SILICA DEPOSIT FOUND-1900

REYNOLDS

Posted By: CHERYL MOONEN (email)
Date: 12/13/2018 at 00:18:01

Evening times-Republican, Thursday, Jul 19, 1900, Marshalltown, IA, Page: 3

SILICA DEPOSIT FOUND

Excavation for Sewers at Fort Dodge
Unearthed Rich Deposit of Pure Silica

Special to the Times Republic
Fort Dodge, July 18 – City Engineer Charles Reynolds has made a valuable find in the shape of a large deposit of the finest kind of pure silica underlying Commerce Street of this city. The discovery was due to a deep excavation for the extension of sewers. It lies only fifteen feet below the surface and is the quality from which the finest glass is made. The grains are rather coarse and nearly pure milky- white in color. The facets are yet sharp, showing that the deposit was laid down without great erosion. The silica greatly resembles corn meal and many people would take it for the coarsely ground product of maize. City Engineer Reynolds believes that this find is a valuable one, that there is every reason to believe that it underlies the adjacent property. The establishment of glass works in Iowa has never been thought of, but there is no reason why glass works cannot be run here as profitably as in Illinois or Indiana. The find of the deposit of glass silica again demonstrates the superior mineral resources of Webster County, as some of the most extensive coal and clay beds in the state are located here, and in fact the only outcropping of gypsum in this part of the country occurs a short distance south of Fort Dodge.