SKETCH OF EDWARD ORTON. 609 



tained the title of State Geologist till his death, although he had 

 not been engaged in any active public work on the survey for a 

 considerable time. 



The Ohio State University having been established on the basis 

 of the grants of land made to the States for colleges under the Mor- 

 rill Land-Grant Act, Professor Orton was appointed its president 

 and Professor of Geology. He discharged the duties of this office 

 for eight years, or till 1881. But the executive work of the presi- 

 dent's office was irksome to him, since it grew constantly heavier 

 as the young college expanded, and therefore left him less and less 

 time for teaching and research in geology. Being in a measure 

 compelled to make a choice between the two fields of activity, he 

 chose the less ambitious position, resigning the presidency, and 

 assuming the position of Professor of Geology, which he retained 

 for the remainder of his life. The geological building of the uni- 

 versity is named after him — Orton Hall. Besides his work on the 

 Geological Survey of Ohio and his participation in the composition 

 of its reports. Professor Orton prepared, for the Eighth Annual 

 Report of the United States Geological Survey, a paper on the New 

 Oil and Gas Fields of Ohio and Indiana, and another, only recently 

 published in the jSTineteenth Annual Report of the United States 

 Survey, on the Rock Waters of Ohio; a volume for the Geological 

 Survey of Kentucky on the Petroliferous Production of the West- 

 ern Part of the State, published in 1891; and a report on petro- 

 liferous productions which is in process of publication by the Geo- 

 logical Survey of jSTew York. 



In the paper on the Oil and Gas Fields of Ohio and Indiana the 

 discovery of the supply of those materials, the great value of which 

 was only realized in 1884 and afterward, is spoken of as being more 

 surprising and anomalous than any similar discovery that had pre- 

 ceded it, and as a development which experts were hardly more 

 prepared for than others. The oil and gas derived from the Tren- 

 ton limestone in certain parts of these States were found to differ 

 from the oil and gas in the Pennsylvania wells in chemical compo- 

 sition and physical properties, in the horizons from which they were 

 obtained, in the structural features of the rocks associated with their 

 production, and, most of all, in the kind of rock that produced them. 

 " ISTo facts more unexpected have ever been brought to light in con- 

 nection with the geology of this country than those with which we 

 are now becoming acquainted." Professor Orton's paper, which 

 fills one hundred and eighty of the large pages of the report of 

 the Geological Survey, includes a sketch of the history of the dis- 

 covery to July, 1887, when it was prepared; a designation of what 

 was known in regard to the geological scale and geological struc- 



TOL. LTI. 19 



