The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-04-07
STONE AND L A BEDS
vALuABLE INDIANA RESOURCES
THAT NEED DEVELOPING.
tended ExpIoratfon-The Gold I'm
Brown County.

For four years under Democratic regime
tho material resources of the State were
ignored by the State GeoIogist who did not
publish a report in 1929, as he should have
done. He did so little work for the develops
ment of the natural wealth of the State
that or the 5000 appropriated for his use
for. this purpose by the Legislature there
lis still unexpended of this sum s., 200. No
body knows what the other $500 was spent
for, but that is another story, which may
make the subject of another article when
State GeoIogist Blatchley ~accumulates GER
tain evidence. With this s., 290 Mr.. Blatch~
ley has retained Thomas e. Hopkins, a
noted stone specialist, TO assist him in 10.
eating the strata of red building stone
which crops to the surface along the bor-
ders of the coal deposits in the western part
of the State. Professor Blatchley is an en-
thusiast on the subject of the States re-
sources. This same department liz Ohio,
Mr.. Blatchley says, has been of the highest
good to the State. and through it's investi-
cations and reports has been the cause or
the evolution of a clay working business of
the greatest Importance.
Ohio" said Professor BIatchley, is fur
nishing Indiana with hundreds of thou
sands of dollars worth of sewer pipe, and
Anh ONiicN LldL there 10 nc clay III III
diana that will permit the industry to -four
Ash in this State. Nothing could be further
from the truth. for there is every year
thrown away in the working of the coal
mines enough shale clay, taken from be-
tween the strata of coal, to make all the
sewer pipe that the State uses. 1t is here
in unlimited quantities., and Indiana capital
should no longer hesitate to use it. It
WOULD prove a source of wealth larger than
that in the coal fields, and would open a
demand Tor IL MIR fho ChnrrtI NOT - t.
nored. Speaking of clays in Indiana, / ex-
pect to make them the next subject Of in
stone interest is completed. There are
large fields. of lxaolin In the State, which
IS ioa.a fiinty yVe Clay y hat hat f has BEEN Ss alT regaraed 1t It
worthless. There are plenty of clays in In
diane suitable for bricks, thing and pot
VIVA of Indiana building stone?"
We have it in unlimited quantities, and of
the very best quality. There were q, 900, 900
cubic feet of oolitic stone quarried in Indi-
ana last year. It has acquired a fame that
reaches enc f from Boston % to California, Some
their palaces of 1t. The government is using
1t in Washington. It sells in competition
in popularity. The statehouse and the monu.
ment are built of this stone. 1t is found
Owen counties in illimitable quantity. 1t is
easily worked with a saw, and for that rea-
son will always be cheaper than the chloe
and I will spend the summer in investigat-
tng. This stone must be quarried by chisels.
Ut has a number of shades of red. 1t has a
salt of iron in it that Clues the particles
of sand together and gives the stone it's
T sino color; II is y. foqn az .wn mere d fae snecarbon-
mains to be seen where the deep red mar
ketable deposits of it are and this will be
across country, take the map of each town
ship visited and trace the points where we
quality to make it marketable. We will as
certain its specinc gravity, It's crushing
POWER s;,if,e and d all 4 it d;a properties no} fsss as ianf far sff as our as
Stunning this Office To find out that there was
not a tool, not even a stone hammer, with
have written to Nj. Hopkins to make in
CURRY In Chicago for such Instruments as
"What about gas and oil?'
Indiana has a larger gas territory than
Ohio and Pennsylvania combined, but there
use of it SO as to make it last as long as
possible. The waste, however, still con-
tinues in the use OF gas to blow water out
once. I do not think that the full extent
of the oil field in Indiana has been dis
most every day and there seems to be
no limit to the supply: Oil territory is a
s Es z s, p Reas,s nhie sof b naeur nrod nne5e o aee
200, 900 barrels a day. The reports tell a
story of such a well, WHICH, instead of MAX
ing the owners rich, bankrupted them. The
oil gushed forth IN such quantities that it
overran the country and found it's way
Secured Sc ared s ali they needed needed and gathered and
sold vast quantities of 1t. Those whose
farms were inundated claimed damages and
the supply became, so large hat the price
fell to almost nothing. We have no such
wells in Indiana, and it is just as well
that we do not"
rs there any gold in Indiana?"
There is gold in very small quantities IN
there with the glaciers, but nobody could
make wages in hunting for it. Every mail,
almost, brings a letter from some part of
the State asking IL Indiana has no precious
metals. One man sent me a specimen OF
rock which he said a Chicago assayer had
found would run $50 of gold to the ton: The
rock was filled with iron sulphide, and had
no gold at all. My correspondent did not
know many of the Chicago assayers stand
in with the manufacturers of mining ma
chsnery, and get a percentage on what they
sell. I lere are no rock formations in In
diana in which gold has ever been found
my inquirng correspondents they resent the
idea, and one of them wrote me that he
saw / belonged to the old fogy school of
biologists that persist in saying that In
diana has no precious treasurers, to use
county who is constantly writing for me to
visit his locality, where he believes that he
has found evidences of gold. i have writ
ten him that If he will send a specimen of
the supposed gold to my chemist at Rose
Polytechnic, where / have arranged for all
the chemical and analytical work to be
done, and he reports the metal to be gold, /
will go. Still another man writes to know
if / can inform him where he can obtain an
LndC Will utlcCt II WHEREABOUTS
gold and silver. 1t is characteristic of
the ignorant to believe that there are some
charms that can be gathered to-
gether in a machine with mystic power to
find the precious metals. Some people who
are not ignorant have a weakness of this
sort. 1 once knew the board of trustees of
University to hire a man with a
witch hazel fork to locate a we'll of water,
and the belief is very common that water
can always be found by this means. This
man found water, it is true, but it was
poor water. and the hazel limb had nothing
to do with it.
THOMAS AND OPHELIA.