OF DEXISON UNIVERSITY. 



^3 



that an elevation of the coast at the close of the Waverly period 

 caused the recession of the water, and that the period occupied at the 

 west by the deposition of some 550 feet of sediments was not a time 

 of rock formation in central Ohio. The results of close study of the 

 lowest coal-measure conglomerate has unexpectedly indicated the con- 

 trary. While engaged in collecting samples of the quartz pebbles 

 forming the bulk of this conglomerate eight miles northeast of Newark, 

 a large number of fragments of limestone were also broken out.* 

 These are angular and. though very badly decomposed, show that they 

 could not have been derived from a distance, as the quartz must have 

 been in order to free itself so fully of the softer, including country rock, 

 and acquire its rounded form, and, moreover, they contained a few fos- 

 sils which can only be referred to the age of the Chester or St. Louis 

 Group. These conglomerates are full of the impressions of Lepidoden- 

 drids andCalamites and seem to have been torn from their places by tor- 

 rents which carried from the mountains to ihe north their freight of 

 coarser and finer material, much of it being of a metamorphic and ig- 

 neous nature. The Chester limestone must at that time have been 

 more or less firmly consolidated, perhaps m the form of clods of limy 

 clay, and has preserved identifiable remains to tell the story. Thus 

 the same coarse conglomerate tells us that a mighty river flowed into 

 the coal-measure ocean from a region to the north, exposing igneous 

 and metamorphic (partly granitic) rock, that it flowed through a region 

 covered by deposits of St. Louis or Chester age, thus showing that a 

 large series supposed to be absent in this part of the state was simply 

 obliterated by erosion. Such a chain of argument indicates what pos- 

 sibilities are open to a more careful study of limited areas. The fos- 

 sils referred to are figured beyond, in connection with those of the 

 Chester further south. 



We now pass to the Waverly i)r()i)er. i'his may be divided into 

 three well-marked groups which present us with a carboniferous, a 

 Waverly, and a Devonian facies respectively. The lower division 

 ought probably to be referred uncompromisingly to the Devonian, the 

 second, less obviously Devonian, still contains a fair proportion of 

 Chemung fossils, while the upper series can be unhesitatingly called 

 sub-carboniferous. These zones are mnrk.-.i i^ff. .i>> alrc.ulv hinted, by 



■•The Ohio geologists have observed the n.uhc i.uv in ..iu<.. i-.i;- ■•• ' "■ ^' "' 

 but a different interpretation has been offered. 



