Knox County, Ohio - Chapter 17: Topography and Geology, 1881

Chapter 17: Topography and Geology

the waters of Lake Erie from those of the Ohio river. It is bounded on the north by Richland and Ashland counties, on the east by Holmes and Coshocton counties, on the south by Licking county, and on the west by the counties of Delaware and Morrow. Its relative position to the State places it almost in the geographical centre. Its surface presents a succession of hills, in part rugged and steep where influenced by the coal measure rocks and the Waverly conglomerate; in part symmetrically rounded, and of graceful outlines, where composed of the olive shales of the Waverly. These hills are all intersected by narrow ravines in which flow the tributaries of the larger streams, the latter uniformly occupying ancient valleys of erosion, and bordered by alluvial plains. This ancient river system of the county is very accurately defined. There are four distinct traces of these pre-glacial channels running through the county.

The west channel' enters the county from Richland, near the centre of the north line of Berlin township, and runs in nearly a southerly direction to the middle of the township, thence bearing southwest to near Fredericktown, thence in a southeasterly direction through Morris to Mount Vernon, on through Clinton, Miller, Morgan, and into Licking county, near Utica.

A second channel is traced through Richland county, and enters Knox county near the north. east corner of Brown township, thence nearly south into Howard, thence in a southwesterly direction through Howard to the northwest corner of Harrison, bearing a little to the west, running through the northwest corner of Harrison, touching the southeast corner of Pleasant, thence enters Clay at

A third channel is traced through the county of Ashland, and enters Knox in the northeast corner of Jefferson township, thence bearing slightly to the west enters Union township near Gann Station, continuing into Coshocton county through the southwest corner of Union township.

A fourth channel is traced from the first mentioned channel just south of Mount Vernon, thence running due east to the south line of College township near Gambier, thence in a northeasterly direction into Howard, then along the south line of Howard and Union townships, thence bearing a little to the southeast through the northeast corner of Butler township into the county of Coshocton.

After the valley was filled up by the drift the modern stream found a shorter course across the spur of hills near Fredericktown extending out from the east side, and has cut its recent channel through the rock. Owl creek and the Sandusky branch of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad occupy theold channel to Mount Vernon. At Gambier it is the ancient bed which here divided a channel extending southward towards Martinsburgh, now filled with gravel and sand hills, and occupied by Big run, which flows northward, a direction opposite to that of the old stream, and becomes a tributary to Owl creek.

All the old valleys have been filled by glacial drift to the summit of the adjacent hills and, probbably, nearly, if not quite, to the top of the highest hills in the county; the immense erosion which accompanied the retreat of the glacier sweeping away the great bulk of the drift, taking all the finer materials, and leaving 2 residuum of sand and gravel.

Wells drilled for oil on the borders of Owl creek toward the Coshocton line show that this deposit of coarse gravel extends at least eighty-two feet below the bottom of the valley, and in one instance a log was struck at a depth of one hundred feet. Hence there is here disclosed a broad valley once filled with drift to the depth of not less than two hundred and seventeen feet, through which a channel has been plowed one hundred and thirty-five feet in depth, leaving a succession of terraces, the stream now flowing nearly one hundred feet above the bottom of the old gorge.

Following the Columbus road westward toward Mount Liberty, the surface rises very slowly from the river over a bed of fine gravelly and sandy alluvium, filled with small bowlders, many of them limestone, then striking irregular drift-hills which reach an elevation one hundred and fifty-five feet above the railroad at Mount Vernon.

The material of these hills is coarse, consisting chiefly of gravel and sand, with flat fragments from the Waverly, and a few large granitic bowlders. The surface is irregular and billowy, as if piled up by the action of shore waves when the water stood at this elevation. Thence to Mount Liberty the surface rises to the height of two hundted and twenty-five feet above the railroad, the wagon road passing over undulating drift hills, the material steadily becoming coarser, containing more limestone, and more flat fragments of rock. The underlying strata are entirely covered by this deposit.

West of Mount Liberty a cut on the railroad at an elevation of two hundred and eighty-five feet above the depot at Mount Vernon shows that the drift is wholly unstratified.

In Hilliar township the hills are composed of tenacious clay drift, the wells showing from eight to eighteen feet of yellow clay, then blue clay, passing into hard-pan on the hills and resting on quicksand in the valleys.

The wells of Lock, on the south line of Milford, pass through eight to fifteen feet of yellow clay, and fifteen to twenty feet of blue clay, then.on the higher lands striking gravel, on the lower quicksand. The surface is of the same general character through Milford and Miller townships, viz.: undulating hills from which the finer material of the drift has been washed, bordering flood plains through which the small streams flow, generally over beds of water-rolled pebbles, this material resting upon unmodified drift.

Eastward from Lock, drift apparently fills the old valley of erosion to the foot of the hills east of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. These hills rise somewhat abruptly to the height of three hundred feet above the valley. Their slopes are covered with drift, so that no rock exposures are found until the descent into the valley of Owl creek is reached, about one mile from Mount Vernon. The rock is here broken and crushed as if by lateral thrust. An old water plain borders the west side of the railroad from Mount Vernon to the south line of the county, marked by successive terraces, and from one to three miles wide. Itis bordered by hills of modified drift, and forms an extension southward of the valley in which Owl creek flows, until deflected to the east by Mount Vernon.

The slope of the first hill, which rises to one hundred and seventy-five feet above Mount Vernon, exhibits the olive shales of the Waverly coyered by Waverly debris, with no evidence of drift except occasional granite bowlders. On the top of this hill are found thin bowlder clay and granitic pebbles. Ascending the next slope to the height of three hundred and ten feet, the outcrop and debris of the Waverly continues with no drift material until passing about twenty feet downward on the southeast side. There granite bowlders are found, and the slope below is covered with drift mingled with angular fragments of the local rocks. The drift continues to the top of the next hill, two hundred and eighty-five feet, but is thin, and the soil is composed mainly of local debris. One mile north of the last is a broad expanse of gently undulating sandy fields, exhibiting no evidence of drift except large scattered bowlders of granite, the soil like the banks of sandy streams. Rising above these sandy billows are irregular ridges of clay composed largely of foreign drift. At the highest elevation - three hundred and five feet - the hill is capped with a heavy deposit of clay drift. On the descending slope, at twenty feet from the top, a sandy waterwashed surface is reached with granitic bowlders scattered over it. Descending towards the eastern valley, the drift on the slopes is deeper. On the last slope, at an elevation of two hundred and seventy-five feet, the drift disappears, and the crushed layers of Waverly are covered only with their own debris. At two hundred and fifteen feet the river drift of washed sand, gravel, and granitic bowlders is reached, which passes into the alluvium of the valley, cut by Big run, at an elevation of one hundred and sixty-five feet above Mount Vernon.

In Jackson township the Wakatomaka creek - which has the sources of most of its tributaries in the recently eroded ravines of the Coal Measure rocks on the east - falls a little north of Bladensburgh into the old channel now occupied by Big run, and is bordered by irregular sandy hills of water-washed material, which are continued northward to the junction of Big run with Owl creek near Gambier.

That part of the county east of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, and north of the Cleveland, Mount Vernon & Columbus railroad, consisted originally of a high undulating table land, covered with glacial drift. Erosion has intersected it with narrow ravines, and filled it with small streams, leaving a succession of well-rounded hills of very graceful outline, characteristic of the Waverly in this part of the State. This peculiarity is only modified by outcrops of Waverly conglomerate. Where this is wanting, or is below the bottoms of the valleys, the hills are &ntirely withowt benches; the lines of the landscape are all graceful curves; the hills susceptible of cultivation to the top, and presenting scenes of quiet beauty rarely excelled. These characteristics change upon approaching the Coal Measure rocks in the southeast and northeast parts of the county.

Standing near the line of division, the observer need make no mistake in regard to the character of any of the hills in sight; those which are symmetrically rounded to the top will be found composed wholly of the Waverly; those of which the summits show benches and irregular lines of contour are capped with the coal rocks. The debris of the olive shales, the upper members of the Waverly, here make a peculiar elastic and excellent roadway, so that travelling in the night along the margin of the coal field the sound of the carriage wheels will enable one to say when he is passing over a road of this material. These hills at the north retain patches of undisturbed drift on protected slopes, with scattered erratics, the latter sometimes very abundant on the lower slopes, and in the beds of streams, where no other evidences of the drift are preserved. The hills when denuded of drift, have but a slight covering of soil, the shales of the Waverly, finely broken up,: coming near to the surface.

West of Ankenytown is a plain about ten miles wide, without rock exposures, but with occasional gravel ridges, the whole composed of river drift, of sand, gravel, and clay on the margin, resting on quicksand and gravel, the whole of unknown depth, filling up the old pre-glacial channel.

In the broad valleys of the streams the native timber was mainly hard maple and black walnut; of the latter a very large part was destroyed before its value was known, but very much has been cut and shipped to market. The large sugar maples in this district seemed a strange thing, but the thorough drainage afforded by the deep deposit of gravel fully explains their presence. If the alluvium rested upoh clay, we should find soft maple, elm, and sycamore growing upon it, but no sugar maple. On the Waverly hills a mixed forest of maple, beech, hickory, oak, and pepperidge (black gum); in a few places on the borders of the stream, hemlock, and on the ridges where the Waverly conglomerate comes to the surface, chestnut. On the Coal Measure rocks the predominating timber is oak. On all the hills are scattered trees of whitewood, cucumber, black and white ash, and elm; the latter three being the most abundant where the original glacial drift remains.

The series of rocks exposed in the county comprise about two hundred and seventy-five feet of the coal measures, and about three hundred feet of the Upper Waverly, but borings for oil have extended our knowledge of the strata down to the Huron shale, and have afforded important information in regard to the character and thickness of the subcarboniferous rocks.

The Coal Measure rocks cover the greater part of Jackson and Butler townships, and a small area in the north part of Jefferson. The highest hills in Jackson rise one hundred feet above the upper outcrops of rock and are covered with the bleached and earthy debris of cherty (an impure variety of quartz or flint) limestone.

The coal is of fair quality, in two benches, in places showing considerable sulphur, and at the outcrops does not exhibit a thickness which would make mining profitable, except for local use. The thickness and extent of coal rocks and the fact that they include three horizons of coal, would fully justify further exploration. 'This exploration could be made most easily by drilling from the tops of the hills, so that the holes would pierce all the strata, disclosing their character and thickness. The shales below this coal indicate less active disturbances, and whatever was originally deposited on the line of the two lower outcrops probably now remains. A fourth horizon of coal is found above the upper massive sandstone at the bench on the no outcrop of rocks was observed at this elevation. The cherty debris of the limestone above coal No. 4 is abundant upon many of the hills, and constitutes flint ridges in the northern part of Butler township. Much less promising territory in other places has been successfully explored and valuable deposits of coal found. The coal rocks of Butler township extend to within about eight and a half miles of Gambier. At the nearest point is an outcrop of fire-clay of the lower coal, but the water flowing from it shows much sulphur, an indication of coal of an inferior quality.

The Waverly Conglomerate

This is continued from Richland south through the eastern part of Knox county, presenting the best exposures along the banks of Owl creek, near the line between Butler and Union townships. It apparently forms here the crest of an anticlinal (marking inclination in opposite directions), and dips to the east at an angle of about twenty-five degrees. 'The massive conglomerate is much broken and borders the stream of which the old channel is known to be something like one hundred feet below the present bed.

railroad, and may be found at all elevations on the slopes of the hills to the height of three hundred feet. Throughout this thickness it consists of thin layers constituting the ordinary olive shales. The same thing is seen in ascending the hills between Mount Vernon and Amity. If the Waverly conglomerate extends to this part of the county it must dip to the west below the valleys; and in that case the hills would all be capped hy the Coal Measure rocks. They are, however, Waverly to the top. From thirty to forty feet of this conglomerate is exposed in the bluffs of the new channel of Owl creek, below Millwood, the top being ninety-five feet below Gambier. At Brownsville the Waverly is quarried, and furnishes hard, coarse rock, full of pebbles, but more fissile than the ordinary conglomerate.

At A. K. Fobes' quarry, in Monroe township, one and a half miles northeast of Gambier, and forty feet below it, the Waverly affords large quantities of good stone, though much stripping is required. Many of the layers are thin and much broken. The heaviest layers are about three feet thick, all fine-grained, most of them yellow, but some blue, with a sharp grit, and resembling the Berea.

railroad, half a mile east of Howard station, a quarry, belonging to Hurd & Israel, has been opened, of which the following is a section so far as exposed:

The lower stratum is a coarse stone, with much iron, containing pockets of soft iron-ore, in some places striped like the Mansfield stone, and in others of a deep cherry red; general color yellow; fucoids (fossil sea-weed), the only fossils observed.

Indian Field run, a small stream emptying into Owl creek from Harrison township, and occupying a rocky valley of recent erosion, gives fine exposures of the Waverly, where many of the layers are from three to four feet thick, but they contain many concretions or pockets of iron ore, and occasionally nodules of iron pyrites. Impressions of fucoids are here abundant. The general color of the rock is yellow. The valley and slopes are filled with the debris of drift except an occasional granite bowlder. Near the top of the hill on the west, drift bowlders are more abundant, and heavy masses of drift cover the western slope descending toward Owl creek.

From thirty to forty feet of the bottom of the Waverly conglomerate has argillaceous (clayey) bands interstratified with the quartz-bearing beds of sandstone. Below this the mass of the material to the chocolate shales is argillaceous, with frequent hard bands of calcareo-silicious rock, and occasionally strata of sandstone. One of the latter, No. 19 of the general section, is twenty-two feet thick, the upper part with argillaceous bands, the lower carrying quartz pebbles; another stratum, No. 21, one hundred and twenty-five feet below the last, is a very fine blue compact sandstone, bearing some resemblance to the finer grades of the Berea.

One hundred and fifteen feet below the hard blue sandstone mentioned above, a similar rock occurs eight and a half feet thick, the upper part dark colored.

At the depth of about six hundred and seventy feet below the sub-carboniferous conglomerate is the red or chocolate shale, the first in this part of the county (Harrison township, ) which can be identified fully with any of the subdivisions that are so clearly defined in the valley of the Cuyahoga. This is apparently the equivalent of the Cleveland shale, which in many places at the north is all or in part. red shale. The well-borings here show that it is very homogeneous in structure, except that near the bottom there are interstratified bands of argillaceous shale.

Below this chocolate shale are the Erie shales, which so far as their character can be determined by an inspection of the borings, present precisely the same characteristics as in the northwestern counties, where they are fully exposed. They consist of a mass of soft, blue argillaceous shale, with hard calcareo-silicious bands.

Below this Erie lies the Huron or "black shale," the thickness of which cannot be determined. It seems evident that along the western side of the sub-carboniferous rocks the lower members of the series and the upper member of the Devonian are thinning out, and that their absence further west is not altogether the result of erosion, but that their extent in that direction was limited by the presence of dry land at the time of their deposit.

Some ten years ago the attention of enterprising parties was called to the "oil signs" of the eastern part of Knox county. On the western margin of the coal field in Jefferson, Union, and Butler townships, were indications of dislocation in the rock strata; gas springs were abundant, and from several places it was reported that oil in small quantities was obtained. A company was organized; territory leased; and since that time something like eighty-five thousand dollars has been expended in explorations, mainly under the, superintendence of Peter Neff, esq., of Gambier. The registers of the wells, which have been kept with commendable care by Mr. Neff, show that there is a marked disturbance in the strata extending to the lower rocks reached, and its apparent extent. The red or chocolate shales, the member of the sub-carboniferous, constitute a well marked horizon, and enable us to determine the relative position of the different strata in the wells which reach this material.

Eight wells are located in the territory around the junction of the Kokosing and Mohican rivers, and the following table gives the depth below the upper surface of the red shale:

In all the wells bored, a similar succession of strata has been pierced in each. The chocolate, the Erie, and the Huron shales were struck in all wells carried deep enough. The rocks included between these and the Coal Measures present alternations of sand, rock, argillaceous, and sandy shales, which, after passing the olive shales that cap the Waverly, present a great variety in the different wells, and forbid all minute systematic subdivisions. The most marked and most general alternations are exhibited in the general section of the rocks of the county.

have been found in greater or less quantities, and from two of them a remarkably strong flow of gas has issued, which, properly utilized, can be made of great value.

The employment of natural gas elsewhere in the manufacture of iron would indicate the proper use to be made of it, were it not that the wells are situated several miles from any railroad or other adequate means of transportation.

The Neff Petroleum company, which, under the management of Peter Neff, of Gambier, made the explorations for oil, has been re-organized under the name of "The Kokosing Oil company," and has utilized the gas in a novel manner, which gives promise of complete success. It has expended twenty-five thousand dollars in erecting buildings and appliances for the manufacture of carbonblack, and is now obtaining a product not excelled in quality by anything in the market, except bone or ivory-black, and has demonstrated that the wells have a capacity of producing about five hundred pounds per day of No. 1 black. This company has also devised a mode of utilizing the acid-waste of oil refineries, making of it a very excellent carbon-black, by using with it a small amount of the natural gas. With eighteen hundred burners, for the consumption of the natural gas, it produces from forty to: fifty pounds of the "Diamond," or

No. 1 black, per day, and with twenty-eight burners, for the consumption of the acid-waste, one hundred and fifty pounds per day of the "Pearl," or No. 2 black. The fact that the gas has flowed from the well without dimunition for the past ten years gives good promise of its permanency; and the indications now are that by this use of the gas a good return will be secured to the stockholders for all the money so perseveringly expended in sinking the wells.

Well No. 8, near Gann Station, in Jefferson township, shows that the Waverly above the red shale is eight hundred and seventy-two feet in thickness, and, including the red shale, is nine hundred and thirty-four feet, the Waverly being capped with sixty feet of coarse sand-rock, either carboniferous conglomerate, or the Massillon sandstone. If this is regarded as conglomerate, sixty feet should be added to both the above numbers. Above the sand-rock is sixty feet of shaley sandstone, capped with the cherty limestone, underlain by fire-clay, and a faint outcrop of coal.

The Massillon sandstone rests upon the Waverly, on the hills above Gann Station, and directly on Coal No 1, at New Castle. At wells Nos 1 and 2 the Waverly is eight hundred and seventy-seven feet thick, the olive shales rising to the coal, under the same rock, at New Castle. Westward from that point this sandstone rests directly upon the Waverly shales.

Westward, the materials in all the wells gradually become coarser; the Waverly conglomerate, and the other sand-rocks were found in normal position, and the supply of oil in the wells was more abundant. All the indications point to an old shore line, a little to the west during the deposit of the Waverly rocks, along which the coarse sandstones accumulated as shore deposits, while the finer argillaceous shales were deposited in deep water at

In well No. 3 the second sand-rock was struck at two hundred and eighty-five feet, and was six feet deep; the third sand-rock at five hundred and eighty-five feet, and was nine feet thick. The red shale was reached at five hundred and eighty-five

Well No. 4, the 'Buckingham Well," yields heavy green oil from thin sand-rock, which was struck at about five hundred and sixty feet, and is eight feet thick.

In well No. 5, the "Hurd Well," the third sandrock was struck at five hundred and seventy-five feet, and was ten feet thick, yielding gas, oil, and water, which still flow from the top of the tube, about eight gallons of oil per'day. The red shale was reached at five hundred and eighty feet.

There is a deep-seated disturbance, involving all the rocks down to and including the Huron shale, which is the great oil-producing rock, so that the dip of the strata is substantially northeast. Eastward the silicious rocks gradually give place to argillaceons shale, the coarser sandstones becoming thin, or disappearing altogether. In the opposite direction, or westward, the materials are coarser, and the sand-rocks thicker.

On the eastern margin of the territory, by boring, gas predominates, and at Well No. 2 has flowed for twelve years with a continuous pressure of about one hundred and eighty pounds to the inch. Westward, petroleum is more abundant. The oil

The water obtained above the second sand-rock and that below the red shale is fresh; that between the second sand-rock and the red shale is salt, and affords a suggestion as to the probable source of the coloring material in the red -shale - iron deposited by the salt water.

The results obtained suggest further explorations in the southeastern part of the district for gas, and in the western part for oil. With the new uses developed for natural gas, it is difficult to decide which would be the more valuable.