miners, the average for the whole time being 650. Six important mines are operated constantly. The whole number of tons of coal mined was 299,228, its value at the mines being $597,917. The average value of coal per ton at the mines was $1.99. The amount of capital invested in coal mining was $243,750. The capacity of the mines worked for the production of coal was 506,550 tons annually. The thickness of the coal seams varies from three and a half to five and a half feet, and is reached at a depth of from 40 to 120 feet. The coal is raised at the principal mines by steam power. The active operations in mining have greatly enhanced the value of contiguous lands, and led to the introduction of railroads as a special means of transportation. The Milwaukee and St. Paul has trains constantly running from the principal mines in Hampton township to connect with the Western Union railroad. Also private tracks have been laid for the discharge of coal on the Mississippi River. The Coal Valley Mining Company run trains from Rock Island to Coal Valley, twelve miles, for coal exclusively. They also own and operate the Rock Island and Mercer County Railroad, from Rock Island to Cable, in Richland Grove township, in Mercer County, a distance of twenty-six miles. This road has been built and is operated for coal and general purposes.

For the time they have been worked, the Rock Island County coal mines will compare favorably with any in the West. The defective' machinery, apparatus, or manner of mining, resulting from hasty preparation, are rapidly disappearing, as proprietors of the mines teel the necessity of putting in operation plans for rendering the miners' lives safer, and their leisure hours happier. The report states that no person was killed in the mines during 1876, two cases of fracture of limbs being the most serious accidents.

HAMILTON LIMESTONE.--About a mile and a half below Hampton, the upper and more shaley beds of the Hamilton limestone first begin to outcrop along the Mississippi. About Moline still heavier outcrops exist. These latter are thicker-bedded, are of a brownish color, and full of fossils. At the city of Rock Island and about Milan it becomes more massive; the stratification irregular, the color bluish-white, or brown upon recent fracture, and the stone hard and tenacious. At Milan the bed of the river is a solid floor of these irregular rocks. Rock Island, in the Mississippi river, is a vast pile of this Hamilton limestone, rising in the midst of the stream, overlaid by a thin soil, and covered with a magnificent young forest.

The Devonian limestones as they are found in this county, may be readily separated on lithological grounds into three divisions, viz: the upper, the middle, and the lower, each distinguished by its peculiar characteristics. The uppermost division is a gray and brown limestone, rough and coarse-grained, and completely filled with the shells and corals peculiar to the Hamilton beds. The formation is from thirty to forty feet in thickness. The middle division consists of brown argillaceous and calcarious shales, full of the characteristic shells of this group, and from thirty to forty feet thick. This division is well seen between Rock Island and Moline, where a perpendicular face of thirty feet or more is exposed in the quarries. These shaley limestones are underlaid by the third division, consisting of a fine-grained, gray or dove color, compact limestone, the upper part tolerably massive, but becoming thinner-bedded below. extends below the river level,and is said to have been penetrated in some borings made here several years ago, to the depth of 150 to 175 feet.

It

The floor of Rock river from Milan almost to the Mississippi is composed of this rock, whose massive paving stones are seen at the bottom, irregular in size and contour, but worn smooth by the ceaseless flow of the strong, rapid current. Their thickness at this place is unknown; the massive solidity, conchoidal fracture and white dove color of the stone, indicate that it belongs to the lower part of the formation. At Lear's Mill, almost in the bed of Rock River, the workmen quarried into the solid stone floor of the river fifteen or twenty feet, with no signs of the bottom. Rock River runs over the same rocky floor of Hamilton limestone at and below Cleveland, near the eastern line of Rock Island County, and also at its confluence with the Mississippi below Milan. Between these points the river bottom shows a mud deposit, under which this same formation might probably still be found. Few fossils are found in the rock quarried from this river floor, either in Rock River or in the Rock Island rapids of the Mississippi.

The Mississippi River has a similar rocky floor from Port Byron almost to Muscatine. Horse-backs, hog-backs and great rocky chains characterize the Rapids proper; but the lower part, from the city of Rock Island down, shows alternating stretches of mud, sand, and rocky bottom. The Mississippi River bed from Rock Island to a few miles below Andalusia, is composed of the lower member of the Hamilton group, being the same as the floor of Rock River at Milan.

At Andalusia, in the edge of one of the Mississippi sloughs, just between high and low water mark, an excellent stone quarry is opened in this formation. The layers are not so massive as those found in the river; some of them are of a dove, and even of a light blue color, and fossils are abundant. The middle division of this formation, which outcrops between Moline and Rock Island, has not been observed south of Rock River.

The little spring run extending up from the stone quarry at Ardalusia, towards the residence of Dr. Bowman, runs over the top of the Hamilton limestone till it rises into the coal measures of the adjoining bluffs.;

NIAGARA LIMESTONE.-From Cordova to Port Byron this formation. outcrops heavily. Leaving Port Byron, it gradually sinks as we approach Hampton, and a little south of that place disappears beneath the outliers of the coal measures. The stone at Cordova has a tough, hornstone-like consistency and appearance, unlike its outcrop at Fulton and further north. All the upland region north of Pleasant Valley is underlaid by this Niagara formation and a thin outlier of the coal measures. The soils and upland clays deeply cover them, except where the small streams cut down through the superficial deposits.

The Niagara limestone burns into excellent quicklime-white, strong, and pure. At Port Byron and Cordova are extensive kilns for the conversion of this raw material into merchantable lime for the markets and for local use. The Hamilton limestone of Rock Island County is a very pure carbonate of lime, and is extensively manufactured into quick-lime. Building stone of an excellent quality is also obtained in great abundance from the Hamilton and Niagara limestones of Rock Island County.

SANDSTONE. The sandstone of the coal measures outcrops in a few places in the county. Up in a ravine in the bluffs, midway between Milan and Andalusia, a dark colored, massive sandstone is quarried to some extent. The outcrop is about ten feet thick, and the stone is colored and iron-stained. This stone seems to extend down the bluff line of the Mississippi to where

quarries have been opened opposite Muscatine. Near Copper Creek, also, in the eastern part of the township of Drury, there is a sandstone quarry which has been worked to some extent. The sandstone in these localities, and that which underlies the sandy shale on Big Run, near Brownsville, is an excellent and durable stone for heavy masonry. The creek bed is full of large blocks of it, on which the elements seem to have no effect.

POTTERS' CLAY.-The county also contains some fine potters' clay, from which a fair sized pottery is kept running at Hampton, for the manufacture of common pottery ware. The best establishment of this kind was located at Carbon Cliff, within a few hundred yards of the railroad station of that name. The buildings erected here for pottery purposes, in which a large force was formerly employed, have been changed in their use to the manufacture of drain tile. The buildings are of brick, the principal one being similar to a large railroad round-house, with a towering smoke-stack in the

centre.

MINERAL SPRINGS. Just below Andalusia, in this county, is a remarkable group of mineral springs, known as the " Rinnah Wells Springs." Two or three of them are curbed with stone. The water flows out of the top and leaves a whitish incrustation, which has a strong and rather pleasant soda taste. These springs are also called the "White Sulphur," or "Soda Springs," and contain medicinal qualities not inferior to those of the famous springs at Saratoga. Andalusia, with its musical name and romantic surroundings, in proximity to these springs, might easily become a noted summer resort for invalids and tourists.

BEAUTY OF SCENERY.

The peculiar topography of the county about Rock Island imparts to the scenery great variety and beauty Part of this is caused by the proximity of the Mississippi, with its grand sweeps and ranges of bluffs, to the hills which outline the Rock River Valley. By ascending the high table-land which forms the divide between the two rivers, and which terminates in a single bold bluff overlooking the point of their confluence, the valleys of both sides, with the cities of Rock Island and Davenport, are distinctly in view; while looking away to the southwest, along the sloping bluffs which bound the Mississippi, we can see in the distance the smoke of Muscatine, thirty miles away.

Rising abruptly from Rock river to the height of about two hundred feet, is" Black Hawk's Watch Tower," an eminence from which the famous Sac warrior is said to have watched the troops sent against him by Governor Reynolds, as they deployed into the valley about ten miles distant. This whole valley is visible as far as the eye can reach, while before the observer, on the opposite shore, is the thriving town of Milan, the intervening islands covered with their groves of stately elms, and the glancing and shimmering waterfalls of four separate channels, spanned by their railroad and wagon bridges. Points may be selected almost anywhere about Rock Island from which charming views may be obtained.

The early historians have borne their testimony to the natural attractiveness of this locality. Governor Reynolds, in his "Life and Times," says: "The scenery about Rock Island is not surpassed by any in the whole length of the Mississippi. It seems as though Nature had made an effort in forming this beautiful and picturesque country. Rock Island itself presents a

grand and imposing appearance, rising out of the waters of the Mississippi a solid rock with many feet elevation. It is several miles long and threefourths of a mile wide. The rocks are covered with a fertile soil. The river washes around its base with a rapid current of pure and limpid water; and Rock river, a few miles south, is seen in the distance, forcing its way with great rapidity over the rocky rapids into the Father of Waters. The country around is interspersed with beautiful groves of timber, which give to the scene a sweetness and a beauty rarely equalled. The blue hills in the distance, directing the course of the river, are seen on the north and the south to rise with gentle slopes from the water to considerable elevations, and the valley between, embracing the river, is some miles in extent, presenting a variety of surface and beauty of landscape never surpassed."

THE SAC AND FOX INDIANS.

Before this section of country had been discovered by the white man, it was inhabited by the Sac and Fox Indians, who had some of their principal villages within the present limits of Rock Island county. The Sacs and Foxes were a warlike people, descended from the great Algonquin family, from whom they separated at an early time, and under their own tribal chiefs sought their new hunting-grounds. Tradition locates their early residence on the shores of the St. Lawrence, whence, at different stages and through long periods, driven by circumstances and the vicissitudes of war, they migrated to the West, and spread themselves southward along the Mississippi and its tributaries. These tribes were known to the old French missionaries and traders as the Saukies and Cutagamies. When the Jesuit missionaries first visited Green Bay, in 1665, one tribe of the people, the Foxes, was located in that vicinity. Fox river, which empties into Green Bay, was so named from the residence of some of this tribe upon its banks. At that time, and for some time after, there appears to have been no formal union of the Sacs and Foxes. Both were warlike tribes, and, like all North American Indians, frequently engaged in fierce and bloody wars with their enemies.

For some reason not made known in history, the Foxes became enemies of the French and resisted the advance of their settlements westward. In 1712 they attacked the post at Detroit and came near destroying the garrison and the settlement. After a siege of nineteen consecutive days, during which they fought with great persistence and desperation, they were finally driven off by the aid of the Kickapoos, Pottawatomies and Ottawas, who rallied in great numbers to the assistance of the French. They then retired and fortified themselves in a strong earthwork near the river St. Clair, from which they were only dislodged by cannon brought

from the fort.

Although this experience somewhat humbled the Foxes, it by no means conquered their hostility. Burning with rage and thirsting for revenge, they repaired to their old stamping-ground on Fox river. This was at that time an important avenue of communication for the Canadian traders with the Mississippi, and the route for all voyageurs and emigrants from Canada to Louisiana. The wily Foxes saw that they could make their enemies suffer by intercepting their passage through this part of their territory, where they had no fort to afford them protection. Accordingly, they inaugurated a system of brutality, plunder, robbery and murder, along

the Fox river and Portage route to the Mississippi, which has hardly a parallel in the annals of savage warfare. This finally aroused the Canadian authorities, and three successive campaigns were undertaken to exterminate the Foxes. The third only was successful in driving them from their last stronghold--"Butte des Morte" or Hill of the Dead-where they had fortified themselves and gathered all their men, women, and children and warriors, and resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible rather than surrender to the enemy. The fort was taken by the engineering skill of the French, and thousands of the hapless Foxes, with their women and children, miserably perished. This was in 1746. The number of the Foxes was so greatly diminished by this slaughter that they never afterward equalled their allies, the Sacs. It was after this and probably in consequence of the reduced strength of the Foxes, that a formal union was effected between the two tribes.

When the noted English traveller, Capt. Jonathan Carver, visited the Northwest, in 1766, they were found living in the vicinity of each other on the Wisconsin River. Carver describes a village of the Sacs which he visited on the 8th of October, after he had embarked his canoe upon the Wisconsin, as containing ninety houses, each large enough for several families. They were constructed of hewed plank neatly joined, and covered with bark roofs, impervious to the most penetrating rains. Sheds were constructed in front of them, in which the Indians smoked in fair weather. "This," says Carver, "was the largest and best Indian village I had ever seen. It seemed more like an abode of civilization than the home of savages." They had well cultivated plantations adjoining their village, and streets regularly laid out. The Sacs of this village could muster three hundred warriors.

On the 10th of October, Carver visited a Fox village farther down the river, which contained fifty houses, but at that time they were unoccupied, an epidemic having driven away the inhabitants. The Foxes had also another cousiderable village at Prairie du Chien at the time of Carver's visit. Probably it was not long after this that the Sacs and Foxes were driven. from their homes by the Chippewas and Menomonies, and came and settled in the beautiful country about Rock Island. The earliest intelligence we have of them in this locality is that found in the journal of Lieut. Zebulon Pike, of the United States Army, who was sent on an expedition up the Mississippi in 1805. Their principal villages then were situated as follows: The Sacs had three villages-one on the west bank of the Mississippi, just above the Lower Rapids; another on the opposite side a little further up; the third and principal village was on the banks of Rock River, about three miles from its mouth. This last was the famous Sac village which figures so conspicuously in the early history of this locality. The Foxes had no villages below Rock Island. Their first was situated above the Upper Rapids, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, and consisted of eighteen lodges; the second was on the Iowa side, back of the Dubuque lead mines, and the third and last on the same side, near the mouth of Turkey River. The whole population of these villages amounted to about 5,000. The available force of the united Sac and Fox warriors was about 1,100, of whom the former could muster 700, and the latter 400. The domestic life of these tribes was much like that of other Indians. They hunted during the winter months, and in the summer their squaws cultivated their patches of corn, squashes and beans. Rock Island was their favorite place of resort for their summer sports and pastimes. Their fishing grounds were on the rapids of