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HISTORY OF ROSS AND COUNTIES CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL FEATURES. Ross County Topography.—The Drift Period. - Rock Formations.-- Explanation of the New Valley of Paint Creek.--Copperas Mountain.—Geology and Topography of Highland County.—Various Elevations. —The soil.—Economic Values of the Stone Formations. ROSS COUNTY TOPOGRAPHY. Ross county is bounded upon the north by Pickaway, on the east by Hocking, Vinton and Jackson, on the south by Pike, and on the west by Highland and Fayette, The chief feature of its topography is the broad and deep trough of the Scioto, which traverses the county from north to south, dividing it into two unequal areas—the western side exceeding the eastern in the ratio of two to one. The river cuts the north line of the county, at very nearly the middle point, and flows thence almost directly south as far as Chillicothe, It is here strongly deflected to the eastward, and in the extreme southeastern corner of the county the main valley is not more than four miles distant from the Jackson county line. The western part of the county is deeply divided and subdivided by the valley of Paint creek, and that of its principal tributary --the North fork. Paint valley is, next to the Scioto, the most important of the surface features of the county. East of the Scioto, and in the southeastern corner of the county, Salt creek flows in an old and deeply excavated valley. These constitute the leading cases of erosion and material modification furnished by Deer creek and Kinnikinnick on the northern side, and by Indian creek and Walnut on the south. Paint creek is flowing, for a short portion of its course, in a new valley, the origin of which can be easily understood in the light of recent geological history. A full account of this peculiar geological feature of the county is given under the heading of "The New Valley of Paint creek," in this chapter, GEOLOGY. The limestones are, in Ross county, an important feature in the geological series. A considerable area of these rocks is included in the western part of the county, and they are laid bare in the valley of Paint creek. This * This chapter is almost wholly a condensation of the elaborate and interesting chapters written by Edward Orton, in the State Geological Report. 2 valley has been cut entirely through the Helderberg series deep into the Niagara group, and the section thus exposes two Silurian limestones instead of one. This deep gorge of Paint creek furnishes some of the most romantic scenery in Ohio. For two miles above and two miles below the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad, on the west line of Buckskin township, the valley of Paint creek is hewn out of the heaviest section of limestones of the Helderberg division known in the State. There are not less than forty feet shown in vertical section opposite Greenfield. It is probable that this forty feet exhausts the Helderberg series in its downward reach, or in other words, that the courses immediately beneath belong to the Niagara group. The character and value of the stone will be described more fully in that portion of this chapter devoted to the geology of Highland county. But few varieties of fossils are seen in the quarry rock. The bivalve crustacean, Leper ditia alta which is characteristic of the formation, covers thickly the surfaces of many successive layers. A favosite coral is not uncommon, and several species of brachiopod shells are occasionally met with. Two miles below Greenfield, the rock becomes more fossiliferous, and well preserved specimens of several shells have been found. The Helderberg limestone is, through all of its exposures, a magnesian limestone, containing forty to forty-four percent. of carbonate of magnesia and fifty to fifty-four per cent. of carbonate of lime. As the name of the lower members of the group denotes—to which this division now under consideration undoubtedly belongs, viz. : the water lime--a cement rock often finds place in the series. The formation is true to its name in Ross county. The upper beds of the series have, for many years, been burned into an excellent hydraulic lime. As has been said, the lower courses exposed in the bed of Paint creek belong to a different horizon ---the -the Niagara group. The upper beds of this formation are almost everywhere in southern Ohio characterized by the very conspicuous casts of the following fossils, viz: Pentamerus oblongus, Trimcella Onthensis, Megalomus Canadensis. The casts sometimes make up the substance of the rocks. Other forms are occasionally mingled in great abundance, the more noticable sorts being favosite corals, univalve shells and chambered shells. The beds on Paint creek, for a dozen miles below 10 - HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO. Greenfield, are occupied very largely by casts of megalomus. Near the mouth of the Rocky fork of Paint creek, this remarkable fossil occupies almost ninety feet of limestone. As the Helderberg limestone is followed to the southward and eastward, it is observed to thin out very rapidly. An excellent section, one of the best in this region, is found on the banks of Buckskin creek, two miles north of Bainbridge, on the Greenfield road. The megalomus beds of the Niagara, the Helderberg, (water lime), and the Huron shales, are all shown in a section of fifteen feet. In other words, the megalomus beds reach up almost to the shales a thin wedge of Helderberg alone separating the two formations. A few miles to the southwestward the Helderberg disappears in places entirely, the Huron shales lying upon the Niagara strata. The uppermost member of this formation, at this point, is a peculiar sandstone, which has been described as the Hillsborough sandstone. There are a few exposures of this sandstone in Paxton township, in the vicinity of the caves of Rocky fork. At the falls of Paint, in the great exposure of limestone, the fossil Pentanzerus oblongus makes up the very substance of the rock. As Paint creek turns, in the extreme southwestern part of the county, abruptly to the northeast, the heavy easterly dip of the limestone soon buries them below the surface, and their last appearance is opposite the village of Bainbridge. An admirable general section of the rocks of the western side of Ross county, is furnished by Benner's hill, in the same neighborhood. The summit is five hundred feet above the valley, and the following scale—the formations being represented in the true order—is shown in the steep ascent: FEET. Upper beds of Waverly group, Buena Vista division, etc - 42 Waverly black slate - 55 Waverly quarry courses - 31 Waverly shales - 50 Huron shales - 332 Helderberg limestone (water lime) - 15 Niagara limestone (Megalomus division) - 15 Both of the limestones here shown are capable of furnishing an unlimited supply of lime of the highest quality. This is not, indeed, surpassed in whiteness, mildness, and durability, by any lime in the State. The Niagara rock is illy adapted for building purposes, coming out of the quarry in massive and ungainly blocks, but the close proximity in this region of the fine courses of the Waverly quarries, renders it unnecessary to turn it to such uses. The Huron shales are perhaps the most characteristic formation of the western half of Ross county. They occupy a large area, and impress peculiar effects upon the soil, the vegetation, and the scenery. They afford, at Benner's hill, above mentioned, the heaviest section yielded by the formation in Ohio, viz: three hundred and thirty- two feet. The composition of the series, as shown in this and closely adjoining sections, has two points that deserve attention. The first is the occurrence of twenty- six feet of white and blue clays at the base of the series, and the second, which is much the more interesting observation, is the occurrence of a calcareous layer, richly charged with fossils, at the height of forty to fifty feet from the base of the series. The clays are shown on the west side of Benner's hill. The limestone seam is best seen at Ferneau's mill, one mile east of Bainbridge. Mr. J. H. Poe, of Chillicothe, first called attention to its existence, and to him, the survey made by the State, was under obligations for a very interesting fossil--the body of -a hitherto undescribed crinoid, obtained from this locality. The calcareous seam varies between three and six inches in thickness. Its composition is shown in the following analysis, by Prof. Wormley : Silicic acid - 53.20 Iron and alumina - 2.10 Carbonate of lime - 37.20 Carbonate of magnesia - 6.88 Total - 99.38 Its interest lies in the fact that no other such seam has been reported at the whole extent of this formation. Taken as a whole, the Huron shales are almost destitute of traces of either vegetable or animal hfe. Two brachiopod shells have been found at various points in the system, and the great concretions which the formation holds have yielded the remains of some remarkable species of fishes; but throughout most of its extent it is utterly barren of pakeontological interest. One of the difficulties in settling the Ohio geological scale, or at least of correlating certain of its upper members of the eastern geological series, has lain in the fact that fossils, the true labels of the rocks, are here wanting. The outcrop of the slates on the western side of Ross county promises valuable contributions to our knowledge of the life of the seas and shores, during the long period in which these black shales were accumulating upon the floor of the ancient ocean. The few square feet exposed at the bank opposite Ferneau's mill, have already yielded a new crinoid belonging to the genus melocrinus, and described by Prof. Whitfield, in volume II, of the "Ohio Paleontology," a tentaculite, identified by Prof. Whitfield as tentacalites fissurella, and which is found at the cast in the marcellus slate; and several obscure and undetermined corals. Vegetable remains are sometimes met with in the same locality. A calamite, several feet in length, was found at the center of a large concretion, and a prostrate tree, the bark of which had been converted into coal, was traced by Mr. Bergen, assistant in the survey of the county, for thirty feet over an exposed layer of shale. This field is commended to the attention of local geologists as well worthy of careful examination. The exposures of the slates along the course of Paint creek are unsurpassed. The whole lines, except fifty or sixty feet of the lowermost bed, is shown in two nearly vertical sections the first one occurring at the well-known locality, Copperas mountain, and the second at the equally well-known, but less accessible locality, the Alum cliffs. Copperas mountain is situated about three miles east of Bainbridge. The Alum cliffs are five miles due west of Chillicothe. Paint creek washes, with the full force of its current, the base of the slate hill known as Copperas mountain, and thus secures a constant exposure of the formation, in a nearly vertical wall one hundred and fifty HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO - 11 feet in height. The hill rises to a height of five hundred and fifty feet, so that the whole thickness of the slates is contained in it, and much besides; but the uppermost one hundred and twenty-five feet of the formation are not shown as distinctly as the lower portions. At the Alum cliffs section, which is the new valley of Paint creek, the uppermost beds are shown in a wall very nearly vertical, to an extent of at least one hundred feet. The Huron shales are here covered with the Waverly shales, and the Waverly quarries, and the section is for the most part closed by the Waverly black slates. The upper beds of this division are shown with great distinctness within the limits of the city of Chillicothe, and upon all sides of it. The concretions by which the Huron shales are everywhere characterized, occur mainly in the lowermost one hundred feet. Many of them possess remarkable symmetry. The smaller ones frequently consist of sulphuret of iron. The larger ones have either organic or crystalline nuclei, and in far the larger number, the latter. The Waverly shales of Ross county require no extended mention. They do not generally attain to the thickness which this division shows in Pike county (from the county-seat of which they take this name), and on the western side of the county are considerably reduced. In Chillicothe they measure eighty-three and sixty-seven- hundredths feet in thickness. They indicated the same general history which the series elsewhere shows, their surfaces being covered with sea-weeds, sun-cracks and ripple marks. Where exposed on Stony creek, in Franklin township, they afford the finest series of ripple marks known in the third geological district. Similar exposures are shown in the same township on the line of Indian creek and its tributaries. A calcareous layer of remarkable compactness and evenness extends throughout all the outcrop of this division in Ross county. In the vicinity of Frankfort oonsiderable account is made of it as a building and flagging stone. The Waverly quarry system continues to furnish in its northward extension, a large supply of excellent building stone. The character of the rock quarries agrees very closely in color, texture and composition with the stone derived from the typical exposures, but a very much larger proportion of the series in Ross county is valueless than in the district below. The stone is quite frequently found in a peculiarly rough and ungainly condition known among the quarrymen as "turtle back" or "nigger head." In this State it has no possible use, except as a protection for river banks. In all the central regions of the county the division is very much lighter than at Waverly and Jasper, being frequently found to measure five or ten feet only, against thirty feet in the Pike county quarries. In Paxton and Buckskin townships there is a larger amount of stone again, but it is not found in as thick and valuable courses as to the southward. Ascending in the scale, we come next to that interesting stratum, the Waverly black shale. No finer exposures of this are possible than those furnished in hundreds of sections throughout the central regions of the county, upon both sides of the Scioto river. The greatest thickness yet observed in this formation is found in Franklin township, near the mouth of Stony creek, where it measures not less than twenty-seven feet, It is charged at this point with its characteristic fossils, Lingula melia, Discini Newberryi, and the remains of fishes, often in an excellent state of preservation, can hardly be called rare. The teeth and plates are the parts generally shown. In a small run that crosses the old Marietta road, three miles above Chillicothe, interesting slabs were found. This slate contains sulphuret of iron in considerable quantity, and the water that descends through it is, consequently, charged with the products of the composition of this substance. Sulphur springs often mark its outcrops. A spring of this kind, quite well known, in the northeastern quarter of the county, finds its way through the slate, on the north side of Sugar-Loaf mountain, near the south line of Green township. The slates have a thickness of twenty feet at this point, and are overlain by a heavy and interesting section of the upper Waverly. The last named division, the upper Waverly, including everything in the series above the Waverly black slate and below the carboniferous series, remains to be characterized. It constitutes a valuable element in the county geological scale. The extreme thickness of this division does not exceed four hundred and twenty-five feet in any single section. A greater thickness of these beds may, perhaps, be found in the northeastern corner of the county, where the series is certainly quite different from that observed in the southeastern section. In Liberty and Jefferson townships the upper beds of the Waverly are reduced in thickness, and the place is supplied by a heavy deposit of carboniferous conglomerate, as in the adjacent counties of Pike and Jackson. Single sections of considerable extent and interest are found in Mount Logan, opposite Chillicothe; in Sugar-Loaf, three miles above; in Rattlesnake knob, Liberty township; and also in the highest points of Huntington and Franklin townships. But four points in the composition of the series demand consideration here. Its economical value lies principally in the fine development of the Buena Vista courses in the southeastern part of the county, and especially in Franklin and Jefferson townships. A great amount of most desirable and accessible building stone is exposed in the first named township, on the western bank of the Scioto. The quarries of J. E, Higby are more largely worked, and therefore more widely known than any other. They are located upon the line of the canal and the railroad. The stone is furnished by a single course, eight feet in thickness, though it can easily be split into two courses of equal thickness. All of the quarrying has thus far been done along the margins of the hills, where the stripping is quite light, and a very large amount of rock remains within easy reach. This bed is very soon lost, as it is followed to the other side of the river, the strong easterly cleft carrying it below the surface in three or four miles from the exposures here named. It agrees in color with the Waverly brown stone, as well as in geological position. The brown color is due in both to a change in the oxide of iron, which the stone contains, and it is always limited to a few feet 12 - HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO. upon the exposed edge of the quarries. This has been shown, and extended twenty miles along the Scioto valley, on both sides of the river. A very large amount of building stone, scarcely surpassed in the State in desirable qualities, is contained in it, which is sure to find its way into the general market. A very interesting section of this portion of the geological series of the county is shown in the south bank of Stony creek, very near its mouth. The uppermost twenty- five feet of the Waverly shales appear here. Above them the Waverly quarry courses, sometimes reduced to two in number, and not exceeding six feet in thickness, are shown in a nearly vertical wall. It is overlain by twenty- seven feet of the Waverly black slate, the heaviest section of this strata yet reported in southern Ohio, fifty feet above which comes in the Buena Vista, or the Gregg and Higby, quarry stone. Ascending still another fifty feet, a Waverly conglomerate is found. This is one of the very few points on the west side of the Scioto where this formation appears. Its outcrop here is within sight of the great wall of carboniferous conglomerate on the east side of the river, but it belongs to a horizon several hundred feet lower than that held by the latter. It is made up entirely of quartz pebbles, some of them having a diameter of four inches. The stratum is shown at several other points in the same neighborhood, at least by its waste, but it must be set down as an exception, rather than as a normal element of the county scale. It is interesting, largely from the fact that it seems to constitute the westernmost extension of the great conglomerate that Prof. Andrews has described in the region to the northeast of this, The remainder of the line consists, for three hundred feet, of beds of shale, holding great quantities of flattish concretions which contain a clayey center covered with a thin blossom of iron ore. These concretions vary from an inch to a foot in their largest diameter, and are everywhere throughout this region characteristic of the Upper Waverly. Then courses of a light brown sandstone often find place, but there is scarcely the possibility of a quarry in this whole interval. But few fossils are found in all the series thus far traversed. The singular form, Spirophyton, is met with quite frequently through several hundred feet, but it is only at a height of from three hundred and fifty to three hundred and seventy-five feet above the Waverly black slate that a stratum comes in that may be called highly fossiliferous. It is shown in many sections in the county, but the best exposure of it yet noted occurs on the south side of Sugar-Loaf mountain, about one hundred feet from the summit. An opening has been made here for a quarry. Attention was first called to this point by Mr. J. H. Poe, of Chillicothe. The usual line of Waverly fossils is to be seen here remains of crinoids, bryozoans, and bivalve shells. The uppermost seventy-five feet of Mount Logan, and also of Rattlesnake knob, show the same stratum, as do also all the highlands in the northeastern parts of the county, especially in Colerain township. Comparatively little valuable quarry stone is found above the Buena Vista beds, but there is hardly any portion of the county that does not possess a fair supply, within easy reach. DRIFT DEPOSITS. The drift deposits of Ross county are much more important and interesting than those of any of the districts to the southward. A principal point of interest is found in the fact that the boundary which separates the regions, every foot of which has been covered with the drift formation, from those in which the high lands, at least, were never occupied by the glacial sheet, passes through the northern and central townships of the county. In other words a part of the county agrees in its later geological history with the northern part of the State and of the continent, while the larger portion takes its place with the regions to the southward, over which the northern ice never advanced. This boundary is perfectly distinct in several townships, while in others it is less sharply defined. Beginning on the eastern side of the county, it passes through the northern half of the township of Colerain, in a southwesterly direction, not far south of the line of the Chillicothe and Adelphi turnpike. It leaves all of the township of Green to the northward. West of the river it coincides, in a general way, with the Chillicothe and Greenfield turnpike, passing, however, two or three miles below it, on the west side of Buckskin township. There are within the area, to the northward, and especially along its more southerly extension, occasional summits that stood above the glaciers, but the clay and bowlders that mark the drift overlie all of the ordinary high land of the country, as is well shown along the road above named, in the vicinity of Lattaville. This boundary is shown with great distinctness in Colerain township. A very instructive view can be obtained by following the eastern road leading from Mooresville to Adelphi. Ascending a branch of Walnut creek, the native rocks are shown in more or less extensive sections on every hand, and the soils are seen by all of these characteristics to have been formed, where they now lie, by the weathering and disintegration of these rocks. The banks of the stream approach each other more and more closely, until at last the road is shut within a narrow valley, above which rise, on either hand, steep hills of sandstone and shale. The gorge proves to be a pass, and, after a rapid ascent, an open country is reached, which differs in a marked degree from that left behind. A broad valley filled with gravel and clay, and dotted with bowlders, is found at a high level; the native rocks are so well covered that no clue to their composition is furnished, and rounded outlines prevail in all of the scenery, instead of the angular contour exhibited before. The gravel and clay contain a considerable quantity of limestone pebbles and bowlders, and thus the land comes to be known as limestone land. Its natural vegetation and its agricultural capacities are as sharply distinguished from those of the lands on the other side of the hills, as is the scenery, A great improvement is at once visible in the farm buildings, the quality of which is in a general way determined by the degree of fertility of the soil. On looking back, after passing a mile or two to the northward, the explanation comes clearly to view. The drift storm was stopped by this range of hills, against the northern slopes of which these heavy beds of HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO - 13 clay and gravel were piled. In other words, these hills Form, in their sinuous outlines, the boundaries of the true glacial drift. Sugar-Loaf mountain, already referred :o in another connection, forms the westernmost extension of this line of hills on the east side of the river, and bowlders are found half way up its northern slope. The country north of this boundary has suffered a much greater abrasion and waste than that which lies south of it, and it is fair to refer the difference in this respect to the great difference in the later geological history of the two sections respectively. It certainly could not be without result that a slowly moving mountain of ice should advance over the face of a country composed of soft sandstones and softer shales. THE NEW VALLEY OF PAINT CREEK. Geologically speaking, the new valley of Paint creek lying a few miles west of Chillicothe, is unmistakably connected with the drift history of the county. The chief topographical features of the State, as is well known, are to be referred to periods long antecedent to the drift. There is the best of reason for believing that Ohio was raised above the seas many millions of years ago. During all of the interval that has passed, it has been slowly acquiring its surface relief under the atmospheric agencies to which it has been subjected. Cases are, however, sometimes met with, in which the old channels of drainage were so blocked by accumulations of drift that the streams, on resuming their course after the height of the glacial period had passed, found it easier to work out new channels than to clear the old ones. These new valleys agree in being narrow, in being shut in with precipitous walls of rock, and in being free from drift deposit. The present case is by far the most striking yet found in southern Ohio. The Hillsborough and Chillicothe which enters the county at the southwestern corner, extends through the broad and fertile valley of Paint creek which, here, has a northeasterly direction. The valley is perfectly defined by ranges of hills, about five hundred feet in height, on either side. The northern wall is broken for the passage of several small tributaries, as Buckskin creek, Upper and Lower Twin creek, but the continuous southern wall is scarcely interrupted. The turnpike crosses the creek three miles below Bainbridge, and thence forward for ten miles the stream is never out of sight upon the right hand. All at once, however, and as if by magic, it has disappeared. The turnpike still holds the valley, the boundaries of which are just as distinct as before. There is certainly no conspicuous notch in the southern wall, through which one could guess that a stream of such volume could have found its way. By following the stream, however, instead of the valley, we learn the following surprising facts: The creek, at the point above named, and at a comparatively recent date (in the geological sense), left the broad valley which it had been working out for itself through unnumbered thousands of years, and turned sharply to the southward, flowing now in a narrow channel, often not more than two hundred feet in width at the base, bottomed with rock, and bounded with precipitous cliffs, not less than three hundred feet in height. After following a southeastern course for three miles, it turns again to the northeast and regains its old valley, two miles west of Chillicothe. The new channel is about five miles long, has an average width at the base of about three hundred feet, is entirely free from drift and is bedded and bounded by rock. As has already been said, the old channel is unmistakably distinct. The turnpike follows the old valley to the crossing of the north fork of Paint creek, and from that point the last named occupies the old valley alone for three miles, when the main stream returns from its detour to its former bounds. The former junction of the north fork and the main creek was at the point where the turnpike now crosses the former. To the questions, when and how was this important change in the drainage of the county effected ? it is easy to return a probable answer. The old valley of Paint creek, from Bainbridge to the crossing of the north fork, has a general course of forty degrees north of east. The valley of the north fork, on the other hand, has a general direction of twenty-five degrees south of east. They meet, therefore, at an angle of about sixty-five degrees. The valley of the north fork, bearing to the southeast, was in the general line of advance of the glaciers that covered this portion of Ohio, as is amply proved by the direction of the striae and grooves which are still left upon the surface of the harder rocks. The valley must have been occupied by one of the most southern of the prolongations of the continental glacier, under which all of the northern portions of the State were buried. On the other hand, the northeasterly direction of the valley of Paint creek rendered it impossible that it could have thus been occupied. When the rigors of the long winter of the glacial drift began to be relaxed, and the swollen drainage of the county sought once more its former outlets, Paint creek, both from its freedom from glacier occupation, and from its more southern location, would first become filled with water. The ice-wall of the north fork glacier must, however, have shut out the stream from its old channel, and as a consequence, the waters would have set back from the western bank of the north fork in a lake, the level of which would be sure to rise until an outlet was found. The heavy drift terraces, not less than a hundred feet in height, that occupied this portion of the old valley, and which furnish, in their broad and fertile planes, some of the most attractive, as well as the most productive, farms in the county, are to be referred to this lake for their origin. It is not necessary to suppose that the water, before finding its way out, was raised to the height of the hills that bound the valley. It is altogether reasonable to suppose that it availed itself of one of the low clioides, so many of which can now be found in the county. A small stream probably flowed into Paint creek from the southward, along the line of the new valley, the source of which was separated by a low summit from another tributary of the main creek that flowed eastward, also by the line of the new valley. A stream that now enters the new valley, at its southmost point from Hunt- 14 - HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO ington township, is probably the remnant of this tributary. If once the level of the waters was raised above the height of this dividing ridge, the remaining work of excavation would be easy to follow. SOILS. The soils of Ross county are of all the natiVe varieties formed by the weathering of its rocks and shales, and in addition, there are large areas covered with the glacial and modified drift. These areas furnish far more Varied and more fruitful soils than the native rocks afford from the products of their degeneration and decay. The lands of this general division in Ross county take their place among the best in Ohio. The valleys, too, are unsurpassed. The rich alluvial bottoms of the Scioto are not inappropriately called the garden of Ohio, and the valley of Paint creek is only inferior to that of the river, in area. HIGHLAND COUNTY—TOPOGRAPHY. Highland county is bounded on the north by Cinton and Fayette counties, on the east by Ross and Pike, and on the west by Brown and Clinton. Its physical features and its agricultural capacities are very closely connected with the various rock formations that underlie it. In these respects it is in striking contrast with the counties immediately north of it, where the rock floor of the county is so deeply covered with beds of drift as to be removed from any but the most general influence of the surface. Among the physical features of the county that are directly dependent on its rock formation are these: The relative elevations of its various sections ; the nature of the surface, whether broken or level; the kinds of valleys which the streams have wrought, whether broad and shallow or narrow and deep; the natural drainage, whether prompt and efficient or dilatory and inadequate. When, in addition to these points, the soil itself is found dependent in good measure on the rocks for its constitution, it can readily be seen that a geological examination and report will involve a presentation of all the conspicuous geographical and agricultural features of the county. The geological series represented in Highland county is more extensive than is to be found in any other county of the State. Beginning with the upper beds of the Cincinnati group, the lowest and oldest of the rocks of Ohio, it includes the Clinton, Niagara and Helderberg limestones, the Huron shales, more familiarly known as the black slate and the Waverly sandstone. All of the great divisions of geological time which are represented in Ohio find a place, also, in Highland county. These great divisions are in ascending order: Lower Silurian, Upper Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous. To the Carboniferous series, the Waverly sandstone belongs; the Huron shale to the Devonian; the Helderberg, Niagara and Clinton limestone are of the Upper Silurian age, while the Cincinnati group represents the Lower Silurian. It is also worthy of note that this whole series can be traversed at certain points within the limits of the county, in the space of four or five miles. The southeastern corner of Highland county and the northern and eastern parts of Adams county are the only sections of the State in which so concise an exhibition of its great formations is afforded, and these regions are therefore sure to become classic ground to students of the geology of Ohio. The maximum thickness of the above named formations within the limits of the county is approximately as follows: |
Cincinnati group Clinton limestone Niagara series Helderberg limestone Huron shale. Waverly sandstone |
FEET 100 50 275 100 250 100 875 |
The Helderberg limestone attains its greatest thickness at Greenfield, the Niagara series at Hillsboro, and at the mouth of the Rocky fork of Paint creek. The maximum thickness of the Clinton limestone is on the southeastern borders of the county.
The strata of Highland county are nowhere horizontal, but uniformly slope to the eastward and northward the dip sometimes amounting to twenty-five feet to the mile. This fact is of fundamental importance in the geological structure of this section, and needs to be kept constantly in view by all who would gain an intelhgent comprehension of the structure. A stratum that enters the county on the westward would, if followed to the eastern boundary, be found four hundred to five hundred feet below the level at which it was first marked.
HIGHEST AND LOWEST ELEVATIONS.
The highest land of the county is found—not in the Hillsborough hills, as is commonly supposed, but upon the eastern border. There is a series of isolated summits here, along the margin of Rocky fork, Brush creek, and Sunfish creek, that show very like mountains, and that are popularly designated as such. All of these summits belong to Brush Creek township. Barometrical measurements taken of several of them, indicate that Stult's mountain and Fisher's knob, have a greater elevation than any other in the series. The barometer indicated that the height of the former was one thousand, three hundred and twenty-five feet above tide water, and the latter about twenty feet less. The most trustworthy measurements obtained, however, were those of Long mountain, just east of the village of Carmel, which is shown to have an elevation above tide water of one thousand, two hundred and fifty-four feet. Rapids Forge mountain, in the northeastern corner of the county, appears to be one hundred feet lower than this its height being about one thousand, one hundred and fifty feet. The falling off in the elevations of these summits as we move northward, is due, not to a lesser height of the hills themselves, but to the depression of the general land of the country in that direction. A section of Rapids Forge mountain, from the waters of Rocky fork, gives one hundred and twenty-five feet of limestone, two hundred and fifty feet of Huron shales and sandstone, and one hundred feet of Waverly shales. This section, therefore, is almost identical with that of Stult's mountain, from the waters of Brush creek, the difference of one hundred
HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO- 15
and fifty feet in the total elevation being due to the higher level of Brush creek above that of Rocky fork, at the points where the measurements are taken. It will be seen that Highland county cannot claim the highest land in the State. At the head waters of the Scioto and Miami rivers, in Logan county, there is an altitude of one thousand, three hundred and forty-four feet above the sea, and there is a point in Richland county which is one thousand, three hundred and eighty-nine feet above the sea level.
A few levels obtained from railroad or turnpike surveys are appended, showing the elevation of various points above the sea level:
FEET.
Hillsborough depot - 1,054
Court house - 1,129
Lilley's hill - 1,165
College hill - 1,140
Lynchburg (railroad grade) - 1,001
Vienna (railroad grade) - 1,117
Summit, between Vienna and Lexington, (railroad grade) - 1,170
Lexington (railroad grade) - 1,060
Leesburg 1,000 Monroe - 938
Greenfield - 883
Samantha - 1,124
Burying-ground hill (near Samantha—by barometer) - 1,214
Danville - 1,065
Pricetown - 1,001
Marshall - 1,031
Carmel - 939
The following are the elevations in Brush Creek township:
FEET.
Stult's mountain (barometric) - 1,325
Fisher's knob - 1,300
Fort hill (by Locke, 1838) - 1,232
Bald mountain, or Slate knob - 1,250
Long Lick mountain - 1,254
Rapids Forge mountain - 1,160
The lowest elevations of the county are to be found in the valleys of the various branches of Brush creek, in Jackson and Brush Creek townships, on their southern boundary, and in the valley of Rocky fork, in the northeast corner of the county, in Paint township.
The surface of the county is divided into five quite well marked divisions, which result from geological differences in the underlying rocks, but though originating in the ranging rock formations of the county, it is by no means necessary that a person should have a knowledge of technical geology to understand them. Beginning on the western border of the county, it will be found that Dodson, Salem, Clay, Harner and Whiteoak townships agree in all the general features of their surface. The townships of Union, Liberty, New Market, Washington, Concord and Jackson, in its western half, constitute a second division, characterized by a like substantial agreement in general features. The third division consists of Penn, Fairfield, Madison and the northern part of Paint townships. Marshall, with the western half of Brush Creek township and the eastern half of Jackson, comprise the fourth. The eastern boundary of the county in Brush Creek and Paint townships makes the fifth and last division.
The townships first named consist of row lying lands, with little variation of the surface, which holds a general level of five hundred to six hundred feet above low water mark at Cincinnati, or of nine hundred and thirty to one thousand and thirty feet above the sea. They are uniformly and quite heavily covered with clays of the drift series, which are unusually white in color, except where they have been blackened by swampy growths upon them at an early day. The main streams that pass through these tracts have a tolerably rapid flow, but there are many portions of the surface that hold the water in wide but shallow basins. These lands constitute generally the poorer and less inviting portions of the county, not from any original lack of the elements necessary for vegetable growth, but because they demand a more skillful tillage than in the main they have secured. This division may be called the blue limestone land of the county, as all of the townships above named are underlain by this formation. The principal influence that the rock has in determining the physical geography of this region is found in the fact that it furnishes a level floor for the deposits that cover it. It takes but very little part in the formation of the soil itself. The peculiarities of the soil in this district must be referred to some peculiar source. Such a source can be found in the Niagara shales that must have been largely removed in the region environing that now under consideration,
The second division named which embraces the central regions of the county, consists essentially of a plateau from six hundred feet to seven hundred feet above low water-mark at Cincinnati, or from one thousand and thirty to one thousand one hundred and thirty above the sea. It constitutes the principal water shed of the county. A part of its drainage is delivered to the Miami by the East fork, another by White Oak creek to the Ohio, a third to the Ohio by Brush creek, and a fourth to the Scioto by the Rocky fork of Paint. All of these various streams have cut deep and wide valleys for themselves, which in many instances approach each other so closely from different directions, as to leave but small portions of the plateau remaining in the insulated summits of the district. These summits are commonly known as hills. The village of Hillsborough is located upon one of these summits of the plateau. To reach it from any direction but the westward, it is necessary to traverse the deep valleys by which it is surrounded. The western boundary of the plateau is, in general, quite abrupt. It rises precipitously from the Blue Limestone plain already described, by a range of hills, at least one hundred feet high. These hills are the first outcrop of the cliff limestone, an entirely different formation from that represented in the preceding division. The agricultural characteristics of the lands embraced in this division are varied. The wide bottom lands of the Rocky fork and Clear creek constitute as valuable farms as are found in the county, while the slopes and summits of the hills present all gradations from strong and fertile soils, abundantly rewarding the labors of husbandry to the barren uplands around Fairfax, whereupon five to eight bushels of wheat, and from twenty to thirty bushels of corn constitute an average yield. Some of these uplands
16 - HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO.
present us with the first considerable examples of native soils that are to be met with in passing southward through Ohio. The most northerly of these areas in which the soil has been formed, where it lies by the decomposition of the underlying rock, is Chapman's hill on the New Market and Danville road, six or seven miles southwest of Hillsborough. These soils consist of red or chocolate colored clays, generally but four or five feet in depth, and gradually merging into the unbroken rock, These cliff limestone soils are rich, and particularly adapted to fruit growing, being better for this purpose than most of the drift soils of the county.
The third division, comprising the northern portion of the county, is made up of lands lying at a high level, a considerable part of them being higher than the Hillsborough plateau. This district does not differ from the second so much in the nature of its underlying rocks as in the fact that its valleys have been filled, and rough places made smooth, by the great deposits of the drift that has been spread over its entire surface. The cliff limestones of the Niagara and Helderberg groups constitute the rock substratum of this district. The streams that traverse these limestones have wrought in them narrow gorges, which furnish admirable sections of the strata involved, and which are often picturesque to a high degree. The valley of Paint creek, on the eastern boundary of the county, furnishes, with its tributaries, numerous illustrations of this agency, the most noteworthy of which is the gorge of Rocky fork. This stream is an important element in the geography of the county, and it also exhibits its geology most satisfactorily. It is bedded in rock from its source to its mouth, and in its banks and bordering cliffs, it discloses every foot of the great Niagara formation of the county. Due south of Hillsborough it has cut its valley down to the Clinton limestone, on which it runs for several miles, but as the strata dip more rapidly in the eastward than the stream descends, it has been made to intersect higher and still higher numbers of the Niagara series until, at its mouth, it has reached the very summit of the system; and the structure of these beds it reveals in a gorge whose vertical walls are ninety feet high, and the width of which is scarcely more than two hundred feet. Certain portions of this limestone weather and dissolve more easily than the rest, and have been carried away in considerable quantity, leaving overhanging cliffs and receding caves along the line of its outcrop. The caves and gorge of the Rocky fork are notable places of resort for the country around, and with very good reason, as the scenery is the most striking and beautiful of its kind in southwestern Ohio. Its claims upon our interest, in its geological relations, are quite as great as in any other direction. From the bottom of the gorge, near the home of James Plummer, a very concise and satisfactory section can be obtained, extending to the summit of Rapids Fork mountains, The section gives in ascending order:
FEET.
Niagara limestone - 120
Huron shale - 230
Waverly shale and sandstone - 100
Total - 450
The limestone abounds in very interesting fossils. The great bivalve shell, Megalomus Canadensis, is especially abundant, as are also large univalve shells, all of which can be obtained in the cliffs near Ogle's distillery. The lands in this division are the most valuable for agricultural purposes in the county, the bottom lands of the main valleys alone being excepted, Its quarries, which are wrought in the even bedded Helderberg limestone, are by far the most valuable in the county, and, indeed, are among the valuable quarries in this section of the country or in the State.
The fourth district has been described as composed of Marshall township, with the eastern half of Jackson, and the western half of Brush Creek. To this area may be added the southern half of Paint township. It is less definitely characterized than either of the other districts, and, perhaps, scarcely deserves a separate place in the surface drstricts of the county. Still, it is hard to see with which one of the areas already named it could be united. Its lands lie lower than those of any other section of the county, except the Blue limestone division. With this region it generally agrees in this particular; without, however, sharing in its monotonous uniformity of surface. It agrees in geological formation with the second and third districts, the only bedded rocks that are met with being of the Niagara series. The easterly dip of the strata of the county, however, has brought down the upper and firmer members of this group to a level lower by one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet than they possess at Hillsborough, These, then, are the leading peculiarities of the fourth division: An altitude of less than one thousand feet above the sea, with a fine rocky floor, which, combined with the low elevation, secures comparatively shallow valleys. The drift deposits are nowhere very heavy, and almost disappear, to the southward. The land varies greatly in productiveness, but may be said, on the whole, to give good returns when the system of agriculture here pursued is taken into consideration.
The fifth district comprises the hills of Brush creek and Rocky fork, which rise abruptly from the limestones last named, along the eastern border of the county. These hills have an altitude of four hundred or five hundred feet above the lowlands that surround them. Their bases consist of Niagara limestone, upon which two hundred and fifty feet of Huron shale is deposited, the summits holding one hundred feet of Waverly shales and sandstone. The summits crowd hard upon the highest lands of the State, some of them being more than one thousand one hundred feet above the sea level. Marked differences of forest vegetation are connected with these differences of geological structure, the chestnut and chestnut oak holding on from the eastward persistently to the very edge of the slates, but not passing this limit unless by a very rare exception. From the summits of these hills wide and beautiful views can be had of the central regions of the county, and the hills themselves furnish, in turn, a notable feature in the scenery when viewed from the Hillsborough hills, or anywhere along the central line of the county.
HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO - 17
THE DRIFT DEPOSITS.
Highland county, evidently, like Ross, is intersected by the southern boundary line of the great drift formation, the limit beyond which, at least, the glaciers did not advance, The northern half of the county shares in the general features which the drift confers upon the northern and central portions of Ohio. The southern half of the county, however, takes its place with the States south of the Ohio river. Its valleys have been invaded to some extent by the gravels and bowlders of the north, but its upland soils are, in part, at least, composed of the weathered rocks which they cover, and where the cliff clays occur they are shallow. The table land that originally constituted its surface has been intersected by deep valleys, the precipitous descent to which is over the uncovered .edges of the rocks. The drift formations of Highland county agree, in general character, with the formations of this series in southwestern Ohio. They belong principally to the modified drift, the stratification of the series proving unmistakably its deposrtion in water. There is proof, however, that the glacial sheet advanced within the limits of the county. The polishing and grooving of the rocks that constitute so distinct an indication of the former existence of glaciers, are found in the county. A significant example occurs on the line of the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad, a half-mile east of Lexington station, where, half-way up the northern slope of a limestone hill, there is a polished surface of rock. Beds of blue clay constitute the oldest of the drift deposits of the county. A fact of great interest is that these beds have been, at an earlier day, a soil, as is attested by their bearing traces of their old vegetation. They are discolored by vegetable mould, and, mingled with their substance, are found quantities of leaves, branches, and tree trunks. In the village of Marshall, eleven wells, out of about twenty that were dug, are known to have reached this vegetable matter. In some instances, the water that is found at this horizon is so impregnated with the decomposing products as to be unfit for use. The leaves found in the buried soil are identified as those of the sycamore, hickory, beech, etc.; but by far the larger portion of the wood is shown to be coniferous, and is commonly pronounced to be red cedar, The depth at which this soil is met with is from ten to ninety feet. The deposits that follow the blue clay do not occur in any definite order, but in general terms it may be said that the heavy beds of gravel and the bowlders are the most recent of the series. The gravel beds do not extend to the southward much farther than the parallel of Hillsborough. The gravel is more largely composed of limestone than that further north. Bowlders are scattered through the valleys as far as the south line of the county, but in steadily decreasing numbers, as we go southward.
THE ROCK STRATA.
The lowest of the formations is the Cincinnati or Blue Limestone group, the only Lower Silurian formation in the county, as it is the only one in the State. Only the uppermost fifty to one hundred feet of the Cincinnati rocks are to be found in Highland county, It is shown only in the western and southern sides of the county, and these confined entirely to the deepest valleys. It can be seen with its characteristic fossils in the bed of Turtle creek, near Lynchburg, in the branches of White Oak creek, in the soutwestern townships of the county, and best of all in the various branches of Brush creek on the extreme southern border of the county.
The termination of the series in Highland is precisely the same as in the more northern counties, where the junction of the Lower and Upper Silurian is to be observed. From ten to twenty feet of red shales containing few or no traces of life, but principally of sedimentary origin, overlie the fossiliferous beds, at least at frequent intervals, through the whole extent of this boundary from the Indiana hne to the Ohio river. A characteristic group of these shales can be seen at the banks of Brush creek, at Belfast, immediately below the mill, Where the shales are wanting, their place in the series is supplied by sandy or shaly limestones. These are occasionally massive in their bedding, but are seldom reliable for building purposes, as they cannot endure the action of frost.
Next, in ascending order above the Cincinnati group, comes the Clinton limestone. In its most characteristic forms it varies in composition from eighty-four to ninety- three per cent. of carbonate of lime, while the cabonate of magnesia never exceeds, and seldom reaches, twelve per cent. The maximum thickness of this formation— in the southern part of the county is about fifty feet, and its average about thirty-five. It is, for the most part, an unevenly bedded rock, but occasionally valuable building stone can be obtained from it. It is largely a crinoidal limestone, though it often happens that there are no fossils to reveal the precise nature of the rock. It is generally much richer in iron than in the counties northward. It is well known that in New York, Canada, Wisconsin and Alabama this formation yields ores of iron, some of which are of excellent quality. There are several points in Highland county, where the Clinton limestone passes into a light iron ore, which is sometimes oolitic in structure, or made up of small rounded grains. The bed of Rocky fork, south of Hillsborough, may be cited as furnishing an example of this impure ore. An outcrop of the Clinton formation, however, near Sinking springs, just south of the Highland county line, discloses a true Clinton ore. It is found on the land of Nimrod Conaway, and on some adjoining farms, and seems to be in considerable quantity. Clinton ore, quite similar to this, is now brought into the State in large amount from Oneida county, New York, to be used in the smelting furnaces of northern Ohio. Its composition fits it to answer the double purpose of ore and flux, and it is particularly valued for use in combination with the heavy ores of Lake Superior and Iron mountain. It seems certain that attention will be turned to this native supply. A bed of limestone conglomerate occurs in this formation, near the base of the series, in the southern part of the county, and a single exposure is shown one mile west of Belfast, on the lands of Charles Dalyrymple.
Next in ascending order above the Clinton limestone
16 - HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO.
comes the Niagara series, by far the most important formation in the county, both in vertical and horizontal range. The total thickness of its beds is not less than two hundred and seventy-five feet, or if the maximum of its fifth number should be counted, which is found in but a single section, the aggregate thickness of the series would reach three hundred and twenty-five feet. It is the surface rock of more than three-fourths of the county. To the various divisions of the Niagara group and their relations to each other the most noticable of the geographical features of the county, to which attention has already been called, are due. The Niagara series of Highland county constitute by far the most interesting and extensive development of the formation in Ohio, The formation in question consists of the following members in ascending order :
1. Dayton stone.
2. Niagara shale.
3. West Union or Lower Cliff.
4. Springfield stone or Blue Cliff.
5. Cedarville Guelph limestone.
6. Hillsborough sandstone.
These various divisions do not all appear in any one section, except in the immediate vicinity of Hillsborough, where, in a series of admirable exposures, the whole structure of the formation is shown. The section from the bed of Rocky fork, at Bisher's dam, on the summit of Lilley's hill, a half mile east of Hillsborough, is, on the whole, the clearest and most complete section of the Niagara series to be found, not only in the county, but even in the State. Every one of the members above enumerated appears in it most distinctly.
The lowest member of the series is, as already shown, the Dayton stone. It is found in thin courses—too thin to make it a valuable deposit. The next division is the Niagara shale, which, near Hillsborough, does not exceed sixty feet in thickness, though near Belfast it has a thickness of one hundred feet. The formation is not rich in fossils, but enough remains are found to show that the same varieties of living things that the eastern seas contained were distributed through the western extension of the Niagara sea. These Niagara shales are frequently replaced by thin, fragile courses of limestone. The physical geography of the county has been greatly modified by the presence of this element, and modified generally to advantage for human occupation. Where the elevation of the land is such that the streams have cut through the strata overlying the shale, the valleys have been made comparatively broad, and have furnished suitable basins for receiving the latest of the drift deposits, or alluvial formations. These valleys now constitute the most fertile districts of the county. The valleys of Rocky fork, and its tributaries, near Hillsborough, and for five or six miles to the eastward, are examples of this action. When the easterly dip of the strata brings down the firm and heavy limestones of the upper part of the Niagara formation so that the streams are obliged to work out thin channels in them, the valleys are contracted into very narrow limits. Rocky fork shrinks from a broad and fertile valley—nearly a mile in width
at some points near Hillsborough to a narrow gorge, across which a stone can be tossed, at its mouth, and this, too, after its volume has been increased many fold. No more striking illustration of the connection of geology with geography and agriculture, can readily be found than this valley exhibits.
The third member of this formation is what is called the "West Union, or Lower Cliff," a widely spread and important member. It is to be seen in numerous exposures throughout the central and southern part of the county. It can be studied to excellent advantage at the Bisher's dam section, where it has a thickness of forty-five feet. Near Hillsborough, and indeed in most localities, it consist of a yellowish, impure magnesian limestone. It is rather massive than even bedded in its appearance, though in quarrying it can be generally raised in rough courses of six, eight or ten inches. When other building rock is wanting, it is turned to some economical account. It weathers easily, and gives rise to more of the native soils of the county, that have already been described. It abounds in fossils, but they are generally poorly preserved. The forms most commonly met with are bivalve shells, of the genera atrypa, merista and spivifera. A variety of the lower cliff rock is found in New Market township, which is rnore rich in fossils, and of a darker color than the common exposures.
The lower cliff is succeeded by the Blue cliff, or Springfield stone, the best exposures of which are near Hillsborough, along the railroad. The cuts at Academy hill, and on Colonel Trimble's land give sections of twenty or thirty feet, in which all the details of satisfaction can be studied. It constitutes a natural pavement for several streets in Hillsborough, and is met with abundantly throughout the central and eastern portions of the county, Its usual thickness is forty-five feet. The occurrence of from five to fifteen feet of blue shale at the bottom of the upper cliff, can be regarded as nearly constant. This shale constitutes another horizon of springs. The shale is frequently struck in digging wells on the lower levels of Hillsborough. It is popularly called " soapstone," or " blue clay."
Singular spheroidal concretions of selica and other substances, as well as layers of chert, occur in this limestone. The concretions, which are usually crystalline at the center, occur abundantly at the quarries of Colonel Collins, and are found in still greater numbers on the eastern side of the county, as in Marshall township, where the blue cliff forms the surface rock for a considerable area. The weathering of this rock has left the face of the country strewed with these concretions as bowlders are scattered over a drift bed. Just south of the residence of Peter Hatcher, Esq., they can be seen in great profusion. The Blue cliff gives to its appearance good promise as a building stone, but in spite of these indications of durability, a considerable portion of the veins proves treacherous. Large portions of this rock are crinoidal in structure, though various forms of corals also appear.
The fifth member is the Guelph or Cedarville limestone, which from the occurrence of a large bivalve shell, Pentamerus ablongus, it is also called the Pentamerus lime-
HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO - 19
stone. It is a massive- magnesian limestone, ranging in thickness from twenty to ninety feet, except upon the eastern border of the county, it is not found more than two or three miles south of Hillsborough. At this point and its immediate vicinity it caps most of the high ground—the Court House hill, College hill, Ambrose's hill, Collins', Trimble's, and Lilley's hills, all containing the stone. In the last named summit it is covered, however, by a higher formation. In consequence of the depth of the strata it is found at lower levels in the north and east, and consequently becomes more abundant there, constituting the surface rock. This stone is frequently discolored by minute particles of bituminous matter, a characteristic which it shares with the upper cliff in some portions of its extent. The bitumen is undoubtedly of animal origin, a part of the living substance from which the limestones themselves were built up. It is interesting to note that the oil-bearing limestones of Chicago belong to this very horizon. Like some portions of the lower cliff, this formation is often destitute of distinct bed lines in its structure. It seems a solid, homogeneous mass for six or eight feet in thickness, at least, and is often spoken of as the "unstratified shell formation," It is acted on quite easily by atmospheric agencies, and by its unequal weathering the faces of the cliffs that it forms are rough and irregular. The fossil contents of the Pentamerus limestone are of remarkable interest. The great bivalve Pentamerus oblongus, which gives to the formation its name in Ohio, is one of the widely spread forms that characterized the limestones of this period in both the old and the new worlds. It is found in Russia, Prussia, Norway, Great Britain, Canada, New York, and thence westward to Wisconsin and Iowa, and southward as far as Tennessee. The Pentamerus can be seen to good advantage at Colonel Trimble's lime-kilns, in all the summits of Hillsborough, except College hill, at Lexington, and at Leesburg. Other interesting facts occur in this formation.
The sixth, and last, division of the Niagara series is what is commonly called the Hillsborough sandstone—a unique and original contribution of Highland county to the general geological scale. Limestones and calcareous shales constitute the only kinds of rocks that have been referred to this period hitherto in the Mississippi valley; but at Hillsborough, and on the eastern border of the county generally, a silicious sandstone, of a good degree of purity, is found, terminating the series. The thickness of this sandstone, at Lilley's hill, is thirty feet, and no greater thickness has been observed elsewhere.
Leaving the Niagara series, we come to the Helder- berg limestone--an important and wide-spread formation, often styled the "Wate-lime group." In Highland county it is a magnesian limestone, that does not differ in composition from the underlying Niagara. The Helderberg limestone is confined to the northeastern quarter of the county. The Greenfield area belongs to the main body of the rock which stretches southward from the shores of Lake Erie, with wide boundaries occupying more of the surface of the State than any other limestone within its limits, The Lexington and Leesburg areas are isolated. The thickness of this formation varies in the county between fifteen and one hundred feet. At Greenfield forty feet are exposed in the quarries of Paint creek, while at Rockville, six miles higher up the stream, an addition of forty feet seems to be made. The minimum thickness can be observed at Samantha, and also at Sinking springs. The rocks of this division differ greatly from each other in lithological character. The fifteen feet of stone that appear at Sinking springs is a friable, crumbling limestone, exactly like one of the subdivisions of the Pentamerus limestone. It is locally called marl, and it has been ascertained by experiment that it makes a very valuable addition to the adjacent farming lands. The marl also furnishes an excellent material for road making. It does not weather into clay, but into fine sand-like grains, which, when compacted and cemented, make a floor-like surface. The Helderberg limestone is at some points full of fragments of corals, that agree, generically, at least, with the Niagara forms, and at other points it holds only the most characteristic fossil of the formation—the bivalve crustacean, Leperditia alta.
At Greenfield, and in all the Helderberg area south of Lexington, the formation yields a building stone of the very highest excellence—probably the most even bedded building stone in the State. Its courses are never heavy, seldom exceeding fourteen inches in thickness. It is often raised in tables one hundred and fifty feet square, the surfaces of which are so smooth that they can be used for door-steps and similar purposes, without dressing. This stone is so well adapted for curbstones and street crossings that it has displaced every other stone in the Cincinnati market.
A good article of lime is manufactured from the waste of the quarries in this formation. They are the only quarries of the southwestern part of the State, that have this double function of furnishing from the same beds these two products—building stone and lime. The rock has been quarried at Greenfield since the first settlement of the county, but within the last few years the business has been greatly enlarged by the opening of foreign markets along the line of the railroad, and especially by the Cincinnati market. The Greenfield quarries are located on the banks of Paint creek, and some of them are within the village limits. All of the characteristics of the stone can be observed at these quarries. A considerable portion of the series at Greenfield is not available for quarrying purposes by reason of the occurrence of folds in its structure. The bedding of the rock at such places has been greatly disturbed, and a shattered and chaotic mass remains, which gradually passes into even beds upon either side. The presence of a layer of concretions from one to three inches in diameter, near the upper part of the section, deserves to be remarked, as does also the occurrence through the series in considerable number of short cylindrical columns, extending through the single layers of rock. When the layers are raised from the quarry bed, these columns sometimes fall out, leaving cylindrical cavities in the stone, three or four inches in diameter. These columns often have some organic center. They are supposed to be due to
20 - HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO.
the effects of pressure in the earlier ages of the rock, and are but one of the many phenomena that are referred to the same origin. Nodules of zinc-blende or sulphuret of iron, sometimes weighing several pounds, are quite common in the Greenfield stone. They contain two-thirds of the weight of metallic zinc. This zincblende seems quite frequently to have replaced spherical favosite corals. The same mineral abounds in the Niagara limestone further south, and, in company with the iron pyrites of the Black slates, has inspired many dreams of universal wealth that will never be realized.
There are hundreds of localities in southwestern Ohio to which tradition assigned the possession of mineral treasures in lead or silver mines. These traditions generally go back to the days of Indian occupation, and are, in fact, of Indian origin. The fragments of galena that are scattered over the surface of the country are not native. They are of northern origin and have been transported hither, some, perhaps, by the floods, but the most by that industrious and semi-civilized race which opened the mines along the shores of the great lakes, and covered the fairest portions of the Mississippi valley with the traces of their long-continued occupation, in countless mounds of burial or sacrifice, and in the long lines of defensive earthworks which the storms of a thousand years have not destroyed.
Up the valley of Paint creek, six or eight miles above Greenfield, are found the higher beds of the Helderberg limestone. At Rockville, where the best exposure occurs, forty feet can be measured in a compact section, and it seems probable that the whole of this overlies the Greenfield stone proper. The lower portion of the Rockville section is highly fossiliferous and shows forms very different from those that occur at Greenfield. It seems altogether probable that this stratum represents some higher portion of the Helderberg series.
Of the economical aspect of the Helderberg limestone in Highland county, it may be said that besides its fine qualities as a building stone, it is equally valuable as the material for water lime. The masons of the country have been accustomed to the Louisville cement, and are unwilling to adopt new methods in the use of a new article, but whenever the people of this section of the State get tired of paying for the transportation of cement from Louisville or Lake Erie, they will find quarries at their own doors that will furnish an equally reliable article.