CLINTON CONGLOMERATES AND WAVE MARKS, 51 
date of the initial rise of the axis, -at least approximately. 
Curiously enough, in spite of the acknowledged importance of 
the discovery, Professor Edward Orton, the discoverer, and. the 
now venerable state geologist of Ohio, seems to be the only 
geologist who ever visited the original pebble locality at Belfast, 
in Highland county, and so all references to the pebbles made 
by other writers are based upon his work. For that reason his 
original statement, made in the report of the Ohio Geological 
Survey for 1870, page 270, is here reprinted. Those parts ot 
the quotation which recent discoveries seem to disprove are 
italicized: 
“A bed of limestone conglomerate, several feet in thickness, occurs near 
the dase of the (Clinton) series in the southern part of the county. Buta 
single exposure of the conglomerate has yet been noted. This is found one 
mile due west of Belfast, on the Belfast and Fairfax road, on the land of 
Charles Dalyrymple (localities 13, 14, and 15, of this paper). | 
“The pebbles that compose the conglomerate appear to have been 
derived from the Blue limestone or Cincinnati rocks. The conglomerate is 
also fossiliferous, well-worn forms of ancient life being incorporated with it. 
The fossils can be referred ezther to the Cincinnatd or Clinton group, as they 
consist of forms that are common to both formations, viz., cyathophylloid 
corals of the genus Streptelasma and the remarkable fossil, Orthis lynx— 
a bivalve shell of immense vertical range, as is shown by its occurrence in the 
Trenton, Hudson (Cincinnati), Clinton, and Niagara limestones of the Lower 
and Upper Silurian ages, successively. It seems more probable, however, 
that the fossils in question were derived from Clinton seas rather than from 
the waste of rocks of a previous age. 
“The occurrence of this conglomerate attests the existence of land near by 
—the shores of which were wasted by the sea, and the water-worn and rounded 
fragments of which were re-deposited on the floor of the sea. Since the first 
systematic study of the geology of the Mississippi Valley, proofs have been 
accumulating that a Silurian island stretched northeastward from Nashville, 
towards and beyond Cincinnati. Highland county furnishes its full quota of 
facts as to the existence, and as to certain of the boundaries of this ancient 
land. Other facts will be adduced that bear upon this point in the description 
of the remaining formations of the county. The date of the uplift of this 
island is approximately determined by the fact already quoted—as land at 
the westward is found in existence early in the history of the Clinton. This 
folding of the crust, then, that transformed a portion of the ancient sea 
bottom into dry land, probably occurred about the close of the Lower Silurian 
