HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

CHAPTER XVII.

TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY.

THE DIVIDE - WATER COURSES - SOIL - SURFACE DEPOSITS GOLD - IRON ORE - GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE - ECONOMIC GEOLOGY.

SURVEY OF 1878. BY M. C. READ

In the beginning, the Lord made the heaven and the earth.

RICHLAND COUNTY is situated on the highest part of the divide between the waters of Lake. E:rie and the Ohio River. The surface on the north is comparatively level, but rises toward the south to the height, in places. of nearly one thousand feet above the lake. In the southeast part of the county there are chains of high hills, separated by narrow valleys. and exhibiting almost a mountainous character. The Black Fork of the Mohican River rises in the north part of the county, and. passing through the townships of Blooming Grove. Franklin, Weller. Mifflin and Monroe, anti thence into Ashland County, flows in a deep channel which connects on the north with the channels of drainage into the lake. A similar channel, having a similar northern connection, passes a little west of Mansfield, null, now filled with silt and gravel, forms the bed of the creek. Between these valleys the hills rise in irregular chains often quite abruptly and in the southern and southwestern Darts of the county to an elevation of from 200 to 500 feet above the valleys. In Jefferson Township n long ''chestnut ridge. " traversed by the road leading west from Independence, reaches an elevation of 450 feet above the railroad at Independence. On the geologist's table of elevations this railroad station is given as 659 feet, but he suspects this to be excessive if correct, the elevation of the ridge is 1,059 feet above the lake, and is one of the highest points in the State. Two and a half miles northeast of Bellville and near the north line of Jefferson Township, the hills reach an elevation of 952 feet above the lake. About two miles north, and on the direct road to Mansfield, the surface rises rapidly to an elevation of 912 feet and at three and a half miles the summit between Bellville and Mansfield is 932 feet above the lake, or 370 feet above Mansfield. * The descent from the top of this divide is much more gradual to the north than by the south a characteristic of all parts of the water-shed in this neighborhood. The highest points to the north and toward Mansfield are by the barometer, 320 feet, 300 feet. 190 feet etc., above Mansfield. About seven miles west of the city and near the western line of the county is an isolated knob, which is designated by

* The height of Mansfield above the lake is, on the profile of the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, 581 feet; on the profile of the Sandusky & Mansfield Railroad, 657 feet ; on the profile of the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne & Chicago Railroad, 592 feet; part of the difference being due to the different elevations of the localities passed by the railroads in the city.

166 - HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

residents in the vicinity as the highest land in the county and State. It is however, by the barometer, only 240 feet above Mansfield or 832 feet above the lake while two and a half miles further east the surface rises by more gentle inclination 30 feet higher.

Soil. - The soil over the greater part of Richland County rests upon the unmodified drift clays, and taken its general character from them. It contains a large quantity of lime derived mainly from the corniferous limestone, fragments of which are everywhere mingled with the drift. The clay in the soil is also modified and tempered by the debris of the local rocks which is largely mingled with the drift and is mostly siliceous. This character, combined with a high elevation and thorough surface drainage furnishes a soil which renders the name of the county appropriate. and secures a great variety of agricultural products.

While all parts of the county are well adapted to grazing the land is especially fitted for the growth of wheat and other cereals and to the production of fruit. The profusion of rock fragments in the drift renders the soil pervious to water and prevents washing even in the steepest hills.

In the southeastern part of the county the higher hills are in places capped with a coarse ferruginous conglomerate and are so covered with its debris as not to be susceptible of tillage. Nature has designated a use to which these sand-rock hills should be appropriated as they are generally covered with a dense see and growth of chestnut. This timber prefers soil filled with fragments of sand-rock and the second growth is almost as valuable as red cedar for fence posts and other similar purposes. If upon all similar rocky hills the inferior kinds of timber and the useless undergrowth were cut away, and the growth of the chestnut encouraged, these now worthless hilltops would yield an annual harvest scarcely less valuable than that of the most fertile valleys. On the north side of the divide, the slopes of the hills are covered by the debris of the local rocks, and the soil is much less productive.

Surface Deposits. - The greater part of the county is covered by a thick deposit of unmodified bowlder clay, which, in many of the northern townships, conceals from view all the underlying rocks. Except upon the margins of the streams, this bowlder clay which is often very thick, is wholly unstratified. The clay near the surface is yellow; at the bottom, blue Granitic bowlders and pebbles, and fragments of the local, rocks are very abundant through the whole mass. In some places the line between the yellow and blue clay is sharply defined, but aside from the difference in color, there is no distinction, except that the yellow is fissured by vertical, horizontal and oblique seams, through which the water readily percolates, while the blue is generally impervious to it. On this account, springs frequently mark the junction of these clays. Many of them, however which afforded an abundant supply of water when the country was first settled have dried up. This is no indication of a diminished rainfall, but may he explained partly by the more rapid surface drainage resulting from the removal of the forest and partly by the deeper oxidization of the bowlder clay which renders it porous and depresses the junction between the yellow and blue clays so us to change the line of drainage or, from the deeper fissures of the clay the water-bearing horizon has been carried below the outlets of the old springs.

The hard granitic and metamorphic bowlders and pebbles of this drift are well worn, and often striated with great uniformity along their greatest diameter. On the contrary, the soft and friable debris of the local rocks on the top of the hills is neither water-worn nor striated. The fragments are often as angular as if just broken up in quarry. Away from the water-courses the surface of the land is undulating, consisting of irregular ridges with frequent

HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY. - 167

depressions and cavities having no outlet. and indicating that the present contour of the surface is nut the result of recent erosion. The surface drainage is now filling up and obliterating these cavities, some of which are still swamps. and generally the wash from the hills is carrying the silt and humus into these depressions, so that surface erosion is steadily diminishing instead of increasing these inequalities. Over large areas the clay includes such an abundance of rock fragments that, wherever surface erosion is facilitated down the slopes of the hills by road-making or otherwise, the wash is arrested as soon as a shallow channel is formed by the accumulation of rock fragments on the surface. If erosion by rainfall excavated the depressions and ravines the water would have had force sufficient only hr carry away the clay, sand and finer gravels and the surface would sow be covered with bowlders and fragments of rocks, but such a condition of the surface is nowhere found. A comparatively few isolated bowlders are scattered over the surface as though dropped upon it. In the deeper ravines. which should be filled with a mass of these bowlders. they are very rarely found and are no more abundant upon the slopes than upon the tops of the hills.

On the margins of the streams there is frequently at the bottom a deposit of laminated or finely stratified clay, with rudely stratified gravel and bowlders above. The fragments of the local rocks are here rounded and globular; no striated granitic fragments nests are found. In places, all the fragments of the local rocks are ground to powder, and with all the clay and finer gravels of the drift have been washed away leaving only coarse, well rounded granitic pebbles, with occasional bowlders of the corniferous limestone. In this material, also. cavities are occasionally found having no outlets; the character of the underlying rock, and the form of the surface indicating that they are not properly sink-holes, such as are often found in limestone regions. A little east of the railroad station at Lexington, two such cavities are quite conspicuous. They are on a long billowy ridge filled with coarse gravel and bowlders, and covered with a forest of hard maple. In the deepest cavity the depression is twenty-five feet in the other fifteen feet. The slopes in each are smooth, without rock fragments and covered with the native forest trees. In both there is an accumulation of humus at the bottom. and the deeper one contains a little water. They afford a ready explanation of the origin of the small ponds having no outlet, found in other places along this divide with dead forest trees standing in the water. In the original cavity the drainage through the porous bottom was free and the forests occupied the bottom and the slopes. The wash of the slopes and the tine material of the decomposed vegetation gradually accumulated in the gravelly bottom which, like a filter long used, gradually became impervious to the water which encroached more and more upon the vegetation, ultimately destroying it, and the dry cavity became a pond. The accumulation of vegetable debris, and the growth of water plants upon the margin, will finally convert the pond into a marsh, which in the end will its filled up and obliterated.

To account for the facts exhibited in the profile of Richland County, an agency is required which shall bring from their home in the far north the granitic bowlders and pebbles, the corniferous limestone, and other hard rocks intervening; shall pulverise to clay the soft argillaceous rocks : shall leave the hard rocks brought in from the north rounded and striated shall mingle all this material intimately with the debris of the friable local rocks, which are neither water-worn nor striated, but are sharp, angular fragments; and leave the whole entirely unassorted upon the high lands in undulating ridges, but upon the margins of the streams often washing away all the finer material wearing to a sand the debris of the soft local rocks,

168 - HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

assorting and depositing in different places the materials having different specific gravities. The question, what that agent probably was will be discussed when other facts bearing upon its full solution shall be accumulated.

Gold.-One of the most interesting surface deposits of the county and one intimately connected with the discussion of the drift, is the gold found about Bellville and other places in the southern part of Richland County. The origin of the gold has been attributed to an ancient drift agency, which brought in the pebbles of the Waverly conglomerate , but the geologist is quite confident that it should lm referred to the surface drift and was brought in by the same agency that transported the granitic bowlders and pebbles. If referred to the Waverly conglomerate it should be found at the base of this deposit. It is in fact, found most abundantly about the level of its upper surface and in perceptible quantities on the slopes of the hills fifty to one hundred feet above it. If it came from the Waverly conglomerate, it should be the most abundant where the quartz pebbles of this conglomerate are the most numerous, while at Bellville, and the immediate neighborhood this Waverly rock is comparatively free from pebbles. The gold is found in minute flakes, associated with black sand (magnetic iron ore), small garnets, and fragments of quartz. It is most abundant at the mouth of gorges opening to the south, rising rather rapidly toward the north. terminating in various branches, which start from the top of the hills two or three hundred feet high. On the table-land above, large quartz bowlders are occasionally seen and angular fragments of quartz are abundantly obtained in washing for gold. Pieces of native topper are also found some of them of considerable size occasionally copper ore, and, very rarely, minute quantities of native silver. In the stone quarry near Bellville an angular and partly decomposed fragment of quartz was picked up, containing what the miners call "wire gold," interlaced through it. It had evidently fallen from the gravel bed at the top of the quarry which contained quartz fragments mingled with other erratics. The most plausible theory of the origin of the gold is, that the transposing agencies which brought in and deposited the surface drift, passed over veins of gold-bearing quartz. which were crushed, broken up, and transported with the other foreign material and scattered along a line extending through Richland, Knox, and Licking Counties. Over what is now the southern slope of the divide between the waters of the lake and the Ohio, a thick deposit of the drift has been washed away, the fragments of the quarter, broken up and disintegrated, the gold of the drift concentrated probably a hundred thousand fold, so that in these protected coves the "color" of gold can be obtained from almost every panful of earth. The first discovery of this fact caused much local excitement. and experienced miners and others prospected the whole region in the confident expectation that these indications would lead to rich placer mining. One returned California miner spent the whole of one summer and fall prospecting, part of the time with one, and the rest with three hired assistants. The gross amount of gold obtained was between twenty-five and thirty dollars. In the richest localities about one dollar per day can be obtained by steady work. As no gold-bearing rocks are to be found in the State the occurrence of gold here can have only a scientific interest connected with the theories of the drift.

Iron Ore.-The rocks of Richland County include a few deposits of iron ore, generally of little value, and the surface accumulations of this mineral are rare. In Plymouth Township, on a small stream near the center, and west of the railroad is quite an extensive bed of hydrated oxide of iron containing large masses of calcareous tufa. No spring of water is apparent which could deposit these minerals and

HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY. - 169

they probably indicate the bed of an old shallow swamp, now five or six feet above the present channel of the adjacent stream. The stratum is from two to three feet in thickness, but not of sufficient extent to be of any great value

Geological Structure - The geological sturcture of Richland County is easily read and has little variety. No single exposure discloses all the rocks of the series and as the dip is often quite considerable and is without uniformity the measurements of the different strata are only aproximations. The subjoined section is the result of many observations and measurements, and will illustrate tire general character of the geological structure:

Carboniferous conglomerate ................................ 8 to 20 feet

Argillaceous and siliceous shales.......................17O to 250 feet

Waverly conglomerate....................................... 100 to 190 feet

Argillaceous and sandy shale, some-

times bituminous................................................. 65 feet

Shales with bands of flaggy sandstone................ 235 feet

Berea sandstone................................

The highest hills in the northeastern parts of the county are capped with the carboniferous conglomerate, which is, in general, quite thin. rarely attaining a thickness of twenty feet. It frequently contains fragments of chert, and a large quatity of iron ore. In many places it is a siliceous iron ore and would be valuable if there were a local demand for it. This conglomerate contains, in many places, a great profusion of clamites - lipidodendra, sigillaria, etc.

Below this is a series of shales corresponding to the Cuyahoga shales of the northeastern counties, in part argillaceous, with fragments of crinoids and nodules of iron ore : and in part siliceous, containing the oridinary sub-carboniferous fossils. The transition is here apparent through which the varied strata composing the Cuyahoga duties pass in going southward inter the homogeneous, sandy, olive shales of the Waverly; and this member of the series is much more siliceous than it is further north. It varies much in thickness, ranging from 110 to 200 feet and over. In places the lower part of it becomes massive, and not distinguishable from the Waverly conglomerate upon which it rests. Nowhere in it were minerals of any economic value observed.

The Waverly conglomerate is the characteristic rock formation of the county and from its lithological character in many places, it might readily be mistaken for the ordinary carboniferous conglomerate, but it, horizon can be definitely traced at a varying distance of from one hundred to two hundred and fifty feet below the true conglomerate, and upon careful study can everywhere be readily distinguished from it. It is generally more thoroughly and evenly stratified than the carboniferous conglomerate, the pebbles are usually smaller the grains of sand forming the mass of rock are mostly globular and transparent. When colored by iron it is oftener in regular bands or layers, as the result of more perfect stratification, and peddles and grains of jasper are more abundant. The distinction between it and the carboniferous conglomerate of this immediate neighborhood is still more marked. The latter is quite coarse, containing large peddles, some of them but little rounded fragments of fossiliferous, cherty limestone, and many coal plants. including sigillaria, calamites, lepidodendra, cordaites, etc. The plants of the Waverly conglomerate are mainly fucoids. The iron in the latter, shown only by the color of the rock, is not magnetic, preventing the use of the compass in the vicinity of its massive outcrops.

In Plymouth Township, about three miles southwest of Plymouth Village there is a quarry in the Berea grit showing something of a transition between this quarry rock and the coarse conglomerate. About twelve feet in thickness of the rock has been exposed, the upper layers yellow, thin. and much broken ; the lower ones more massive blue in color and a sandstone grit. The dip of the rock is 5 degrees

170 - HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

north and the quarry is twenty feet below an opening in the same rock at Plymouth Village.

This is the southern exposure in this neighborhood of unmistakable Berea and there is great difficulty in tracing its connection with the outcrops of massive sand-rock to the northeast, and in the central and eastern parts of the county. The surface rises to the northeast is gently undulating sometimes hilly, every where exhibiting a thick deposit of drift which conceals all the rocks until a little north of Rome in Blooming Grove Township. On the banks of a small stream about fifteen feet of rocks are exposed consisting of soft argillaceous shales, with hard blue tesselated bands which weather yellow, affording poor stone but firmishing the only supply in this neighborhood. Those present somewhat the appearance of the Bedford shales belonging below the Berea white, topographically they are by the barometer 170 feet above the Berea last described In Weller Township one-half mile northwest of Olivesburg a well was sunk passing through twenty-one feet of unstratified clay drift then striking a hard fine-grained blue sandstone underlaid with alternate bands of sandstone and argillaceous shale. These were penetrated to the depth of nineteen feet when a small supply of water was obtained and the explorations ceased. Four miles west at Big hill the same sandstone is quarried. South of this and in the hills immediately north of Windsor Station in Weller Township the Waverly conglomerate is quarried and exposed by outcrops and bluffs in several places. It is here 100 feet thick and its surface by barometer is 400 feet above the exposure of the Berea in Plymouth Village. It is a coarse massive sandstone in places white in others covered with iron containing many quartz pebbles and presenting a strong resemblance to the ordinary conglomerate. In one quarry about thirty feet of the structure of the ledge is exposed. It is much broken up and except at the top has no regular stratification and is all coarse. In places it is fall of pebbles and bears little resemblance to any of the northern exposures of the Berea Glacial strive are here observed bearing south 32 degrees east.

If this is a continuation of the Berea its lithological characters here rapidly changed it; the distance of about twenty miles it has risen about four hundred feet. This may be the fact but from a comparison of all the observations made it is pretty certain that it has no connection with the Berea, but is simply an ancient shore deposit of coarse material having no great horizontal range and not always to be found on the same vertical horizon. The Waverly rocks in passing northward become much more siliceous and the sandy layers are generally composed of coarser materials. In places they consist entirely so far as they are exposed of thin fragile layers of sandy shale constituting the typical olive shales of the Waverly. These in places pass into a compact quarry rock similar to the Logan sandstone of Fairfield County and often at a distance of from 120 to 250 feet below the coal measure rocks are succeded by this coarse Waverly conglomerate. This it is true is about the distance below the coal measures at which the Berea is found at the north. But there is a great thickening up southward of the Waverly rocks and this conglomerate has neither the persistence our any of the lithological characters of the Berea. Its base where well defined in Knox County, is shown by borings to be over three hundred and fifty feet above the top of the red or chocolate shales which there is a well defined horizon and appears to be identical with the Cleveland shales of the Cuyahoga Valley which are about seventy feet only below the Berea. These borings disclose the fact that the Huron, Erie and Cleveland shales extend northward through these counties with little change in their lithological characters the Erie greatly reduced in

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HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY. - 173

thickness; that above them there is a marked thickening of the Waverly rocks and such change in their mineral constituents and modes of deposition as to make their subdivision into Cuyahoga shales, Berea grit and Bedford shales so clearly defined in the Cuyahoga impossible. The interval between this rock and the coal measures also varies greatly and it is evident that at different horizons the sandy shales of the Waverly pass into coarse conglomerate which form long narrow ridges with a northerly and southerly bearing and nowhere extending in broad sheets in an easterly and westerly direction. The fact is of interest in this connection that the whole body of the Waverly here is composed of coarser material and is generally more homogeneous than further south

The following sections will show the general character of the upper members of the Waverly and the local character of the Waverly conglomerate.

Section from top of hill near the southwest corner of Washington Township to the "oilwell" on the banks of the Mohican, six miles south of Loudonville :

Feet

No. 1. Coarse ferruginous, cherty conglomerate...:..

No. 2. Olive shales of Waverly.................................. 270

No. 3. Alternate bands of sandstone and argilla-

ceous shales................................................................ 100

No. 4. Argillaceous shales, with nodules of iron ore,

many fragments of crinoids, spirifers, etc................... 20

An exposure half a mile west of No. 3 of this section shows a coarse and more massive sandstone approaching to the Waverly conglomerate.

Section three-fourths of a mile northwest of Lucas:

Feet

No. 1. Red and yellow conglomerate..............10 to 18

No. 2. Hard white sand-rock in three layers... 19

No. 3. Covered................................................ 160

No. 4. Sand and argillaceous shales at bottom

of valley........... ........................... ......

The upper part of the Waverly conglomerate is represented by the upper part of this section. The rock shows occasional seams of pebblesand in places colored bans not as marked but of the same character as the Mansfield quarry. It is firm and strong splitting easily in the lines of stratification and furnishes a very good quarry rock.

Section at Newville:

Feet

No. 1. Olive shales of Waverly.........................160

No. 2. White sand-rock...................................10 to15

No. 3. Coarse sandstone with pebbles and

bands of gravel.............................................. 80 to 100

The lower 100 feet of this section compose the rock bluffs at Newville, which present a striking resemblance to some of file outcrops of the sub-carboniferous conglomerate. It splits more readily inter thin layers, and its true character as the Waverly conglomerate is apparent from its mineral composition as well as from its stratigraphical position.

Section at Daniel Zent's quarry Bellville:

Feet

No. 1. Earth..............................................2 to 4

No. 2. Coarse pebbles of drift..................8 to 10

No. 3. Sandstone in thin layers......................15

No. 4. Sandstone in massive layer±................ 8

No. 5. Sandstone in layers of one to four feet....15

The rock of this exposure is much like the Logan sandstone contains few pebbles but is on the same horizon as the Waverly conglomerate. It affords a large amount of excellent building-stone most of which is taken by the railroad company. This rock forms all the hills in this part of the county, which rise rapidly to the north to the height of thirty feet or more. It is in the coves and gorges cut down in this rock and opening southward that most of the gold of this county has been found which is obtained not only at the bottom of the gorges but from the earth which covers the slopes to the top. These facts coupled with that of finding many erratics of quartz in the tops of the hills to the north and northwest indicate that this gold was brought in by the recent and out by the Waverly drift.

Many layers in this quarry are conspicuously ripple-marked and remains of fucoids are

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abundant. Northward from this locality on the road toward Mansfield the hills rise through , the olive shales of the Waverly to the height of 350 feet shove the base of this quarry. The character of the rock is well shown in the hills; is a yellow, fine-grained shelly sandstone and valueless as a quarry rock. Approaching Mansfield it becomes coarser more massive and more highly colored with iron and finally passes into a coarse, massive sand-rock evidently the Waverly conglomerate, the top of which is 145 feet above the base of the quarry at Bellville. Ninety feet below this in the bed of the stream, alternate layers of argillaceous and sandy shales are exposed.

The top of the quarry east from Mansfield is twenty feet below the top of this coarse sandrock, and is a continuation of it, the town resting upon this formation. which crops out on all sides of it about sixty feet of the rock is here exposed. It is all much broken; the upper thirty feet in thin layers, the lower thirty feet in layers of from one to six feet thick. Much of the rock is beautifully colored in waved bands and lines of black yellow and red as delicately shaded as the best artificial graining of wood. Very beautiful specimens can be obtained, and if it were harder it would make a very ornamental building stone. It dresses smoothly and endures exposure well but is soft and easily worn away by abrasion.

On Brushy Fork, near Millsborough about six miles west of Mansfield, and thirty-five feet above the Mansfield quarry, is the outcrop of the same rock, of which the following is a section :

Feet.

No. l. Coarse, shaly sandstone in broken layers. 12

No. 2. Ferruginous sandstone, with waved lines

of stratification........................................................6 to 10

No. 3. Coarse, massive sandstone, with irregular

veins of iron. ........................................................ 6

No. 4. Shelly sandstone....... ................................... 8

No. 5. Blue argillaceous shale, with bands of

hard, fine-grained sandstone, to bottom

of exposure ............ .............................

The upper members are the thinning-out of the Mansfield rock the equivalent of the Waverly conglomerate. On the opposite side of the stream the yellow sand-rock is about thirty-five feet thick coarse ferruginous with black iron streaks. There are about tea inches of light-colored and firm stone. All the rest. so far as exposed is worthless for building pur poses.

The rock at the bottom is blue argillaceous shale with hard blue bands bearing a close resemblance to the Erie shales ; no fossils discovered. In places. interstratified between the layers of the yellow sandstone, there is a layer of ten to twelve niches of white argillaceous shale. which, when disintegrated bears a close resemblance to the fire clays of the coal measures. Outcrops of this rock are to be seen earthward, near Lexington and between Lexington and Bellville, containing quarts pebbles and many nodules of soft iron ore ; all the rock in thin layers, extending to the tops of the hills, making the connection complete between the Mansfield and Bellville quarries. The Clear Fork here flows through a broad alluvial valley bordered with heavy hills of modified drift, generally sandy, in places composed of coarse water-worn pebbles and bowlders the stream occupying the raised bed of the old channel, which passes west of Mansfield, and connects the waters of the lake with the Ohio.

Between the top of the argillaceous and siliceous shales, which very generally underlie the horizon of the Waverly conglomerate, there is an interval of something over three hundred feet, Defogs the Berea, which is quarried in the extreme northwest corner of the county, is reached. The northern part of the county is comparatively level. the surface deeply covered with unmodified clay drift, except along the lines of ancient erosion. where the sand-ridge equally mark the geological structure. Hence there are very few rock exposures and these so

HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY. - 175

isolated that the section cannot be constructed in detail. So far as seen it is composed of alternate strata of argillaceous and siliceous shales having little economic value though some of the layers afford a fair stone for ordinary foundation purposes.

Economic Geology. - From what has already been written it is apparent that the mineral deposits of the county are not of very great economic value.

The heavy lath of the Waverly afford an inexhaustible supply of stone of good quality for bridge and foundation purposes, which would also make a very fair building stone. but not equal in value to the Berea north of it or to the more homogeneous and finer - grained sandstones of the Waverly further south. The peculiarly rich but rather gaudy coloring of the rock from the quarry near Mansfield and other places would if properly selected make highly ornamental window caps, sills, etc., and might be used for the entire fronts of buildings

The Berea is too far beneath the surface to be accessible except at the northwest coroner of the county and does not there present its best characteristics.

The iron ore of the county consists of the siliceous ore occupying the horizon of the conglomerate at the tops of the highest hills nodules of clay-iron stone found here and there throughout the rock formations and bog ore found in a few places on the surface. None of these are in sufficient quantity or of sufficient rarity to pay for transportation to parts where they could be economically used.

Since the explorations of the county were made considerable local interest has been manifested in the reported discovery of coal by deep borings in the immediate neighborhood of Mansfield. Coal is exhibited, said to have been taken from the borings. It is a legitimate part of the work of a geological survey to expose and to prevent frauds of this kind so far as it can be done but not to assert that any particular individual has attempted or practiced a fraud. This is the province of the courts, upon a proper case being presented to them. It is enough to say here that there is some mistake in regard to these pretended discoveries. Thin seams of carbonaceous matter, or thick beds of bituminous shale may be reached by boring in this vicinity, but no coal seams will ever be found beneath the city of Manfield or the adjacent country and all pretended discoveries of them may at once be set down as either frauds or mistakes. The only place where coal can possibly he found in the county is near the tops of the hills in the northeastern part. In none of the hills examined, were coal-measure rocks found and the highest are capped with the carboniferous conglornerate, which is below the coal so that the probabilities are that no coal will be found in any of the hills. Explorations in Holmes County have shown that hills of Waverly rock in places rose above the margin of the old coal swamps and that coal is now found near them at a lower level. It is, therefore, barely possible that some outlying deposit may exist in this part of the county, and that these have not been discovered in making the survey. It may be positively asserted, however that no extensive and valuable deposits of coal will ever be found west of the Holmes County line in Richland.