Scenes and Adventures in the Semi-Alpine Region of the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

33. Greenstone Porphyry. With the preceding.

34. Puddingstone. In the tongue of land formed by the junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi, directly beneath the alluvial lands at the old site of fort Massac, and at the village called "America." Also, in large, broken blocks, along the west shores of the Mississippi, near the "chalk banks," so called, in Cape Girardeau county, and at Cape Garlic, on the west banks of the Mississippi.

33. Native Alumine—White, friable, pure Clay. At the head of Tiawapeta bottom, Little Chain of Rocks, west banks of the Mississippi, Cape Girardeau county, Missouri. This remarkable body of white earth is locally denominated chalk, and was thus called in the first edition of this catalogue. It is employed as a substitute for chalk, but is found to contain no carbonic acid, and is destitute of a particle of calcia. It appears, from Mr. Jessup,[18] to be nearly pure alumine. The traveller, on ascending the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio, passes through a country of alluvial formation, a distance of thirty-five miles. Here the first high land presents itself on the west bank of the river, in a moderately elevated ridge, running from south-east to north-west, and terminating abruptly in the bank of the river, which here runs nearly at right angles with the ridge, and has been worn away by the action of the water. This ridge consists of secondary limestone, overlying a coarse reddish sandstone, which, at the lowest stage of the water in summer, is seen in huge misshapen fragments, at the immediate edge of the water, and at intervals nearly half way across the river, as well as on the Illinois shore. The mineral occurs in mass, abundantly. It is nearly dry, of a perfectly white color, and chalky friability. It embraces masses of hornstone, resembling flint. It also occurs at a higher point on the same shore, two miles below the Grand Tower.

34. Plastic White Clay. Gray's mine, Jefferson county, Mo.

35. Opwagunite[19]—Geognostic Red Clay. Prairie des Couteau, between the sources of the St. Peter's river and the Missouri. It exists in lamellar masses, beneath secondary masses. It is of a dull red color, is soft, compact, easily cut, and is a material much employed and valued by the Indians for carving pipes, and sometimes neck ornaments. Occasionally it has brighter spots of pale red. It is also found on the Red Cedar, or Folle Avoine branch of Chippewa river, Wisconsin, of a darker color, approaching to that of chocolate. It is polished by the Indians with rushes.

III. Combustibles.

36. Sulphur. In flocculent white deposits, in a spring, Jefferson county, Missouri.

37. Mineral Coal. Bituminous, slaty coal, constitutes a very large geological basin in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, where it appears to have resulted from the burial of ancient forests. At Pittsburgh, I found it composing thick strata in elevated grounds, on the south banks of the Monongahela river. In an excursion up that stream, it characterizes its banks at intervals for forty miles. It inflames easily, burns with a pitchy smoke and bituminous smell, and throws out a great heat. It occurs in veins in limestone, along with argillaceous slate, indurated clay, red sandstone, and bituminous shale, which are arranged in alternate strata, one above the other, preserving an exact parallelism with the waters of the Alleghany, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers. The coal always constitutes a vein between the shale and clay which are found immediately above and below it. The clay appears to have originated from the decomposition of shale; for it may be observed in all stages of the decomposition, from a well-characterized argillaceous slate, to plastic clay.

The veins of coal are from a foot to nine feet in thickness, and the strata of coal, shale, limestone, &c., are repeated; so that the sides of the hills which afford coal, exhibit several strata, with the rock intervening, one above another. The greatest distance, in a perpendicular direction, from one stratum to another, is perhaps one hundred feet; and such is the regularity of the coal formation in this region, that the description of one pit, or bed, will apply almost equally to any other within a circuit of two hundred miles, every section of which is characterized by coal. Sometimes pyrites of a tin-white color are found mixed among the coal. In Missouri, it occurs at Florrisant.

38. Graphite—Plumbago. Twelve miles south of Potosi, Washington county, Mo., in a large body.