxuriant plant life entered into the composition of the stone strata. Just how long this process was going on no one in our age can tell. That is a question that yet remains for solution if any desire to delve into the unknown. Next comes the Upper Silurian which is composed of the decomposition of a higher grade of mollusks. Above the Silurian is the Devonian epoch laid down in the bottom of the ocean. These rocks are made of the most part of limestone and black shale. During this Silurian period, the exact date is not given, came what is termed the "Cincinnati uplift." The southern portion of Indiana was included in this, and remained no longer the bottom of the sea and was the first part of Indiana to become dry land. Next in turn comes the Lower Carboniferous formed of what is known as knobstone or sand shales. To this strata belongs the noted Bedford oolitic limestone, considered the best building stone in the country. Also in this period came the formation of the noted caves in southern Indiana. The upper Carboniferous era is the coal formation, composed of the immense growth of vegetation upon the marsh shores of the inland sea, that were in turn swept down and buried, this was done five times, making the veins of coal that underlie a great portion of the state of Indiana. About one-fourth of our state, mostly in the southwest part of the state, is including the coal fields. How long it was in forming no mortal can tell.

Post-Tertiary Period

We can form no conception of the length of these periods. Scientific men have been conjecturing for centuries, but nothing definite has been concluded. We may as well leave it in this uncertain condition for no finite mind can unlock the depths of the hidden mystery. The glacial epoch or age of ice belongs to the Post-Tertiary period. Of all past Eons of time this last is most important to the people of Indiana. It was the great influence that fitted this part of the globe for the habitation of man. Slowly it had been growing for cycles of years shaping for life and this last period is to shape it for the highest of creation - Man - the Archon. Just how many sheets of ice plowed their way, over the rough surface of the land that now composes the state of Indiana is not known. According to the theory of the formation of coal veins there must have been at least five floods of ice, for we have that many veins of coal. There may have been many more. The high places in the state had to be plowed down into the low places so as to make all inhabitable for man. The central portion of the state must have been a great swamp or shallow sea for ages. The great Morain or drift section covers this section of the state. We do not know when the Mound-builders lived in this country but we know that there is no evidence that they ever lived in what is now Boone county, for there are no mounds here. It must have been uninhabitable for man in the age when this strange people lived. We must remember that the general slope of this country is toward the southwest. It must have had the same inclination in the time of the ice flow, for the indications are that the flow of the ice was in the direction of our streams of this day. The only exception is that of the Maumee river. Here are the most singular formations in the state. The St. Mary's river rising in Ohio and flowing toward the northwest and the St. Joseph's rising in Michigan and flowing toward the southwest, meeting the former at what is now Ft. Wayne, and instead of forming the Wabash river they turn upon themselves and form the Maumee and flow toward the northeast and into Lake Erie. This was doubtless caused by the great Morain heaped up in front of them by some monster glacier. The great bank of clay and gravel is there to this day and the peculiar formation of the rivers tells the story. The great ridge of drift stretching from Steuben county to Cass is from two hundred to five hundred feet deep, twenty-five miles wide and nearly one hundred miles long. This made a levee extensive enough to become a permanent barrier to the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers and send their waters back to Lake Erie. Fully threefourths of the state has been formed by the drift and Boone county lies wholly within this formation. Long after the formation of the coal beds there must have been a lighter drift of ice that formed the beds of mud and muck filled with twigs and decaying vegetable matter that is found in Boone county in various places from sixty to eighty feet deep in the sinking of wells. In addition to the sand, gravel and clay found throughout this drift belt, there are in various localities large boulders of foreign rock that have been carried here by some great force. Wind or water as it is known in our day could not do this. We can not think of any force that could do this work except the large fields of ice known as glaciers. There are several places in Boone county where these boulders exist as great tracts of the sea of ice that must have passed over here and left these tracks. The rocks must have been imbedded in the ice and as it slowly passed over the land with its. immense force, grinding the rock into sand and gravel, it made the great deposits that are all over the state. The chemicals embodied in these rocks mingled with the great growth of vegetable matter formed the rich soil that so rewards the husbandman to this day. After the great plain was formed by the ice-fields, the water that came from the melting of the ice sought out the low places and found its way to the sea. By erosion it cut out channels and thus formed our rivers as we have them to this day. If we accept this theory of the formation of this country, we must conclude that God works by slow processes to shape the world for man's comfort and happiness. Through it all is the manifestation of his love and great power. He formed the dry land and shaped it for our good.

Before leaving the physical features of the county we would speak of its wells or supply of water for domestic use. There is no evidence that the Indian ever dug a well. That is a characteristic of a higher civilization. The Indian depended upon the gushing spring of which there was a liberal supply distributed throughout the county. In the old Indian village of the Eel river tribe in the Thorntown reserve, there were some noted springs. One of these northeast of Thorntown became noted as a center for quenching thirst of both red and white men gathered in early days. Also, those northwest and east of Thorntown yielded an abundant supply of good water for man and beast. The early pioneers were attracted to these springs and in many cases erected their log cabins near one of them. When no spring could be found it was an easy matter to obtain water by digging a well in any part of the county. Water could be found all the way from ten to forty feet almost anywhere within the limits of Boone county. For the first two< generations the springs and shallow wells furnished the supply of water for the people. Later while prospecting for gas a new field for water supply was opened. We found no natural gas but we did learn something about (5) the under strata of our soil and of the treasures hidden therein. Deep wells were sunk at various points in the county without finding natural gas. Yet in many of them strong veins of pure water was found, which proved a treasure that grows more and more apparent as the years roll by. In the well dug on the Kenworthy farm in the bottom Prairie creek, artesian water was found at a depth of one hundred feet, that rose eight or nine feet above the top of the well, and has continued to flow without abatement all these years; and is now furnishing water to the home of Grant Riley who now owns and occupies the Kenworthy farm. Out of the search for gas came the period of drilled wells for water. These wells go to the depth of sixty to two hundred and fifty feet. This holds good all over the county and wells have been sunk everywhere for water. We here give the surveys of a few of them, to demonstrate the crust of the earth in Boone county.

In a well in Jackson township on the farm of Isaac Emerts, two and one-half miles north of Jamestown, a well was drilled in which the swamp was reached at sixty feet.

In this strata was found a large number of fresh water shells in a good state of preservation. Four feet lower down in gravel, a number of lower Silurian fossil - shells - Rhynchonella capas - were found.

Witt And Klizer'S Well At Thorntown

This well was dug to the depth of 104 feet, and continued by boring to the depth of 343 feet. At the depth of 100 feet, the trunk of a tree apparently northern cedar, several inches in diameter, was found. The trunk of the tree extended entirely across the well. The exposed portions of the tree were nearly perfect, showing no scars nor effects of abrasion, such as would have resulted from violent contact with rocks or other hard substances.

Big Springs

In the neighborhood of Big Springs the water is found from eight to ten feet below the surface. Numerous springs throughout this region flow out of the surface of the ground. No clay is reached in this neighborhood. At Rosston, two and one-half miles to the southwest, water is obtained from eight to twenty feet below the surface.

Frank Harris' Farm

There are great depths of sand and gravel of good quality for building purposes and roads in the northwest part of the county and in various other localities in the county.

On the Moffitt farm, one and one-half miles west of Thorntown, four feet of soil and forty feet of gravel were penetrated but no water was found and the work was discontinued. Two miles farther west, on the Robert Woody farm, a stratum of sand fifty-five feet in thickness was passed through in boring a well. The following is a section of Mr. Woody's well.

Throughout the northwest part of the county quicksand almost uniformly occurs under the yellow clay. The thickness of the beds of quicksand varies from two to sixteen feet. The yellow clay runs from three to thirty feet in depth.

The section of a well three miles east of Thorntown in Washington township near the Union church illustrates the character of the deposits throughout that section.

The boring of these wells throughout the various parts of the county furnish abundant proof of the drift formation that prevails all over the county. No limestone has been struck except in the west part of the county. No organic remains except in the one well at Lebanon. The muck and swamps from seventy-five to one hundred feet below the surface shows a peculiar drift formation in the county. There are no walls or enclosures in the county, nor any mounds of great interest. Occasionally small mounds are seen, but explorations in them have not disclosed any fact other than are generally known concerning these works. Ashes, charcoal and occasionally implements have been found in them. Granite and flint implements, while not so common as in many other counties, are still frequently found here.

As far as the formation of the surface of Boone county is concerned it is evident that there are no evidences of violence or internal forces of nature. There are no evidences of upheavals, for as deep as man has penetrated the surface by drilling (1,300 feet) every layer of sand, clay or rock seems to be regular. The crust that underlies central Indiana prevails. As under Boone county in the same even form that it does over the state. There is no evidence of any force except that caused in the drift periods. Just how many drifts were used in laying the foundations for the rich soil that blesses this section of the state is not known. There must have been as many as there are distinct veins of coal and other layers of drift.

This reading in the record of the rocks and strata of drifts is a little unreliable, but enough is known to satisfy the mind that the icebergs traversed this section several times in fitting it for the habitation of man. Layer after layer of sand was carted in by giant streams of ice that bore along with its pressure great boulder tracks that show its stately steppings. This sand and clay was carted into the low places to build them up above the sea and make this country inhabitable for man. Just when the work was finished is not known. It was not ready for the mound-builder in his day, for there is no evidence that he ever dwelt in this section of Indiana. The Indian found a foothold here but no one knows when he came. There are no marks to tell us how long he preceded the white race. We found him here, but he has never revealed to our fathers how long he had lived in these woods. We can safely say that it was a long time ago, far beyond the memory of the white or the red man and the rocks do not reveal to us the hidden secret.