96 Ciiuinnati Society of Natural History. 



AN ANCIENT CHANNEL OF THE OHIO RIVER AT 

 ' INCINNATI. 



By Prof. Joskph F. James, M.S. 



Agricultural College, Md. 



(Read September 4, 1888.) 



In the human race, animal life has attained its culminating 

 point on the earth ; and as an heir to the ages man is a debtor to 

 the past. No geological period has come and gone but has left 

 something which man has been able to turn to his advantage. 

 The stores of oil and gas, for which Ohio has lately become 

 famous, have resulted from the decomposition of the animal life 

 which existed in the far-away period of the Trenton. The lime- 

 -stones and sandstones laid down in the Palaeozoic Ages have been 

 useful in building man's houses and in sheltering him from the 

 weather. The coal resulting from the vegetable growth of the 

 Carboniferous Era enables him to exist in the colder regions of 

 the earth, and so carry on his wonderful manufacturing inddstries 

 in all parts of it. The stores of iron, lead, copper, zinc and tin, have 

 enabled him to establish these manufactories, and so girdle the 

 earth with bands of iron and wires of steel. The mines of pre- 

 cious metals have '.'iven him objects of ornament and of use, and 

 (have served him, in his more civilized state, as mediums of 

 ■£xchange. 



It is not alone to long past ages that man owes much that makes 

 life bearable. More recent times have wrought great changes in 

 the surface of the earth. Even now the disintegrating effects of 

 a-ain, frost and other atmospheric agents are seen in the formation 

 of the soil which he tills, and from which he secures iiis sustenance. 



The different geological periods have served different purposes ; 

 but all of them have contributed more or less to man's happiness 

 or comfort. The last great period in the earth's history is not the 

 the least important of all, and perhaps in some senses it may be 

 the most important. 



It should be remembered that the larger part of the State of 

 Ohio has been exposed to erosion by atmospheric agents since the 

 close of the Carboniferous. Tlie result of this erosion has been 

 partly made k'nown in Ohio by tiie very extensive scries of drillings 

 •which have been made to discover oil and "as. We know from 



