The best quarry yet worked is located on a farm belonging to Governor Butler, cropping out near the edge of the hill bordering a small stream, about eight miles west of Pawnee City. It is a soft, cream-colored limestone, full of small cavities caused by the decaying out of a small shell, "fusulina cylindrica." It is a true fusulina limestone, and is a great favorite with masons for building purposes. It is easily wrought into any desirable shape, is very tenacious in texture, and durable. It seems to hold a position about one hundred feet above the water level of Turkey creek, and belongs to the age of the "permo-carboniferous," or intermediate between the upper coal measures and the permian series-the general inclination of the beds being toward the west and northwest. New and more recent beds are continually making their appearance as we proceed towards the west, and this choice bed of limestone has made its appearance here for the first time. It will doubtless be found to extend over considerable area in a southeasterly direction. There is still another bed of bluish limestone cropping out of the hille, which, though useful, is not regarded with the favor bestowed on that just mentioned. It does not dress as nicely-is not as handsome for caps or sills. It is equally durable with the other. There are several beds in the county which are employed, to a greater or less extent, for various economical purposes.

Potters' clay, fire-clay, brick materials, &c., are abundant all over the county. Peat-beds are found to some extent, sufficient, I think, to attract attention in the future. Near Table Rock, about six miles northeast of Pawnee City, on Elder Giddings's farm, on the Nemaha bottom, there is a low, flat marsh, covering about one hundred acres or more, which will furnish peat of good quality, two feet in thickness or more, on an average, over the whole surface.

Near Pawnee City, there is a small peat-bog on which one can stand and jar the ground for a considerable distance. The surface of this bog is about six hundred feet in length and three-hundred in width, and the peat is ten to twelve feet in thickness.

The best peat-beds are those which are formed of the decayed roots and stems of the large rushes and the reed grasses of the country. These bogs are covered with water a large portion of the year, and are the favorite abode of muskrats, which pile up the reeds and rushes for their houses like hay-cocks. Very few people seem to know what a peat-bed is; but their attention once turned in that direction, they will find them quite abundant in this county.

No iron ore of any economical value has been discovered in Nebraska. Even if there were rich beds of ore, the absence of fuel would render them almost valueless.

There is a great amount of sulphuret of iron-"iron pyrites"-scattered through the county, sometimes presenting some beautiful crystalline forms, attracting the curiosity, as well as hopes, of many of the settlers, who have frequently mistaken it for gold.

Mill-sites are numerous along the Nemaha and its larger branches, and some mills are now in process of erection.

The crops are very promising; corn and potatoes are excellent, and the grasshoppers have left a full half crop of wheat.

The grass land is about the same as in Richardson county, yielding from two to three tons per acre. Tree planting has received but little attention as yet, but many of the settlers are fully alive to its importance. A few hedges have been planted, and fruit trees are attracting some attention. The best of success attends all efforts in that direction. Mr. Hollingshead, of Pawnee City, will have this year 150 bushels of peaches.

Water is abundant all over the county, so that there is scarcely a section of land without a running stream or a flowing spring.

Water is obtained by digging, at moderate depth. Near the streams, in almost all cases, water is reached near the water level in the alluvial formations, and

when the basis rocks are penetrated on the higher elevations, the clay beds act as reservoirs for holding water, and yield a most abundant supply when struck. I have not seen or heard of a well or spring of poor water in the county, and most wells have a continual supply of from six to ten feet.

For the raising of fine, healthy stock, horses, cattle, sheep, &c, it seems to me that this county is unsurpassed.

GAGE COUNTY.

Leaving Pawnee City we took a course nearly southwest across the open, high prairie, crossing the divide between the valley of the Nemaha and that of the Big Blue. Very few exposures were to be seen for ten miles or more.

The surface is rolling, covered with a heavy deposit of alluvium, so that the underlying basis rocks are concealed from view, even along the little streams.

The soil is very rich and deep, producing from one and a half to three tons of hay to the acre. All the crops look remarkably well. In passing over this divide I saw the first long interval of waterless and treeless prairie, and one that reminded me of the dry plains further west. There was no living water and no houses to be seen for seven miles. The timber is also very scarce, not enough even for the thin settlements.

About seven miles before reaching the Otoe agency a bed of limestone crops out of the hills, forming a sort of terrace about fifty feet above the beds of the streams. This hard bed of rock gives to the country a more abruptly rugged character; the little branches have steeper banks, and there is greater variety to the scenery. There is a belt of land, ten to twelve miles in width, between the Nemaha and Big Blue, that is doubtless underlaid by the more yielding clays and sands of the carboniferous period, and therefore the effect of erosion seems to have been to produce gentle slopes or lawns, as it were, beautiful but monotonous, effectually concealing, down to the water edge of the streams, all the basis rocks.

At the Otoe agency the bed of limestone before alluded to is exposed. It is a cherty limestone, breaking into small fragments. There are one or two layers, six to twelve inches in thickness, of good limestone for buildings. At various localities within two miles of this place I obtained a pretty fair section of the rocks:

7. Superficial deposits of soil and yellow marl.

6 Yellowish white limestone, rather soft, yielding readily to atmospheric influences, 2 feet.

5. Slope, same as No. 3, 6 feet.

4. Yellow fine-grained arenaceous limestone, 18 inches.

3. Slope, supposed to be laminated clay, but covered with grass, 20 feet. 2. Yellow and gray limestone, portions of it filled with seams and nodules of chert or flint.

1. Bluish gray; laminated, calcareous clay, with numerous fragments of fossils, as crinoids, corals, &c., 30 feet above water.

The outcroppings of the rocks form benches or terraces along the streams, the hard layers yielding less readily to erosion. There is an abundance of excellent limestone for all economical uses on the Otoe reserve.

The soil is very fertile all over the reserve, but there is the appearance of the far western prairies to some extent-few springs, and long intervals without wood or water.

The cherty limestone bed extends beyond Blue Spring, and forms the same bluff-like bench along all the streams; it then passes beneath the water level of the Blue. At this point it presents the appearance of mason work, the cherty material forming the cement between the blocks of limestone.

At the Blue Spring there is a fine mill-site, the banks and bottom of the stream

being formed of rock. A fine saw and grist mill is in process of erection at this place. There are building materials of all kinds in this region sufficient for the wants of the settlers.

A section of the rock as exposed at Blue Spring may be of some interest, as they soon pass beneath the water level of the Blue and are seen no more in our examinations westward:

4. Two feet worn pebbles and sand, and the remainder yellow marl, with about ten inches soil. The roots of trees pass all through this bed, fastening into the bed below.

3. Layers of cherty nodule of variable thickness, with intercalations of fine gray sand, Productus, Orthis, and other fossils, 2 to 24 feet.

2. Bluish ash-colored argillaceous limestone, easily decomposing on exposure to the atmosphere; will not answer for building purposes; containing great numbers of shells, especially a species of Productus of large size, 6 to 8 feet.

1. Greenish, ash-colored clay, breaking into small, angular fragments, and containing an irregular seam of argillaceous limestone, only about twelve inches above water.

Along the Blue the second terrace is sometimes cut by the river, revealing thirty to fifty feet of alluvium. There is about two to two and a half feet of vegetable soil or humus; and the remainder is yellow silicious marl. If any portion of this bed, throughout its entire thickness, is brought to the surface, it produces vegetation, showing that it contains more or less nutriment for plants. The bottom land of all these streams may be said, therefore, to have a soil from five to fifty feet in depth, possessing the highest fertility.

On our road to Beatrice were a number of exposures of limestone. On Bear creek, about four miles east of Beatrice, there is a ledge of limestone fifteen to twenty feet thick, yellow magnesian, full of cavities or geodes. This same bed is seen along the Blue to Beatrice; is cut through by the little branches, so that it forms some of the most important quarries in this portion of Nebraska.

Fine large columnar masses are worked for buildings, a foot or more in thickness, and ten to twelve feet long, a beautiful cream color, soft but tenacious in structure, and easily cut with a knife; can be made very smooth for caps and sills with a jack-plane.

This rock is abundant here, and is in very high favor with masons and builders, and would be superior to the Pawnee City limestone were it not for some small geode cavities which mar its beauty.

The following is a general section of the rocks around Beatrice :

6. Dark-brown ferruginous sandstones, of variable color and texture, used for buildings; contains many leaves of plants-50 to 60 feet.

5. Yellowish-gray sandstone, soft, easily crumbling and wearing away, exposed on Blakely's run, two miles west of Beatrice-30 to 50 feet.

4. Slope in most places, but composed of variegated clays of doubtful agepotters' clay-40 to 50 feet.

3. Loose layers of yellow limestone, full of geode cavities, porous, spongy. 2. Yellow, rather compact limestone, good for building purposes-2 to 24 feet. 1. Dark gray argillaceous limestone, becoming light gray on exposure, filled with geodes, with cavities full of crystals of carbonate of lime. This bed is at times massive, heavy-bedded limestone, of a beautiful cream color-10 feet.

Beds 1, 2, and 3 of the above section are undoubtedly of permian or permocarboniferous age, though they contain fossils common to both permian and carboniferous rocks.

Bed 4 is of doubtful age. Beds 5 and 6 are exceedingly interesting in a geological point of view, from the fact that they represent a new geological formation not before seen east of this point.

Bed 4 seems to form a sort of transition bed between the permian and cretaceous formations. The permian rocks pass beneath the water level at Beatrice

westward, and over a belt ten to fifteen miles wide, in a northeast and southwest direction; the brown sandstones prevail to the exclusion of all other rocks.

The village of Beatrice is pleasantly located on a second terrace in a bend of the Big Blue, and is a prosperous place, surrounded with a thickly-settled farming region, and bids fair to become an important inland town. It contains thirty or forty houses, several stores, a saw and grist mill, &c.

The soil of Gage county does not equal that of Pawnee county, or the counties along the Missouri, as a whole. The bottom lands are excellent, but the upland soil is thin. The grass is less luxuriant and the timber along the streams less abundant. For wheat, however, this soil, composed as it is largely of the eroded materials of the cretaceous sandstones, contains a large amount of silica and seems to be most favorable. A bushel weighs more than that of the river counties, but the corn and other kinds of grain are not quite as good. Yet too much cannot be said in favor of Gage county as an agricultural and grazing region. No coal will ever be found there, and the sooner the farmers commence planting trees the more prosperous and happy they will be.

Comparatively little peat will be found in the county, so that the question of fuel must be determined by the intelligence and industry of the people. If they plant trees now they cannot suffer for fuel, for before that which they now have is gone the planted forests will be ready for use.

In regard to fruits, garden vegetables, &c., the same may be said of Gage county as of the other counties before described. Success will attend all welldirected efforts that way.

There are several fine springs of water in this county, but they are not numerous. Good water is always obtained by digging wells, and the depth beneath the surface generally depends on the elevation above the principal water-courses. Wells vary from twenty to sixty feet in depth. Near Blue Spring Mr. Tylor dug a well twenty five feet deep through the yellow marl to a point on a level with the bed of the Big Blue river, or perhaps a little below it, and obtained a copious supply of water which never fails. At the village of Blue Spring a well was dug on an elevated terrace fifty-five feet through clays and quicksands without passing through a particle of rock-all alluvium or superficial deposits. At the depth of fifty-four feet the bones of a mastodon were found. another locality a well was dug forty-four and a half feet through alluvial marl and gravel to a bed of clay on a level with the bed of the Big Blue, and the water flowed in and now continues permanently eight feet in depth.

At

The excellence of the water in springs and wells in this county is a most important feature in a sanitary point of view.

There are no minerals that can be worked to advantage in this portion of the State. In the cretaceous sandstones there are large masses of limonite, (hydrated sesqui-oxide of iron,) but they are so full of silicious matter that they can never be of much value. Even if there was an abundance of iron in this county, there is no fuel to prepare it for use. Every county bears testimony to the statement that Nebraska is wholly an agricultural and grazing State. For building stone, gravel, lime, different kinds of clay, materials for making brick, &c., this county compares favorably with any others in the State.

Most of the settlers came into the county poor and have not yet commenced planting fruit and forest trees to any extent.

Very little attention has been paid to hedges, but all the cereals are most excellent, and the grasshoppers passed by without doing much damage, and the harvests of this autumn will be the best known since the State was settled.

There are many fine horses and cattle in the county; very few sheep as yet.

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

The Nebraska legislature of 1866-'67 united the two counties of Jones and Nuckols under the name of Jefferson. Leaving Beatrice we took a southwest

course across the divide between the waters of the Big Blue and those of the Little Blue. The first branch we came to and the first living water that we saw was at Rock creek, a branch of the Little Blue, twenty miles distant. We travelled at least eighteen miles over the almost waterless and treeless prairie; about fifteen miles of our journey without any water at all.

There were no exposures of rock, but a broad level prairie much of the way, too flat to possess a suitable drainage. I knew, however, that the underlying basis rocks were cretaceous, probably the loosely aggregated sandstone seen on Blakely's run, near Beatrice. The configuration of the surface everywhere would indicate that the rocks beneath were of a texture to yield readily to atmospheric influences and the little ravines and valleys were grassed down to the edge of the water.

All the land that we passed over was clothed with a thick covering of grass, the soil appeared to be fertile, and the great proportion of silica in the soil, derived from the erosion of the cretaceous sandstones, would render these broad, level prairies admirable for wheat. Although the grass is so abundant and nutritious, I fear the lack of living water will prevent certain portions of this region from being useful for stock-raising. It seems to me too flat and wet at certain seasons for sheep to prosper well. There is an interval of about eighteen miles between Big and Little Blue rivers along this road without a dwelling. On Rock creek the settlements begin to grow numerous again, and nearly all the bottom land of the Little Blue is taken up by the actual settlers. There are some excellent farms here, and the crops the present season are very bountiful.

On Rock creek, a little branch six or seven miles long, we saw the first exposure of rock-the red sandstones of the Dakota group. Along the Blue for eight or ten miles quite precipitous ravines are formed by this rock, as shown by the illustration.

Fig. 1 shows a bluff or projecting ledge of sandstones along the Little Blue, and Fig. 2 represents one of the many rugged ravines near the mouth of Rock and Rose creeks. The clays, sand, and sandstones of the Dakota group extend down the Little Blue to a point about two iniles below the south line of Nebraska, and of course influence the agricultural character of the entire region.

The soils of a district are generally composed, to a greater or less extent, of the eroded materials of the underlying basis rocks. The sandstones of this formation being largely composed of silica, the soils and sub-soils are largely formed of silica also; and the consequence is that wheat and oats grow remarkably well, but corn crops are not as good.

The wheat raised in the district underlaid by the sandstones of the Dakota group is said to weigh more per measured bushel than that from any other portion of the State.

These districts also produce most excellent nutritious grass, and the hills, though covered with a thin soil, would be superior for sheep grazing. Indeed, as we go west of this latitude, the uplands are more suitable for stock-raising. The water, though somewhat scarce, is most excellent, and the climate healthy. A section of the rocks along the Little Blue, below the Big Sandy, would be as follows, descending :

5. Yellow and dark brown rust-colored sandstones of the cretaceous or Dakota group, so well known in many other portions of the west. A few dicotyledonous leaves were found. This bed is of irregular thickness—from 50 to 100 feet.

4. Moderately coarse, yellowish-white sand, with irregular laminæ of deposition-50 feet.

3. Dark-colored, arenaceous, laminated clays, with particles and seams of carbonaceous matter. All through are beds of carbonaceous clay, 18 inches to 3 feet thick-much sulphuret of iron and silicified wood-30 to 50 feet.

2. Variegated arenaceous clays; the slopes exposed are so great that I can