Notices of Fossil Wood in Ohio. 105 
whole shafts. ‘These were at various depths —some were more than 
forty feet below the surface. . 
Harp Peterson, half a mile north-east of Mr. Long’s, dug three 
wells, in each of which, he found grape vines, and a stratum of soil, 
or black mould four feet thick. In one of these he found lying across 
the well, a tree nine inches in diameter, which he supposed to be 
pine or cedar. In conversation with him upon the subject, he re- 
marked, “ It is no great miracle, to find wood in digging wells here.” 
The place where these wells were dug, is near the top of a ridge, 
from which the ground gradually descends, in every direction, for 
about half a mile. ‘The wood, in each, was found thirty feet below 
the surface. 
William Slayback, in 1825, two miles and a half west of Spring- 
field, found a tree twelve inches in diameter, lying horizontally, at the 
depth of thirty-six feet ; and it being necessary to cut the tree, I have 
obtained a piece sawed from one end of it, fourteen inches long and in 
good preservation. It is now eight inches in diameter. In digging an- 
other well a few rods from the former, he found several small pieces of 
wood, at the depth of twenty-five feet. The farther digging of the 
well he was compelled to —* on account of the looseness of 
the earth. 
William Bellas, about thirty rods fecined the pedaling on ground a 
little higher, sunk two wells in 1827, in both of which he occasionally 
found wood from seventeen to thirty-five feet below the surface. On 
account of the looseness of the earth, he left digging when he had 
come upon the top of a tree lying horizontally... He remarked to me, 
that he had not known a well dug any where in his vicinity, without 
finding wood. The wood was found in a bluish earth, mixed with 
gravel, which continued, below seventeen feet to the depth of thirty- 
five feet. 
Forty rods north of the preceding, wood was found in each of three 
wells, at the depth of twenty feet, on the farm of Thomas Skillman. 
The ground slopes all the distance from the site of Mr. Skillman’s 
wells, to that of Mr. Slaybach; the distance is about forty rods, 
and the descent about twenty feet, so that the wood of the former 
was about even with the surface of the latter. What is more parti- 
eularly worthy of remark, in relation to the three wells of Mr. Skill- 
man, is, that they were dug upon the top of a ridge, and upon the 
highest point of it, the ground sloping more gradually north and south, 
and descending more abruptly east and west, and no higher ground 
Vout. XXV.—No. 1. 14 
