234 Ten Days in Ohio. 



inches thick on the outer portion of the circle. The centre is de- 

 pressed in the form of a cup, three inches across the top, and more 

 than an inch deep, leaving the outer circle, or sides of the fossil, one 

 inch and a half thick. The outer margin is armed with spines, three 

 fourths of an inch high, and uniting with each other at their base, 

 fourteen in number, resembling the figure of an imperial crown ; the 

 depression in the center is lined with the same number of spines of 

 a smaller size. The outer margin, or side and upper surface, are 

 smooth, and were probably covered with a cuticle, now replaced by 

 a coat of quartz, one line in thickness. Two of the spines are bro- 

 ken ; these two are filled with beautiful crystals ; the main body 

 of the fossil is composed of cellular quartz or buhr stone. A little 

 more than one half of it is perfect ; the other part was lost by the 

 workmen, in separating it from the rock. 



As to any reasoning on this singular deposit, it must be altogether 

 speculative. It was probably made when the valley of the Ohio was 

 covered by an ocean, and from water at the boiling temperature, as 

 cold water holds but a small ^quantity of silex in solution, and here 

 was a vast body of it.* M. Humboldt, in his travels on the coast of 

 Colombia, makes mention of water issuing, boiling hot, from the bot- 

 tom of the ocean, where the sea is now three hundred feet deep, and 

 a mile or more from the shore. 



The dip of the rock strata to the south on the Muskingum river, 

 would indicate a force acting from below and raising the superin- 

 cumbent formations. At this period, a rush of heated fluo-silicic 

 gas, or of boiling water from the interior, might have thrown down 

 this deposit, composed of fine silicious particles, intermixed with 

 more or less of lime. In many places,, it abounds in jasper, horn- 

 stone, flint, quartz, chalcedony, &;c. of various and intermingled col- 

 ors, giving strong evidence of their having been once in a state of 

 fusion. It needs the inspection of an experienced geologist to give 

 a satisfactory history of this interesting formation. 



Tumuli. 



The hill country in Perry County appears to have been thickly in- 

 habited by that ancient race of men, who have left so many relics of 



* It is certain that silex has been held in solution, in vast quantities ; the sulphuret 

 of silicon, the base of Silex, is very soluble : the earth itself is soluble in fixed alkalies 

 and in fluoric acid, and these agencies, like most of those which are chemical, would 

 be rendered more active by heat. Silex is held in solution in the hot alkaline volcanic 

 water of the Geyers in Iceland — also in the Azores and other volcanic regions. — JUd. 



