Licking County, Ohio - Chapter 18: Geology, 1881

Search the mysterious recesses of The great walled earth, and find the handiwork Of God. Pile is heaped on pile, and shaped through A million years. Race on race of men, beasts And vegetation, sink down, perish and Are built upon; and countless ages hence, a Race of pigmies, called men, will then, as now, Drag up from hidden depths these other forms, and, Chattering like monkeys, warm themselves by The fire built of the debris of lost and Férgotten ages. And they, too, shall perish, _ Miserably, to fructify the world.

ieee geologic record of this county is, for interest, second to few regions, if any, in the United States. The disturbed stratification of the Atlantic States, Missouri and Arkansas abound in interesting facts, but they are disconnected chapters in the history of creation, while the strata of Licking county furnish an almost unbroken narrative from the Silurian up to the Tertiary; and, to complete the panorama of the great past, the archeeological remains wonderfully continue the story. down to the historic period.

The apparently missing chapter between the coal period and the' great drift area is supplied to the careful student Ly the basins in which the drift is deposited. These basins are as serviceable in teaching the student the features of the primeval world as are fossils. From fossils may be learned where plants grew, and animals lived; but those lakes which dotted the face of this country, and were the homes of life in various forms, when the world warmed by internal heat up to more than tropical temperature, are perpetual witnesses of the great and terrific revolutions which have changed the face of nature, and made this modern world so capable of supporting and developing man,; - the crowning work of the Creator.

lakes is found throughout the county in the townships of Monroe, Hartford, Jersey, McKean, Etna, Union, Licking, Franklin, Newark, Madison, Hanover and Perry. In some places the proof is clear that the bottom of those lakes was seventy feet below the present surface of the soil.

Blue clay is everywhere in this county the lowest drift deposit. It underlies all other drift. Consequently, wherever it is found, whatever lies above it is drift or earthy material brought from a dis It is believed that the blue clay has its origin in the black shales found in the western part of Licking county, and cropping out on Walnut creek, where it is crossed by the railroad. The decomposing and grinding up of those shales have formed the blue clays.

The peat bogs are an interesting feature, and worthy .of careful study. The large ones were formerly cedar swamps, and it is probable that some would well repay the experiment of mining for cedar logs. The great peat bog along the North Fork feeder, in the out-lots of Newark, was a cedar swamp, and the logs lie beneath and upon its surface. It is a rare thing to find a peat bog in any country south of latitude forty degrees, and this circumstance makes the geology of this county still more interesting. East and west, moreover, the county is the limit of peat formation, and north and south of the drift. How long these cedar trees have lain buried in the bog may never be known, but each one is a record of the season while it was alive and growing.

Within two miles of Newark coal is found, not extensive, but limited in area. The western edge of the great coal fields of Ohio passes through the eastern part of the county. The coal formation extends only into the eastern tier of townships, and in these it is only found to a limited extent. The field includes a large part of Fallsbury, a small proportion of Perry and Mary 'Ann; the larger part of Hanover and all of Franklin, Hopewell and Bowling Green townships. It also extends into the southern portion of Madison. ©

In what is called Metcalf's hill there are two or three strata of coal, with intervening strata, abounding in the prints of coal flora; then of marine naida ; then of coal again, with other forms of flora, and finally capped by a lime rock, which seems to be a mere aggregation of sea-shells.

Farther east, passing other coal beds, is found a superior article of hydraulic lime, deposited at a different period, from a similar and less valuable material of Flint ridge. The ridge itself is an anomaly in Ohio geology, and its silicious masses were probably deposited by hot or warm water. In mining the cannel coal in its western spur, many proofs of disturbance are found in the level of that formation. The force which elevated it, probably heated the water, saturated with silica in solution, which was precipitated by cooling, and from which came those beautiful quartz crystals so much sought after. In the whole west and northwest there are but two formations to study, - the Silurian and Drift. In the eastern part of the State is the valuable coal formation alone, with neither the Silurian nor the Drift; but Licking county comprises them all.

geological outcroppings of the strata belonging to the States, with the exception of the cliff and blue limestone. These two make their appearance west of the Scioto river, and extend to the State of Indiana.

In the northwestern townships of the county is found the black shale; through the middle of the county north and south, the fine grained or Waverly sandstone; and east of Newark, at the mouth of the Rocky fork, the conglomerate rock appears in great abundance.

This rock lies immediately under the caal field. In the coal field there is the carbonaceous shale, the iron ore, the small veins of coal, each alternately with shale and sandstone.

miles southeast of Newark. Next and above this, anda mile south, is a coarse-grained sandstone, with the beautiful fossil plants of the coal period. To the east of this there is the buhr of silicate of lime; and on Flint ridge is the crystallized quartz.

"The geology and geological manifestations of Flint ridge present some features which afford a high degree of interest to the student of nature. As has already appeared, its surface, when first settled, was largely covered with a compact silicious material known as quartz, or in common language, flint rock or buhr-stone. The late Dr. Hildreth, an eminent geologist of Marietta, and member of the first corps of geologists of our State, in his first annual report on the geology of Ohio, made in 1838, observed that the quartz or buhr-stone was found on the surface of the elevation known as the Flint ridge, covering miles of its territory, and 'that, too, frequently in extensive masses, and that it had been an object of peculiar interest to the aboriginal inhabitants and pioneer settlers, as well as to the then occupants of the ridge, and of the surrounding country, who appreciated and utilized it on account of its commercial value.

"The geologist and mineralogist have found Flint ridge to be a rich field for investigation - rich in geological strata and in mineral deposits. I have already mentioned the buhr-stone of the surface - it is also found in liberal quantities beneath the surface. Professor E. B. Andrews, on page 105, of the ''Preliminary Geological Report of 1869," represents it to be a deposit of variable thickness, attaining in places a maximum depth of eight feet. Dr. Hildreth said that sulphate' of baryta, crystallized carbonate of lime, and crystals of quartz are all the mineral substances that have been associated with the buhrstone of the Flint ridge; the first being rare, the second not abundant, but that the last named was found in brilliant druses, with regular faces, in some portions of those deposits. Some of them he characterized as very beautiful, furnishing fine specimens for the cabinet, being occasionally tinged red or brown by some metallic oxyd. The striking similarity, he continues, between these crystals and those about the lead mines of Missouri, had led to some expensive, but fruitless, searches for lead and copper ores. Professor E, B. Andrews remarks, in his report of 1869, that it was found difficult to determine the exact stratigraphical position of the Flint ridge buhr, as it lies upon the top of the ridge, more like a blanket than like a rigid stratum, conforming more or less to the undulating surface of the general top of the ridge, and, therefore, many feet higher at some'points than at others. He found the buhr of Flint ridge to be porous and often cracked, and that water had probably passed through it, carrying away the soft shale underlying it, and consequently lowering its stratum along its border.

"The late Colonel J. W. Foster, of the geological corps of Ohio, of 1837-39, makes the buhr deposit of the Flint ridge to range in thickness from two to six feet. He subjoins the following section to show the relation between the buhr and the associated rocks, at a point on the eastern half of the ridge; and I submit it to give the geological manifestations of the

"According to Mr. Leo Lesquereaux, there is a thin seam of coal of six inches, resting on two feet of fire-clay, immediately beneath the flint or buhr, on a section of Flint ridge, which he measured, and that said seam of coal had the stratigraphical position of the Nelsonville or Straitsville coal, being seventyseven and one-half feet above the Putnam hill limestone, which is found in unusual: thickness above the cannel coal, thereby giving the position of the buhr to be just over the Nelsonville coal.

"Professor M. C. Read, of the corps of Ohio geologists, who surveyed Flint ridge, also found a thin vein of coal resting upon a bed of fire-clay, immediately under the flint or buhr, as will appear, by reference to the third volume of Ohio Geology, page 353, where he gives a general section of the rocks exposed in Licking county."

B. C. Woodward, in a paper read before the Pioneer Association of Licking county, gives the following regarding the geology of the eastern portion of the county, taken mostly from a publication by Mr. Dille: containing so practical a summary of geology as Licking county. It embraces so many of the various formations of which that science treats, that whoever would investigate these subjects will find it a most desirable field to explore. In the western borders are found the carboniferous shales, with the sub-carboniferous; fine grains of sandstone and shales, over which lies the drift, composed of the dedrzs of all the older formations from the granite to the recent plutonic, with the spous of the post-pliocene and intermediate types from the silurian up to the diluvian, The records of all ages during the organic series of the earth's progress, are kept in nature's great vaults in Licking county.

'The mineral resources of the eastern half of Licking county are more in place, and less disturbed by the drift, or covered by it, than the western; though there is scarcely a township in the county that has not been more or less invaded by the Great Flood.

'Wherever the drift extends the soil is improved by its deposits, but there aresome places in which, instead of depositing, it denuded the original earth, and in such case it impoverished rather than fructified the soil. There are some such places in the eastern part of the county.

ant, and the quality may be ranked among the best. The fine granite sandstone, called, by Ohio geologists, the Waverly rock, by those of New York, the Chemung, and, in Nova Scotia, the grindstone grit, when properly worked is among the most beautiful building stones in the United States. The stratum of this rock is about two hundred feet thick in this county, and its superficial face some twenty miles wide. Those who have examined the fine structures of this stone in Cincinnati must admit that no stone equals it as an architectural material. Its sober drab or neutral color, and smooth surface, has a most pleasing effect in a large house or block of buildings. When near the ground, exposed to wetting and drying, freezing and thawing, it does not weather well, and is liable to disintegrate; but when not thus exposed, if free from sulphur, it is one of the most durable of building rocks.

"'The conglomerate, or coarse-grained stone, overlies the fine-grained; is a stratum of one hundred and twenty to two hundred feet thick, and of a superficial width from east to west of some thirty miles. It weathers well, and is a durable building stone; standing all temperatures and seasons, and is a favorite wherever attainable. Small cubes of galena and sulphuret of - lead are occasionally found in this rock, but never in workable quantities. These two last named formations are persistent and run regularly from north to south asa line of bearing with a dip to the eastward.

'"'There are occasional rock formations, like coal beds, that may have a value when properly developed and managed, of no little economical interest. The first worthy of the name is the carbonate of lime. This is found in Madison, Franklin, Hopewell, and one or two other townships. The nearest to Newark is on Metcalf's and Smith's hills, in the two first named townships. It nowhere produces the best lime, yet it is said to make a strong cement, and may be used as a fertilizer with good effect.

"Secondly, waterlime. This exists in at least two places, viz.: near the opening of the Flint Ridge cannel coal mine, and on the road from Hoskinson's to the National road, which crosses the latter some two miles west of Brownsville. I am not aware that this water-lime has been tested.

''The fossil remains of the county are not equaled by any equal area in the State. These are nearly all confined to the eastern part of the county. They consist of plants and shells. The ubiquitous seas, with their myriads have rolled over the lands, which, under other conditions, rejoice under the green foliage of prismatic vegetation. Wherever the fine-grained sandstone is found, the shells of marine animals are abundant, and the occasional patches of limestone are full of them; but the coarse-grained sandstone, near many of the coal beds, are marked with beautiful impressions, or casts of plants of the coal period. 'The coarseness of the material is not favorable for the delicate impressions of the leaves, but the shales associated with the coal, frequently yielded the very finest specimens of the foliage of primitive time.

'"The pipe clay so extensively used in the manufacture of stone-ware must not be overlooked. This almost universal associate of the coal bed is suggestive of the probability that each earth was a necessary sub-soil of the swamp or marsh in which If such was the fact this fine clay subserves a two-fold economy - first, giving that valuable fuel to the

'world, and secondly, furnishing a material for a valuable manu- 'factured article. The pipe or fine clay in the vicinity of Flint 'ridge, is a superior article, and with skill in the art, would probably produce an excellent and beautiful pottery.

" Professor Aggasiz, in maintaining his glacial theory, in op- {position to the iceberg hypothesis, to account for the transportation of large masses of rocks and earth from such places, said: If "icebergs were the floats upon which such burdens were 'borne, the drift would be found to be stratified, for each successive field of icebergs would deposit its load wherever it was "stranded, and the next would drop its load over the other, soon, therefore, exhibiting a well defined stratification, which is never the case.' Had he visited Licking county, he would have found facts to overturn his objections. Nothing is more clear than the stratification of the drift in all parts of the county where the drift exists.

"This drift lies unconformably upon the older rocks everywhere. The older structure is the blue clay, and if it is examined carefully, we may come with a reasonable certainty to the source 'of this material in the black shales which crop out on Walnut creek, twenty-five miles west of Newark. Pieces of this shale are frequently found in the clay, and we can hardly be mistaken as to its origin. In the clayey earth, overlying the blue clay, the Cliff limestone, in places just west of Columbus, is found in some places abundantly.

"Next in ascent is the blue limestone from the Cincinnati range. And in the upper, or last, is to be found the plutonic, primitive rocks of the great chain of the Rocky mountains, associated with the last drift. Small grains of gold are frequently found. A confirmation of this statement as to the stratified drift should be carefully made, as it is of scientific value."'

From the foregoing glance at its geologic wealth, it is obvious that Licking county presents greater facilities for the practical study of this science, and of the causes which have. contributed to form the prolific soil than any other single locality in Ohio.