Delaware County, Ohio - Chapter 16 (1 of 2 so headed), 1880 (part 1 of 2)

Chapter 16

THE climate of Ohio varies about four degrees. Though originally liable to malaria in many districts when first settled, in consequence of a dense vegetation induced by summer heats^ and rains, it has became very healthful, owing to clearing away this vegetation, and proper drainage. The State has became as favorable in its sanitary characteristics as any other in its locality. Ohio is remarkable for its high productive capacity, almost every thing grown in the temperate climates being within its range. Its extremes of heat and cold are less than almost any other State in or near the same latitude, hence Ohio suflers less from the extreme dry or wet seasons which afiect all adjoining States. These modifications are mainly due to the influence of the Lake Erie waters. These not only modify the heat of summer and the cold of winter, but apparently reduce the profusion of rainfall in summer, and favor moisture in dry periods. No finer climate exists, all conditions considered, for delicate vegetable growths, than that portion of Ohio bordering on Lake Erie. This is abundantly attested by the recent extensive development there of grape culture.

Mr. Lorin Blodget, author of Climatology," in the agricultural report of 185.3, says; '"A district bordering on the Southern and Western portions of Lake Erie is more favorable in this respect (grape cultivation) than any other on the Atlantic side of the Rocky Mountains, and it will ultimately prove capable of a very liberal extension of ,vine culture."

Experience has proven Mr. Blodget correct in his theory. Now extensive fields of grapes are everywhere found on the Lake Erie Slope, while other small fruits find a sure footing on its soU.

" Considering the climate of Ohio by isothermal lines and rain shadings, it must be borne in mind," says Mr. Blodget, in his description of Ohio's climate, from which these facts are drawn, " that local influences often require to be considered. At the South, from Cincinnati to Steubenville, the deep river valleys are two degrees warmer than the hilly districts of the same vicinity. The lines are drawn intermediate between the two extremes. Thus, Cincinnati, on the plain, is 2° warmer than at the Observatory, and 4° warmer for each year than Hillsboro, Highland County - the 'pne being 500, the other 1,000, feet above sea-level. The immediate valley of the Ohio, from Cincinnati to Gallipolis, is about 75° for the summer, and 54° for the year; while the adjacent' hilly districts, 300 to 500 feet higher, are not above 73° and 52° respectively. For the summer, generally, the river valleys are 73° to 75° ; the level and central portions 72° to 73°, and the lake border 70° to 72°. A peculiar mildness of climate belongs to the vicinity of Kelley's Island, Sandusky and Toledo. Here, both winter and summer, the climate is 2° warmer than on the highland ridge extending from Norwalk and Oberlin to Hudson and the northeastern border. This ridge varies from 500 to 750 feet above the lake, or 850 to 1,200 feet above sea level. This high belt has a summer temperature of 70°, 27° for the winter, and 49° for the year ; while at Sandusky and Kelley's Island the summer is 72°, the winter 29°, and the year 50°- In the central- and eastern parts of the State, the winters are comparatively cold, the avers^e falling to 32° over the more level districts, and to 29° on the highlands. The Ohio River valley is about 35°, but the highlands near it fall to 31° and 32° for the winter."

As early as 1824, several persons in the State began taking the temperature in their respective localities, for the spring, summer, autumn and winter, averaging them for the entire year. From time to time, these were gathered and published, inducing others to take a step in the same direction. Not long since, a general table, from about forty localities, was gathered and compiled, covering a period of more than a quarter of a century. This table, when averaged, showed an average temperature of 52.4°, an evenness of temperature not equaled in many bordering States.

Very imperfect observations have been made of the amount of rainfall in the State. Until lately, only an individual here and there throughout the State took enough interest in this matter to faithfully observe and record the averages of several years in succession. In consequence of this fact, the illustration of that feature of Ohio's climate is less satisfactory than that of the temperature. "The actual rainfall of different months and years varies greatly," says Mr. Blodget. "There may be more in a month, and, again, the quantity may rise to 12 or 15 inches in a single month. , For a year, the variation may be from a minimum of 22 or 25 inches, to a maximum of 50 or even 60 inches in the southern part of the State, and 45 to 48 inches along the lake border. The average is a fixed quantity, and, although requiring a period of twenty or twentyfive years to fix it absolutely, it is entirely certain and unchangeable when known. On charts, these average quantities are represented by depths of shading. At Cincinnati, the last fifteen years of observation somewhat reduce the average of 48 inches, of former years, to 46 or 47 inches."

Spring and summer generally give the most rain, there being, in general, 10 to 12 inches in the spring, 10 to 14 inches in the summer, and 8 to 10 inches in the autumn. The winter is the most variable of all the seasons, the southern part of the State having 10 inches, and the northern part 7 inches or less - an average of 8 or 9 inches.

The charts of rainfall, compiled for the State, show a fall of 30 inches on the lake, and 46 inches at the Ohio River. Between these two points, the fall is marked, beginning at the north, 32, 34, 36 and 38 inches, all near the lake. Farther down, in the latitude of Tuscarawas, Monroe and Mercer Counties, the fall is 40 inches, while the southwestern part is 42 and 44 inches.

The clearing away of forests, the drainage of .the land, and other causes, have lessened the rainfall, making considerable difference since the days of the aborigines.

Part Ii

THE author of Ecce Deus says : " History can never be written ; it can only be hinted at, and most dimly outlined from the particular standpoint which the historian has chosen to occupy. It is only by courtesy that any man can be called an historian. Seldom do men so flatly contradict each other as upon points of fact. Incompleteness marks all narrations. No man can fully write his own life. On reviewing the sheets which were to have told everything, the autobiograpber is struck with their reticence and poverty." Another writer "has said, that " history is an imperfect record of nations and races, diverse in their position and capacities, but identical in nature and one in destiny. Viewed comprehensively, its individuals and events comprise the incidents of an uncompleted biography of man, a biography long, obscure, full of puzzling facts for thought to interpret, and more puzzling breaks for thought to ^ bridge ; but, on the whole, exhibiting man as moving, and as moving forward." And still another author says, that " history is but the footprints upon the sands of time, by which we trace the growth, development, and advancement of the people constituting a nation." We might add, that it is history that takes note of the humblest tiller of the soil as well as of the scholar, the statesman, the soldier, and the great and good men and women who build the imperishable monuments of a country's greatness. Of the men and things that existed in the world durinj, the many dark centuries that precede the historic period, we know nothing, except through rude hieroglyphics and vague traditions, handed down through the beclouded minds of unlettered and superstitious people. Beginning with the age of letters and improvements in the languages of the world, followed by the modern inventions of printing types and presses, and the immense institution of the daily newspaper and telegraph, minute and reliable records of the world's daily doings are chronicled, and out of these veritable history is formulated.

The events that make up the annals of a country will always be of interest to the seeker after knowledge, who may in them learn who has lived and what has been done in the past ages of the world. The time is approaching when ignorance of the world's historic past will be a reproach, however it may be as to a lack of knowledge of the future. America constitutes a great nation of people, made up from the populations of many other nations, and Ohio is one of the greatest and most highly favored by nature of all the thirty-eight states of the American Union. As every portion of a thing goes to make up, and becomes a part of, the whole, so is a history of Delaware County a part of the history of Ohio, as Ohio is a part of the history of America. The population of Delaware County constitutes a part of the forty millions of American citizens who people this country, and their absolute wealth and prosperity make a part of our national wealth and material greatness. The intelligence of its people forms a part of our intelligence as a nation. The patriotism and selfsacrificing devotion of its sons; the gallantry and process of its soldiers, are no mean part of the pride and glory of this great American nation.

The age of Delaware County (as a county) is almost three-quarters of a century, but the date of its settlement extends back a number of years beyond the period of its organization as a county. Within that time the events that have transpired, and the scenes that have been enacted upon its soil, will be the subject matter of these pages. Taking it from its occupancy by the Indians, we will trace its progress from that wild and sayage state to its present prosperity, and endeavor to present to its citizens an authentic and impartial history.

Delaware County is located near the geological center of the State, and is bounded on the north by Marion and Morrow Counties, on the east by Licking and Knox, on the south by Franklin (which contains Columbus, the capital of the State), and on the west by Union County. Its area, officially stated at 283,289 acres, embraces 81,975 acres of arable land, 104,649 acres of meadow or pasture land, and 96,665 acres of uncultivated or wood land. Its average value per acre, exclusive of buildings, is $33.44, that" of Franklin County (according to official records) being $57.42, and Hamilton, which contains the city of Cincinnati, $84.39. The Scioto and Olentangy Kivers cross the central portion of the county from north to south. These streams, with their tributaries, constitute the drainage system of the county. The Scioto is the larger stream ; both, however, are subject to sudden and very great increase of volume in freshet time. They afford many excellent water-power privileges, some of which have been improved by the erection of mills, for flouring and manufacturing. As they are inclosed, throughout most of the county, by high banks that are often rocky, they may be dammed with ease, and security to adjoining lands. " The eastern portion of the county is rolling, particularly' the sandstone districts. This is due partly to the original unequal deposit of the Drift,* and partly to the effect of streams which have dug their channels through it, and into the rock, in some instances, to the depth of fifteea or twenty feet. The area of the shale and black slate was at first generally flat, but the streams and all little ravines have so roughened the surface that it should now be called rolling, or undulating, although there are yet many wide flat tracts. The belt underlaid by the shale and black slate is separated from the limestone belt by the valley of the Olentangy, which, with its tributaries, constitutes an important system of drainage. The whole limestone district which embraces all that part of the county west of the Olentangy Eiver, except that underlaid by the waterlime, is moderately undulating, the surface being worn by erosion into shallow depressions, which, near their junction with larger streams, become ravines bounded by steep bluffs. The district of the waterlime is flat, especially in the townships of Radnor, Thompson, and Scioto. The deeply eroded valleys of the Scioto and Olentangy constitute the most marked topographical features of the country. In the southern part of the county these valleys are deeply cut in the underlying rock. The divide between them at a point west of Powell is 125 feet above the Scioto. That interval is made up mostly of the beds of the underlying limestone, the Drift not having an average thickness of over twenty- five feet. The descent to the Olentangy is usually very gentle, occupying sometimes the space of a mile or more on either side ; while the valley of the Scioto is narrower, and its banks more frequently rocky and precipitous. The valley of the Olentangy is excavated for the most part in the black slate or the underlying shale, but that of the Scioto is cut in solid limestone strata. This fact may account for the greater breadth of the former."

" In the northwestern part of the county the valley of the Scioto is strikingly different from the southern part. It has here the features that the same valley presents in Marion and Hardin Counties. The bluffs are never rocky. The general level of the country is but little above the level of the water in the river. The stream has not yet cut its channel throughout this part of its course through the Drift, and in traveling along its valley, one is forcibly reminded of the strong resemblance of the face of the country to the Black Swamp region of Northwestern Ohio. It is a natural and reasonable inference that this portion of the country has had a very different superficial history from the southern and eastern parts, and one that allies it more to the Lake Erie Valley than to the Ohio slope. These Black Swamp features prevail in the townships of Radnor and Thompson, and in the northwestern part of Scioto."

The following oflScial table is of some interest in this connection, as showing the railroad elevation in this section of the country : ,,-t. ^^^ye vt. above

The soil generally is dependent on the nature of the northern drift. In this the various essentials, (State geological survey), such as iron, lime, phosphorus, silica, magnesia, alumina, and soda, are so thoroughly mixed and in such favorable proportions that the strength and fertility of the soil are very great. The depth of the soil has the same limit as the drift itself, which is, on an average, about twenty-five feet. The soil is more gravelly and stony in the rolling tracts. The stones come partly from the underlying rock, but mainly from the drift. They are common along all the valleys of streams and creeks and in shallow ravines. They are made to appear superficial by the washing away of the clayey parts of the drift, and are not due to any drift agency acting since the deposition of the great mass. The northwestern part of the county has a heavy, clayey soil, with some exceptions. This clayey, flat land is comparatively free from superficial bowlders. Very little gravel'can be found except in the line of gravel knolls that passes northwestwardly through Eadnor Township. The valleys of the streams, however, show a great many northern bowlders, as in other parts of the county. Besides these general characteristics of the soil of the county, a great many modifications due to local causes will be seen in passing over the county. There are some marshy accumulations, which, when duly drained, are found to possess a soil of remarkable ammoniacal qualities, due to decaying vegetation. The alluvial river margins possess a characteristic soil, strongly contrasting with the generally clayey lands of the county. They are lighter and warmer, while they are annually renewed, like the countries of Lower Egypt, by the muddy waters of spring freshets, and are hence of exhaustless fertility.

The whole county was originally wooded, and in certain localities the timber was heavy. The prevailing varieties are those common to this part of the State, and consist of many of the difierent kinds of oak, hickory, black and white walnut, ash, birch, sugar-maple, and other species unnecessary to particularize. Some of the more common shrubs, such as hazel, willow, sumac, etc., etc., are also to be found in considerable profusion. With this brief glance at the topography of the county, and its physical features, we will now turn to another branch of the subject.

On the geological structure of a country depend the pursuits of its inhabitants, and the genius of its civilization. Agriculture is the outgrowth of a fertile soil ; mining results from mineral resources ; and from navigable waters spring navies and commerce. Every great branch of industry requires, for its successful development, the cultivation of kindred arts and sciences. IPhases of life and modes of thought are thus induced, which give to diflsrent communities and states characters as various as the diverse rocks that underlie them. In like manner it may be shown that their moral and'^ intellectual qualities depend on material conditions. Where the soil and subjacent rocks are proftise in the bestowal of wealth, man is indolent and effeminate ; where effort is required to live, he becomes enlightened and virtuous ; and where, on the sands of the desert, labor is unable to procure the necessaries and comforts of life, he lives like a savage. The civilization of states and nations is, then, to a great extent, but the reflection of physical conditions, and hence the propriety of introducing their civil, political and military history with a sketch of the geological substructure from which they originate.

We are not writing the history of a state or a nation, but that which applies to either, geologically, will apply with equal force to an individual county, and it is possible that the people of Delaware County feel as great an interest in their geology as if their county comprised a nation. From the geological survey of the State we make some extracts pertaining to Delaware County, which will be found of value to those interested in the subject. Under the head of "Geological Structure," is the following: "The geological range of the county is from the base of the Carboniferous system to the waterlime in the Upper Silurian. The oldest and hence the lowest, geological horizon is in the northwestern part of Scioto Township. The outcropping belts of the formations cross the county from north to south. The townships of Kadnor, Marlborough, Troy, Delaware, Concord, Liberty, and Scioto are underlaid by the corniferous, including also what there may be of the Hamilton. The belt between the Olentangy and Alum Creek is occupied mainly with the outcropping edge of the Huron shale, inducing the underlying blue shale seen beneath the Huron at Delaware, in the banks of the Olentangy. How far east of Alum Creek the black shale extends, it is impossible to say, but it probably includes the western portions of King8ton,Berkshire, and Genoa. The fragile shales that immediately underlie the Berea grit have a narrow belt of outcrop through Kingston, Berkshire, and Genoa. The Berea grit underlies the most of Porter, Trenton and Harlem. The overlying Cuyahoga shales and sandstone, called Logan sandstones in the southern part of the State, have but a feeble representation in Delaware County. They would undoubtedly be encountered by drilling in the extreme eastern portions of the eastern tier of towns. The various strata making the series of Delaware Couiity are as follows, in descending order :

At Condit, in Trenton Township, on the«^in8« between Sections 1 and 2, may be seen an exposure of the Cuyahoga, in the bed of Perfect's Creek, which has the following section, in descending order : jt,

The slaty beds of this section, which are wavy and ripple-marked, lie irregularly among stone that is of a coarser grain and heavier bedding, the heavy beds showing the unusual phenomenon of tapering out, allowing the horizon of the slaty layers to rise and fall in the course of a few rods. This section, or parts of it, is seen again in the left bank of the Walnut, below the mouth of the Perfect Creek, on Mr. Overturf's land. It is also exposed a few rods further north, along the left bank of Walnut Creek, on Monroe Vance's farm. At the latter place some very good flagging has been obtained from the bed of the creek, but the thickest beds are not over four inches, the most being less than one inch. They afford here a fine surface exposure, showing a peculiar sheety and wavy arrangement. They rise and fall, shooting up and down at various angles and in all directions, and are often ripple-marked, reminding the observer of similar thin layers of the waterlime of the Upper Silurian. Similar beds are exposed on John Fenier's land, next above Mr. Vance's. They con- .tinue'also through the farms of Andrew Wiants, Hosea Stockwell, Nelson Utley, and James Williamson, a mile and a half above Mr. Vance's, showing the same characters, and are somewhat used for walling wells and for common foundations.

Opposite the mill of Mr. McFarland, Mr. Landon owns a quarry situated a little further down. At this place the exposed section is as follows, continuing the numbering from above :

The shale of No. 12 is apt to contain thin but very even beds of good sandstone. Indeed, one heavy bed of sandstone, valuable for railroad bridges, and for that purpose here quarried, entirely embraced in this shale, gradually thins out horizontally toward the north, and disappears entirely in the distance of 22 feet. This is a valuable quarry and furnishes heavy stone- The same is true of Sprague & Burr's quarry, which is across the creek, and near the mill of Mr. McFarland.

Berea Grit. - Besides the foregoing sections in the Berea grit, it is also quarried by Mr. John Knox, in the banks of the Rattlesnake Creek, about half

This quarry is probably in the upper portion of the Berea grit. A quarter of a naile above Mr. Knox's quarry, is that of Mr. Alfred Williams This shows about fifteen feet of beds of two to four inches. About a mile and a quarter north ot Harlem, along the South Branch of Spruce Kun, is Honier Merritt's quarry. The upper portion of thii section consists of thin layers of two to six inches. Thicker layers of fourteen or sixteen inches are near the bottom of the quarry. At Harlem, Mr. Carey Paul owns a quarry, worked by Daniel Bennett, which embraces about twelve feet in perpendicular section, of uniform beds of two to six inches. Mr. A. S. Scott's land joins Paul's below, and contains two opened quarries that supply, like Paul's, considerable valuable stone. The horizons of Mr. Scott's quarries are identical, and embrace the following descending section :

These quarries are in the southern corner of Harlem Township, on small tributaries to Duncan's Creek, and are probably in the upper portion of the Berea grit. Still further south, and adjoining Mr. Scott's, is Sherman Fairchild's section, which embraces good stone, and lies in a very favorable situation for drainage of the quarry. It is composed of beds of two to eight inches, with shale,

Cleveland Shale. - The Bedford shale, which occurs below the Berea, in the northern part of the State, seems not to exist in Delaware County. The Cleveland, likewise, has not been certainly identified. This is partly owing to the meagerness of the exposure of the beds of that horizon in Delaware County, and partly to the difficulty of distinguishing, without fossils, the Cleveland from the black slate (Huron shale). This uncertainty is augmented by the attenuation or non-existence of the Erie shale, which separates them by a wide interval in the northern part of the State. There are few exposures of black or blackish shale in the banks of Walnut Creek, in Berkshire Township, that may be referred to the Cleveland.

Huron Shale. - This shale has a full development in Delaware County. Its outcropping belt is from eight to ten miles wide, and is divided by Alum Creek into about equal parts. It graduates downward into a shale which is much less bituminous and has a bluish color, and which lies directly on the blue limestone quarried at Delaware. It has occasional outcrops on tne west side of the Olentangy, but that stream lies, almost without exception, along the western edge of the black slate or of the shale underlying. Alum Creek, and nearly all of its small tributaries, afibrd frequent sections of the Huron shale ; but they are so unconnected, and have so great a resemblance on# to the other, that they cannot be correlated. »H*i>ce, no correct statement of the thickness of this shale can be given. It has been estimated at about three hundred feet. It would be impossible to mention every point at which this shale is exposed in Delaware County ; hence, only those outcrops will be noted at which some features are disclosed which throw light on the general character of the formation. In the bank of the East Branch of the Olentangy, near the center of Section 1, Marlborough Township, at Kline's factory, the following section, in descending order, was taken. It belongs to the lowest part of the Huron :

No. 2. Blue shale ; calcareous, hard and compact, parting concBoidally ; less hard and enduring than limestone; concretionary, irregular and bilging ; seen in the bed of the river ; this may not be a constant layer; seen 6

Thirty or forty rods below the bridge over the Olentangy, just below the union of the East and West Branches, Troy Township, the same horizon is exposed in the left bank of the river, on Joseph

No. 6. Massive blue shale, weathering out superficially in small, rounded pieces or short cylinders the upper ends of which are convex and the lower concave, the equivalent of No. 2: at Kline's factory 1 3

At Delaware, a quarter of a mile below the railroad bridge over the Olentangy, the Huron shale appears in the left bank of the river, underlaid by the shale which has been regarded the equivalent of the Hamilton. There are no fossils in this underlying shale at Delaware, proving its Hamilton age, and it will be referred to in the following pages, to avoid a possible misuse of terms, as the Olentangy shale. The slate is of its usual thin beds, with some calcareous layers, which are black and about half an inch thick, hardly distinguishable from the slate itself. Here also are the round, calcareous concretions, technically called septaria, common to the lower portion of the black slate. The line of contact of the slate with the shale underlying, is quite conspicuous at some distance from the bluff, the shale weathering out faster, allowing the tough beds of slate to project. The following is the section at Delaware, covering the lower part of the Huron shale and the whole of the Olentangy shale : _ .

No. 9. Shale with concretions of blue limestone, that part under the weather couchoidally like massive shale. These hardened calcareous masses are not regularly disposed with respect to ea«h other, but fill most of the interval of six feet. They are six to eight inches thick, and two to three feet wide horizontally* 6

No. 10. Shale ? (sloping talus), not well exposed 10 No. 11. Bituminous, nearly unfossiliferous, limestone of a black, or purplish black color, hard and crystalline. This black limestone shows a few indistinct bivalves. One, which is large and coarse, appears to be Av'cula pectiniformis. Hall : seen 3

Above Delaware, the black slate and the Olentangy shale are frequently seen in the left bank of the river. The strike of the slate runs a little east of the river at the city, passing through and forming the bluff on which East Delaware is situated. The concretions of black limestone are from three inches to three and four feet in diameter, and sometimes much larger. (The survey here copies a lengthy extract from Dr. J. S. Newberry, which, as it is pertinent to the subject, and moreover contains much of interest, we give it entire.)

" Much of the doubt which has hung around the age of the Huron shale has been due to the fact that it has been confounded with the Cleveland shale, which lies several hundred feet above it, and that the fossils (without which, as we have said, it is generally impossible to accurately determine the age of any of the sedimentary rocks) had not been found. Yet, with diligent search, we have now discovered not only fossils sufficient to identify this formation with the Portage of New York, but the acute eye of Mr. Hertzer has detected, in certain calcareous concretions which occur near the base at Delaware, Monroeville, etc., fossils of great scientific interest. These concretions are often spherical, are sometimes twelve feet in diameter, and very frequently contain organic nuclei, around which they are formed. These nibclei are either portions of the trunks of large coniferous trees allied to our pines, replaced, particle by particle, by silica, so that their structure can be studied almost as well as that of the recent wood, or large bones. With the exception of some trunks of tree ferns which we have found in the corniferous limestone of Delaware and Sandusky, these masses of silicified wood are the oldest remains of a land vegetation yet found in the State. The Silurian rocks everywhere abound with impressions of sea-weeds, but not until now had we found proof that there were, in the Devonian age, continental surfaces covered with forests of trees similar in character to, and rivaling in magnitude, the pines of the present day.

One Of The First Settlers Df Deuware Co Liberty, Tp

" The bones contained in these concretions are of gigantic fishes, larger, more powerful, and more singular in their organization, than any of those immortalized by Hugh Miller. These fishes we owe to the industry and acuteness of Mr. Hertzer, and, in recognition of the fact, I have named the most remarkable one Dinichihys Hertzeri, or Hertzer's terrible fish. This name will not seem ill chosen, when I say that the fish that now bears it had a head three feet .long by two feet broad, and that his under jaws were more than two feet in length and five inches deep. They are composed of dense bony tissue, and are turned up anteriorly like sled runners; the extremities of both jaws meeting to form one great triangular tooth, which interlocked with two in the upper jaw, seven inches in length and more than three inches wide. It is apparent, from the structure of these jaws, that they could easily embrace in their grasp the body of a man - perhaps a horse - and as they were doubtless moved by muscles of corresponding power, they could crush such a body as we would crack an egg-shell."

One mile northwest from Delaware, Mr. Nathan Miller struck the black slate, on the west side of the Olentangy, at the depth of twenty-one feet, in digging a well. It may also be seen along a little ravine tributary to the Delaware Run, near Mr. Miller's farm, on the land of C. 0. and G. W. Little. Limestone only is seen in the bed of the run a few rods further west. It is blue and fossiliferous. A short distance still higher up the run the black member (No. 11 of the section taken in the Olentangy at Delaware) is seen in the bed of the same run. About a mile and a half below Stratford a little stream comes into the Olentangy, from the east, bringing along in freshet time a good many pieces of black slate. About a hundred rods up this little stream the beds of the black slate appear in situ in the tops of the blufis, the Olentangy shale, with its full thickness of about thirty feet, being plainly exposed near its junction with the slate, while in the river the limestone beds of the upper corniferous are spread out over a wide surface exposure. In Liberty Township, two and a half miles south of the Stratford, the black slate may be seen on the farm of Mr. J. Moorhead, on the west side of the Olentangy, in the banks of a ravine the distance of a mile from the river. From a considerable distance from this point, in descending the Olentangy, the banks show frequent exposures of limestone. Near Mr.

William Case's quarry, five and a half miles below Stratford, the black slate may be seen by ascending a little ravine that comes in from the east. Just at the county line, the slate appears in full force again in the left bank of the river, little streams bringing fragments from the west side as well as from the east. A perpendicular exposure on land owned by Granby Buell,of about forty feet, consists of about five feet of shale at the bottom. It is also seen on the west of the Olentangy, by ascending a ravine near the county line, on Archibald Wood's land, and again, by ascending another ravine about three-quarters of a mile north of the county line, on the land of F. Bartholomew, and it seems to extend about two miles west of the Olentangy at its point of exit from Delaware County.

The name Olentangy shale is given to that bluish and sometimes greenish shale which is so extensively exposed in the banks of the Olentangy River, in Delaware County, and which underlies the black, tough, but thin beds of the Huron shale. J It has a thickness of about thirty feet. No fossils have been found in it. It is interstratified with a little black slate, and in some of its exposures it bears a striking resemblance, at least in its bedding, to the Huron shale. The ^ section which has already been given of its exposures at Delaware, is the most complete that has been taken, and very accurately represents its bedding and characters wherever seen in the county. It lies immediately upon a hard, blackish, sometimes bluish, crystalline, pyritiferous limestone, or on the beds that have been denominated upper corniferous in the reports on the counties of Sandusky, Seneca, and Marion. In the county of Franklin, and further south, it is said to be wanting, and the black slate lies immediately upon the same limestone beds. It is also wanting in Defiance County, the black slate there also lying immediately on the beds that contain the only Hamilton fossils there yet discovered. This shale embraces occasionally a course of impure limestone that has a blue color and a rude concretionary appearance. On account of easy quarrying, it is a constant temptation to the people to employ itinfoundations. It is found, however, to crumble with exposure after a few months or years, and change into a soft shale or clay. Large blocks of it are washed out from this shale just below Waldo, in Marion County, by the force of the water coming over the dam at the mill, and have been somewhat used by Mr. John Brundage, near Norton, in Marlborough Township. This shaly limestone near the base of the OJentangy shale is immediately underlaid by a very hard crystalline limestone, which is sometimes black, but frequently purplish, containing pyrites in abundance and very few evident fossils. It is exposed and quarried just below Waldo, in Marion County, but is nowhere wrought in Defiance County. It is a persistent layer and occurs in Defiance County. In the report on the geology of Marion County it has been referred to the Hamilton, where it probably belongs, and seems to represent the Tully limestone of New York. The following section in the Olentangy shale will further illustrate the bedding and the nature of this member of the Devonian. It occurs along the banks of a little creek that enters the Olentangy River from the west, on land of F. Bartholomew, southeast of Powell :

No. 21. Thinner blue beds, with vermicular or fucoidal marks and little chert; fossiliferous; sometimes coarsely granular and crinoidal, but mainly earthly or argillaceous, and tough under the hammer ; within, this is in beds of six to twelve

No. 22. Limestone in thin slaty beds, so contorted and yet so agglomerated by chert (which forms nearly one-half of the mass) that the whole seems massive ; the chert is dark '. 3 6

No. 28. Beds of blue limestone of 4 to 10 inches, alternating with chert beds, latter about an inch thick ; where this number forms the bed of the creek it does not appear slaty, but massive and smooth, like a very promising building stone ; the creek where it enters the river bottoms is on this number, and nothing more is seen.. 6

Hamilton and Upper Corniferous. - These names are here associated, because whatever Hamilton fossils have been found in the county have been detected in that formation that has been described in reports on other counties as upper corniferous, and because it seems impossible to set any limit to the downward extension of the Hamilton, unless the whole of the blue limestone be Hamilton. The shale which has been described as Olentangy shale was at one time regarded as the only equivalent of the Hamilton, from the occurrence of Hamilton fossils in a shaly outcrop at Prout's Station, in Erie County. But after the survey of the county revealed no fossils in that shale, it became evident that it could not be the equivalent of the very fossiliferous outcrop at Prout's Station, and should not bear the name of Hamilton. That shale partakes much more largely of the nature of the Huron than of the Hamilton. The name corniferous is made by Dr. Newberry to cover the whole interyal between the Oriskany and that shale, the Hamilton being regarded as running out into the corniferous, its fossils mingling with typical corniferous fossils. In the State of Michigan, however, the term Hamilton has been freely applied to these beds, the corniferous, if either, being regarded as receded. The lithological characters of the Michigan Hamilton are the same as those of the upper corniferous in Ohio, and it is hardly susceptible of doubt that they are stratigraphically identical. In Ohio, there is a very noticeable lower horizon that should limit the Hamilton, if that name be applicable to these beds, and if palseontological evidence will not limit it.

The upper surface of these beds can be seen on the Olentangy, near Norton, where they have been opened for building-stone. They are also quarried near Waldo, in Marion County, in a similar situation, in the bed of the Olentangy. The only other undoubted exposure of the very highest beds belonging to this formation that is known occurs near Delaware, likewise in the bed of the Olentangy. It is mentioned in the section of the shale outcropping there, under the head of the Huron Shale, and is described as a black limestone, hard and crystalline. It is also included in No. 20 of the " section in the Olentangy shale in Liberty Township." The exposure near Norton does not show so dark a color, but varies to a blue ; it occurs there in even, thick courses, that would be extremely difiScult to quarry except for the natural joints by which the layers are divided into blocks. The same is true of its outcrop near Waldo. In both places it is a hard, ringing, apparently silicious, tough, and refractory limestone, some of the blocks being over two feet thick. It is a very reliable building- stone, but the abundance of pyrites that is scattered through it makes it very undesirable for conspicuous walls. It is exceedingly fine grained, and but slightly fossiliferous. At these places, not more than four or five feet of this stone can be seen, but it has an observed thickness in the southern part of the county of about nine and a half feet. It seems to retain a persistent character, for the same stratum is seen to form the top of the upper corniferous in Defiance County, on the west side of the great anticlinal axis. It is believed to be the equivalent of the TuUy limestone of New York. Below these very hard and heavy layers comes the stone quarried extensively at Delaware. The quarry of Mr. G. W. Little shows about eighteen feet of bedding, in courses three to fifteen inches thick. It is for the most part in a very handsome, evenly bedded blue limestone that shows some coarse chert, and, in places, considerable argillaceous matter, which renders the walls built of it liable to the attacks of the weather. The features of the Hamilton here seem very conspicuously blended with those that have been designated more distinctively as belonging to the corniferous. The fossils are not abundant throughout the whole, but between certain thin beds many bivalves - Cyrtia Hamiltonensis, Spirifera mucronata, Strophomena (^Rhomboidalisf), Strophomena demissa - and one or two species of Discina, and various vermicular markings, are common. In some of the heavier beds the fish remains that have been described by Dr. Newberry, from the Corniferous at Sandusky, are met with, as well as the large coils of Cyrtoceras undulatum.

Between two and three miles below Stratford the lower corniferous appears on both sides of the river, and is described under the head of lower corniferous. But about fifty rods still further down the right bank shows the Hamilton, or upper corniferous, again, having a thin and almost slaty appearance as the edges of the layers are exposed in the river bluff. In some parts there, beds are thickly crowded with Spirifera, Cyrtia, and Strophomena ; these, indeed, being the only conspicuous fossils. These beds closely overlie the above-mentioned lower corniferous, although the superposition could not be discovered, showing the continuance of Hamilton fossils well down into the Delaware stone. At a point about five miles and a half below Stratford, Mr. William Case has a quarry on the left bins' of the river, in beds at the horizon of the base of the Delaware stone. A little above this quarry, a ravine joins the river from the east, its sides affording a fine connected section through the Olentangy shale, and the whole of the Delaware limestone, into the lower corniferous. The shale and overlying Huron are seen in ascending this ravine about fifty rods from the river. Descending this ravine, and including the rock exposed below Mr. Case's quarry, where a very prominent bluff is formed by the erosion of the river, the following succession of beds appears :

No. 2. Blue, or bluish-green, bedded shale; nonfos3iliferou3,.einb?'aoing sometimes layers of black slate, like No. 1, of three or four inches in thickness ; poorly exposed (Olentangy shale), about 30

No. 3. Bituminous, dark blue, or black limestone ; non-fossiliferoas, rather rough, hard, and with some black chert, or flint (TuUy limestone?) 1

No. 4. Thin, blue, tough, finely crystalline beds, containing considerable black chert, or flint, associated with pyrites ; in the lower portion in beds of four to sixteen inches ; but little fossiliferous (TuUy limestone?), about 8

No. 5. Beds four to six inches, slightly fossiliferous ; embracing some bituminous, slaty shale in irregular deposits about crowded concretions (Hamilton limestone?) 14

No. 6. Tough, bluish-gray, slaty beds of impure limestone of the thickness of one-quarter to one-half inch, with considerable chert (Hamilton?) 8

No. 7. Heavier beds (six to twenty inches), but of the same texture as the last; fossiliferous; blue; the horizon of the best quarries at Delaware, showing the usual fossils and lithological cfcaracters (Hamilton?) 6

No. 8. Crinoidal beds, fossiliferous, of a lighter color ; not showing blue ; generally massive, or eight to thirty-six inches, but weathering into beds of three to five inches (corniferous limestone) 6

No. 9. Heavy or massive beds of crinoidal limestone, which weathers off by crumbling into angular pieces of an inch or two ; light gray or buff, with large concretions of chert between it and the last. This seems to contain all the fossils characterizing the lower corniferous, as that term has been used in reports on other counties. Below, becoming more bituminous, less crinoidal, but equally fossiliferous (Corniferous limestone), seen 11

That limestone which, in reports on the counties of Sandusky, Seneca, Crawford, and Marion, the writer has designated " lower corniferous, 'i is divisible, on account of strong lithological and palasontological diiferences, into two well-marked members. The upper member, well exposed and extensively burned for lime at Delhi, in Delaware County, lies immediately below the blue limestone quarried at Delaware, as may be seen by reference to the last foregoing section, and has a thickness of about twenty-eight feet. It is of a light cream color, crystalline or saccharoidal texture, quite fossiliferous, and usually seen in beds of three or four inbhes. It is rather hard and firm under the hammer. It makes a lime not purely white, but of the very best quality. Where this stone is deeply and freshly exposed, it is seen to lie in very heavy layers, and as such it would furnish a very fine crinoidal marble for architecture. Its most conspicuous fossils are brachiopods of the genera strophomena (T) Atrypa Chonetes, and others, with one or two genera of gasteropods, and occa^ sionally a specimen of Cyrtoceras undulatum. There may also be seen in these beds different species of oyathophylloids, trilobite remains, and fish spines and teeth. This member of the Lower Corniferous occupies the position relatively to the Hamilton, of the corniferous limestone of New York, though it is not possible at present to say it is the equivalent of that formation. It would thus be the upper member of the ¥pper Helderberg of that State. It has a thickness of about twentyeight feet.

Below the Delhi limestone, is a fossiliferous belt of limestone, often of a bluish color and bituminous character, ten to fifteen feet thick, cliaracterized by corals in great abundance. In the central part of the county of Delaware, this belt is chiefly fossiliferous in the lower three or four feet, the remainder being rather, but of a blue color. The southem part of the county, however, seems to be without this bluish and highly coralline member, the Delhi beds coming immediately down on the second division of the lower corniferous. The corals found here are favosites, coenastroma, stromatopora, and oyathophylloids. This belt is met with in Crawford County, and seems to prevail toward the north as far as Erie County. The second division of the lower corniferous is a lightcolored, even-bedded, nearly non-fossiliferous vesicular or compact magnesian limestone, which makes a good building stone, being easily cut with common hammer and chisel, and has a thickness of about thirty feet. It is apt to appear somewhat bituminous and of a dirty or brown color when constantly wet, but under the weather, it becomes a light buff. The upper half of this stone is in beds of two to four inches, the lower in beds of one to three feet. Near the bottom it becomes arenaceous, and even conglomeratic, passing into the Oriskany sandstone, which has a sudden transition to the waterlime of the Lower Helderberg. It seems to have many pf the lithological features and the persistency of the Onondaga limestone of New York, and may be provisionally parallelized with that formation. The fossils are generally absorbed into the rock, casts or cavities only remaining ; yet a cyathophylloid and a coarse favositoid coral have been seen.

In Delaware County, the Oriskany is much reduced in thickness -from what it is in the northern part of the State, but its composition is much, coarser, reaching that of a real conglomerate. It is not over two feet at any point where it has been seen. The pebbles embraced in it are entirely of the waterlime, and uniformly rounded, as by water action. Some are four inches in diameter, but in thin'pieces. The last section given (that on Mill Creek) shows its position on the strata. It is there plainly exposed, and there fades out, without change of bedding, into the lowest part of the lower corniferous, which sometimes, as in the county of Sandusky, has been seen to be somewhat arenaceous, several feet above the strong aren-' aceous composition of the Oriskany. The exposure on Mill Creek, and that in the left bank of the Scioto, near the lime-kiln of Mrs. Evans, are the only points in the county at which this conglomerate has been seen.

As already mentioned, the waterlime appears in the left bank of the Scioto, near Mrs. Evans' limekiln, a quarter of a mile below Millville, and has been somewhat used for quicklime. It rises here.

fifteen feet above th^ water of the river, at summer stage. It is probable that the bed of the river is on the waterlime for a mile below this point, and even to Sulphur Spring Station. The quarry of John Weaver, about half a mile Ijelow Cone's Mills; is in the waterlime. The exposure here is in a ravine tributary to the Scioto from the West. The situation is favorable for profitable quarrjring and lime-burning. The stone is drab, and much shattered. It turns a light buff after weathering, some of it becoming as white as chalk. Half a mUe above Millville, the waterlime rises in the right bank of the Scioto about fifteen feet, the road passing over it. It is visible in the bed of the Scioto, at the crossing known as the Broad Ford. 1 At Cone's Jlills is a fine surface exposure of the waterlime. It has been somewhat wrought at this place. The beds are quite thin and slaty, and of a blue color. The texture is close, and the grain very fine. In the bed of the Scioto a stone spotted with drab and blue is quarried, a short distance below Middletown. It is in even beds of four to eight or ten inches, and is very valuable for all uses. It is a part of the waterlime. Some of the same kind is found in Boggs' Creek, two miles from the Scioto, on land of John Irwin. In Thompson Township the waterlime is seen on the farm of Jonathan Fryman, a mile and a quarter west of the Scioto, at the road-crossing of Fulton Creek. It is in thin, blue beds, the same as at Cone's Mill, and has been used somewhat in cheap foundations.

Several interesting features pertaining to the Drift, proving the glacier origin of this deposit and all its features, were first noticed in Delaware County. Allusion has already been made, under the head of Surface Features, to the valley of the Scioto, and the contrast its upper part presents to its lower. Throughout the county generally the beds of all streams are deeply eroded in the underlying rock, alfjiough their banks are constantly rooky. This fact is more and more evident to the observer in traveling from the northwestern part of the county to the southeastern. The northwestern corner of the county, including the townships of Thompson, Radnor, and the northern part of Scioto, has the features of the flat tract in Northwestern Ohio known as the Black Swamp. The banks of the Scioto are low (ten or fifteen), and consist of Drift, the rock rarely being known in its bed. The Drift appears fresher and the surface is smoother than in the rest of the county. A short distance above Millville the banks begin to be rocky, the excavation beginning in the waterlime, over which it has been running since it left the western part of Hardin County, but without making the slightest excavations, rarely revealing it in its bed by rapids. Within a mile from Millville the amount of erosion in the underlying rock increases to a remarkable extent, and at Sulphur Spring Station, about two mOes below Millville, the erosion in the rock amounts to sixty or seventy feet. From there south the rest of the Scioto valley is between high rook banks. This exemption from erosion in the upper waters of the Scioto cannot be due to the harder nature of the rock there, because ihe waterlime is much more rapidly worn out under such agencies . than the lower corniferous, on which it enters at Sulphur Springs Station. The composition of the Drift about the head-waters of the Scioto is the same as about the lower portions of its course. It is in both cases a hard-pan deposit, made up pf a mixture of gravelstones, bowlders, and clay, rarely showing stratification or assortment - such a deposit as is, without much difference of opinion, attributed to the direct agency of glacier ice. The conclusion is inevitable that the lower portion of the Scioto has been at work digging its channel in the rock much longer than the upper portion. The slope is in both cases toward the south, at least that portion of it in Delaware County ; and that agency, whatever it was, which served to make this change in the valley of the Scioto from no excavation to deep rock erosion, could not have been quiet, standing waters over one portion of the valley and not over the other, since such waters would have retired last from the lower part of the valley, and we should there expect less instead of more erosion. The only possible way to explain this phenomenon, in the light of plausible theories, is to refer it to the operation of the last glacial epoch, or to the operation of a glacial epoch which projected the ice-field only so far south as to cover the upper part of the Scioto Valley, leaving the lower portion of the valley, which probably pre-existed, to serve as a drainage channel from the ice itself. Subsequently, when the ice withdrew, the upper tributaries were located in such places as the contour of the surface allowed or demanded.

There are other evidences that the township of Radnor, Thompson, and the northern part of Scioto were for a time under glacial ice, while the rest of the county was uncovered, and suffered all the vicissitudes of surface erosion. The aver,age thickness of the Drift in Radnor Township, judging by the phenomena of wells and the height of river banks, as well as from the rocky exposures, is about twenty feet. Toward the river, bowlders are common on the surface. In Thompson Township, the thickness seems also to be eighteen or twenty feet. Id descending the Scioto along the right bank, after passing Fulton Creek, there is a noticeable thickness of the Drift, and two Drift terraces follow the river for "a couple of miles with considerable distinctness. They are each about fif-- teen feet in height, the upper one sometimes reaching twenty feet, and are separated in many places by a flat belt of land, the surface level of the lower terrace. Below these is the river flood - plain. This second, or upper river terrace, comes in apparently from the west, and appears just at the point where the rock begins to be excavated by the river. It makes the thickness of the Drift about thirty or forty feet. After passing Millville and S»lphur Spring Station, the upper terrace disappears in a general slope to the river, and it cannot be identified at any point further south. This thickening of the Drift is in the form of a moraine ridge, which, passing west of Ostrander about a mile, is intersected by the Marysville Pike a little west of the county line. From its summit toward the west the descent is seventy-five or one hundred feet, when a flat is reached like that in the northwestern part of Delaware County. This moraine has not been traced through Union County.

A singular line of gravel knolls and short ridges pertaining to the Glacier Drift crosses Radnor Township, coming into the county from the north at Middletown (which is on the Scioto, in Marion County), and passing about a mile to the west of Delhi. It is traceable nearly to Millville. It is intersected by the gravel road about a mile north of Delhi. The road then follows it to Middletown, where it becomes lost from further observation. This interesting series of ridges is not arranged in a single, continuous line, IfUt the separate ridges overlap each other, rising and falling at irregular intervals. Sometimes the line appears double ; low places on one side are in some places made up by full deposits on the other. On either side the country is flat, the soil is of close clay, and the roads very muddy in rainy weather. The Delhi beds of the lower corniferous are exposed at a number of places in close proximity to these gravel knolls, proving the strike of the formation to be exactly coincident with this strip of gravelly land.

Toward the east is the enduring corniferous ; toward the west, the easily disrupted waterlime. There is a general but very gentle' slope to the west. The material in these ridges is stratified sand and gravel, which has been considerably used in constructing the gravel roads that intersect that part of the county.

Beginning with the lowest in the geological series of the county, we find a clogegrained, drab limestone. The beds, so far as seen in Delaware County, are usually less than six inches in thickness, yet at one place, near the north line of the county, it is taken from below the waters of the Scioto in beds of six to ten inches. Although this stone is rather hard and close-grained, it is also apt to be brittle, and in its undisturbed bedding, to be checked into small, angular pieces. It occupies low, sheltered places, owing to a tendency to be destroyed by the elements. It is easily disrupted, even by the use of the crow-bar or pick, and seldom needs blasting. These qualities render it a poor quality for construction, and it is seldom used except for quicklime. When it has not been bleached and weakened by long exposure to the elements, it makes a lime nearly as strong as any that can be burned in Delaware County, and much whiter than that made from the Hamilton or the corniferous. Near Mrs. Evans' kiln, where it has been used in conjunction With the corniferous, it is distinguished as the " White Stone," by the workmen, from the whiteness of the quicklime it affords.

The Oriskany, which succeeds to the waterlime, has no economical value whatever. In some parts of the State it is very pure, silicious sandstone, in heavy beds, but in Delaware County is conglomeratic with waterlime pebbles, and it graduates upward into the lower members of the lower corniferous, the supposed equivalent of the Onondaga limestone of New York State. The remainder of the Devonian limestones coHstitutes a group which are noted for their various economical uses. The heavy buff' limestone overlying the Oriskany is rather coarse-grained and rough to the touch, but lies in heavy layers of uniform thickness and texture. Its color is pleasant and cheerful, especially when dressed under the hammer and laid in the wall. It is sometimes ve.^cular or cherty, when its value as a building material is considerably less ; yet in all cases it answers well for any heavy stone work, as bridge piers and abutments, aqueducts, and all foundations. In some parts of the State this member of the corniferous is extensively wrought, and sawn into handsome blocks for stone fronts. Ample facilities are offered along the Scioto River, at a great many places, for the working of this stone. Its value for building, and the accessibity of its layers, render it a little surprising that no opening worthy the name of a quarry has been made in it within the limits of Delaware County. As a cut-stone, it ranks next to the Berea grit in its best estate, which is found in the eastern part of the county, and when once introduced int the market of the county, particularly in the western portions, it would draw custom from a wide range of country west and north, where no good cut-stone can be found. Some of the most favorable points for quarries in this limestone are near the south county line, in the banks of the Scioto, or in some of its tributaries. The banks of Mill Creek, at Bellepoint, and also for a couple of miles above, are almost equally favorable.

The next member of the lower corniferous is that described as thin-bedded, cherty, buff limestone, and differs but little from the last. Owing to the thinness of the bedding it is only useful for quicklime, of which it makes a quality very similar to the heavier beds below. The bluish limestone next overlying is not constantin its characters ; indeed, in some sections, covering the same horizon, it was found wanting. In its place may sometimes be seen a few feet of very fossiliferous, bituminous limestone. The blue color is believed to be due to the more even dissemination of bituminous mat> ter through the entire rock, instead of its preservation in fossil forms. When the bitumen is present in considerable quantity, the black films and their irregular scales, that disfigure and destroy the rock for building purposes, do not materially injure it for making quicklime. They readily volatilize in the kiln, but the fresh lime is of a little darker color. When the member is not highly coralline and bituminous, it makes a very firm and useful stone for all uses in walls and foundations. The quarry of Mrs. Evans, about a fourth of a mile below Millville, is in this stone.

It is to the " Delhi stone," however, that the county is indebted for the greatest quantity of quicklime. These beds lie immediately over the " bluish stone " last mentioned. The layers are generally not over three or four inches in thickness, and rather hard and crystalline. They are often crinoidal and very fossiliferous. The color is rather light, and the line made is heavy and strong.

It contains very little sediment that cannot slack, and brings the best price in the markets ; yet it is not so white as that made from the waterlime, nor is the stone so easily burned as the upper part of the Niagara limestone. 'In the absence of a better qu.ality of stone for walls and common foundations, this limestone is very commonly employed, but the irregularity of its bedding, and the thinness of its layers, will effectually prevent its use in heavy stone work . In deep quarrying, the bedding would become thicker and the variations of color and texture due to its fossils and crystalline tendency might make it take rank as a handsome marble.

Overlying the Delhi beds is the well-known " blue limestone " of Delaware County, extensively quarried and used for buildings at Delaware. This is a hard and crystalline stone, variously interspersed with bituminous and argillaceous matter. Where these impurities are wanting, the bedding is usually about six inches in thickness, but may reach ten or twelve. When they are abundant, the bedding becomes slaty, and the stone is much injured for purposes of building. These argillar ceous layers, which part the bedding, soon succumb to the weather, and cause the calcareous layers to chip out or break by superincumbent pressure of the wall. Numerous instances of such defective masonry could be pointed out in the city of Delaware, showing the treacherous character of much of this blue stone. Stone-cutters will be at no pains to remove such shaly matter from the stone, but rather prefer to leave it, even to the damage of important buildings, since it gives them less labor to cut. The effect of the elements is much greater on this stone when it is placed on edge in the wall, instead of being laid as it was deposited by nature in the quarry. The beds of sedimentation ought always to be laid horizontally, instead of perpendicularly. Although this stone is very firm and crystalline in its best estate, it is yet susceptible of being out into all useful forms, for sills, caps, keystones and water-tables, and is largely used both at Sandusky and Delaware for these purposes. Its dark color makes it especially adapted to foundations where a light-colored superstructure is intended, and to all Gothic architecture. For lime it is very little used, owing to the difficulty of calcination, compared to other accessible limestones, and the heavy sediment of argillaceous matter that will not slack ; yet the lime it makes, although rather dark-colored, is said to be very can only be partially gleaned from the internal evidences which they themselves afford. They consist of the remains of what were apparently villages, altars, temples, idols, cemeteries, monuments, camps, fortifications, pleasure grounds, etc. The farthest relic of this kind, discovered in a northeastern direction, was near Black River, on the south side of Lake Ontario. Thence they extend in a southwestern direction by way of the Ohio, the Missisifippi, Mexican Gulf, Texas, New Mexico and Yucatan, into South America.

" In Ohio, where the mounds have been carefully examined, are found some of the most extensive and interesting that occur in the United States. At the mouth of the Muskingum, among a number of curious works, was a rectangular fort containing forty acres, encircled by a wall of earth ten feet high, and perforated with openings resembling gateways. In the mound near the fort were found the remains of a sword, which appeared to have been buried with its owner. A fort of similar construction and dimensions was found on Licking River, near Newark. Eight gateways pierced the walls, and were guarded by mounds directly opposite each, on the inside of the work. At Circleville, on the Scioto, there were two forts in juxtaposition ; the one an exact circle, sixty rods in diameter, and the other a perfect square, fifty-five rods on each side. The circular fortification was surrounded by two walls, with an intervening ditch twenty feet in depth. On Paint Creek, fifteen miles west of Chillicothe, besides other extensive works, was discovered the remains of a walled town. It was built on the summit of a hill about 300 feet in altitude, and encompassed by a wall ten feet in height, made of stone in their natural state. The area thus inclosed contained 130 acres. On the south side of it there were found the remains of what appeared originally to have been a row of furnaces or smith-shops, about which cinders were found several feet in depth."

But, to come down to the local history of these people, we give place to the following article, prepared at our special request, by Reuben Hills, Esq., of Delaware. Mr. Hills has given the subject much study, and our readers will find the result of his researches of considerable interest. He says :

In the examination of the early history of Delaware County, we find the first inhabitants who have left any traces of their existence were the Mound- Builders. The question may properly be asked,

" Who were the Mound-Builders? " And it is a question which has puzzled archaeologists ever since the discovery of the strange works of this racg. The name itself, though conveying an impression of their habits, is rather suggestive of our ignorance as to who they were, since, except from the mounds of earth or stone, which cover the central part of this continent, we know almost nothing of this people, who, in the ages long ago, came we know not whence, and vanished we can not tell whither.

The red Indians who occupied this country at the time of its discovery by Europeans had no knowledge nor even any traditions of their predecessors, so that what the white man learns of them he must learn directly from the remains of their own works. Their antiquity is as yet an entire mystery. That some of the mounds were completed and deserted as long as eight hundred years ago is certain, but how much longer is not known. Their civilization was of a different order from that of the red Indian, and their manner of living was apparently more allied to that of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans. Many questions remain to be solved in regard to them. Whether they had anything like a written language, of which we have, as yet, no proof; whether the remains, of different character in various parts of the continent, are the work of the same people at different stages of their civilization, or the work of different races at very remote periods ; and about what time they occupied this country - these are all questions of conjecture. Sd also is the question of the relation of the modern Indian to the Mound-Builder ; whether he is the conqueror or the descendant. Nearly all late writers, however, agree in believing the Indian is nbt a descendant of the jMound- Builder. All these questions are to be answered by the diligent study and research of the antiquarian, and will be satisfactorily settled only when the answers are founded on fact and not on theory.

But the design of this article is not a discussion of the Mound-Builders in general, but of the position in political geogTaphy held by Delaware County during the period of the Mound-Builders' occupation of the country. The evidences of the ancient occupation of this county consist of flint arrow-heads and spear-heads, fleshers, celts, stone hammers, hatchets, pestles, pipes, relics classified as " drilled ceremonial weapons," mounds of various descriptions, and fortifications. Such implements as arrow-heads, hatchets, etc., are found in all parts of the county, the largest numbers ooourring in tlie neighborhoods of the Scioto and Olentangy Rivers. Dr. H. Basse, of Delaware, has in his collection a fine assortment of the abovementioned drilled ceremonial weapons, also several perforated tablets, all of which were found on the surface, in Porter Township. Mr. John J. Davis has in his possession a stone pipe, of plain design but exquisite finish, which was unearthed in digging for the foundation of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Delaware. In the museum of the Ohio Wesleyan University may be seen a large number of relics, gathered from all parts of the county.

The mounds are mostly sepulchral. One of the most remarkable ever opened in the county, was the one on the farm of Solomon Hill, a short distance west of the Girls' Industrial Home. We take the following notice of this mound from the Delaware Herald of September 25, 1879 : " Saturday we were shown some interesting relics consisting of aqueen conch-shell, some isinglass [mica] and several peculiarly shaped pieces of slate, which were found in a mound on the farm of Solomon Hill, Concord Township, Delaware Co., Ohio. The mound is situated on the banks of a rocky stream. The nearest place where the queen conch-shell is found is the coast of Florida ; the isinglass in New York State, and the slate in Vermont and Pennsylvania. Two human skeletons were also found in the mound, one about seven feet long, the other a child. The shell was found at the left cheek of the large skeleton. A piece of slate about one by six inches was under the chin. The slate was provided with two smooth holes, apparently for the purpose of tying it to its position. Another peculiarly shaped piece', with one hole, was on the chest, and another with some isinglass was on the lep; hand.

Another mound, on the Olentangy River, about three miles north of Delaware, was opened in September, 1877. This was located on a farm at that time leased by A. H. Jones, and Ifuown as " the broom- corn farm." It had been so often plowed over and so nearly leveled that its existence would not have been noticed if Mr. Jones had not plowed into a large collection of flint implements, which directed his attention to the fact that he was then on a mound. It measured about forty feet in diameter, and was three and a half or four feet high. Investigation was made by digging a narrow trench into what wag supposed to be the center of the mound, but no discovery of importance was made. Only two skeletons were found, and they were, probably, a comparatively recent interment, as they were only about thirteen inches below the surface. They had been there so long, however, that the bones mostly crumbled at the touch. They had probably been buried in a sitting posture, for the bones of the head and trunk were badly mixed, while the legs occupied a horizontal position. The mound was located on the second terrace, in a bend of the stream, at a distance of three hundred and fifty or four hundred feet from its old bed.

A mound near Galena was Recently opened by Prof John T. Short, of the Ohio University, under the direction, and for the benefit of, the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology ; and we are under obligations to Prof F. W. Pui> nam. Curator of the Museum, for the privilege of using Prof. Short's report in this connection, and to Prof Short himself for kindly furnishing a copy of his report for this purpose.

He says : " In the month of August, 1879, the writer, in company with Mr. Eugene Lane and Mr. David Dyer, opened three mounds in Delaware County, Ohio. Two of these formed part of a system of mound-works situated on the estate of Jacob Rhodes, Esq., in Genoa Township. * * The peninsula or tongue of land situated between Big Walnut Creek and Spruce Run is an elevated area having nearly perpendicular sides, washed by the streams, over a hundred feet below. The central figure, the mound A [referring to a plate] stands within a perfectly circular inclosure (B) measuring 570 feet around. Now it is but about three feet higher than the natural level, but formerly was ten feet higher. Its present owner reduced it by plowing it down. The trench is inside of the inclosure, and no- doubt furnished the earth for both the embankment and the mound. Its present width is twenty-seven feet, and it was formerly about seven feet deep. The circle has an opening about twenty feet in vridth on the east, from which a graded way of about the same width and probably 400 feet in length, no doubt of artificial construction, affords a descent at an angle of about 30° to the stream below. On the north side of the entrance and continuous with the embankment, is a small mound measuring ten feet in diameter and four feet in height. It may have served as a point of outlook into the deep ravine below, as from it alone the entire length of the graded way is at once visible. A afcaft six feet in diameter was sunk in this mound to a depth of four and a half feet, but we discovered nothing that could be removed. Charcoal, a few calcined animal bones, and burnt clay were all that was found. The large mound situated in the center of the inclosure measures seventy-five feet through its major axis, and sixty-eight feet through its minor axis. Its present height is about twelve feet above the natural level, though the distance to the bottom of the trench is three or four feet or more. It is probable that the mound was perfectly round, as its symmetry has no doubt been destroyed in part by the removal from its surface of about twenty-five wagon loads of flat sandstones (each a foot square, more or less, and about three inches thick) for the purpose of walling neighboring cellars. These stones were brought from the ravine below and made a complete covering for the mound. Extending out from the mound on the west, the remains of a low crescent-shaped platform, twenty-five feet across at its greatest width, are still visible. A small excavation was made four years ago in the top of the mound, by the son of the present owner, but the digging was abandoned before any depth was reached, or anything was discovered. I excavated the mound by causing a trench four feet wide to be dug from the northern side of the mound to its center. * * * ^ single layer of flat stones like those on the outside of the mound was found to start at the base and to cover what at one time must have been regarded as its finished surface. At the center this inner layer of stones was situated about three feet below the preseijt surface of the mound. This was the only trace of stratification observable in the structure, and is .suggestive of the section given by Squier and Davis to illustrate stratification in altar mounds. Aside from this, the indications were distinct that the earth had been dumped down in small basket or bag fulls. This is confirmatory of the observations of Prof. E. B. Andrews in the mounds of Southern Ohio. * * * On the undisturbed surface of the ground at the center of the mound I uncovered a circular bed of ashes eight feet in diameter and about six inches in thickness. These ashes were of a reddish clay color except that through the center of the bed ran a seam or layer of white ashes - no doubt calcined bones, as at the outer margin of the bed in one or two instances the form of bones was traceable, but so calcined that they possessed no consistency when touched or uncovered. Ranged in a semicircle around the eastern margin of the ash-heap were several pieces of pottery, all broken, probably in the construction of the mound or by its subsequent settling. The pottery was exceedingly brittle and crumbled rapidly after exposure. It was almost impossible to recover any fragments larger than the size of the hand, though a couple of pieces were taken out which indicated that the vessel to which they belonged was much larger than any which to my knowledge has been taken from Ohio mounds ; it was probably twelve or fourteen inches in height. This vessel was ornamented with a double row or border of lozenge or diamond shaped figures, and when intact probably resembled figure 3, PI. II. both in form and decoration.

* * * Although the decoration on these vessels (produced by a pointed tool before the clay was baked) indicated an attempt at art of a respectable order, the material employed was nothing more than coarse clay and pounded sandstone - instead of pounded shells, as is more frequently the case. However, numerous fragments of finer workmanship * * * ^gj.g taken out. Evidently an attempt had been made to glaze the vessel.

* * * I could not help being impressed with the thought that the mound marked the site where cremation or possibly sacrifice had been performed.

* * ''' About 300 yards southwest of the mound just described are the remains of a circular inclosure 300 feet in diameter. The embankment has been reduced by plowing until it is now scarcely two feet in height. The precipitous sides of both the Big Walnut and Spruce Run render an ascent at this point impossible. The circle is visible from the mound and is possibly an intermediate link between the mound and another system lying west at a point two miles distant.

" On the estate of E. Phillips, Esq., one mile south of Galena, in the same county, I opened a mound of 165 feet in circumference, and about four feet in height. * * =*= No bones nor pottery were found. * * * Mr. Dyer is an old resident, a graduate of West Point, and a gent^pman whose statement concerning the history of the relics is perfectly reliable. Mr. Dyer states that a couple of years ago, a large mound, measuring seventy-five feet in diameter and fifteen feet in height, constructed entirely of stone, and situated on the farm of Isaac Brimberger, Esq., three miles south of Galena, was partly removed by its owner for the purpose of selling the stone. Immediately under the center of the mound, and below the natural level, a vault Was discovered. The sides and roof of the vault consisted of oak and walnut timbers, averaging six inches in diameter, and still covered with bark. * * * The timbers were driven perpendicularly into the ground around the quadrangular vault, while others were laid across the top for a roof. Over all, the skin of some animal had been stretched. Inside of the vault were the remains, apparently, of three persons, one a child, and fragments of a coarse cloth made of vegetable fiber and animal hair. * * The preservation of the wood is due, probably, to the presence of water, with which the vault seems to have been filled."*

On the east side of the Olentangy, about four miles south of Delaware, may be seen the remains of a fortification. This is one of a series of works extending along the course of this stream into Franklin County, and, probably, dowfn the Scioto to the Ohio itself. This work is located about a quarter of a mile from the river on a high point of land where two ravines unite. The fortification consists of an embankment, with a ditch outside of it, which, in a slightly curved line, cuts off about twenty acres of the point. The height of the embankment is now only about five feet from the bottom of the ditch. It is about five hundred feet long, with an opening or gateway near the southern extremity. Near the- north end of the work is a spring of clear water. These artificial works, in connection with the deep ravines on either side, formed a place of defense which must have been very secure from such attacks as were made possible by the methods of warfare in those days. This work is different from most of the other fortifications of the Mound-Builders in this State, but is very similar to the one described by Prof E. B. Andrews, in the tenth annual report of the Peabody Museum, as existing about two miles east of Lancaster, though this one is much larger in the inclosure.

There is said to be in Porter Township a circular fortification, inclosing about half an acre of ground, but the wall is fast disappearing under the action of the plow. Our knowledge of the other remains in this county is meager, but enough is known to enable us to classify it with the other counties bordering the Scioto River to the Ohio. It appears to have been near the northeast corner of the territory of the race which occupied Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, as the most of the permanent works discovered have been south and west of here, although many fine specimens of implements have been found in Marioft County, north of Delaware.

The writer does not know of the discovery in this county of any copper implements, or any remains similar to the garden beds of Michigan figured in Vol. I, No. 1, of the "American Antiquarian." And there are 'only two localities in the State where anything is found like the emblematic or animal mounds of Wisconsin. Yet the evidences derived from the number of mounds, their size and contents, and from the other works connected with them, seem clearly to indicate that this region was thickly settled by the Mound- Builders ; although a recent writer has held the theory that this was a place of temporary residence only, alid was rather a highway from the settlements fiirther south to the copper mines of Lake Superior, j

With the foregoing highly interesting sketch of the relics of the Mound-Builders in this county, we will leave the study of this strange and unknown race of people to those whose time and inclination afford them opportunities of investigation. Definite information of their existence will probably never be obtained, until the seventh seal of that Great Book shall be opened. If they were not the ancestors of the Indians, who. were they ? The oblivion which has closed over them is so complete, that only conjectures can be given in answer to the question. Thousands of interesting queries arise respecting, these nations which now repose under the ground, but the most searching investigation can only give us vague speculations for answers. No historian has preserved the names of their mighty chieftains, and even tradition is silent respecting them. If we knock at the tombs, no spirit comes back with a response, and only a sepulchral echo of forgetfulness and death reminds us how vain is the attempt to unlock the mysterious past upon which oblivion has fixed its seal.

The third distinct race which inhabited this country is the Indians. " When visited by the early European pioneers," says an able authority upo^ the subject, " they were without cultivation, refinement or literature, and far behind their precursors, the Mound-Builders, in a knowledge of the arts. The question of their origin has long interested archseologists, and is one of the most difficult they have been called on to answer. One hypothesis is that they are an original race indigenous to the Western Hemisphere. Those who entertain this view think their peculiarities of physical structure preclude the possibility of a common parentage with the rest of mankind. Prominent amono; these distinctive traits, is the hair, which in the red man is round, in the white man oval, and in the black man flat. In the pile of the European, the coloring matter is distributed by means of a central' canal, but in that of the Indian, it is incorporated in the fibrous structure."

A more common supposition, however, is that they axe a derivative race, and sprang from one or more of the ancient peoples of Asia. In the absence of all authentic history, and when even tradition is wanting, any attempt to point out the particular theater of their origin must prove unsatisfactory. " They are, perhaps, an offshoot of Shemitic parentage, and some imagine, from their tribal organization and some faint coincidences of language and religion, that they were the descendants of the ancient Hebrews."* Others, with as much propriety, contend that their " progenitors were the ancient Hindoos, and that the Brahmin idea which uses the sun to symbolize the Creator of the Universe, has its counterpart in the sun-worship of the Indians." Though the exact place of origin may never be known, yet the striking coincidences of physical organization between the Oriental types of mankind and the Indians, point unmistakably to some part of Asia as the place whence they emigrated. Instead of 1800 years, the time of their roving in the wilds of America, as determined by Spanish interpretation of their pictographic records, the interval perhaps has been thrice that period. Their religions, superstitions and ceremonies, if of foreign origin, evidently belong to the crude theologies prevalent in the last centuries before the introduction of Mohammedanism or Christianity. Scarcely 3,000 years would suffice to blot out perhaps almost every trace of the language they brought with them from the Asiatic cradle of the race, and introduce the present diversity of aboriginal tongues. Like their Oriental progenitors, they have lived for centuries without progress, while the Caucasian variety of the race, under the transforming power of art, science and improved systems of civil polity, have made the most rapid advances.

The Indians inhabiting this section of the State when the whites first came to its territory, were the Delawares, Shawanees, Mingoes, and branches perhaps of other tribes. A brief sketch of the principal and more powerful of these tribes, the Delawares, is deemed appropriate in this work, and we therefore devote some space to the subject in this chapter.

The Delawares called themselves Lenno Lenape, which signifies " original " or " unmixed " men. They were divided into three clans : the Turtle, the Wolf, and the Turkey. " When first met with by European^, they occupied a district of country bounded easterly by the Hudson River and the

Atlantic ; on the west their territories extended to the ridge separating the flow of the Delaware from the other streams emptying into the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay." * Taylor's " History of Ohio " says ; " According to their own traditions, the Delawares, many hundred years ago, resided in the western part of the continent ; thence, by slow emigration, they at length reached the Alleghany River, so called from a nation of giants, the AUegewi, against whom they (the Delawares) and the Iroquois (the latter also emigrants from the West) carried on successful war ; and, still proceeding eastward, settled on the Delaware, Hudson, Susquehanna, and Potomac Rivers, making the Delaware the center of their possessions. By the other Algonquin tribes the Delawares were regarded with the utmost respect and veneration. They were called ' fathers,' ' grandfathers,' etc."

From the same authority quoted above, viz.: Gallatin's " Synopsis of the Indian Tribes," we learn that " When William Penn landed in Pennsylvania the Delawares had been subjugated and made women by the Iroquois. They were prohibited from making war, placed under the sovereignty of the Iroquois, and even lost the right of dominion to the lands which they had occupied for so many generations. Gov. Penn, in his treaty with the Delawares, purchased from them the right of possession merely, and afterward obtained the relinquishment of the sovereignty from the Iroquois." The Delawares accounted for their humiliating relations to the Iroquois by claiming that their assumption of the role of women, or mediators, was entirely voluntary on their part. They said they became " peacemakers," not through compulsion, but in compliance with the intercession of different belligerent tribes, and that this position enabled their tribe to command the respect of all the Indians east of the Mississippi River. While it is true that the Delawares were very generally recognized as mediators, they never in any war or treaty exerted an influence through the possession of this title. It was an empty honor, and no additional power or benefit ever accrued from it. That the degrading pos^ition of the Delawares was not voluntary, is proven in a variety of ways. Gen. Harrison, in a discourse upon the subject, says : " We possess none of the details of the war waged against the Lenapes, but we know that it resulted in the entire submission of the latter, and that the Iroquois, to prevent any further ' interruption from the Delawares, adopted a plan to humble and degrade them, as novel as it was effectual. Singular as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that the Lenapes, upon the dictation of the Iroquois, agreed to lay aside the character of warriors and assume that of women." While they were not present at the treaty of G-reenville, the Iroquois took care to let Gen. Wayne know that the Delawares were their subjects - "that they had conquered them and had put petticoats on them."

Colden's " History of the Five Nations'' gives the proceedings of a conference held July 12, 1742, at the house of the Lieutenant Grovernor of Pennsylvania, when the subject of the previous grants of land was under discussion. During the debate 'an Iroquois orator turned to the Delawares who were present at the council, and holding a belt of wampum, addressed them thus : " Cousins, let this belt of wampum serve to chastise you. You ought to be taken by the hair of your head and shaked severely, till you recover your senses and become sober. How came you to take upon yourself to sell land at all ? " [Referring to lands on the Delaware River, which the Delawares had sold some fifty years before.] " We conquered you ; we made women of you. You know you are women, and can no more sell land than women ; nor is it fit you should have the selling of lands, since you would abuse it." The Iroquois orator continued his chastisement of the Delawares, indulging in the most opprobrious language, and' closed his speech by telling the Delawares to remove immediately. " We don't give you the liberty," said he, " to think about it. You may return to the other side of the Delaware, where you came from ; but we don't know, considering how you had demeaned yourselves, whether you will be permitted to live there."

The Quakers, who settled Pennsylvania, treated the Delawares in accordance with the rules of justice and equity. The result was, that during a period of sixty years, peace and the utmost harmony prevailed. This is the only instance in the settling of America by the English, where uninterrupted friendship and good will existed between the colonists and the aboriginal inhabitants. Gradually, and by peaceable means, the Quakers obtained possession of the greater part of their territory, and the Delawares were in the same situation as other tribes - without lands, without means of subsistence, and were threatened with starvation. Induced by these motives, some of them, between the years 1Y40 and 1750, obtained from the Wyandots, and with the assent of the Iroquois, a grant of land on the Muskingum River, in Ohio. An old history of the American Indians has the following in reference to the Delawares : " The greater part of the tribe remained in Pennsylvania, and, becoming more and more dissatisfied with their lot, shook off the yoke of the Iroquois, joined the French, and ravaged the frontiers of Pennsylvania. Peace was concluded at Easton in 1758, and, ten years after, the last remaining bands of the Delawares crossed the AUeghanies. Here, being removed from the influence of their dreaded masters, the Iroquois, the Delawares now assumed their ancient independence. During the four or five succeeding decades, they were the most formidable of the Western tribes. While the Revolutionary war was in progress, as allies of the Rritish ; after its close, at the head of the Northwestern cqnfederacy of Indians - they fully regained their lost reputation. By their geographical position placed in the front of the battle, they were, during those two *ars, the most active and dangerous enemies of America.