312 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



From the foot of the rock, the ground gradually descends 30 or 40 

 feet to the Ohio bottom, which is low and swampy near the hill. 

 This descent is probably made by the debris and earth rolling down 

 from the hill, and gradually accumulating for ages, so as to cover a 

 larger portion of the sandstone rock below the surface, than now 

 appears above. The Ohio river no doubt once washed the base of 

 the rock, but has gradually changed its channel to its present bed. 

 The rock in which the trees are imbedded, is a coarse sand- 

 stone, and they appear in the face of the rock at different eleva- 

 tions, some near the present surface of the ground, and others 4 or 

 5 feet above. The}^ are 7 in number, and scattered through a 

 space 80 rods in length ; — some appear to liave fallen, or been 

 deposited with their tops, or branches, towards the river, and others 

 in the opposite direction ; — some came out of the rock obliquely, 

 and others at right angles: they vary in diameter from 8 to 18 

 inches. I am not satisfied as to what family of trees they belong, 

 but some of them look like elm. They are readily distinguished 

 from the rock in which they are imbedded, by their different colour 

 and composition ; their colour being much darker, and texture 

 much harder; having a reddish-brown cast, like iron-ore, and so 

 hard as to scintillate briskly, when struck with a hammer or head 

 of an axe, affoiding evidence of their siliceous composition. The 

 interstices of the laminae are in some places filled with small cry- 

 stals of quartz ; and in others, with thin layers of stone coal. There 

 is evidently a considerable quantity of iron in its composition, as 

 the surface becomes quite red after being heated in the fire. The 

 cortical part seems to have been more difficult to petrify than the lig- 

 neous portions, as it is in most of the trees readily separated from the 

 wood and from the surrounding rock ; being also easily broken, and 

 resembling iron-rust in colour and appearance on some of the trees; 

 and on others, like black sand or emery. The trees do not project 

 much beyond the face of the rock, but appear to have been broken 

 off at the same time when the rock was rent in which they are im- 

 bedded. Sandstone is the principal rock formation throughout this 

 part of the state of Ohio, forming mural precipices from ,50 to 100 

 feet high, and in some places for half a mile, or a mile in extent, on 

 the margins of the Ohio bottoms on both sides of the river, and un- 

 derlying the river hills and country adjacent for a great distance ; 

 appearing near the beds of creeks and ravines, where the superin- 

 cumbent earth has been washed away by the streams ; but is seen 

 no where to better advantage, than near the Ohio river. It is of 

 various qualities ; micaceous, argillaceous and quartzose or siliceous ; 

 some so hard and compact as to make good mill-stones, and nearly 

 resembling granite in colour and texture ; and some so fine and 

 close-grained as to bear the chisel of the sculptor nearly as well as 

 marble. From the position of these fossil remains, I am led to con- 

 clude that the trees were brought to this spot by the water, at that 

 remote period when the valley of the Ohio was an ocean, and co- 

 vered in a vast bed of sand by some great convulsion of Nature. 

 The sand in time became cemented into rock, and the spaces oc- 

 cupied 



