240 NOTICE OF A PROSTRATE FOREST. 



Notice of a prostrate Forest under the Diluvium of 

 Ohio. By Prof. John Locke. 



Fragments of wood, evidently of the tribe of Coniferce, have, 

 at numerous places, been found in the beds of blue clay and 

 gravel, usually considered the diluvial or drift formation of Ohio 

 and the neighboring States. This formation is found along the 

 Ohio river, occupying small local tracts, being generally situated 

 in some depression or chasm in the fossiliferous (Silurian?) 

 limestone of that region, as at the tunnel of the Whitewater Ca- 

 nal at North Bend, where there seems to have been an ancient 

 gorge, formed, probably, by the Great Miami entering at this 

 point the Ohio river, at a place higher up that stream than at 

 present. But at a point, say sixty miles north of the Ohio, this 

 formation begins to cover the surface to the depth of from thirty 

 to one hundred feet in thickness, giving a peculiar agricultural 

 character to the soil, and forming the grazing district of that 

 neighborhood. At Dayton, Mr. Vancleve showed me a speci- 

 men of this wood in superior preservation, which he informed 

 me had been found in digging a well in Salem, a village about 

 fifteen miles to the northward. To this place I immediately re- 

 paired, and there learned the following facts : The situation is 

 an elevated one, many miles removed from any considerable 

 stream, thus precluding the idea of any alluvial action. At all 

 places in the village, where wells have been sunk, they pass 

 through from thu'ty-seven to forty-three feet of diluvial clay and 

 gravel, aiid finally reach the prostrate trunks of, the coniferous 

 trees, lying in a bed of dai'k mud, (a "dirt bed,") below which is 

 a bed of clean sand. As soon as this sand is entered, the water, 

 " welling" up from it to the height of fifteen feet, drives the dig- 

 gers from their labors. It has, however, been ascertained, that 

 the sand is superimposed upon the cliff limestone in place.* 



No roots of the prosti'ate trees have been found ; but still it 

 seems to me, from the extent of tlie space covered by them, from 



* Containing- the Pcntamerus oblon^us. 



