368 GLACIAL FORMATIONS OF ERIE AND OHIO BASINS. 



Three wells in Degraff, made in prospecting for gas, have the following 

 amounts of drift: 



Thickness of drift in Degraff gas borings. 



Feet. 



Jjippincott well, one-half mile north of railway station , 300 



Harris well, one-fourth mile west of railway station 33 



Reid well, one-half mile farther west 86 



A well for water at H. A. Hill's, 2 miles north of West Liberty, pene- 

 trated 18 or 20 feet of till and then entered gravel, in which it continued to 

 a depth of 87 feet. Several other wells near Hill's have a depth of 60 feet 

 or more and do not strike rock. 



At John Newell's, in section 10, Union Township, about 3 miles north- 

 west of West Liberty, a well penetrated about 150 feet of drift, nearly all 

 till, and struck no rock. In West Liberty a prospect drilling for gas pene- 

 trated 216 feet of drift, striking rock at an altitude less than 900 feet above 

 tide. 



At St. Paris a gas-well boring was attempted near the station at an 

 altitude about 1,216 feet above tide, which penetrated 530 feet of drift, and 

 was abandoned without reaching rock. Orton has called attention^ to the 

 occurrence of a tough brown clay at a depth of 360 feet, the section above 

 that depth being mainly blue and gray tills. At 400 feet gravel was struck 

 in which, as reported to Orton, wood, bark, and fragments of mussel shells 

 were struck. Dr. J. J. Musson, a resident of St. Paris, informed the writer 

 that the report that mussel shells were pumped out from this depth seems 

 based only on the Paleozoic fossils which are found in some of the pebbles. 

 Fragments of the wood were preserved and pronounced to be red cedar. 

 Beneath the gravel which contained this wood quicksand of some depth 

 was passed through, but the well terminated in bowlder clay. Orton sug- 

 gested that this deeply filled valley was the ancient channel of the Miami 

 River, but the exact course of the valley southward from this point remains 

 undetermined. It is also doubtful if it had a southward discharge, there 

 being some evidence of a channel leading northwestward into Indiana. 

 Toward the north a valley of similar depth has been struck at Port Jefferson, 

 Anna, New Bremen, and near St. Marys, and it has recently been traced 

 by Bownocker into Indiana." 



No surface indications of the position of the channel are to be found, 



'Geology of Ohio, Vol. VI, 1888, p. 277. ^ Am. Geologist, Vol. XXIII, 1899, p. 182. 



