276 Clara Gould Mark 



The flint is not seen in a continuous ledge or at a definite hor- 

 izon on the hills, but is scattered over all the higher parts of the 

 ridge in masses ranging in size from large blocks weighing many 

 tons to the most minute fragments. This mantle of flint was 

 aptly described in one of the earlj^ Ohio reports as lying "like a 

 blanket" over the ridge. It is no doubt owing to this protecting 

 mantle that the Flint Ridge region has been able to resist erosion 

 better and to maintain a greater elevation than the surrounding 

 country. 



During the early part of the last century the flint was of con- 

 siderable economic value to the inhabitants of this part of the 

 state, as it furnished material from which they manufactured mill- 

 stones or ''buhrs." These millstones, while not considered equal 

 to the best imported ones, still furnished an acceptable substi- 

 tute for them at a time when importation was difficult, and many 

 of the early mills of southeastern Ohio are said to have been sup- 

 plied with millstones made of flint from Flint Ridge. This was 

 not, however, the first use made of the flint. Numerous excava- 

 tions along the summit of the ridge, made before the coming of 

 white men into this region, give evidence that the flint was ex- 

 tensively worked by earlier inhabitants of the country, and the 

 many flint darts and spear heads that have been picked up along 

 the ridge and in the surrounding region indicate the principal use 

 made of it. It is supposed that the Indians mined the flint, 

 after first clearing away the protecting soil, by building on the 

 surface of the solid flint large fires so that the underlying rock be- 

 came very hot, and then throwing water on it, causing it to shatter. 

 This process was repeated until blocks of fresh flint of a workable 

 size could be obtained, the flint which had been protected by sev- 

 eral feet of soil being much more easily worked than that which 

 had been exposed to the weather for some tihie. There are said 

 to be along the length of the ridge over eleven hundred of the pits 

 left by this process of mining, the largest one being more than 

 eighty feet in diameter and said to penetrate the Lower Mercer 

 coal. Gerard Fowke, in his Archaeological History of Ohio, 1902, 

 p. 624, says: "Evidently aboriginal excavations at Flint Ridge 

 extended over a long period; for the material is found in the largest 



