Cass County, Missouri - Chapter 4: Geology, 1917

READING THE ROCKS AND HILLS - CHANGES OF STREAMS - SHALE FORMATIONS AND GLACIAL DEPOSITS - NATURE'S PROCESS - CONSTANT CHANGES - LOCAL MOUNDS - CASS COUNTY RICH IN MINERALS - COAL DEPOSITS - LEAD - POT¬ TER'S CLAY - SULPHUR SPRINGS - OIL.

In its final analysis geology includes all soil developments and topo¬ graphy. These matters are dealt with elsewhere in this volume. Here let us read the rocks and hills - we gather from reports to the general government our county is of carboniferous formation, subdivision Pleas¬ anton shale. It is within these formations generally is found the coal measures. There are some rocky formations along the northern part of the county, largely limestone.

The head or source of a small stream in the extreme northwest of the county flow's north to the Missouri River. All other streams of the county flow south, finally emptying into the Osage River. In early days our streams wrere of clear water and many of the small tributaries used to be habited with fine fellows of the finny tribe. Many of these have ceased to be of sufficient importance to retain a name, or be called a stream. On the plowing of our prairies and fields, soil and mud have washed into the rivers and streams, so they have become murky and muddy, and are no longer the home of the fine fish of other days.

We read that after the sea subsided from over the Mississippi Valley and dry land came to the surface, our first formations were sand and clay beds, a species of shales. The coal producing counties all are of this formation. We have evidences of glacial deposits. The scientific names given these, reduced to common parlance, probably mean a de¬ posit of a porous, brownish, coarse clay loam. This is practically what we term the dark loam of our county. It is the same which forms our rocks, bluffs, large or small, and at the same time forms the basis of our most fertile soils. Beds of rock thus formed long ago have been worn away by the forces of nature - rain and sunshine - which attack all land surfaces and cause change of soil.

During the long geological periods, our lands probably were sub¬ merged below the sea several times and the chemical changes incident to these matters have had an effect on the formation of our present soil. At some far distant future time this land may again go beneath the sea, to receive a new coat of material to replenish and reinvigorate our soil from the hands of the God of all nature. The world today is not fin¬ ished. The world-making forces are as surely at work in our day as they ever were in the past. The very rocks, hills, plains, and valleys, bear evidence of this continual changing. While we live in the midst of such changes on account of the extreme shortness of our time measuring units, compared with the long periods of geological time, the changes going on around us marking this progress are unnoticed. These changes account to some extent for some of our hills. Not, however, for all, some are the handwork of an ancient peoples. Some also reach back to the constructions of a prehistoric race. The Brookhart hill, just south of Harrisonville, and the Ament mound, beside it, are accounted for by these upheavals and formations. The round mound northwest of Austin, in this county, is accounted for as the work of some former occupants of this region.

Dr. G. C. Swallow, a well-known geologist of the State, speaking of these same formations, says of western and southwest Missouri, "It is rich in minerals. No State in the Union surpasses her in this respect. In some unknown age of the past - long before the existence of man, Nature, by a wise process, made a bountiful provision for the time, when in the order of things it should be necessary for civilized man to take possession of these broad, rich prairies. As an equivalent for lack of forests she quietly stored away beneath the soil those wonderful carbon¬ iferous treasures for the use of man. Geological surveys have developed that these coal deposits embrace all varieties of the best bituminous coal.

The area of these coal beds in southwestern and western Missouri hold hundreds of billions of tons of coal. The economical value of this coal to the State, its influence in domestic life, in navigation, commerce and manufactures, is beyond the imagination of man to conceive."

Lead is found in places in the county, with a possibility of develop¬ ment. It was in search for lead that brought the first white settlers to Missouri. Lead mines near the Osage River brought the white man there.

Potters' clay and fire clay, as referred to under another heading, bids fair to produce quite an enterprise in the county. There are beds of purple shale in coal measures which possess the properties requisite for paints, yellow and red ochres are found. These paints have been tested and found durable.

We have petroleum wells and a variety of lubricating oil is found. Prospecting is now' going on with hopes of developing these gases and oils, wfith very flattering prospects of great success.