Intelligence and Miscellanies. 179 



6. Notice of a curious Fluted Rock at Sandusky Bay Ohio. 



Extract of a letter to the Editor, from Ebenzer Gran- 

 ger, Esq. dated 



Zanesville, Ohio, July 2d, 1822. 



In an excursion which I made last summer, [ observed 

 some most curious appearances on the rock at a place cal- 

 led Portland, or Sandusky city, on the Sandusky Bay. 



The shore of the Bay at the town rises about eight feet 

 above the water, and ranges nearly east something more 

 than a mile, and then turns abruptly to the south. The 

 rock appears to be what is vulgarly called bastard lime- 

 stone. I do not know what it would be termed by Geolo- 

 gists, but its base is silex in fine grains strongly cemented 

 with lime. It contains a great variety of shells, and is un- 

 questionably a marine deposit. 



In digging the cellars on the front street of the town, they 

 come down, through four or five feet of earth, to this rock. 

 Its position is nearly horizontal, with sometimes a trifling dip 

 to the east, sometimes to the west, but more generally to 

 the east. Its surface is fluted, with lines or grooves, in a di- 

 rection nearly east and west, and though dilTering in width 

 and depth, perfectly straight and parallel with each other.. 

 It appears to have been once polished as if by friction ; and 

 this polish it still retains in a considerable degree. I was 

 told this rock had been examined by a scientific gentleman 

 from England, who ascertained the direction of the lines to 

 be, north 71 degrees east; agreeing exactly in this particu- 

 lar with a similar appearance, which, as he said, had been 

 discovered in one place only on the old continent. 



I examined the bottoms of a number of cellars, and found 

 them similar. I also observed the same appearance in the 

 rock on the shore ; and in more than one place, 1 observed 

 this fluted rock overlaid by another stratum of similar con- 

 sistence. From the shore to the farthest cellar inland, in 

 which I observed these impressions, must be more than one 

 hundred feet, and I entertain no doubt that the impression, 

 at some short distance farther, is overlaid entirely by anoth- 

 er stratum : what its width is, therefore, it is impossible to 

 ascertain. 



