Early Geological History

of Chicago

BY

HENRY W. NICHOLS
Associate Curator of Geology

Geology
Leaflet 7

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

CHICAGO
1925
 LIST OF GEOLOGICAL LEAFLETS ISSUED TO DATE
No. Model of an Arizona Gold Mine $ .10
Models of Blast Furnaces for Smelting Iron . .10
—
Amber Its Physical Properties and
Geological Occurrence .10
Meteorites 10
Soils 10
The Moon 10
Early Geological History of Chicago ... .25

D. C. DAVIES, Director

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

CHICAGO. U. S. A.
 Field Museum of Natural History
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY
Chicago, 1926

Leaflet Number 7

Early Geological History

of Chicago
This geological history of Chicago may properly
begin with that period, the Cambrian, when for the
first time evidences of life were abundantly recorded
in the rocks. This time is so inconceivably remote that
Prof. Barrell has estimated that six hundred million
years have since elapsed. We know something of
world conditions in even more ancient times, but the
rocks of that more ancient era are, in the vicinity of
Chicago, deeply buried and at best the records they
hold are obscure and difficult to interpret.
The geological history of Chicago has been peace-
ful and uneventful to a degree only occasionally en-
countered. There have been here no volcanic erup-
tions, no formation and destruction of mountains and,
in short, no geological forces have here acted with that
vigor, common elsewhere, which has left traces in
broken, folded and contorted rocks. It is true that the
site of the city has many times been submerged by the
sea and emerged again, but these submergences have
been slow and orderly processes due either to bodily
changes in the level of the region as a whole or
to variations in the level of the sea. Certainly the
rocks under the city still lie nearly as horizontal as
they were when they were deposited and they have
undergone few changes save the hardening and re-
crystallization due to the pressure of overlying rock
and the lapse of time. The changes of level which
[73]
2 Field Museum of Natural History

have admitted and driven back the sea have not been
great. But once has the region stood at any great ele-
vation, and at no time have the submerging seas at-
tained any great depths. Even at the present day a
depression of the land levels of only six hundred feet
would again submerge Chicago beneath the sea.
The rocks underlying the city are those formed
wholly during Paleozoic time. The word Palezoic
means ancient life and the Paleozoic time or era was
the time of ancient and primitive life. It began when
evidences of life were first abundantly preserved in the
rocks and continued with the gradual appearance of
higher types of life until the time when the reptiles
represented the highest forms of animal existence.
Paleozoic time is divided into periods which correspond
to stages in this gradual development of lower to high-
er forms of life. The opening period of the Paleozoic
is the Cambrian, often called the Age of Trilobites, and
it is with conditions during this period that this history

begins. All the rocks under Chicago were formed dur-

ing the earlier periods of Paleozoic time before even
the most primitive types of vertebrate animals were
numerous, so that the only fossils to be found here are,
save for a few fish teeth, those of invertebrates and
some obscure forms of primitive plants. These Pale-
ozoic rocks must necessarily rest upon still older rocks
but these are so deeply buried here that even the deep-
est artesian wells of the city have not penetrated them.

During the whole of Paleozoic time, the great mass

of theNorth American Continent was in existence. It
seems to have had much the same form that it now has.
Highlands to the east and west were separated then
as now by a broad, low, central valley. But as the
land stood at a lower elevation than at present, this
great central valley was submerged in a shallow in-
terior sea of vast extent. This sea divided the land of

[74]
LEAFLET 7.

#
rm

mwMxm &msm

MAP OF NORTH AMERICA IN EARLY CAMBRIAN TIME.

AFTER SCHUCHERT.
 Early Geological History op Chicago 3

the continent into a number of great islands which

have been mapped and named. The interior sea was
constantly encroaching upon the lands and retreating
from them. The site of Chicago was therefore alter-
nately sea bottom and dry land. When not submerged
by the sea it was usually a part of the great northern
land called the Canadian Shield.

Chicago in Early Cambrian Time

At the beginning of Paleozoic time and of the
Cambrian period the site of Chicago had long been a
land with a warm and equable climate. This land was
part of a great continent (Plate I), larger than the
North America of today. At times it was wider and
at times somewhat narrower than the present conti-
nent. To the southwest it extended through Mexico
into the Pacific and to the northeast it extended
through Greenland and Iceland into Europe. Chi-
1

cago occupied a geographical position in this land

much it occupies in North America to-day.
the same as
It was
centrally located, nearer the Atlantic than the
Pacific and probably in a great central valley corre-
sponding to the Mississippi valley of to-day. Prob-
ably there were no great lakes in the vicinity and we
know nothing of the water courses of that time. Noth-
ing can be said with assurance of the rainfall or the
amount of sunshine. The climate was warm and
equable and it has been surmised that the prevailing
winds were from the east. There were no mountains
or high hills near. The air contained oxygen, but how
much we do not know. The whole region was prob-
ably covered with loose, drifting sands. It was a place

1
By Chicago is meant the geographical position now occu-
pied by the city. The same is to be understood of other place
references except those referring to the Oceans which although
varying greatly in size and shape have always retained their
identities.

[75]
4 Field Museum op Natural History

of moving dunes devoid of vegetation. Whether it was

completely devoid of vegetation and terrestrial forms
of life is not known but no traces of such have ever
been found. The presence of oxygen in the air proves
that vegetation existed somewhere and the presence of
sea weeds in the sea is known. It is also probable that
the rivers and ponds held algae and other primitive
forms of vegetation. No woody plants yet existed. The
streams apparently were inhabited by unknown forms
of soft-bodied animals which have left no traces of
their existence. At least, the fishes when they made
their first appearance at a much later date seem to
have originated in fresh water. The Eurypterid, a
scorpion-like animal from which the scorpion and spid-
ers have descended, may have inhabited the streams.

Chicago in Late Cambrian Time

During Early Cambrian time the sea began to en-
croach upon the land until after the middle of the
period, Chicago was first upon the sea-shore and later
was submerged by a shallow interior sea which finally
reached nearly or quite to the northern boundary of
Lake Michigan. (Plate II.)
The sands of this sea-shore and sea bottom are
now found as a sandstone which has been penetrated
by artesian wells at depths around fifteen hundred
feet. Not much can be learned from the chips of sand-
stone brought up by the drilling operations, but this
bed of sandstone appears at the surface near the La-
croix river in Wisconsin and it has been studied there.
The nearest land was the great mass of the Canadian
Shield to the north and there were other lands to the
east, southeast and northwest. The sea was shallow
and the water was salt. Probably the saltness dif-
fered in quality and degree from that of the modern
ocean. It was warm, for the climate remained mild.

[76]
LEAFLET 7. PLATE II.

MAP OF NORTH AMERICA IN LATE CAMBRIAN TIME.

AFTER SCHUCHERT.
 Early Geological History of Chicago 6

The shores were bordered with sand dunes, the wastes

from which added to the thickness of the sand on the
sea bottom. There were no fish, for fish had not yet
appeared on earth, nor were there any other vertebrate
animals. There may have been jelly-fish, for traces
of them have been found in other parts of the world
in rocks of the period. If there were other swimming
creatures they must have possessed soft bodies which
did not become fossilized. In other respects the as-
pect was not in general different from that of the
sandy beaches and shallow waters of the present day,
although the details were altogether strange. The
abundant forms of life were worms, lampshells or
brachiopods and the crab-like trilobites.
The worms were very abundant, for their burrows
and trails over the sand are numerous. As they were

Fig. 1.

A worm of Cambrian time. Drawn by Carl F. Groncmann.

soft-bodied creatures, they have not fossilized, so that

we know little of them except that they were numer-
ous. A few impressions from their bodies left in the
mud show that some of them
of other seas of the time
(Fig. 1) were equipped, centipede-fashion, with num-
erous legs and a few other features are obscurely in-
dicated. The absence of fish or others of the larger,
predatory animals seems to have permitted the worms
to increase until they were a far more important ele-
ment in the life of the Cambrian beaches than they
are on modern shores. The lampshells were bivalved
from the worms of an earlier period.
shells evolved
There were many of them and they often grew in
[77]
6 Field Museum of Natural History

colonies. They were smaller than the common clam

shell of the present and lived half buried in sand.
They were more or less fixed in position by long muscu-
lar stems or peduncles which, buried in sand, acted as
anchors. The peduncle also served to pull the animal
completely under the sand in time of danger. It is
very remarkable that one of these forms, the Lingula,
has survived to the present time with only insignificant
changes in form or structure. (Fig. 2.)

Fig. 2. Fig. 3

a. A recent brachiopod. A Cambrian trilobite.

b. Shell of a Cambrian brachiopod.

Most of the other orders of shelled animals were

represented by an occasional individual. The trilo-
bites (Fig. 3), curious crab-like creatures which
crawled over the sand, were the dominant animals of
the period. They had lobed and jointed shells. While
they resembled crabs they are not related to them nor
are they closely related to any modern animal. It is
thought by many that, at a later time, insects descended
from them. They were at this time small, few meas-
[78]
 Early Geological History of Chicago 7

uring more than an inch and a half in length. There

were other shelled animals which were not common
near Chicago and of course the life of the deeper seas,
such as corals, was entirely absent here. Besides these
there were numerous unknown animals with bodies
which had no hard parts to fossilize. These have left
no traces of their existence except an occasional track
on the sand. Vegetation was confined to the sea-weeds.
Beyond the fact that many of them, like the present
sea-weeds were algae, little is known of them. They
must have been numerous to provide food and oxygen
for the abundant animal life.

Chicago in Early Ordovician Time

The second period of Paleozoic time was the Ordo-
vician, formerly called the Lower Silurian. It was the
time when cephalopods, a group of animals of which
the nautilus, squid and octopus are the best known
modern forms, first became prominent features in the
life of the sea. Around Chicago there was a gradual
transition from the Cambrian to Early Ordovician
time. There was no abrupt change of any kind, but
Cambrian forms of life were gradually superseded by
the higher forms which characterize the Ordovician.
The rocks of the transition period have not preserved
their fossils well, so that not much can be said of the
life of the time, beyond that it was intermediate in
character between that of the Cambrian and that of the
later Ordovician. The region was still the bottom of a
shallow sea of fluctuating depth. The bottom was pre-
dominantly sandy. The water was clear, for at no time
was the bottom muddy. The sandy bottom of the Cam-
brian sea had, as Ordovician time opened, become
limey from an accumulation of the shells of small ani-
mals which inhabited the sea. This change was due,
in part at least, to the distance from shore which in-
creased with the continued advance of the sea. This

[79]
8 Field Museum op Natural History

condition, which persisted well into the Early Ordo-

vician, has left a record in the form of a limestone
called in older descriptions the Lower Magnesian Lime-
stone. In later descriptions it is sometimes called the
Prairie du Chien limestone. This limestone was
formed from the shells and other limey parts of the
marine animals of the time. Under the city it has been
penetrated by drills at depths slightly in excess of one
thousand feet. A thickness of from 160 to 450 feet
may give some hint of the long duration of this sea.

This great advance of the sea, which began in

Middle Cambrian time, continued until in the first
part of the Early Ordovician, it covered most of the
interior of theNorth American continent. (Plate III.)
It was followed by an equally great recession, which
long before the end of the Lower Ordovician left Chi-
cago once again in the interior of a great continent.
(Plate VI.) Conditions were much like those of the
earlier emergence both physically and geographically.
The climate was arid. The surface was covered with
moving sand dunes. The life in the streams and rivers
must have been of a more advanced type than before,
although no traces of such life remain. The streams
may have held a primitive type of fish. Some fish
remains have been discovered in deposits of this age
in the Rocky Mountains. Artesian wells in Chicago
and Cook County penetrate at depths of around 800
to 1000 feet, a coarse, white sandstone which is in
places one hundred and fifty feet thick. This, the
St. Peter's sandstone, is the sand of the dunes of this
old land solidified into rock. It does not appear at the
surface in the City of Chicago but may be seen along
the Illinois River near Ottawa and in Deer Park. The
site of Chicago remained land until the beginning of
Mid-Ordovician time when it was submerged by a new
transgression of the sea.
[80]
LEAFLET 7. PLATE III.

MAP OF NORTH AMERICA IN EARLY ORDOVICIAN TIME.

AFTER GRABAU.
 Early Geological History of Chicago 9

Chicago in Mid-Ordovician Time

Mid-Ordovician time was of long duration, with
much oscillation between land and sea. It was inaug-
urated in this vicinity by a great advance of the sea.
A shallow interior sea extending north from the Gulf
of Mexico soon submerged the sand dunes of the earlier
land. This was followed by a great inundation from
the Arctic Ocean, which attained such vast propor-
tions that little beyond a few large islands remained
of the North American continent (Plate VII) Finally,
.

before the end of the Mid-Ordovician, nearly all the

marine water was withdrawn and Chicago was again
on land. This sea was a shallow, clear-water sea much
like the preceding ones, but probably deeper. The
waters, even those of the extension of the Arctic
Ocean, were warm. These waters swarmed with in-
vertebrate life which resembled that of the preceding
epoch as well as that of the Niagara to be later de-
scribed. The rocks deposited in this sea, called the
Galena-Trenton formation, reach the surface nowhere
in Chicago or Cook County. They lie from 500 to 600
feet beneath the surface and are from 270 to 390 feet
in thickness. They are cream-colored or yellowish
magnesian limestones.

Chicago in Late Ordovician Time

The withdrawal of the sea at the close of the Mid-
Ordovician leftChicago upon the western shore of a
great interior sea connected with the Gulf of Mexico
and upon land which was part of a continent greater
than the North America of the present day. Of con-
ditions in the territory near the city we know little
beyond the facts that there were no mountains and
that the climate remained mild. This land did not
persist long, for soon a new cycle of water movement
began and the seas advancing northward from the
[81]
10 Field Museum of Natural History

Gulf of Mexico soon resubmerged the site of the city in

muddy waters. These waters were muddy because
elevations of the land to the east and south had at-
tained sufficient magnitude to increase the current of
the rivers, which now carried large quantities of mud
to the interior sea. This state of affairs continued
until the site of Chicago was covered so deeply with
mud that now when it is compressed to rock it covers
the older rocks under the city to a depth of from 100
to 250 feet. This rock, formed from the consolidated
muds of the Late Ordovician seas, is a shale mixed
with limestone. It was formerly called by some the
Cincinnati shale and by others the Hudson River shale.
It is now generally referred to as the Maquoketa shale.
It underlies the present rock surface at depths of from
250 to 400 feet. Before the close of the Ordovician
the sea again withdrew for a considerable period leav-
ing the site of the city again land. Nothing is known
of the climate, geography or life of this land.

Chicago in. Silurian Time

The Silurian division of Paleozoic time followed
1
the Ordovician. The Silurian is separated from the
Ordovician more by changes in the relation of land and
sea areas than by any radical change in the character
of For, while nearly all the genera and species
life.

of animal life in the Silurian were new, they were

members of classes and families of animals that were
already common in Ordovician time. The beginning
of Silurian time found Chicago on a land area, where
it had been left by the retreating seas of the Ordo-

vician. The records of early Silurian time are, in this

vicinity, somewhat difficult of interpretation, but ap-

1
Theolder geologists grouped the Ordovician and Silurian
into one period which they called the Silurian. The Ordovician
was then the Lower Silurian and the period now known as the
Silurian was called the Upper Silurian.-

[82]
LEAFLET 7.

•#

COMMON FOSSILS FROM THE NIAGARA LIMESTONE OF CHICAGO.

1, CORAL, CLADOPORA. 2, COILED CEPHALOPOD, NAUTILUS. 3, CORAL, DIPHYPHYL-
LUM. 4, CUP CORAL, OMPHYMA. 5, COMPOUND CORAL, FAVOSITES.
6, STRAIGHT CEPHALOPOD, ORTHOCERAS.
 Early Geological History of Chicago 11

parently the site of the city remained land during the

first part of the Silurian. This was a time of advanc-
ing seas and diminishing lands so that by Mid-Silurian
time Chicago was again submerged by an interior sea.
This Mid-Silurian time is called the Niagara epoch.
This name is given the epoch because rocks formed
in the seas of the time are exposed near Niagara Falls
and were studied there. It has nothing to do with the
falls and river, which did not come into existence until

ages later.

For some time past there had been important

changes in the elevation of many parts of the conti-
nent. Far to the east in New England, a range of
mountains (the Taconic Mountains) appeared and
these shut off access of the sea from the east. To the
southeast was the Cincinnati uplift, where great areas
had been raised above the general surface, and to the
south and southwest there was another elevated region,
the Ozark uplift. These highlands blocked access of
the sea from the East, South and West and therefore
Silurian transgression of the sea which submerged
Chicago came from the Arctic.
When this invasion of the waters of the Arctic
was at its height, Chicago was on the floor of a great
interior sea which covered the northern part of the
Mississippi valley. (Plate VII.) To the north it was
open to the Arctic Ocean and to the south it at one
time joined another sea which in turn opened on an
eastward extension of the Pacific Ocean. The nearest
land, Mississippia, a great land mass to the west, occu-
pied what is now the west central part of the country
and included parts of Canada and Mexico. Mississip-
pia was separated by a narrow sea from Cascadia,
which was a relatively long and narrow strip of land
along the western border of the Continent. To the
east and southeast another great land mass, Appala-

[83]
12 Field Museum of Natural History

chia, included what is now the eastern border of the

Continent. To the northeast and more distant were
the shores of Atlantica, which extended as far south
as the St. Lawrence valley and covered parts of east-
ern Canada, Greenland and some of Europe. Exact
boundaries of these lands and seas are not yet definite-
ly known and maps of them are constantly altered as
the result of continued study. Although this sea was
an arm of the Arctic Ocean, its waters were warm and
semi-tropical conditions prevailed. The waters were
clear and swarming with life.

As the shallow Arctic seas with their warm waters

afforded a ready path of communication with the north
of Europe, the Silurian fauna of the Chicago area had
a decidedly European aspect. The great land of Ap-
palachia to the east interposed a barrier to the migra-
tion of marine animals between the interior sea and
the Atlantic coast and no intermingling of the life
of these two regions was possible. Consequently the
life of the Silurian seas of Chicago was more like that
of Europe than like that of the nearer eastern part of
the United States.
This was a coral sea. Primitive forms of corals
had existed even in early Cambrian time but the early
seas of Chicago were seldom favorable to their growth.
By the middle of the Ordovician, corals had become
numerous and had separated into many varieties. In
the Niagaran seas of Silurian time, corals had become
even more numerous and existed in even greater va-
riety. The prominence of the corals was in fact one
of the notable features of these Silurian seas. As the
sea in the vicinity of Chicago was especially favorable
to coral growth, these animals were an important fea-
ture of these waters. The coral is a simple form of
animal. Its body is little more than a hollow cylinder
of flesh. A mouth at the upper end is surrounded by
[84]
 Early Geological History of Chicago 18

a crown of tentacles. The animal rests upon a skele-

ton or pedestal of carbonate of lime which is secreted
by the animal itself. This pedestal is either cylindrical

Fig. 4.

a. Fossil of a cup coral of Niagara time. b. Cup coral of Niagara time.

Soft parts according to Fen ton.

or conical. Conical forms are often curved so that

they resemble blunt horns. There were simple indi-
vidual corals (Fig. 4) each of which grew by itself on

Fig. 6.

A honeycomb (compound) coral of Niagara time.

itsown pedestal and there were compound forms in
which the stony bases or pedestals were joined in one
mass. (Fig. 5.) This mass commonly took either a
[85]
14 Field Museum op Natural History

hemispherical or a dome-like form or grew as clusters

of branching arms which roughly resembled branch-
ing trees. These colonies attained, under favorable
conditions, considerable size. Some of the coral domes
measured as much as fourteen feet across and a height
of fifteen feet for branching forms has been recorded.
Although the colonies attained considerable size the
individual corals remained small. Usually they were
less than a quarter of an inch in diameter, although
there are some which measured more than an inch.
In these Silurian seas the first coral reefs ap-
peared, for at this time the coral first acquired the
reef building habit. Although the group to which
modern corals belong had not yet developed, there is
no reason to suppose that the appearance of a Silurian
coral bed was in essential features different from that
of a modern coral reef. (Fig. 6.) On a base com-
posed of the stony skeletons of past generations, great
dome-like masses of coral mingled with branching tree-
like forms and were crowded together. Resemb-
all
lance to modern was heightened by the
coral beds
presence of many forms of the more delicate incrusting
and branching bryozoa. These bryozoa were coral-
like animals which grew in colonies of minute individ-
uals, grouped like the compound corals on supports of
carbonate of lime which the animals secreted. These
supports resembled in a general way the branching
corals, but they were commonly more slender and in-
clined to grow together into intricate network pat-
terns. Many grew in fan or leaf form, others were
netted or branching threads incrusting corals or other
solid supports.

Swarming over the sea bottom in great abundance

were the crinoids, strange, flower-like creatures utterly
unlike in appearance any animal commonly encoun-
tered at the present day, although a few species still
[86]
Early Geological History op Chicago 15

[87]
16 Field Museum of Natural History

exist in tropical seas. They were attached to the sea

bottom by long stems and their small, round bodies
were provided with many long, feathery arms. Their
appearance was so flower-like that they are often called
stone lilies. They were gregarious in habit and in
parts of the Niagara sea at Chicago they were so
numerous that these places have been described as
"veritable flower beds of stone lilies where beautiful
and varied forms grew in groves, as it were." Al-
though they do not look at all like them, they are actu-
ally closely related to the starfish. They are somewhat
like a starfish turned upside down and perched on the
top of a long, jointed stem and provided with many,
long, feathery arms in place of the five short rays of
the starfish. The stem is intended to keep the animal
out of the mud and to anchor it so that it cannot drift
away into places where food supply and other living
conditions might be unsuitable. This stem is built up
from many short discs or joints. These joints are of
a stony material, a mixture of the carbonates of lime
and magnesia. The stem is terminated below by
branching roots or by a kind of flat foot which anchors
it to its support. On the top of the stem is the body,
which is in many species, of the size and shape of a
walnut. This body is inclosed in a jointed armor of
limestone plates, which is called the cup. From the
top of the body grow the jointed arms which wave in
the water and direct food to the mouth. (Fig. 7.)
There were many kinds of crinoids, some having long,
feathery, branching arms, while others were simpler
and less conspicuous. Blastids grew with the crinoids.
These were much like the crinoids and grew on stems
but had no arms.
Although crinoids and corals were the most num-
erous inhabitants of this sea, other animals were by
no means rare. The brachiopods were animals cov-
[88]
 Early Geological History of Chicago 17

Fig. 7. A crinoid of Niagara time. Drawn by Carl F. Gronemann.

[89]
18 Field Museum op Natural History

ered by shells which at first sight appear somewhat

like clam shells, although these animals are no rela-
tives of the clam. Brachiopods were anchored to the
bottom much as the common mussel shell of the pres-
ent day seas is, by a long, slender thread.

Sponges were not uncommon, but they were not

like the common sponge of the present day. The
sponge was an animal with a jelly-like, hollow body,
supported by a stiff, porous skeleton. In the valuable
varieties of modern sponge, this skeleton is composed
of horny matter, but these ancient sponges had skele-
tons composed of the mineral silica. These silica skele-
tons were sometimes in the form of a continuous, por-
ous network like the horny skeleton of modern, com-
mercial sponge and sometimes they were disconnected,
minute rods and spicules. It is probable that sponges
with horny skeletons also lived at this time, but as
such varieties had no hard parts, no trace of them
remains.
Not the inhabitants of this sea were, like those
all

already mentioned, anchored to the sea bottom. There

were crawling and swimming forms as well. The tril-
obites, dominant animals of the Cambrian seas were
still numerous, though not as important as they had

been. They had the habits and much of the appear-

ance of crabs. Like crabs they were scavengers, eat-
ing carrion. They did not have the long, spreading
legs of the crab but moved on numerous short, jointed
legs attached to the underpart of the body, either
crawling around on the bottom or skimming along just
above it. Like the crab they relied for protection on
a horny shell, which however did not cover the under
side of the body. When threatened by an enemy, most
Silurian trilobites coiled themselves into a compact
ball which presented on all sides an unbroken armor
of horny shell. The commoner trilobites of the Chi-

[90]
 Early Geological History of Chicago 19

cago seas were about an inch to two inches long. They

were oval in outline and the shell consisted of three
parts. A front end, the head, was connected by a
many-jointed thorax to the rear end, the abdomen.
(Fig. 8.) Although so crab-like in habits and appear-
was no relative of the crab, but be-
ance, the trilobite
longed to a group of animals which have long been
extinct.
The dominant animals of the Chicago seas at that
time were the cephalopods. They are called the domi-
nant animals, not because they were the most numer-
ous, for they were not, but because some of them

Fig. 8.

Trilobites of Niagara time. Drawn by Carl F. Gronemann.

a. Extended. b. Coiled.

were large and they were the most highly developed

form of animal life then existing in any considerable
numbers. In modern seas, the cephalopods are repre-
sented by only a few forms, of which the octopus, squid
and nautilus are the best known. In Silurian seas
there was a great variety of these animals and they
were provided with large, strong shells. The common
cephalopod of the Chicago Silurian seas was the Or-
thoceras. (Fig. 9.) This mollusk had a long, perfectly
straight, spear-like shell. This shell gradually tapered
from a cup in front inhabited by the animal to a point
[91]
20 Field Museum of Natural History

at the rear. The shell was divided into segments. As

the animal outgrew instead of moulting, as
its shell,
trilobites did, it grew a new and larger cup in front
of the old one and moved into it and for the rest of its
life it dragged its old, abandoned residence along be-

Fig. 9.

An orthoceras of Niagara time. Drawn by Carl F, Gronemann.

hind it. The animal itself was much like its relative,
the octopus. It had a mouth in front, surrounded by a
ring of long, fleshy tentacles which served both as
grasping arms and as feet. Like the octopus of the
[92]
 Early Geological History of Chicago 21

present day, it crawled on these tentacles and prob-

ably it could swim as well. It was carnivorous and fed
on smaller animals. It was variable in size. Many of
the fossils of this animal found in Chicago are from
one to three inches in diameter and represent shells
that when complete were several feet long. One speci-
men in the Museum, of local origin, is six inches in
diameter and over two feet long and yet it is only part
of a shell. Specimens have been found elsewhere eight
to ten inches in diameter and fifteen feet long. These
long, straight shells must have been cumbersome to
carry around. Snails and most other animals both an-
cient and modern that inhabit long shells have the
shell coiled so that it occupies less space. Cephalopods
of later ages inhabited coiled shells and in these Silu-
rian seas there were, besides the straight shelled or-
thoceras, other animals of the kind, some with partially
coiled shells and a few with shells completely coiled.
There were other animals present in decidedly
lesser numbers in this part of the Silurian sea. There
were many varieties of gasteropods, small, coiled
shells closely related to the snail and an occasional
member of other classes of the lower animals.
As animal life was so plentiful it follows that
vegetation must have been equally abundant or these
animals could not have found food. But the vegeta-
tion, which was confined to members of the lower or-
ders of plants, had no hard parts, so that no trace
remains of the thick growths of seaweeds which must
have been there.
The Niagara Limestone. Thousands of succes-
sive generations of the animals just described lived
and died in the Silurian sea. Their hard parts, which
usually had the composition of limestone, were prac-
and slowly accumulated on the
tically indestructible
sea floor. In the course of time they built up a bed

[93]
22 Field Museum op Natural History

of limestone hundreds of feet thick. This is the Niag-

ara limestone which underlies the whole city. All
quarries, rock cuts, canals and tunnels and other rock
exposures in or near the city are in this Niagara lime-
stone. Nowhere in Cook County have any openings
larger than drill holes penetrated through this lime-
stone to the older rocks below.

Although the hard parts of these Silurian animals

were practically indestructible they have proven to be
by no means unchangeable. Most of the original fos-
sil forms have been obliterated by the recrystallization

of the rock to a compact, crystalline limestone. This

recrystallization has not been complete, for numerous
fossils, relics of this ancient life, can be found prac-
tically anywhere in this limestone. Around Chicago
these fossils are not ordinarily the actual petrified re-
mains of the animals but are merely casts or impres-
sions from which the actual animal substance has long
since disappeared. They represent only the stony or
hard parts of the animals, as the softer parts did not
last long enough for these casts to form. (Plates IV
and V.)
Frequently in this limestone little nut-like objects,
anywhere from a cherry to a walnut in size, may be
found. Some are rough and plain of surface, others
are beautifully ornamented with intricate designs of
raised and incised lines. These are the bodies or cups
of crinoids. In those found near Chicago the arms
have not been preserved, but in deposits in the same
sea in other parts of the country, and in particular near
Louisville, Kentucky, beautiful specimens showing
arms have been secured. With the fossil crinoid bodies
there are often found numerous flat discs, commonly
a quarter of an inch or less in diameter. These are
sections of the jointed stems by which the crinoids
were anchored. Most of these sections are circular,
[94]
LEAFLET 7.

COMMON FOSSILS FROM THE NIAGARA LIMESTONE OF CHICAGO.

1, CRINOID HEADS, EUCALYPTOCRINUS. 2, CYSTIDS, HOLOCYSTITES. 3, TRILOBITE,
CALYMENE. 4, CRINOID STEMS. 5, BRACHIOPODS, SPIRIFER.
6, GASTROPOD, PLEUROTOMARIA.
 Early Geological, History of Chicago 23

but five-sided or even star-shaped outlines are not un-

common, and other shapes are occasionally found.
Corals are, after the crinoids, the most common
of the local fossils. Owing to the great diversity of
Silurian coral life, these fossils are present in great
variety. The honeycomb coral resembles a mass of
honeycomb imbedded Cup corals are often
in rock.
found. A common form, the Zaphrentis, is a
local
small, curved cone resembling a blunt horn. Its larger
end is hollowed into a cup, which is lined with numer-
ous thin plates running from the outside towards the
center. These fossils can seldom be broken from the
rock. What is most frequently seen is a section which
appears on a limestone surface as a circle showing the
edges of numerous thin plates running from the rim
toward the center. Sometimes the section runs length-
wise of the coral so that the outline of the curved,
horn-shaped cone is visible. Fragments of branching,
tree-like corals are not uncommon and remnants of
other varieties are found at times. The branching
forms of bryozoa are also frequent. These resemble
branching corals but can be distinguished from them
by a study of their more minute details. Often a net-
work of fine, branching lines will be found incrusting
a large fossil. These also are bryozoa.
Another common fossil is the trilobite. When
well preserved, as it frequently is, it is a most curious
object.The common variety, an inch or so long, looks
something like a bug with a rounded head and large
eyes. This head isjoined by a central portion com-
posed of many jointed rings to an abdomen of about
the same size. The trilobite is sometimes found lying
flatand sometimes coiled into a ball.
Another fossil often encountered in this limestone
takes the form of a cylindrical, jointed rod. It is com-
monly from one to three inches in diameter, although
[96]
24 Field Museum of Natural History

smaller and larger specimens are not infrequent. A

complete individual may be several feet long and taper
to a point. Specimens of these have, on account of
their size and jointing, been mistaken for fossil back-
bones. These fossils are the shells of the orthoceras,
the straight-shelled cephalopod. Curved cephalopod
shells are also found but are not common.

Occasionally nodules of flint, usually flat and ir-

regular of form, are encountered. These are the re-
mains of Silurian sponges. Other fossils are pres-
ent in the Niagara limestone of Chicago, but they are
in lesser numbers and so they are less likely to be
noticed.
In the Chicago District the Niagara limestone
varies from two hundred and fifty to four hundred feet
in thickness. Even this is not the original thickness,
for during the ages that it has been exposed to the
weather, much of it must have eroded away. Numer-
ous quarries and outcrops afford ample opportunity
for its study. Perhaps the best exposure is in the cut
of the Drainage Canal near Lockport. (Frontispiece.)
The limestone lies in undisturbed, horizontal beds as
it was deposited. There are some local gentle undula-
tions and at Stony Island there is a dome with steeply
sloping sides. The origin of this dome is somewhat
of a mystery. Ithas been suggested that it may be
merely a mounding of limestone beds over an ancient
coral reef, but this is only one of a number of sug-
gested reasons for its existence.

There are two kinds of limestone. One, typical

limestone, is essentially a pure carbonate of lime. The
other, called dolomite, is a mixture of the carbonates
of lime and magnesia in nearly equal parts. Many
limestones are intermediate in composition between
these two. The Niagara limestone of the Chicago Dis-
trict is a dolomite. Many theories have been proposed

[96]
MAP OF NORTH AMERICA AT THE END OF EARLY ORDOVICIAN TIME.
AFTER GRABAU.
 Early Geological History of Chicago 25

to account for the presence of magnesia in such lime-

stone as this, but no one of them has been universally
accepted as applying in this instance. Few shell-bear-
ing animals secrete, as was formerly supposed, a pure
carbonate of lime. Most of them grow shells or skele-
tons which contain notable quantities of carbonate of
magnesia. It happens that the crinoids, the most
abundant animals of local Silurian seas, secrete for
their skeletons a mixture unusually rich in carbonate
of magnesia. It is quite possible that the skeletons of
the Silurian crinoids, living as they did under condi-
tions unlike those of the present, may have contained
magnesia in even greater quantity. It may well be
that the magnesia originally present in the skeletons
of the Silurian fauna is sufficient to account for that
now present in the limestone. This, however, is to be
taken as a possibility, not as a certainty. Asphalt im-
pregnates the limestone in places. It is especially ap-
parent in the limestone outcrops at Windsor Park and
in the quarries at Thornton. This asphalt is a product
of the decay of perishable tissue of Silurian animals.
Years ago, some of the wells of the city were contam-
inated by petroleum apparently derived from the upper
layers of the limestone. This seems to have been pres-
ent only in small quantities, for it soon disappeared.
It probably had the same origin as did the asphalt.

The Niagara epoch of Silurian time was termin-

ated by a withdrawal of the seas which had submerged
the continent. It is possible that this withdrawal did
not at once bare the site of the city, but it is certain
that at some period of late Silurian time the city was
again on land. Local records of this time are missing,
as any rocks which may have formed in the seas of the
time have long since been destroyed by weathering and
erosion. We may infer something of local conditions
by a study of better preserved records found in other
[97]
26 Field Museum of Natural History

parts of the country, but such inferences are of real

value only as they refer to general conditions. All that
we may say with assurance is that this land was of
great size, probably as large or larger than the North
America of the present day. Desert conditions existed
over much of New York, Ohio and Michigan. This
great desert may have included Chicago within its
boundaries.
Chicago in Devonian Time
The Devonian division of Paleozoic time followed
the Silurian. This was the Age of Fishes, so-called
because then for the first time fishes were an important
element of the life of the waters. When Devonian time
began, almost all of North America had emerged from
the sea and Chicago was on land. During the progress
of Devonian time there were several oscillations of sea
level. Several of these may have submerged the city,
but if so, any local traces have, except in one instance,
long since disappeared. Until 1899 it was believed
that there was no trace of a Devonian sea in the Chi-
cago region, nor were any Devonian rocks known
nearer than those in the vicinity of Milwaukee. In
1899, however, a few Devonian fossils were discovered
in a quarry near Elmhurst. This quarry is in the
Niagara limestone. During much of Devonian time
this was a land area. The limestone formed in the
seas of the earlier Silurian time was then surface rock.
The upper part had eroded away and the numerous
cracks which are such a noticeable feature in this as
in all other limestones had already formed. The waters
which collected on the land surface percolated through
these cracks in the limestone and enlarged them. An
opening six inches wide at the base and sixteen inches
high was excavated in one place. At a later period,
near the close of the Devonian, when the sea again
covered this region, sand sifted from the sea bottom
[98]
 Early Geological History of Chicago 27

into this opening and with it were carried shells and

and teeth of fisheswhich inhabited the sea thereabout
(Plate VII.) From this one, small deposit we learn,
that Chicago had been for much of Devonian time
first,
on land and, second, that near the close of Devonian
time it was again a sea floor. This Devonian sea was
not unlike the preceding one and its invertebrate life
was much the same. Corals still abounded but there
were fewer crinoids and trilobites. The principal dif-
ference, however, lay in the presence of fish.
Although the Devonian is called the Age of Fishes,
it must not be supposed that Devonian seas were, like
modern oceans, swarming with fish. Most Devonian
fish were dwellers in fresh water. At that time only
a few kinds had migrated into salt water. No species,
genera or even families of Devonian fish have survived.
The great class of bony fish to which more than nine-
tenths of all modern species belong had not then come
into existence. There were sharks in the Devonian
seas and the ganoid fishes, now represented only by
the sturgeon, gar and a few others, were in Devonian
times much more important than they are at present.
Nearly half of all known species of Devonian fish be-
longed to classes which are now wholly extinct. Many
of these extinct forms were so unlike modern fishes
that it is questionable whether they should be called
fishes at all. Many of them were covered with jointed
armor and some, unable to swim, crawled along the
bottom. As already stated, most of them lived in fresh
water and, as no record of the land life of Devonian
time in the Chicago District remains, we do not know
whether any of these strange creatures ever inhabited
this region. The only fish that we positively know to
have inhabited the seas of Devonian time here are two
species of small sharks or primitive fish related to
sharks. We do not know what these shark-like ani-

[99]
28 Field Museum of Natural History

mals looked like, for the only parts that have been
preserved are teeth and scales. They were probably
quite unlike the modern shark in appearance. It is
known that the Dinichthys or "terrible fish" inhabited
the eastern part of this Devonian sea and it may have
been present in the waters around Chicago as well.
The Dinichthys were large, heavily armored, swim-
ming fish. Some of them were over twenty feet long.
More than forty species of smaller relatives of this
gigantic fish inhabited the North American seas of De-
vonian time.
All records of the geological history of Chicago
from the close of Devonian time to the opening of the
glacial period in, geologically speaking, almost recent
time, have been destroyed. We
know from a consid-
eration of the known history of other parts of the
country, that submergences under the sea and subse-
quent emergences of land continued, but gradually the
submergences became fewer and shorter and the emer-
gent periods longer, so that this later unknown part of
the history would be, if known, more and more a record
of events upon land. The rocks in which the records of
these ancient times are preserved are, with few excep-
tions, formed on the sea floor. When the marine
waters are withdrawn, these rocks become a part of
the land. The surface layers are then constantly ex-
posed to such destructive agencies as weather, running
water and frost and are slowly worn away. The region
around Chicago has been a land area so much of the
time since the Devonian period that any rocks depos-
ited during times of submergence have completely dis-
appeared.
Since the last records now existing of the early
geological history of Chicago were deposited on the
floor of the Devonian sea at Elmhurst, so much time
has passed that, if it were computed in years, the fig-

[100]
LEAFLET 7.

MAP OF NORTH AMERICA IN MID-ORDOVICIAN TIME.

AFTER QRABAU.
 Early Geological History op Chicago 29

ures would be too stupendous for human beings to real-

ize their meaning. It has been said that as the astron-
omer finds the mile too short a measure for his
distance and uses a larger unit, the light-year, so the
geologist finds the year too small for his computation
of time and uses the larger unit, a million years, as a
basis of his calculations. The time since the Devonian
period is a matter of hundreds of millions of years.
During that time much of the world's life history has
arisen and passed on. The coal forests have grown
and the coal beds have formed. Reptiles have increased
from insignificant beginnings until they dominated the
life of the planet and then decreased in importance to
their present minor position. Mammal and bird life
have had their beginning and have developed to their
present important position in the life of the world and
there have been other happenings of major importance.
The region around Chicago saw its share of all these
events but the records are gone and we can have no
knowledge of them derived from local sources. We do
know, however, that the progress of events remained
peaceful and uneventful, for any violent action of
geological agencies would surely have left unmistak-
able evidences of its presence.
Henry W. Nichols

[101]
80 Field Museum op Natural History

For those who desire further information on the

geology of this region, and yet do not intend an ex-
haustive study of the subject, the following list of ref-
erences is provided:

Pirrson and Schuchert. —Text Book of Geology, Vol. II.

—
Grabau, Amadeus. Text Book of Geology, Vol. II.

Chamberlain and Salisbury.—Geology, Vol. II.

Geologic Atlas op the United States.— Chicago Folio No. 81,

Published by the U. S. Geological Survey. This contains a
bibliography.
Weller, Stuart. —The Paleontology of the Niagara Limestone
in the Chicago area. Bull. No. 4 of the Natural History
Survey, Chicago Academy of Sciences, Part 1, the Crinoidea
and Part 2, the Trilobita.
Weller, Stuart. —A peculiar Devonian Deposit in Northeast-
ern Illinois. Journal of Geology, Vol. VII, 1899.

[102]
LEAFLET 7.

MAP OF NORTH AMERICA IN MID-SILURIAN (NIAGARA) TIME.

AFTER GRABAU.
PRINTED BY FIELD MUSEUM PRESS