GEOLOGY OF CLINTON AND FAYETTE COUNTIES. The following is taken from the Geological Report of Ohio : Fayette County is bounded on the north by Madison County, on the south by Highland and Ross counties, on the east by Pickaway, and on the west by Clinton and Greene counties. I propose to treat these counties together, partly because there is much similarity in the physical characteristics of the two, but particularly because there is comparatively little of geological interest in them. The formations are little exposed, being generally covered with alluvial and drift-deposits; and where they are exposed, they do not present a great variety of material, such as imbedded fossils, to the geologist, by means of which he may read the history of the life and change of the past, or of those products of the earth, which are so indispensable to mankind, as ores, fossil, coal, and valuable stone, which elsewhere offer such inducements to geological investigations. Still I hope that what I shall present of the geology of these counties will not be utterly devoid of interest to those most concerned, and none the less because I have not atttemped to startle them by any inventions of my own, but I tell only what I have seen, and that in a " plain, unvarnished" way. In these counties one will not fail to observe how the character and employment of the people depend upon the geological formations which underlie their habitations. Here are no rapid streams affording power for manufacturing purposes, and no iron or coal upon which to build the industries which depend upon them. No cities teeming with pressing throngs employed in the arts of busy life. The level surface of underlying rock, with the no less level superficial covering, the deep, black loam point to agriculture as the chief employment of the citizens of these counties. The character of the soil also determines the kind of agricultural products which may most profitably be produced; and thus the range of human employment is doubly limited, 361 362 - HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY. The soil of the larger portion of these counties, including nearly the whole extent of Fayette, is finely adapted to the growth of the most nutritious grasses, as well as the principal cereal grains. Hence stock-raising has very naturally been the chief occupation of the people. It is thus that the geological character of a country modifies the employments, and, to a certain extent, determines the character of those who dwell in it. Where good roads are easily constructed, and where ready access is had to all parts of a district, there is apt to be a high development of social qualities, and of the refinements of civilized life. The land is held in large bodies, causing a sparseness of population which has had, in times past, an unfavorable influence upon the character of public education. The great. energy displayed in constructing public roads, has rendered large school districts less inconvenient than they would be where good roads are impossible. DRAINAGE. The parting-line of the watershed of the Little Miami and Scioto rivers, runs a little west of the line separating Clinton and Fayette counties. Consequently, Clinton County is mostly drained into the Little Miami River, and Fayette County wholly into the Scioto. The drainage of Clinton County is mostly effected by Anderson's, Todd's Forks, and the East Fork of the Miami. Anderson's Fork rises on the line of water-shed to the south of Reeseville, and flows in a circling channel, bending from north to west, and emptying into Caesar's Creek, at a point without the county. No where in its course is this stream far above bedded stone, and at some points it runs upon strata of the Niagara formation, as at places in the " Prairie," at Judge King's, and at Port William it cuts through a portion of the pentamerus beds of this formation where, besides the bed of the creek being wholly of this stone, the. banks, from five to ten feet high, are also of the same. Above Port William, the stream is sluggish, and traverses, for some ten or twelve miles, a district of marked character, known as the " Prairie," a tract of wonderful fertility, of deep, black loam, and which has been, at no very distant past time, the location of a shallow lake or swamp. The highest land, I suppose, in the county, is northeast of this " Prairie," and is, perhaps, not far from seven hundred feet above low water mark at Cincinnati. I was not able GEOLOGY - 363 to obtain the elevations of the Cincinnati and Muskingum Valley Railroad, which traverses both the counties of Clinton and Fayette, and, therefore, lack some data necessary to state, with exactness, the elevations of the different parts of these counties. But by the kindness of Mr. J. H. Klippart, of Columbus, I obtained those of the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, and shall have to refer the elevations of the portions of these counties to those of this road. The highest point in Clinton County, on the Cincinnati and Marietta Railroad, is a point a little east of Vienna, which is seven hundred and thirty-seven and a half feet above low-water mark at Cincinnati. Anderson's Fork receives but few tributaries in all its course, the tract which it drains being comparatively long and narrow. The bedded stone in its channel is of the Niagara formation as flu. down as the Lumberton quarries, where it strikes and cuts nearly through the formation known to geologists as Clinton, and at a point a few miles further down stream, at Ingall's Dam, just outside of Clinton County, it cuts about four feet of purple-red shale, underlying the Clinton, and strikes the higher strata of the Cincinnati group, or Blue Limestone. Todd's Fork, with its tributaries, drains the central and western part of the county. Running in a course in general parallel with the last named stream, and within three or four miles of it, during the most of its course, it could receive few and unimportant tributaries on the side next to that creek, of which Dutch Creek is the only one worthy of being named. On the other side there are three, which I shall mention. The smallest of these is Lytle's Creek, draining the immediate vicinity of Wilmington, and along which the Cincinnati and Muskingum Valley Railroad runs. Cowan's Creek rises on the north of the " Snow Hill " ridge, and in respect of length, and of alluvial bottom, is even more important than the stream to which it is nominally tributary. East Fork rises near Martinsville, and has cut for itself a channel in some places, as within three or four miles of Clarksville, nearly one hundred feet deep in the blue limestone. The East Fork of the Miami drains that part of the county south of the Cincinnati and Marietta railroad, including the neighborhood of New Vienna, and the region south of " Snow Hill" ridge. All these streams have, in years past, furnished motive power for grist and saw-mills, which have, in most instances, been suffered to 364 - HISTORY of FAYETTE COUNTY. go to decay upon their banks, on account of the failure of a supply of water sufficient to turn their wheels during enough months of the year to make it profitable to keep up the mills. This is due, in considerable degree, to the failure of the water in the streams during the late summer and early fall months. The water which fell during the winter and spring months, when the country was new and mostly covered with forest, was retained on the soil. The small streams were choked with rubbish, and the water stood on flats, protected from speedy evaporation by the dense foliage of the trees, and by the heavy coating of fallen leaves, which covered the earth. No artificial drains were in existence. The water gradually trickled from these natural reservoirs, highly colored with the soluble elements of the partially decayed vegetable substances, and kept the streams with at least a partial supply of water during the most of the dry season. Then the mills and dams were less expensive than now, particularly the dams, which were no more than cheap structures of logs and brush, intended chiefly to be of use in changing the current upon the wheel of the mill, rather than detaining the water in a reservoir. Then the machinery of mills was simple and inexpensive, and was suffered to lie idle, without detriment, during the season when the water was insufficient to turn it. Now, numerous improvements have been made in mill machinery, without which, such quality of flour as is now in demand, cannot be made, and these, being patented, are more expensive than the machinery which they displaced. More expensive dams are necessary to retain a large quantity of water. Formerly, the miller was also generally a farmer, and could make profitable use of the dry season in tilling his farm. For such reasons as these, although the same quantity of water still flows through the same channels, the mills are in decay, and the mill seats abandoned. NATURAL DRAINAGE OF FAYETTE COUNTY. A glance at the map of this county, shows numerous water courses traversing the county from its northern to its southern border, varying but little in direction. These streams are all somewhat sluggish in the upper half of their course, but they have quite sufficient fall to constitute an ample system of drainage. At an early day in the settlement of this part of the country, the greater portion of the county was too wet for the plow, but since GEOLOGY - 365 the channels of the streams have been freed from obstructions, and the water has been carried into the watercourses by ditching, this county has taken rank as one of the first agricultural counties of the state. The watercourses present a singular uniformity in respect of direction and tributaries. The main water channels are nearly parallel with each other, and they take the same general direction, uniformly to the east of south. This is true of Deer Creek, as of Paint Creek and its tributaries. We notice another characteristic of all —the tributaries of all the streams put into them from the west. There is no exception in the county—no instance of any tributary, more than a branch a few hundred yards long, coming from the east ; in fact, the tributary branches of all the creeks of the county, rise within a score or so of rods of the bank of the next creek to the west. This shows to the most casual observer that the whole county sheds to east and south, and that as the lowest land in the county is at the point where the water leaves it, so the highest may be looked for in the region whence it flowed—to the northwest. From Mr. James McClean, county surveyor, I learn that Deer Creek is about one hundred feet lower than North Fork of Paint, on the line of the White Oak Turnpike ; that Compton's Creek, on the line of the New Holland and Bloomingburg Turnpike, is fifty feet higher than North Fork, and that East Fork is eighty-seven feet higher than North Fork, and Main Point one hundred and four feet higher than the same stream—so that if this turnpike were a canal, all the water north of Washington could be readily turned into North Fork. The rise in the laud from Washington to the northern boundary of the county, is estimated at not more than fifty feet; and from the extreme north to the south along Paint Creek, the fall is not far from two hundred and ten feet. As the railroad bridge at Green-field is four hundred and fifty-one feet above low-water mark at Cincinnati, and perhaps seventy-five feet above the. bed of the creek at the Fayette County line, the point of Paint Creek, where it leaves Fayette County, would be three hundred and seventy-six feet above low-water mark, at Cincinnati ; add one hundred and sixty feet, the elevation of Washington, the county seat, above Paint Creek, at the southern line of the county, and the elevation of this town above low-water mark of the Ohio River, at Cincinnati, is about five hundred and thirty-six feet, or nine hundred and 366 - HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY. sixty eight feet above tide-water. It will thus appear that the average elevation of Fayette County is about two hundred feet less than that of Clinton County. If we trace the line of outcrop of the various formations from the point in the western part of Clinton County, where Todd's Fork leaves the county, we shall find that the strata of stone seen under those we meet, proceed to the east, and if a well were dug deep enough at Washington or Wilmington, it would cut through all the strata found to the west as far as Cincinnati. A well sunk at Washington would first penetrate the strata overlying those exposed at Rock Mills, and passing through these, would penetrate the strata represented on Paint Creek, below Rock Mills, as at Rogers' and at James', and then would reach the stone so abundant on Rattlesnake, from the line of' the Washington and Leesburgh road to the south, and, passing this, would penetrate the water-lime building-stone of Greenfield and Lexington, and, going deeper, would penetrate the great Niagara system, one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty feet thick, which is found immediately under the city of Wilmington ; cutting through this it would next reach the Clinton iron ore, and then the stratafied stone of this formation, about thirty feet in thickness, and then, after cutting through three feet of a ferruginous clay would reach the Cincinnati group, or blue limestone, and in about one hundred and twenty-five feet would reach the strata which are seen in Todd's Fork, where it flows out of Clinton County. It has been stated that the average level of Fayette County is some two hundred feet lower than that of' Clinton County, while numerous formations overlie in Fayette County those found exposed in Clinton County. The explanation is easy. It is observed that all the strata which have been named, dip to the east. They do, indeed, dip more, rather than less, than sufficient to make up the difference in the level of the counties, and it is likely I have understated rather than overstated the difference in level, as it was impossible to get the levels of the Cincinnati and Muskingum Valley Railroad, which would have enabled me to be more exact. I have calculated that the water-lime building-stone, as seen at Lexington and Greenfield, dips from thirty-five to forty feet per mile to the east, (it dips also to the north). In fifteen miles the dip would be between five hundred and fifty and six hundred feet ; subtracting two hundred feet, the difference in level, there would be GEOLOGY - 367 left three hundred and fifty to four hundred feet to be made up in Fayette County by additional strata. DENUDING AGENCIES. After the deposition of the rocks now found in Clinton and Fayette counties, the surface was not long, at any early geological period, beneath the surface of the sea. While the deposit of sandstone which extends almost from the very border of Fayette County to the south indefinitely, and to the east, underlying the coal, was being made, the land to the north was above water, as well as when the deposits above the sandstone were made; at least, whatever material, organic or inorganic, was ever deposited here, has long since disappeared. We have some evidence, however, that the slate which immediately underlies the sandstone extended somewhat further north than the sandstone itself has been found. In Fayette County, near Rock Mills, about one hundred and twenty-five feet above the bed of the stream, on the farms of A. J. Yeomans and Aquilla Jones, as also on the farm of Mrs. McElroy, a mile west of Paint Creek, and near the southern line of the county, a slate formation is to be seen capping the highest point of land in the southern half of the county. This material must once have been continuous, and may have extended further than any traces of it are found at present. We have abundant evidence in both of these counties of agencies which have operated in comparatively recent geological periods, and which have worn away deposits formerly existing here. We find that the surface of the existing bedded rock has been worn away and channels have been cut in it. Where the loose material which now overlies the bedded rock has been removed, we find markings upon the surface of the exposed rock, if this is of such a nature as to resist atmospheric and other agencies, which would cause the surface of the rock to disintegrate, which indicate that some agency has been at work to grind down, and wear and smooth the surface. But unfortunately the nature of the stone underlying the clay in these counties is such, that it would not generally retain any striae of a delicate character. We do, however, find stone well polished and delicately striated in Paint Creek. The exact locality is in Ross County above Greenfield, on the Indian Creek road, about three hundred feet up stream 368 - HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY. from the beginning of the head-race of Smart's Mill, the last place on the east side of the road where stone has been quarried, and about thirty feet above low-water in the creek. I removed the sand and gravel myself from the exceedingly well polished surface of the rock. Mr. John Sollars reported striated rock in a locality on his place, and another locality was visited by me on the same stream above Rock Mills. At Rogers, below Rock Mills, the gravel contains many blocks of well smoothed stone, and at Rock Mills, just north of the village, many large bowlders of quartz and granite are mingled without stratification with the gravel, and constitute no inconsiderable part of the extensive beds. At J. C. Sinsabaugh's, near Bloomingburgh, I saw a block of stone one foot thick, two feet long and sixteen inches wide, which had been taken from a gravel bank on his farm, and which was well worn on a portion of one side, was very smooth and marked with striae, but the edges or corners were not rounded or broken. This was a hard, dark colored stone which gave out a ringing sound at the stroke of the hammer, and seemed to be of the same material as a drift-stone which I saw at Mr. Hegler's, on Ilerod's Creek, in Ross County, which contained Tentaculites in abundance. Formations in Clinton County, which were formerly continuous, have been partially removed, as on Cliff Run the Clinton formation is seen in its full thickness, while excavations show that its continuity is broken to the east of this locality, so that the exposure of white limestone on Cliff Run is a mere island of this kind of stone. Besides the wearing away of the general surface and the removal of particular parts of formations, there were causes at work which have excavated channels far below the general surface. Ice in the form of glaciers, is generally regarded as the means by which the denudation above alluded to has been effected, and moving water has doubtless been the instrument by which the deep channels have been excavated. These channels are only traced by observing the excavations which are made for one cause or another, the sinking of wells, and borings for water. An instance of this channeling is noticed in that region in Clinton County, known as the "Prairie," where it has been frequently observed that they are places apparently forming a continuous line, GEOLOGY - 369 where rock is not found at any depth yet reached, although on each side it is but a short distance to the undisturbed strata. This channel has not been thoroughly, but, so far as observed, nearly, coincided with the direction of the present Anderson's Fork. Doubtless where the bottom of Anderson's Fork is the bedded rock, the old channel was cut to one side or the other of that in which the water flows at present. Connected with the fact of the existence of such deep drainage at a former period, is implied that the whole country was at a much greater elevation above the sea than it is in our time. THE DRIFT. The old channels became silted up, and other accumulations were made subsequent to the period of denudation. The surface of the land must have sunk down so as to be beneath the surface of the water. Every indication points to water as the medium by which the deposits were made. Upon the surface of the stone is everywhere found more or less of loose material. The study of this material in both these counties is full of interest. The Drift is composed of clay, with varying proportions of sand and gravel, with occasional rounded blocks of granitic rock, and with the remains of trees, and sometimes of other vegetation. The greatest thickness of the Drift in our district is in Clinton County, east of the " Prairie," where a deposit of over one hundred feet is found. Whether the whole surface of the county was covered as deeply as this limited area, may admit of doubt ; but there are reasons for believing that the surface was once covered with a heavy drift deposit. In some places the soft material has been washed away, leaving large accumulations of sand and gravel ; in other places, as in the level region between the East Fork of Todd's Fork and Blanchester, the material of the drift was a finer sediment than is found in other places, and has not been removed or disturbed to such a degree as in other portions of the county, and, consequently, even if sand and gravel exist in it, such extensive beds of these substances as are found where the sediment had a different character, or was subsequently washed in currents of water. The clays of the drift are both blue and yellow, the former apparently prevailing in both counties, as shown in the excavations for wells. There was considerable variation in reports of the strata 370 - HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY. penetrated in sinking wells, but blue clay, or, as it is frequently called blue mud from its appearance, was uniformly found, but there was no uniformity in the thickness of it. Sometimes it is but a few feet thickness, and in another place not a mile distant, it is no less than forty feet thick. It is generally interstratified with sand and fine gravel, but sometimes no such stratification is seen. Water is found nearly everywhere within a very few feet of the surface of the earth, so that it is seldom excavations were carried further than from ten to twenty feet below the surface, and our knowledge is limited of the material underlying to this slight extent. Near Washington, on the farm of Mr. D. Waters, the blue clay is interstratified with sand, while on that of Mr. Noah Evans, adjoining, there is a continuous deposit of the same material of forty feet in thickness with gravel. This blue clay being impermeable to water, it is when beds of sand in it are reached that water is obtained, and usually in abundance. In some parts of our district, particularly those which are flat, there does not occur within the usual range of the wells, much, if any, yellow clay. If it is found, it is just below the soil for from three to ten feet, where fine grained blue clay invariably occurs, interstratified with sand. BOWLDERS. These are found scattered over the surface of both counties, and seem to belong above the blue clay deposit, rather than in it. The largest bowlder, perhaps, which is found so far south in this state, is found in Clinton County, on the county infirmary farm, near Wilmington, and this lies on the fine-grained blue clay, upon which it would seem to have fallen by the washing away of the clay in which it was formerly imbedded, and which at a higher level lies near it on all sides. This bowlder contains about twelve hundred cubic feet, and weighs upwards of ninety tons. Other large bowlders are found in the extreme northern part of Fayette County, scattered numerously over the surface of the ground, and weighing from twenty to thirty tons. Besides these large erratic blocks, smaller ones are found more or less abundantly everywhere throughout these counties, especially in the northern half. They are found lying on or near the surface, where they have been left by the removal by water of the material deposited with them. GRAVEL AND SAND. Mingled with the drift is always found a considerable proportion of these substances, but being scattered throughout the whole mass, or at most, showing only a slight tendency to be distinct in strata, more or less mixed with soft material. Where the original drift is in quantity and undisturbed, the sand and gravel in it are not available for economic purposes. A few years ago these counties were thought to be lacking in these important adjuncts to civilization. It was not until within the last five years, when the demand for gravel for road-making became exceedingly urgent, that thorough and exhaustive, and as the result proved successful, search was made for it. It is now known that no real deficiency exists. People have learned where to look for it. When the currents of water carried away the lighter material of the drift deposit, those constituents which were heavier were left behind. We may regard the highest land as the former level of the region we are speaking of. There was then a deposit of loose material, sometimes a hundred feet in thickness above the bedded stone. This material was manifestly deposited from water. And to account for the character of the markings upon the rock surface, and the promiscuous intermixture of clays, sand, and gravel, and sometimes a certain limited measure of stratification, or assorting of the material according to their weight, and for the evidently remote origin of the stony constituents requiring that they should have been brought hither, and especially for the numerous bowiders conspicuous, both for their size and clear marks of foreign origin, we unhesitatingly come to the conclusion that ice in some form contributed to the same end. Water in a liquid state alone could not carry such material so far without having an enormous velocity, sufficiently to move before it not only the loose material, but the very stone beneath it. When the water subsided, new lines of drainage appeared, corresponding more or less, depending upon the physical features of the country, with pre-existing ones. The emergence of the land was gradual, and the subsiding water stood for greater or less periods of time at different levels, which may be pointed out today with more or less distinctness. During the emergence of the solid earth, the currents of water carried away some of the material constituting the drift sediment 372 - HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY. of the former period. The channels of drainage mark the direction of the current. Within these channels, the drift deposits were removed sometimes to the bedded rock. The varying force of the currents distributed the material as we mtw see it. Strong currents carried all before them; weaker currents only the more refined sediment. Any current bearing substances along will deposit the heavier material first, when the current becomes checked. It is thus that matters carried in currents of water become assorted and distributed. When a current bearing sediment finds a wider channel and expands, the current is checked at the side upon which it finds room to spread out. Here will be a deposit of the heavier parts of its freight. If two currents meet at the point of intersection, the currents will be retarded, especially if one be more swollen than the other, and the heavier material carried will he deposited. Where now are mere brooks, the ample extent of the washing, the broad valleys, show that rivers once flowed. Wherever the drift clays were not washed, the gravel lies interspersed through it; but where the clays are broken, where valleys have been cut iii them, on the sides of these cuts, on the escarpment of the broken clay and gravel drift, the clay has been removed and the gravel is left in beds. Following the principles before referred to in regard to the laws of sedimentary deposits, the road-maker of today may find the deposits of gravel he needs. Along the declivity, where two former currents met, far back from the meeting point of the diminutive stream of the present time, on a point and looking from the higher land, he who seeks this useful material need not look in vain. As there were various levels of the water at that fur distant period, so are there several elevations at which gravel is actually found. In addition to those beds on the escarpment of the hills, there are found hillocks or natural mounds of gravel which represent eddies, or places in which for some cause the water was more quiet, and hence, unable to carry forward all its load of sediment. Besides these, the soil of the present bottoms is in many places underlaid with ample deposits of gravel. Drifted wood is found in the blue clay in all our district. The instances in which wood has been found in the clay beds, penetrated in well-digging, are by no means few ; nearly every neighborhood furnishing one or more. A kind of jointed grass or rush was obtained from a well near Reeseville, in Clinton County. Bones.—The gravel, which lay so long hidden from the knowl- GEOLOGY - 373 edge of the present inhabitants, was almost uniformly made use of as places of interment by some former race of people. Scarcely a gravel bed has been extensively worked in either of these counties in which abundance of human bones have not been discovered. The skeletons are usually found within two or three feet of the surface. We are left to conjecture in giving any reason why this material was used to make interments for the dead. Trinkets of any decription are extremely rare in such graves, although not entirely unknown. In none, of which I have heard, were there any indications of unusual care or elaborateness in the interments. Possibly the ease of excavating a grave in such material may have determined the choice. But is it not a little singular that the inhabitants of a long-past age should have known the position of these gravel beds, covered, as they were, with a dense forest, while two generations of the intelligent people of this age had not any thought of their existence until within a half dozen of years? Stone implements..—Flint, arrow and lance-pomts, stone hammers, bark-peelers, hematite fishing bobs or sinkers, and other articles of this class are found especially along the watercourses. As no value and but a passing interest have been attached to these articles, they have not been preserved, but have been broken up or lost. Still many are found yet by persons engaged in working the soil. No one locality has furnished more than the borders of Deer Creek, but they are common on all the streams, and, indeed, over the whole surface of the county are they found. As the soil in Fayette and iii parts of Clinton has not been subjected to the plow as much as in other places, and, of course, some of it not plowed at all, there perhaps remain more still to be gathered than have ever been heretofore. Some persons, seeing in these articles a story of a former race of human beings, who have left but little else to tell of their manners of civilization, are gathering them up to preserve them from destruction. Nothing more amazes one in contemplating these relics of a people of a long past age than the immense number of them scattered over the surface of the earth. Perhaps no single acre of ground in central or southern Ohio but has furnished at least one flint arrow-point; but the average would be much greater than one to the acre, and it is not too much to say that every farm, at least, has furnished sometime a stone hatchet or bark-peeler. Hematie bowlder.—In Clinton County, near the residence of Sam- 374 - HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY. uel Lamar, one of the county commissioners, I found a hematite bowlder weighing about two hundred and fifty pounds. This was extremely hard, and seemed to be of the same material from which the sinkers, referred to in the last paragraph, were made. Flow-wells.—There are several wells in each county, from the mouth of which the water constantly flows. The well at the fair ground, near Washington, is a good illustration of the principle of the artesian well. It was sunk through a stratum of blue clay to one of sand, from which the water rises and comes to the surface. About one mile distant is a well on the farm of Mr. D. Waters, iii which the water rises to within six feet of the surface of the ground. The use of a. level shows that the ground rises about the same number of feet between the fair grounds and Mr. Waters', and this person must dig as much deeper to penetrate to the water-bearing stratum of sand. The water stands on the same level in Mr. Waters' well as at. the fair grounds. THE BOUNDARY LINE OF CINCINNATI GROUP. The line separating the blue limestone and the Clinton white limestone is easily distinguished. It may be distinguished in all the streams in the western part of Clinton County, which all cut abruptly through the Clinton and into the blue limestone. I shall here indicate where that line runs, beginning just without the county, on Anderson's Fork, near Ingall's Dam, where the upper beds of the Cincinnati Group and the Clinton formation are seen at one glance. To the west a mile or two, on Cliff Run, as well as on Buck Run, the Clinton stone may be seen forming low cliff's, cut off from the main body of the formation; but the true line is on Anderson's Fork, as mentioned above. On Todd's Fork, just above the crossing of the Lebanon road, near the line which divides the surveys, 1554 and 1556 (H. Gates), the same formations are seen in juxtaposition. Further south, on Lytle's Creek, was not seen; but on the next stream, Cowan's Creek, the line of the Clinton sweeps around to the east and appears above the village of Antioch, on the farm of Mr. James Gregory, and does not here rise above the surface of the earth. The next point in the line is back to the west, about one mile northeast of Martinsville, where it is quarried, and then its next appearance is at a point about one mile south of Farmer's Station, on the Cincinnati and Marietta Railroad, on a trib- GEOLOGY - 375 utary stream of the East Fork of the Miami. The last point at which the blue limestone is seen on the East Fork of the Miami, is near Pitzer's meeting-house, on the edge of White's survey. The very interesting fossils of the blue limestone of the Cincinnati Group will be figured in volumes of this survey, devoted to the subject of paleontology. THE CLINTON FORMATION. This is seen on Anderson's Fork, at Oglesby's quarry, and in Todd's Fork from the point of its first appearance, near the Lebanon road, to Babb's quarry in the base of the Niagara. At either of these localities the whole of the formation may be studied. The lower strata have the distinctly sandy constitution characteristic of this formation, from which the stone is frequently called sandstone. These strata are good firestones, and resist the action of fire as a back wall in fireplaces, for a generation, without softening or crumbling. But the strata a few feet higher are burned into lime, and make a medium quality for building purposes, and, no doubt, a very good quality of caustic lime for softening straw in the manufacture of paper. Some part of the ten feet of massive stone furnishes good building material. This stone has been obtained in Todd's Fork, but is expensive on account of thickness of superincumbent stone of a poor quality which must be removed before good stone can be reached. On Anderson's Fork, at Oglesby's quarry, the same stone is more accessible, and is the best building stone obtained from this formation. The quality of this stone at Oglesby's has led some to refer it to the Niagara. But it has the hardness and gritty character of the Clinton, and on surfaces which have been exposed in the quarry to the action of atmospheric agencies for a period of several years, it is seen to be composed almost wholly of a solid mass of broken encrinitic stems. Aside from Ethological characters, this stone at Oglesby's is in the Clinton horizon about midway from top to bottom, exclusive of the iron ore in the upper part. The twelve feet from the top of the Clinton is well seen from the under-strata at Babb's quarry, on Todd's Fork, down stream to the locality of the iron furnace formerly erected to work the ore. This twelve feet is highly fossiliferous throughout, but it is only in a few feet at the bottom where the proportion of iron is great enough to entitle it to the name of iron 376 - HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY. ore. In this part the imbedded fossils are deeply colored by the iron. For some reason the furnace erected here about twenty-seven years ago did not prove a success, and was soon abandoned, although the quality of iron was reparded as very good. The richest ore is a brittle stone, mostly composed of small, exteriorily smooth and shiny lenticular grains, reminding one of flax-seed. The ore is easily crumbled in the hand, and contains numerous disjointed crinoidal disks, partially eroded. The species of fossils become more numerous as we approach the higher' strata. Sometimes the stone is highly granular or crystalline, while still crumbling easily in the fingers, and is less ferruginous, and the imbedded fossils become light colored. The iron ore occurs in considerable quantities, being exposed in an outcrop along the slopes for several miles, and large quantities could be obtained by stripping. If' it were more convenient or nearer furnaces in operation, it might become valuable to mix with other ores in making certain qualities of iron, particularly if it should be found to serve likewise as a flux The fossils in the upper beds are better preserved than in the lower, but good cabinet specimens are difficult to obtain. That locality alluded to before as Grubb's quarry, in the southern part of the county, abounds in fossils, and I recommend it as a promising field for palaeontological research. It was but little opened at the time of my visit, but as the stone obtained seemed to answer well for building purposes, it will doubtless be further developed and furnish many fossils, and possibly some that are new to science.