Warren County IN Archives History - Books .....The Bowlders 1883
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/in/infiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com March 9, 2007, 3:57 pm

Book Title: Counties Of Warren, Benton, Jasper And Newton, Indiana

THE BOWLDERS.

   "The Bowlder drift next succeeds in age. This formation is well developed in
the west and northern parts of the county, and in fact underlies all the Grand
Prairie district. It contsists of tenacious gray and blue clays, obscurely
laminated, and holding a considerable proportion of worn and polished pebbles
and bowlders. Some of the latter are specimens of the Devonian and Silurian
rocks in Northern Indiana and Illinois, but a larger proportion are metamorphic
or transition rocks from the neighborhood of Lake Superior, or from still more
arctic regions. The bowlders and coarse gravel are scattered from near the top
down to within five to twenty feet of the bottom of the drift; for these clays
were in a soft and oozy condition, and the heavy granite would naturally sink
some distance. As a consequence, where bowlders are found on the surface, we may
safely conclude that erosive action had carried away the finer matrix, leaving
bare the heavy rocks. These in return, by their number, are a measure of the
amount of denudation. Partings of quicksands and thin layers of stony fragments
from neighboring strata are found located at large intervals through this
formation, showing that for short spaces during the drift period the great
ice-bearing stream from the North was obstructed or overpowered by currents from
the east or from the west, thus mingling with the northern drift fragmentary
materials from Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. Near the base of the drift, and
resting on a broken and irregular floor of coal measure rocks, is generally
found a bed of potter's clay, intermixed with quicksand and black muck. A marked
bed of the latter was found in sinking the West Lebanon shaft. From the soil
here discovered was taken a large number of roots of trees, shrubs and plants of
pre-glacial age.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

PART II.
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
Geology and Settlement

========================

COUNTIES OF 
Warren, Benton, Jasper and Newton,
INDIANA

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL
ILLUSTRATED.

CHICAGO: F. A. BATTEY & CO., PUBLISHERS.
1883.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/warren/history/1883/counties/bowlders489gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/

File size: 2.7 Kb