Jackson County, Indiana - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 2 of those read), 1886

Chapter with an unread heading (no. 2 of those read)

Geology - General Features - The Strata - Sections in Various Parts of the County - The Quaternary - The Sandy Plains - River Valleys - Artesian Water.

JACKSON COUNTY is of a rectangular shape. The East Fork of White River enters at the northeast corner, and flows through it in a southwest direction, forming two rectangular shaped districts, which are, for the most part, totally unlike in topography and geological features. In the southeast district the country is mostly rolling, with low, sandy hills, fifty to 100 feet high. An exception to this is seen in the short range of knobs south of Brownstown, and in the sandy-clay hills southeast of Seymour, called Chestnut Ridge. The knobs at Enoch Baugh¬ man's, south of Brownstown, have an elevation of about 360 feet above White River, while some portions of Chestnut Ridge are 2500 feet above the river. This ridge is said to be about eight miles long and one mile wide, although in length it may be traced considerably in excess of this.

The northwest district of the county is broken, and traversed in a northeasterly and southwesterly direction by ridges, that have an aterage elevation of 280 feet above the plains. The valleys through which the small streams find their way to White River are generally narrow. In the vicinity of Sparksville and Weddlesville, there are beds of loose sand, thirty feet or more in depth, that cap the solid beds of knob shale and sandstone at an elevation of 280 feet above the river. Sand occupies a similar elevation in the ridge near Vallonia, on the south side of the river. The sand deposits have the same bearing as the course of White River. The Muscatatuck River forms a large portion of the southern boundary of the county, and two of its principal forks, Vernon and Grassy, flow in a southwesterly course across the southeast district.

The oldest formation seen in the county is a black shale found in the northeastern part, on Section 32, Township 7 north, Range b east The section at that place shows sandy soil and sandy clay, 40 feet; clay, with a few shall granite boulders and pebbles, 30 feet; black shale, with large masses of calcareous concre¬ tionary stone to the bed of the river, 20 feet, making a total of 00 feet This shale is found in the wells as far north as the county line. Its eastern boundary is at an average distance west of the east line of the county, about four miles. A number of fossils have been found in this shale, among which are Leiorhynchus quadricosia . Chonefes lepida , TenlaculUes fissurrlla , Lingula and Discina.

The Chemung and Catskill groups, forming the upper mem¬ bers of the Devonian, are entirely wanting in Indiana. Next above the black shale is found the Kinderhook group, which lies at the base of the carboniferous formation. The Kinderhook beds in Indiana are made up of marly and arenaceous shales and sandstones, with two or more beds of geodes associated with or replacing beds of roughly weathering entrochal limestone. The geodes first make their appearance on the high ridge south of Brownstown, then at Pea Ridge, and at Sparksville. On Section 11, Town 4, Range 2, the Si Louis oolitic limestone appears, and is quarried in large blocks, for building purposes, at Dixon's. At Rockford, immediately above the black shale, is found a greenish gray, hard, calcareous shale, filled with fossil cephalopod shells in a fine state of preservation. The Goniatiles and Nautili of this locality are among the most interesting fossils of the country, and have given to Rockford a world- wide notoriety. It is the only locality in the State where many of the species are found, and they are known locally as "snake rocks.''

The general dip of the strata in the county is at the rate of about thirty feet to the mile from the northeast to the southwest, but in many places it is difficult to recognize any dip at all. By a slight dip the black shale is carried beneath the surface before reaching Shields' Mill, where the following measurements have been made :

The bed of Huffs Creek contains so many weathered lumps of iron-stone that persons were, several years ago, induced to under¬ take the construction of a Catlin forge to work it into swedged iron. Through a lack of funds it was never completed.

As showing the difference of the ridges on each aide of the river, the following section is given near Josiah Shewmakers on Pea Ridge in Section 32, Town 5, Range 3, East:

Many of these geodes are more than a foot in diameter and run from that down to sizes not larger than a walnut. Some are solid, but they are generally hollow and contain chalcedony crys¬ tals of many forms and colors. They occupy the place of a lime¬ stone which has been removed by the chemical action of water that held silica in solution.

On Guthrie Creek, Section 18, Township 5, Range 3, there is a very good deposit of sandstone of a gray color. It has been used considerably for masonry, and when not subjected to too many sudden changes of wet and dry is durable.

These bands of sandstone are of a handsome dark brown color, and the stone where exposed to the air has become very hard, and rings under the hammer. It will make a handsome and durable building stone. A similar stone is seen at Findley's Mill.

composed of knob stones and vermicular shales, and are about 280 to 320 feet high. At low water several salt springs can be seen which break up from the bed of the creek. Nearly a half century ago a company began the manufacture of salt there, and it was carried on for several years in a small way. Near Hous¬ ton and several other places in the northwestern portion of the county, salt is found in considerable quantities. Near Freeport bog ore occurs in considerable quantities. At the Dixon quarry, near the southwestern line of the county, the stone quarried is a moderately fine-grained oolite bed which lies above the nautili geode bed; it corresponds with the Bedford, Ellettsville and Spencer oolite building stone.

The Quaternary Period

Immediately on the paleozoic rock described in the preceding pages rests the quaternary or post-tertiary period. The influ¬ ence which this era has had in modifying the topography of the country is unmistakable and at the same time difficult to explain in a satisfactory manner. In the northwest part of the county there is barely a trace of glacial sand and clay, but it is well rep¬ resented on both sides of White River, and with the exception of a few short ridges south of Brownstown covers the entire half of the county south of the East Fork of White River and is com¬ posed of brown, reddish sand, 10 feet; brownish clay, mixed with sand, gravel, some small boulders and cherty gravel, 30 to 60 feet In the northern part of the county the sandy hills contain : Sandy clay, 30 feet; and clay with some sand, gravel and small granite boulders, 40 feet. At the old Dannatelle farm the de¬ posit of this period is about 95 feet. Chestnut Ridge, as well as the sand to the northeast, are all composed of quaternary beds, the greatest thickness of which cannot fall much short of 200 feet The moraine of sand, clay and small erratic stones compos¬ ing these beds came down from the high divide in Randolph

County, and from the western border of Ohio. It is most prob¬ ably the work of a retreating glacier which had its forces divided into several channels by ridges that checked and partially resist¬ ed its currents. Baughman's Ridge formed an island, as it were, between the two moraines in that part of the county. The East Fork of White River and the Muscatatuck flow through valleys that were cut by the glaciers.

A tradition among the older citizens of the county tells of a large granite boulder that was situated on Tipton's Island a short distance above Rockford, but later investigation proved it to have been only a stone resembling the concretionary limestone seen in the upper part of the black shale about a mile farther up the river.

The wells of Brownstown go to a depth of from fifteen to twenty feet, and water is found in a quicksand which is underlaid by argillaceous shale; the upper stratum passed through is sandy clay such as is seen covering all the country outside of the knobB to the south. It is probable that an artesian water can be had at a depth of about 100 feet A well dug in Section 7, Township 4, Range 5, produces good artesian water. It contains bicarbon¬ ate of lime, bicarbonate of magnesia, carbonate of protoxide of iron and chloride of sodium. It is a pure chalybeate water, con¬ taining no more foreign mineral water outside of the iron than is commonly found in potable well or spring waters. In many cases of debility this water will prove highly beneficial as a pleasant, mild and safe tonic.