extent and the coal used in a blacksmith's shop. Still higher up in the bank is another thin bed of black carboniferous shale, which has been worked to some extent.

At Peru, about six or eight miles further south, there is another complete lithological change in the beds exposed. The bluffs along the Missouri seemed to be formed of irregular beds of soft sandstone and laminated arenaceous clays. High up in the hills at some distance from the river there is a bed of limestone twelve to eighteen inches in thickness, which is quarried extensively and profitably. On the Missouri bottom, about on a level with high-water mark, a well was dug sixteen feet in depth; a seam of coal was penetrated, which is represented as four inches thick on one side of the well, and about ten on the other. These beds in the vicinity change rapidly, both in thickness and texture, within very short distances. Again, at Brownsville there is a seam of coal accompanied by many of the plants which are peculiar to the carboniferous rocks in other States. There is from four to six inches of good coal-the whole bed of black shale and coal is about twelve inches in thickness. There is a fine quarry of limestone at this point, which is of very superior quality for building purposes, but there is too much sand and clay in it to be converted into a good quality of lime. The bed is about three feet in thickness near the water's edge, concealed by high water at this time. There is a bed of micaceous, finegrained sandstone which cleaves naturally into most excellent flagstones, which are much used here. These rock quarries are of great value to the people of Nemaha county. The materials for making brick abound everywhere in this region-clays, marl, and sands are abundant and of excellent quality.

Should the future prosperity of the country demand it, there are abundant materials for the manufacture of what is called in England, and recently brought into use in this country, "patent concrete stone." It is composed of small fragments of stone or sand reduced to a paste by a fluid silicate, then moulding the material into any required form and dipping into the chloride of calcium. The little particles of sand are thus cemented together, and it is wonderful how rapidly this rock can be formed and how durable it becomes. This is a matter which seems to me worthy of notice in the final report.

Several kinds of peat occur in small quantities in Otoe and Nemaha counties, which as fuel will rank next to coal. There are several marshes or boggy places about six miles west of Nebraska City, from which I have obtained some excellent specimens. On Long Branch, Franklin, in Nemaha county, twentyfour miles southwest of Brownsville, there are spring places where a pole may be thrust through the peat to the depth of ten or fifteen feet. About ten miles west are several other peat bogs, which have attracted more or less attention. At Aspinwall, in Nemaha county, we discovered the most favorable exhibition of coal yet observed in the State. The general dip of the beds seems to be up the Missouri, or nearly north or northwest. It is difficult to determine this point with precision. The rocks at Aspinwall are all geologically at a lower horizon than the Nebraska City beds, and mostly beneath the Brownsville beds, so that the inclination must be considerable-eight or ten feet per mile. Two seams of coal are met with at Aspinwall; one crops out near the river, about fifteen feet above the water, twenty-four inches in thickness-very good quality. A few feet above this seam is a second seam-six inches of good coal. Some English miners are sinking a shaft here, with full confidence that the thickest bed can be made profitable, and I am inclined to think that, with the present scarcity of fuel, they will succeed well. Coal commands a ready sale at from forty cents to eighty cents per bushel; and even at eighty cents a bushel coal is cheaper than wood. The miners have already sunk the shaft about forty feet; have passed through the 6-inch seam, and are confident of soon reaching the 24-inch bed, when the work of drifting in various directions will commence and the coal be taken out for market. The beds hold such a position

here that, if these miners are successful, this effort determines the existence of a workable bed of coal for Nemaha, Richardson, Pawnee, and Johnson counties, which will be a most important matter for the whole State. We have very abundant notes in detail, and many specimens to illustrate the geology of the river counties.

Mr. Meek leaves me at Rulo and returns to Washington. The remainder of the year I must perform the field-work alone. My next examinations will be in Richardson and Pawnee counties.

I am informed that excellent hydraulic lime for cement exists in Nemaha county, section 9, township 6, range 14; but I have not been able yet to make a personal examination of the locality.

FOREST AND FRUIT TREES.

I would again speak of the great importance of planting trees in this country, and the great ease with which these cultivated forests may be produced. I do not believe that the prairies proper will ever become covered with timber except by artificial means. Since the surface of the country received its present geological configuration no trees have grown there, but, during the tertiary period, when the lignite or "brown coal" beds were deposited, all these treeless plains were covered with a luxuriant growth of forest trees like those of the Gulf States or South America. Here were palm trees, with leaves having a spread of twelve feet; gigantic sycamores-several species; maples, poplars, cedars, hickories, cinnamon, fig, and many varieties now found only in tropical or sub-tropical climates.

Large portions of the Upper Missouri country, especially along the Yellowstone river, are now covered with the silicified trunks of trees, sixty to seventy feet in length and two to four feet in diameter, exhibiting the annual rings of growth as perfectly as in our recent elms or maples. We are daily obtaining more and more evidence that these forests may be restored again to a certain extent, at least, and thus a belt or zone of country about five hundred miles in width east of the base of the mountains be redeemed. It is believed, also, that the planting of ten or fifteen acres of forest trees on each quarter section will have a most important effect on the climate, equalizing and increasing the moisture and adding greatly to the fertility of the soil. The settlement of the country and the increase of the timber has already changed for the better the climate of that portion of Nebraska lying along the Missouri, so that within the last twelve or fourteen years the rain has gradually increased in quantity and is more equally distributed through the year. I am confident this change will continue to extend across the dry belt to the foot of the Rocky mountains as the settlements extend and the forest trees are planted in proper quantities. In the final report I propose to show that these ideas are not purely theoretical, and that the influence of trees on climate and humidity has been investigated by some of the ablest scientific men in this country and in Europe. A French savant, M. Boussingault, states that in the region comprised between the bay of Cupica and the gulf of Guayaquil, which is covered with immense forests, the rains are almost continual, and that the mean temperature of the humid country rises hardly to 80° Fahrenheit. The author of "Travels in Bulgaria" says that in Malta rain has become rare since the forests have been cleared away to make room for the growth of cotton, and that, at the time of his visit, in October, 1841, not a drop of rain had fallen for three years. The terrible droughts in Cape Verde island are attributed to the destruction of the forests. The wooded surface of the island of St. Helena has extended considerably within a few years, and it is said that the rain is now double in quantity what it was during the residence of Napoleon. A German author remarks, "In wooded countries the atmosphere is generally humid, and rain and dew fertilize the soil. As

the lightning rod abstracts the electric fluid from the stormy sky, so the forest abstracts to itself the rain from the clouds, which in falling refreshes not it alone, but extends its benefits to the neighboring fields."

The forest presenting a considerable surface for evaporation gives to its own soil and the adjacent ground an abundant and enlivening dew. Forests, in a word, exert in the interior of continents an influence like that of the sea on the climates of islands and of coasts; both water the soil and thereby insure its fertility. Sir John F. W Herschel says that the influences unfavorable to rain are absence of vegetation, in warm climates, and especially of trees. He considers this one of the reasons of the extreme aridity of Spain. Babinet, in his lectures, says: "A few years ago it never rained in lower Egypt. The constant north winds, which almost exclusively prevail there, passed without obstruction over a surface bare of vegetation; but since the making of plantations an obstacle has been created which retards the current of air from the north. The air thus checked accumulates, dilutes, cools, and yields rain."

I might cite many examples from the African deserts how the planting of palm trees is redeeming those barren sands.

Much might also be said in regard to the influence of woods in protecting the soil and promoting the increase in number and the flow of springs, but all I wish is to show the possibility of the power of man to restore to these now treeless and almost rainless prairies the primitive forests and the humidity which accompanies them.

The counties of Otoe, Nemaha, and Richardson contain more timber land than any other portion of the State, and the aggressive character of the patches of woodland can be seen everywhere. Hundreds of acres have been covered over with a fine healthy growth of hickory, walnut, oak, soft maple, coffee, bean, basswood, &c., within the past ten or twelve years, since the fires have been kept away, and protection afforded the young trees by the settlements.

In the more southern counties the success in planting trees and in raising fruits, especially the smaller kinds, is even more marked than north of the Platte. All kinds of garden vegetables grow better in Nebraska than in any region with which I am acquainted. The crops, when not injured by the grasshopper, are looking very fine at this time. The corn has escaped so far, and is pressing forward with great rapidity. Up to the 1st of July I did not see any grasshoppers, except within a radius of four or five miles around Nebraska City. There they were most abundant and destructive. July 2d and 3d they commenced their flight northward, filling the air as high as the eye could reach, looking much like flakes of snow. They have committed some depredation in South Nebraska, but more especially in Kansas. Whenever counties become more thickly settled and more densely wooded, so that the annual amount of moisture is more equally distributed over the year, this pest I believe will entirely disappear.

I am informed that notwithstanding the grasshopper there will be at least half of a crop of wheat. In Richardson county the harvesting of winter wheat has commenced, (July 8.) Last year it commenced June 22. The corn looks finely everywhere. All the crops are late this season on account of the wet weather.

RICHARDSON COUNTY.

Richardson county is in some respects the finest county in the State. It lies in the southeastern corner of the State and borders on the Missouri river, and forms the type of fertility of soil and climate. Being located near the 40th parallel, the climate seems to favor the cultivation of all the hardy fruits and cereals.

The surface is more rugged than many of the interior counties, partly on account of the extreme thickness of the superficial deposit of soft yellow marl and the numerous layers of limestone which crop out along the river banks. The

county is fully watered with ever-flowing streams and innumerable springs of the purest water.

There is more woodland in this county than in any other I have examined, and on this account the farmers have neglected the planting of trees too much. I did not find the farms quite as well improved as in Nemaha county, but the county is now becoming thickly settled by actual settlers, who are devoting themselves to the improvement of their farms and the raising of large crops.

It is not an uncommon thing for a farmer to have growing 40 or 50 acres of corn and about the same number of acres of wheat and oats, and not unfrequently as high as 100 or 200 of each.

There is a ready market for all kinds of produce at the highest price. Although nearly all the settlers came into the county poor-many without any money at all-nearly all are becoming moderately rich, and every man with industry and prudence may become independent in a few years. This country may certainly be called the poor man's paradise. There is scarcely a foot of land in the whole county that is not susceptible of cultivation. I have never known a region where there is so little waste land. The underlying rocks of the whole county belong to the age of the upper coal measures, and are composed of alternate beds of limestones, sandstones and clays of almost all colors, textures and compositions. There are several localities along the Missouri river and the larger streams, where there are good natural exposures of the rocks, but as a rule the beds are concealed by the superficial covering of yellow marl or loess, which gives the beautiful undulating outline to the surface, gentle slopes, with only now and then an exposure of the basis rocks. This aids in rendering the investigation of the geological structure of the county more complicated and difficult

The river counties present better exposures of the rocks than any other counties in the State, and it is partly on this account that I have given them my first attention. Even these exposures are by no means good.

The

In my last communication I spoke of the coal seam at Aspinwall, Nemaha county; that about 16 feet above the water level of the Missouri a bed of coal 22 to 24 inches in thickness was observed cropping out from the bluff, and a few feet above this in the same range of hills was a second seam six inches in thickness. These beds do not appear again for considerable distance down the river, until we come to Rulo, except at one or two localities near St. Stephen's. At Arago I saw no out-croppings of coal at all and could not hear that any had been observed, but there are some good quarries of limestone, beds of clay, sands, &c. The next marked exhibition of coal is at Rulo and its neighborhood, about two miles above Rulo, on land belonging to Mr. S. F. Nuckolls, of Nebraska City. At this locality Mr. N. has drifted into the bank 100 feet or more, and taken thence over 200 bushels of coal, which has been used by blacksmiths with success. outcrop was about five inches in thickness, but increased as the drift was extended in the bank to 11 inches, and again suddenly diminished to one inch of good coal, the remainder being composed of impurities or "muddy coal," as the miner called it. The coal which has been thus far taken from this mine sells readily for 35 to 40 cents per bushel. The abrupt termination of the coal seam, or "fault," is undoubtedly due to the sliding down toward the river of the superincumbent beds, a phenomenon which is very common everywhere along the Missouri. Still the irregularity in the thickness of this coal seam is every where apparent, vibrating between 4 and 20 inches, thus alternating, exalting and de-pressing the hopes and prospects of the miner. On the farm belonging to Mr.. St. Louis, about 1 mile below Rulo, the same bed of coal has been worked with some success by drifting and a considerable quantity of coal taken out. Mr. St. Louis unwisely sunk a shaft at a higher point on the hill, thinking to cut the coal seam at a more favorable point, the expense attending it ex

hausting his means at 45 feet. He sunk a drill, however, into the bed of coal and found it 12 feet below the position at the outcrop, showing an extensive inclination of the beds from the river, or toward the west.

This dip may be readily accounted for by the extensive erosion of the rock prior to the deposition of the yellow marl and drift deposits, which erosion has given rise to many perplexing local inclinations of strata. These local dips will not interfere with the miner so much further in the interior of the county. The thickness of the coal bed at this locality is 10 to 12 inches, increasing in one instance to 17 inches. On the Iowa reserve, along the Great Nemaha river, the same bed again crops out in the ravines or banks of little streams, and has been wrought with some success, several hundred bushels of the coal having been taken out from time to time for several years past. The country along the Nemaha is quite rugged, or "rough," as it is termed by the settlers, owing to the several beds of sandstone, and the overlying or cap rock of the coal bed, which prevents the water from forming gentle slopes, as in the case of the more yielding clays or marl beds. This bed of coal is probably the equivalent of the two-foot bed seen at Aspinwall, while the upper six-inch bed is not exposed at all. The rocks in contact with the coal are as follows:

1st. Underlying the coal a bed of light gray fire-clay, full of fragments of plants, as fern leaves, stems of rushes, calamites, &c., the same as occur in the underlying clays in Ohio and Illinois coal-fields. Above the coal there is about four feet of very hard laminated or shaly clay, varying from black to dark ash color, all of which must be removed with great labor before the bed of limestone, or cap rock, as it is called, can afford suitable protection to the miner as he drifts into the bank. Thus the small amount of coal is obtained with great labor, and it is only the great scarcity of fuel that will warrant any labor being expended upon it at all.

We passed over the almost treeless prairie, from Rulo to Falls City, the county seat, about nine miles distant. Some beds of limestone crop out from the hills occasionally, but usually all the basis rocks are concealed from view, and the surface is gently and beautifully undulating. The fertility of the soil is everywhere shown by the luxuriance of the crops. Falls City is located upon high ground overlooking the valley of the Nemaha. There is not a native shrub or tree of any size growing within a mile of the town. Although the same coal-bearing beds formed the underlying basis rocks about Falls City, yet not an outcropping of coal could be found in the vicinity. Some good quarries, however, were examined. Having heard that a boring had been made at Hiawatha, the county seat of Brown county, Kansas, ten miles south of Falls City, I visited that place to ascertain the result. I was informed that a company had bored near that place two hundred and forty feet without success, and that the project had been abandoned; and as the strata in all this region are very nearly horizontal, the same result would follow any attempt at boring at Falls City, to that depth at least. About nine miles southeast of Hiawatha, a bed of coal is worked with considerable success, and many hundred bushels of coal are taken out of the mines and sold annually. Mr. Laycock, a lawyer at Hiawatha, informed me that during the past winter he used about one hundred and thirty bushels of coal, for which he paid fifty cents per bushel; and he found it cheaper than wood, even at that price. He spoke highly of its qualities as fuel. I am disposed to believe that it is the same bed seen along the Missouri, in Nemaha and Richardson counties, although I did not examine it in person. Continuing our course westward to Salem, we observed no marked change in the country; indeed, there is a remarkable uniformity in the character of the country over a large area. The changes that take place are usually the result of some change in the underlying geological formations, and are, therefore, quite gradual. No out croppings of coal could be found at Salem or vicinity, and it is quite possible that none will be found exposed to the surface in that portion of the county,