* 
Prairies of Ohio. 238 
cupy the same dwellings for several years in succession. I have 
counted fifty of these houses, in a shallow pond, within an area of 
ene or two acres; and seen hundreds of their inhabitants playing in 
the evening, in one of their villages, apparently in the full enjoy- 
ment of all the pleasures of association. ‘They always enter their 
houses by subterranean passages, which commence beneath the 
water some feet distant. — 
Beaver dams have been abundant along the streams in the vicin- 
ity of these marshes, but their remnants only are now to be seen; 
the animal having fled with the Indian and buffalo, far beyond the 
confines of civilization. It is singular that this animal always chose 
to construct artificial ponds, rather than occupy those already fur- 
nished by nature, though but a short distance from its adopted lo- 
cation. 
The hills, bounding the wet prairies, which have fallen under my 
notice, are composed chiefly of a blue dense sandstone, or gray- 
wacke, with little or no calcareous deposit, or impress of organic re- 
mains. The alluvion of prairies rests upon a blue carbonaceous 
clay, abounding in roots and trunks of trees, with other vegetable 
remains, scattered from ten to one hundred feet beneath the surface. 
Salt water has been obtained, in the vicinity of these prairies, at 
the depth of six or seven hundred feet; but I have never been ad- 
vised of the strata through which the auger passed. The water 
was procured about three hundred feet below the level of Lake Erie, 
and the same distance beneath the bed of the Ohio, at the mouth of 
the Muskingum. 
So much fora description of wet prairies: let us now turn our 
attention to their origin. 
Without stopping to examine the various hypotheses which have 
been suggested from time to time, to explain the origin of wet prai- 
ries, the facts already mentioned would seem to indicate, that they 
were either the basins of lakes, or excavations in the beds of ancient 
rivers, filled by natural causes. ‘The water-worn pebbles and frag- 
ments of shells, the animal and vegetable remains, and the small 
lakes already mentioned, are sufficient evidence that large quantities 
of water must, at some period or ether, have existed between the 
elevations now enclosing the prairies. It is also worthy of remark, 
that bowlders and other fragments of primitive rock, are scattered 
ever the neighboring hills, and along the margins of these prairies, 
