Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1902 — GREAT WORK DONE [ARTICLE]

GREAT WORK DONE

What a Practical State Geologist Has Accomplished. STATE’S NATURAL RESOURCES So Advertised That the Investment of Millions of Dollars Has Resulted in Industries Employing Hundreds of Men and Adding Vastly to the Wealth of the State. The main province of the Department of Geology is the advertising of the natural resources of Indiana. This advertising Is accomplished in two ways. First: By annual reports, of which 25 have been issued, and the manuscript of the 26th completed. Second: By the department .serving as a bureau of information, where any person cap, at any time, procure a knowledge of the natural resources of the state. When Willis S. Blatchley, the present director, took charge of the department in November, 1894, he did away with the unscientific method of county surveys formerly in vogue, since the civil boundries of the county have nothing to do with the boundaries or limits of the natural resources. In their stead he adopted the plan of taking up each of the natural resources in detail, and preparing a monograph or special report thereon, accompanied by maps, cuts, engravings and tables of chemical and physical tests. With the limited means at his command he hired as his assistants the best men whom he could procure, seeking those who were specialists In the respective lines of work to which they were put.

Valuable Clay Deposits. Previous to 1894 but little had been published regarding the clay deposits of Indiana. The shale which has come to be used so extensively In recent years was hardly known. Its outcrops were found over a large portion of the western and soutlj^an. counties of the state, yet its -rises'and capabilities were unknown. Mr. Blatchley, in his first report, Issued in 1895, published an extended paper on the “Clays of the Coal Bearing Counties of the State” which made known for the first time the presence of vast deposits of shales, fireclays, etc., lying in close proximity to railways, and above or beneath beds of coal suitable as fuel for their manufacture. Numerous chemical analyses and other tests which Mr. Blatchley had made especially for this report showed the unexcelled fitness of these shales and clays for paving brick, sewer pipe, terracotta, fire brick, roofing tile, pressed front brick and many other I products heretofore Imported into the state. As a result of the publication of this report more -than 20 large factories have been established in Clay, Vigo, Fountain, Vermillion, Parke, Morgan and other counties for the manufacture of clay products. Each of these factories represents an investment of from $30,000 to SIOO,OOO. All of them have been at work steadily since they were established, and many of them are at times months behind In their orders. The value of their output in 1900 was $3,358,350. This first report of the clays of Indiana was supplemented in the report for 1897 by a paper on the clays of I the northwestern counties of the state, in which many valuable deposits of a I marly clay suitable for the manufacture of terracotta lumber were described. This lumber, which is used

extensively for fire proofing, Is made of a mixture of sawdust and clay. A report on the sandstone deposits of western Indiana, accompanied by maps showing their exact location, and by chemical and physical tests showing the fitness of such deposit* for building and bridge purposes, was also published In the report for 1895. Oil and Limestone. The second report, Issued in June, 1897, contained an extensive paper on the petroleum Industry in Indiana, accompanied by a sectional map of the main Indiana oil field and full statlstlcls concerning the Industry in the state from its beginning. Each of the five reports which he has since prepared has contained sunplemental papers on this industry. The oil fields of Indiana have continued to Increase in area and production, so that in 11 years the annual output of the state kas advanced from 136,634 barrels In 1891 to 5,749,975 barrels, valued at 14,795.312, in 1901, the state now ranking fourth among all other states Hn its production of crude oil. During the 11 years 38,4 <5,833 barrels were produced in the state, for which was received $25,849,735, or an average of $2,349,976 per year. In the report for 1896 a monograph of the oolitic limestone found In Monroe, Lawrence, Owen and Washington counties was also published. This was accompanied by maps showing the exact limits of the deposits of this stone, both developed and undeveloped. These were the first detailed maps of the oolitic area ever published. Full descriptions, with chemical and physical properties of the stone, based upon nearly 200 tests, made by the official chemist of the department, showed its fitness In every particular for building purposes. There is no other building stone as soft and as easily worked that Is at the same time as durable and strong.

In the past ten years it has come Into use in twenty-seven states and one territory. Five state capltol buildings, those of Indiana, Illinois, Georgia, New Jersey and Kansas, have been constructed wholly or partly from it, as have also twenty-seven courthouses in Indiana, and numerous custom houses and public buildings throughout the United States. The output of the atone has increased from 4,580,418 cubic feet in 1894 to 7,981,320 cubic feet In 1901, and Indiana now ranks first among all other states in the Union in Its output of limestone for building purposes. The Indiana Coal Fields. Perhaps the most valuable report from a monetary point of view put out by Mr. Blatchley is that for 1898 on the coal fields of the state. Since 1878 nothing had appeared in any of the reports of the department of geology on the coal area of Indiana. Thousands of bores had been put down and shafts sunk to prove the presence of coal in workable quantities. Much valuable information had thus become available. Realizing that the coal area of the state was destined to become in the future a great manufacturing center, an exhaustive survey of that area was planned by Mr. Blatchley in July, 1896. Dr. George H. Ashley, who had done much work on the coal fields of Arkansas and California, was put in charge of this survey, and with three assistants spent nearly three years actively engaged In gathering data and preparing the manuscript and maps for the report. When issued, In September, 1899, It contained 1,740 pages of text, seven large detailed maps showing the exact boundaries of each of the workable veins of coal in the state, 91 full-page plates and 986 additional figures and Illustrations. Its publication has led to the opening up of many new mines, and to the investment in and development of coal lands greater than ever known, the output of Indiana coal increasing from 4,088,100 tons in 1897 to 7,019,203 tons in 1901.

Marl and Cement Resources. The last published report of Mr. Blatchley, that for 1900, deals extensively with the cement resources of the state. In it he describes fully and maps 32 workable deposits of marl about the lakes and marshes of northern Indiana. Each of these deposits will furnish raw material for a 500barrel a day Portland cement factory for thirty years. In 1900 not a barrel of such cement was made in Indiana, though 8,482,120 barrels were manufactured in the United States. In 1901 two Indiana factories, running only eight months, made 273,201 barrels. During the present year they have been enlarged in capacity so that their output for 1902 will be more than 600,000 barrels. In numerous addresses delivered in 1898, and in his report for that year, Mr. Blatchley called attention to the fitness of the oolitic and other limestones of western Indiana for Portland cement manufacture. As the result of tests which he had made, and of his agitation of the question, tests on a large scale were made by practical cement men, and a factory having a capacity of 2,000 barrels dally, erected at a cost of $600,000, has just been completed at Mitchell, Lawrence county, while a second factory of the same capacity and cost is now being erected at Bedford, in the same county. There is no doubt but that several other cement factories will be constructed in the state within the next few years, for the department of geology has shown the presence of raw material sufficient to manufacture, if necessary, the Portland cement for the entire United States for hundreds of years to some. The State’s Mineral Waters. Six rannrta have been nuhllshed by

Mr. Blatchley since he entered office and ths manuscript and maps for the seventh have been completed. Tn it was an extended paper on the mineral waters of the state. This shows the presence of 88 wells and springs scattered throughout the state, whose waters possess valuable medicinal qualities. The paper contains full analyses of these waters, accompanied by a statement of their medicinal properties, and information regarding the Improvements of each of the wells and springs. This report, the one for 1901 when published, will also contain a paper descriptive of the limestones of Orange, Crawford, Harrison, Washington and Floyd counties, with accompanying maps and full details concerning their economic importance. The above statements give the facts concerning only the more important economic papers published in Prof. Blatchley’s reports. Others have been published on the whetstones and grindstones of Orange and Martin counties; on the hydraulic cement industry of southern Indiana; on the geology of Lake and Porter counties and on the geology of southeastern Indiana. Besides these, papers of much interest to the-scientists and teachers of the state on birds, plants, Insects, mollusks and crustaceans have appeared in the reports issued since 1894. It is Mr. Blatchley’s Intention if reelected, as he expects to be, to continue his work in economic geology, his principal endeavor being to bring about Investment of capital, both foreign and local, in the development of lbs matchless resources of the state.