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"In Eastern and Northeast Missouri there have not been found many large caves in the Encrinital Limestone, but the lower beds of this formation in Southwest Missouri often enclose very large caverns; among the latter may be included the caves of Green County with some in Christian and McDonald.
We are unable to believe in the continuity of our coal-beds with those of America, for the great source of sediment in those times was a continent situated on the site of the Atlantic Ocean, and it is owing to this extensive continent that the forms of flora found in the coal-beds in each country bear so close a resemblance to one another, and also that the encrinital limestone which was formed in the purer depths of the ocean on the east, became mixed with silt, and formed masses of shaly impure limestone in the south-western parts of Ireland.
We can therefore safely come to the conclusion that the large masses of encrinital limestone, which attain such an enormous thickness in some places, especially in Ireland, have been formed far away from the land of the period; we can at the same time draw the conclusion that if we find the encrinites broken and snapped asunder, and the limestone deposits becoming impure through being mingled with a proportion of clayey or sandy deposits, that we are approaching a coast-line where perhaps a river opened out, and where it destroyed the growth of encrinites, mixing with their dead remains the sedimentary dêbris of the land.
"In Boone County there are several caves in the Encrinital Limestone. Conner's, the largest, is said to have been explored for a distance of eight miles." "In Pike and Lincoln there are several small caves occurring in the upper beds of Trenton Limestone, which are often very cavernous. On Sulphur Fork of Cuivre, there is a cave and Natural Bridge, to which parties for pleasure often resort.
Those in McDonald I have not seen, but they are reported to be very extensive and probably are situated in the Encrinital Limestone." Under the head of "Special Descriptions" he says: "On Sac River, in the north part of Green County, we find a cave with two entrances, one at the foot of a hill, opening toward Sac River, forty-five feet high and eighty feet wide.
Other State reports make mention of many caves and fine springs, and also several natural bridges worthy of special notice. In Mr. G.C. Broadhead's report for 1873-1874, he gives a short but interesting chapter on caves and water supplies, in which he says that "Caves occur in the Third Magnesian Limestone, Saccharoidal Sandstone, Trenton, Lithographic, Encrinital and St. Louis Limestone."
Psammodus porosus. Orthoceras. In the mountain limestone we see, of course, the predominance of marine types, encrinital remains forming the greater proportion of the mass. There are occasional plant remains which bear evidence of having drifted for some distance from the shore. But next to the encrinites, the corals are the most important and persistent.
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