New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-08-11
Kansas Natural Lime.

Among the natural products, some Of
them possessing very peculiar chsrac-
teristics, which the young and growing
State of Kansas contains, is singular
substance, lying in very considerable
beds, and called =" Kansas native lime"
It is, says correspondent of the A.GleT.
ican Architect, of a beautiful white COL
or and of very fine grained texture.
It is soft, smooth, and readily made into
a plastic condition by the admixtuIe of
suitable quantity of sand and wnter.
The mortar thus made up has seeming
ly identical qualities to the best mortar
as made from superior lines selected
from kilns where the lime rock which
had been employed for burning had
been of the very purest nature.
The native lime is sort of whitish,
and pure white, clay, lying disposed
favorablyin beds more or less horizontal
in their position. These beds are seen
10 be outcropping along the borders Of
certain streams, and in the breaks of
hills, and in such places the beds can
be worked entirely above the water lev
Ell. Experiments which have been per-
formed by workmen and artisans in
Kansas have exhibited the fact that
Kansas lime mortar serves as good pur-
poses as any other usual styles or kinds
of mortar, ana even better. than tome
of tho artifs1d mortars, especially for
nice inside work. The tendency OF this
newly discovered deposit of pseudo
lime, when made into mortar for walls
and stonework, or plastering, is to soon
set and harden. Another remarkable
quality then noticed is its turning i'm
mediately to an intense whiteness. The
beds are very thick and easily dug; so
that large quantities of the substance
can be thrown up, and at once applied
to use. Beside its ready adaptabilify to
purposes of mortar, it has also
been applied to the purposes
of whitewashing, and in this re-
spect it has been applied a. an
admirable substitute for lime prepared
artificially. These immense beds of
| pseudo-lime occur in localities where
railways of Eastern Kansas can readily
be utilized for shipping the material to
all parts of the country. 1t is, perhaps,
| presumable that upon the spread of the
knowledge of this fact, the excellent
natural mortar lime and whitewash lime
from these native deposits may become
articles of export, especially as improved
styles of building and more permanent
structures everywhere in Kansas, Mis-
souri,, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois are
| growing to be more and more the re-
quisites Of the times. The great pseudo
lime beds or native beds of calcined
lime rock are a geological phenomenon.
They are difficult to account for in any
plain or obvious manner. They have a
close resemblance in their physical con-
dition and looks, and in their feel or
touch, and in their action when mixed
/ to form mortar, to the best m0rtars
made in the usual ways with the very
best of lines. Can it be possible that
some of the unknown laws of electro
magnetism and of terrestrial magnetism,
which cause certain metamorphisms to
occur in metalliferous beds, are likely to
be discovered as the laws also which set
the elements at work to alter the chem
ical conditions of this singular lime rock
qualification? Can the problem of their
origin and nature be clearly or satisfac-
torily accounted for in any other wayp
Does such strange product as this &C.
cur in any other section of our CONT
NOTWITHSTANDING american.