98 Cinciniuiti Society of Natural Jlistory . 



and about its mouth, its waters have become so defiled as scarcely 

 to permit the existence in them of any. living thing. Breweries, 

 glue factories, soap establishments, distilleries, stock-yards and 

 slaughter-houses empty their refuse into its waters; and these, with 

 numerous city sewers, have made the name of Mill ("reek s)'non- 

 omous with foul smells and turbid waters. It is an unworthy 

 descendant of the mighty river which carved out its Ijroad ;ind 

 lengthy channel. For, while the creek scarcely exceeds in volume 

 an ordinary canal, its valley is broad and extensive. Its usefulness 

 is made manifest by the railroads which traverse it to enter Qm- 

 cinnati. The Cincinnati, Washington and Baltimore, the Cincin- 

 nati, Hamilton and Dayton, the Cincinnati and Sandusky, the 

 Erie, the Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Indianapolis, and 

 the Cincinnati Southern all find modes of ingress and egress by it. 



The Miami Canal, too, follows its course for twenty-five miles. 

 It is the only entrance to Cincinnati from the north, because of the 

 hills that extend far to the eastward. Without it, tunnels, cuts or 

 inclined planes would have been necessary, or Cincinnati would 

 now be an insignificant village. 



The surrounding hills are formed of solid rock — the blue lime- 

 stone of Lower Silurian Age that is quarried extensively for 

 building purposes and for lime. These hills were once continuous 

 across the Ohio River from Price Hill, on the north, to Ludlow, 

 Kentucky, on the south, but the stream has forced a passage 

 through them. The edges of the broad Mill Creek Valley are thus 

 of rock, but its bottom is gravel, sand and clay. So mucli of the 

 latter exists, and it is of such fineness, that hundreds of thousands 

 of brick have been made from it. Below the clay lie extensive 

 beds of sand and water-worn gravel. This has been reached and 

 penetrated by several wells bored for gas or water, and the rocky 

 character of the bottom has been revealed. One well bored at the 

 foot of George Street, in the western part of Cincinnati, shows 

 forty-eight feet of sand and gravel overlying the rock. This rock 

 is twenty-three feet above low water in the Ohio River at present. 

 This is probably on the edge of the valley; likely in the center the 

 drift is much deeper. Farther north, in the suburb of Cumminsville 

 and nearer the center of the valley, the bed-rock was sixty feet 

 below present low water in the Ohio.* In a second well at Cum- 

 minsville, one hundred and twenty feet were penetrated before 

 bed-rock was reached. f 



* Ohio Geology, I., 433. t Ibid, II., 13. 



