856 



PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



The flmt, from its great resistance to weathering agencies, forms the 

 cap-rock of the whole ridge, the superincumbent material being for 

 the most part either clay or soil resulting from the disintegration of the 

 shales and sandstones which formerly existed at this horizon. The 

 natural place of the Kittanning coal of the Pennsylvania series is 15 to 

 20 feet above the level of the flint, but it runs out before reaching this 

 far west-at least there is no trace of it here. Thin beds of bituminous 

 coal he at different levels in the hills ; 104 feet below the flint is a work- 

 able seam of cannel coal. A section of the formations in the eastern 

 part of Licking County shows the same alternation of sandstone, shale, 

 clay, coal, limestone, and iron ore that is found in all coal regions, so 

 that a detailed statement of its geological structure is unnecessary in 

 this connection. 



Did the topography of the country depend upon surface drainage 

 alone, the flint would act as a protection to the rocks below, and the 

 whole ridge preseuta more symmetrical outline than it does : but, owing 

 to the numerous crevices existing in it, and to the porous nature of the 

 greater part of the underlying strata, water easily passes downward 

 until It reaches the stratified beds of clay, along which it makes its way 

 to the open air. The springs thus created have worn their way back bv 

 the destruction of the adjacent rock and the consequent displacement 

 of that farther away, until the whole region is a succession of steep 

 hiJIs separated by narrow ravines. 



It is difiicult to determine the thickness of the flint at any point with- 

 out cutting through it, as the outcrop is so weathered and "broken as to 

 ofler no safe basis for estimate. A few wells have been dug through it 

 and the thickness is given at different points at from 4 to 7 feet It 

 probably varies, owing to slight irregularities of the bottom on which 

 It was deposited, and the more favorable conditions in some places than 

 in others for the multiplication of the flint-making agents. It is thick- 

 est at the eastern end, according to persons living there. 



In the fourth range of sections in Hopewell Township, counting from 

 the western line, between the farms of Samuel McCracken and Lennox 

 Fisher, is a break of three-fourths of a mile in which no flint is found 

 erosive agencies having removed all the rock for 20 to 40 feet below the 

 level of the flint stratum. Beyond this it reappears, and continues un- 

 broken to Its eastern limit in Muskingum County. 



In the geological scale this flint is continuous with the ferriferous lime- 

 stone of Southeastern Ohio, and is highly fossiliferous in some places. 

 In- the museum of the State University is a very fine nautilus imbedded 

 m a piece of buhr-stone from this place. Other smaller fossils occur 

 abundantly both in this and the more solid flint, particularly Fusulina 

 cyhndnca, a small foraminifer found in great numbers in Europe at a 

 corresponding horizon. Very frequently, however, the fossil, being 

 calcareous in its nature, has disappeared, and only the matrix remains 

 Underneath the flint lies the « Putnam Hill limestone" of the Ohio sur- 



