Vermillion County, Indiana - Natural Features of Vermillion County, 1913

Natural Features of Vermillion County

The word "vermillion" is from the French, signifying "a Ijright red sulphuret of mercury," and is appHed to this territory and the stream by that name, on account of the red or brown color of the earth and the abundance of "keel," or '"red-chalk," found along the banks of the river now called Vermillion. It is believed that this substance was formed by the burning of the overlying shale, the outcrops of the coal, the latter igniting from the autumn fires set by the people then inhabiting this region. The river was first named, then the county.

Geographically, Vermillion county is thirty-nine degrees and fifty-five minutes north, and eighty-seven degrees and ten minutes west longitude from Greenwich, England. The standard railroad time, which is conformed to the ninetieth meridian, is about eleven minutes slower than local sun-time. Newport, the county seat, is five hundred and twenty feet above sea-level, and fiftyfive feet above the low water mark of the Wabash river opposite.

The beautiful Wabash river, with its charming scenery, is equal in that respect to almost any other stream in the West. Its silvery ripples are seen here and there midst luxurious foliage of splendid forest kings, while long ranges of hills add further beauty and sublimity to the scene which is ever a feast to the eye of the beholder. The more than thirty-seven miles of river front presented within this county, is wholly made up of attractive natural scenery, making the territory one of the "loveliest valleys in the West." The Wabash and its tributaries completely drain and water the county of which this volume is a history. Spring branch, really a large creek, flows southwesterly through the northeast corner of Highland township. Coal branch flows south near the Avestern border. Big Vermillion river winds in graceful curves through the southwestern corner of Highland township and also through the northern part of Eugene township. Little Vermillion ri\er winds through the southwestern corner of Eugene township, emptying into the Wabash near the middle of the eastern side of VermilHon township. Jonathan creek, in the western portion of VermilHon township, flows northeasterly into Little Vermillion. Brouillet's (pronounced Brulet's creek) is wholly within Clinton township, coursing its way southeasterly, forming confluence with the Wabash river. Little Raccoon creek, in Helt township, runs to the southeast, in the northeastern portion of the township, falling into the Wabash between Highland and Alta.

Geological Formation

Almost one-third of the territory embraced within Vermillion county consists of rich, fertile and valuable bottom lands of the great and historic Wabash river together with its affluents. Big and Little Vermillion rivers and Norton's creek. The main terrace of the "second bottom." is finely developed in the region of Perrysville and Newport. This terrace is from one to four miles wide, giving an extended stretch of rich, well drained farming lands, with an average elevation of about forty feet above the first bottom. Below the town of Newport the bluffs reach the river so nearly that the terrace is nearly obliterated, and the immediate bottoms are hence very narrow. At the mouth of Little Raccoon creek the bottom lands are extended wider, but there is no large amount of terrace land until the head of Helt prairie is reached, at a point six miles to the north of the city of Clinton, where it stretches to the s6uthward and is from one to three miles in width. Again three miles below Clinton it narrows down at the mouth of Brouillet's and the county line.

When Vermillion county was first settled by white men the bottoms were heavily timbered, but a large part of the terrace was devoid of timber. It is hardly probal^le that this land was originally prairie, on account of its nature and favorable situation, hence it is supposed that this land was cleared and cultivated by the same race of people, possibly the much-talked-of, and but little understood, Mound Builders. The "mounds" are to be seen all through this region, and it is thought that the annual fires prevented a re-occupation by trees and shrubs.

Rising from the upper bottom lands bluft's are seen, more or less abrupt, which attain a general level of from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty feet above the river bed, forming the somewhat elevated border lands of Grand prairie. The most gradual ascent is to the westward from Perrysville, which provide a natural roadway for the railroad now traversingthis portion of the county. South of the Big Vermillion river the bluffs are much Steeper. These bluffs are too steep for practical cultivation, and timber is still found growing, including oak. hickory, maple and walnut, and. in the south part of the county, beech. Thirty years ago and less there were found large groves of maple of the sugar variety. From the chief streams this timbered region extends to the westward to the state line. The northern and middle portions of the county are in great part a portion of what is known as the Grand prairie, which covers all eastern Illinois, from the forests of the Little Wabash to Lake Michigan.

Vermillion county is blessed with springs, bursting forth from below the bowlder clay of the drift period. Many of these springs are exceedingly strong in their flow, but with the settlement of the county, artificial drainage, etc., have somewhat diminished.

The alluvium of the river bottoms ba\e the common features of all river deposits. Vegetable remains are mingled with fine sand and mud washed from the drift-beds up the streams, and occasional deposits of small stones and gravel, derived either from the drift or from rock formations through which these rivers have cut their way. The only positive information concerning the depths of these beds refers to the prairies between Eugene and Perrysville, where wells have been sunk sixty feet through alluvia sand, and then encountered six to ten feet of sticky, bluish mud filled with leaves, twigs and trunks of trees, and occasionally small masses of what appears to have been stable manure. This stratum is sometimes called "Noah's Barnyard." The lake-bottom deposits, of a corresponding age, which commonly underlie the soil of the Grand prairie, have been found west of the state line, consisting of marly-clays and brick-clay subsoil, and probably exist equally under such portions of the prairie as extend into Vermillion county.

There are numerous fine gravel beds in the county, principally developed since the construction of railroads. The bowlder clay mentioned above, which substance forms the mass of drift formation, is a tough, bluish drab, unlaminated clay, more or less thoroughly filled with fine and coarse gravel, and includes many small bowlders. On the high bluff, to the west of Perrysville. this bed was penetrated to a depth of about one hundred feet before reaching the water-bearing quicksand commonly found beneath it. Outcrojis of one hundred and ten feet have been measured. This is much thinner in the southern part of Vermillion county. In-om the difference in character of the included bowlders at different le\'els, it is supposed by geologists that the currents which brought the materials composing these beds flowed in different directions at different times.

twenty-five years ago: "A section from a branch of Jonathan's creek, in Eugene township, where bowlder clay, with pebbles of Silurian limestone and trap, thirty feet; yellow clay, with fragments of coal, shale, sand-stone, etc., four inches; bowlder clay, with pebbles of Silurian limestone, twenty-five feet; ferruginous sand, a streak; bowlder clay from the northwest, with pebbles of various metamorphic rocks and trap, and nuggets of native copper, fifty feet."

The section of rocks exposed at the horseshoe of the Little Vermillion exhibits the following strata : Black, slaty shale ; coal, two and a half to four feet thick; fire-clay and soft shales, with iron-stones, fifteen feet; argillaceous (clayey) limestone, one to two feet; dark drab clay shale, one foot; coal, four to five feet ; light colored fire-clay, two feet ; dark colored fire-clay, one foot ; soft, drab shale, with iron-stones, ten to fifteen feet ; fossiliferous, black slaty shale, often pyritous, with many large iron-stone nodules, two to three feet.

A considerable portion of the bowlders and pebbles of these beds, especially those consisting of limestone and the metamorphic rocks, are finely polished and striated on one or more of their sides, showing the power of the forces which were engaged in their transportation from their original beds. Nuggets of galena (lead) and of native copper are occasionally met with, and have had the usual effect of exciting the imagination of those ignorant of the fact that the rocks which contain these metals do not occur nearer than tlie galena region of northern Illinois.

The only rock formation in the county, practically speaking, is that of the "coal measure" already mentioned. The first uppermost vein of coal is covered by a few feet of soil only. The limerock below it is very thinly laminated, being mingled with much clay; but the shales covering the next vein constitute a fair working roof.

The sand iron-stones are interesting to the hunter of fossils, as they contain numerous fragmentary remains of fishes, insects, etc. This fossil district extends along the Little A'ermillion to its mouth and down the Wabash. Outcrops of this strata are found along the chief streams throughout the entire county of Vermillion.

In going up stream along the Big Vermillion river, on its south bank, a mile below Eugene, a bluff twenty to thirty feet high is of irregularly bedded, highly ferruginous, coarse grained sand-stone, often containing plant remains, with some large fragments of trees, etc. Some of tliese beds are sufficiently solid to make good building stones. In quarrying them many fine trunks have been found and the larger branches of leipodendron and sigillaria.

exposed no traces of coal, but coal is found at no great distance, owing to the sudden dips in the geological strata. In general terms, it may be said that most all of Vermillion count)- is underlaid with a good quality of soft coal. A total estimate of eight feet would probably cover the thickness of coal underneath this county - a wonderful mine of wealth for generations yet unborn ! The chapter on IVIines and Mining in this work will treat the vast coal mining interests.

The principal iron ore found within Vermillion count}' is an impure carbonate, occurring in nodules and irregular layers of sands. Once, these were shipped to a furnace at Brouillet's Creek, where they yielded thirty-three per cent, of iron ore. The ore here averages from twenty to thirty per cent. Along the Norton creek bottoms, near the head of Kelt's prairies, a bed of bog-iron, about three feet thick and extending over an area of about eight acres, has been discovered in the last thirty years. Zinc blende is also found in small quantities. Its appearance, at an early day, on the Little Vermillion river, gave rise to the so-called "silver mine."

The second bottoms, or terraces in Vermillion county, in order from the north are named Walnut Mound, Eugene or Sand, Newport and Helt's. The soil is a black sandy loam, producing the richest and most paying crops. These terraces comprise about three-tenths of the entire county, and are from thirtyfive to sixty-five feet above low-water mark, while the higher portions of the county are from two hundred and fifty to t\\ o hundred and seventy feet abo\-e low-water.

Professor Collett, in his t88o report, says: "Remains of the mammoth have been discovered in nearly all sections of Indiana. They have consisted, as a rule, of the most compact bones of these animals, as the teeth, tusks, jaws and thigh bones. Some of the best preser\'ed teeth of the mammoth were found in the counties of Vigo, Parke, ^''ermillion, Wayne, Putnam and A'anderburg."

Concerning The Forests

Eighty-five per cent, of the area of Indiana was originally heavily forested. The prairie district occupied a small portion of the northwestern part of the state. In this part the timber was confined principally to the low lands. In all parts of the state the timber has been cut for lumber and to clear the farm land, until now only twenty per cent, of the original forest, seventeen per cent, of the total area of the state, remains. The cutting off of the forests of the state has had a great influence on the drainage. When the forests were still intact, the fallen leaves, mold and shade tended to retain the surplus water during the rajny seasons, and this water, given out gradual!}', tended to equalize the stream flow. Floods were less common then. Now the systematic drainage of the land causes the water, during the rainy seasons, to flow directly into the stream. Thus the streams are flooded during the wet weather and soon dry up after the rains cease. This condition is especially true of the portion of the state south of the Wisconsin glacial boundary. In the Wisconsin glacial area the sand and gravel deposits serve to some extent the same purpose as the leaves, mold and shade of the previously forested area of the unglaciated region. The effect of the removal of the forests is shown by the remains of old water-mill sites, on small streams which are now dry for more than half the year. Many of these small power mills were run continuously fifty years ago. These power sites are now impractical except where immense storage basins can be constructed. Charles R. Van Hise in the United States government reports on Conservation, says : "It is estimated by McGee that, by injudicious farming and deforestation, the water table has been lowered in the eastern part of the United States by from ten to forty feet. Indeed he estimates that the shallow wells and springs in this part of the country, at least three-fourths, have failed. The springs have dried up; the small brooks'have ceased to flow ; the wells have been sunk to lower levels.

"In this matter we have an exceptional situation with reference to water which is somewhat analogous to that of minerals. We are using the supplies of the past and not restoring an equal amount. This we are doing to some extent because of our present need; but also more wells are drilled in many artesian districts than are necessary ; and when they are not in use, which is often the larger part of the year, the water from them is allowed to run off freely. Usually it is not realized that such waste lessens the head and makes available a smaller amount of water when it is again needed. This waste of underground water is analogous to the waste of natural gas. Strange as it may appear, waste of this kind is allowed to continue not only in humid regions where water is not appreciated, but in arid regions where it is of such fundamental importance. Such waste should be prohibited by law and the law should provide means of enforcement.

"Already strict laws exist in a number of states of the West; this is illustrated by California. It is clear that laws preventing the waste of water are constitutional upon substantially the same grounds as are the laws with reference to the waste of natural gas. This is clearly indicated by decisions which have been rendered in the various courts.

"It is important to get into the ground a suflicient amount of water, so that the water table will be maintained at a convenient depth. This is es- pecially important in the arid and semi-arid regions, for there often the underground water is the only certain source of this element for domestic purposes and for irrigation.

"On a much wider scale increasing the proportion of precipitation which goes under ground, may be accomplished by covering the earth with vegetation, by contour plowing, and by cultivating in such a manner as to leave a rough surface."

The whcile of this question simply shows the opinion of an expert upon the subject of the conservation of water. The last paragraph is applicable to Indiana and to Vermillion and Parke counties. It is indeed astonishing to notice the poor grade of farming carried on in man}^ parts of this state. Fields are left absolutely bare for a whole summer and for many years. Such fields not only drain off most of the water which falls upon them, but the hard crust causes the evaporation of the underground water to be much greater. Upon such fields even a rank growth of weeds is a blessing, except for the seeds which they produce. One of the secrets of successful farming in this state is the power of the farmer to properly handle the ground water under his land. When every farmer understands the secret of conserving ground water and puts the knowledge to practical use, the dry well and intermittent spring problems will be greatly lessened and the facilities for water-power will be somewhat increased.

Then, from all that has been observed, it will pay to save the remaining forests and conserve the water, both upon and underneath the fertile soil of Indiana.

The entire coal measure of this and adjoining counties is underlaid with a very superior grade of clay, including that suitable for pottery and firebrick. White settlers first began to use this clay in this portion of the state, for making "stone-ware." By 1840 this had grown to be a large industry. It then went down largely and by 1853 but little was made use of. Efforts were made then to utilize the shales and clays again. At Hillsdale and at Montezuma, Parke county, several plants were erected for making fire-clay goods for refractory purposes, in the construction of furnaces, crucibles, flues and generally where heat resistance is sought. At Montezuma, too, a clay roofing tile factory was operated. In 1890 the clay industry again took on new life, and four large plants at and near Montzuma and one at Clinton were established. The business up and down the Wabash, in these two counties, is now larsjelv interested in tile.