210 Notes on the Drift and Alluvium of Ohio and the West. 
tion of the peninsula, between Lakes Erie and Huron; which 
seldom rises more than two hundred feet above the waters of 
these lakes. On it, and composed of its coarse water-washed 
sand and gravel, are seen the “lake ridges,” objects of curiosity, 
and of much utility in a new country, being natural turnpikes 
that run parallel with the shore. 
At Cleveland the section of this division is as follows: 
Ist. Grey water-washed coarse sand, resting on the blue marl 
—ten feet. 
2d. Coarse gravel of the adjacent rocks, and sand—twenty to 
forty feet. 
‘o. 1, of this section, has oecasional thin bands of the “ blue 
marl’ interstratified. The wells of the place are sunk to the 
marl, or to one of the bands of marl in the grey sand, before wa- 
ter is found. The sand and gravel are so loose that the surface 
water sinks instantly through them, and collects at the top of the 
compact blue stratum, where it issues in numberless springs at an 
elevation of forty-five to fifty feet above the lake. In the beds 
of water-washed sand, above noticed, sticks, leaves, and what are 
called rushes, are seen at various depths, resting on what the well 
diggers call “sand beach.” 
Of the “lake ridges” I will here remark, that they are noé pre- 
cisely horizontal, and are found at various elevations—30, 90, 
120 and 140 feet above the water. They appear to be the result 
of submarine currents, and not of the action of the waves upon 
a line of shore; for in that case, they should be longitudinally 
level. ‘There are branches and cross ridges uniting different par- 
allels, that rise and fall several feet in a mile. 
Some small broken and defaced shells have been found ina 
ridge two miles west of Cleveland, but too much injured to de- 
cide whether they were the inhabitants of fresh or of salé water. 
By reference to Mr. Stephens’s notice of the superficial deposits 
of the western shore of Lake Michigan,* it appears that there is - 
a similarity between the shores of that Jake and of Erie. 
The section at Milwaukie is at the lake level. 
Ist. Blue hard pan cut away by the waves and falling in slides. 
2d. Beds of coarse and fine gravel irregularly stratified, and 
causing springs at the surface of No. 1. 
“ine sand without clay or pebbles. 
4th. Surface deposit of reddish clay, without pebbles or 
boulders. 
On the southern shore of Lake Superior, we find a single heavy 
deposit of red, marly, arenaceous clay; or more properly, a red 
marly sand, overlying the edges of sandstone conglomerate and 
trap rocks, and attaining a thickness of six hundred feet. It is 
RGD Pa _ * Am. Jour., January, 1847. 
