42 Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal. — Semi-tertiary Deposits. 



the company were not opened until the spring of the year 1835. 

 The stock was immediately taken up, and the canal must be com- 

 pleted, on or before the month of April, 1837, or the charter will 

 be forfeited. There is no doubt, however, of its completion within 

 the time specified. The prospect of the immense profits it will 

 yield to the stockholders, and the great advantages to the country, 

 will insure its accomplishment. iThe following may be enumerated 

 as a part only of its good features. It shortens the distance to an 

 eastern market, from the central parts of Ohio, nearly two hundred 

 and fifty miles. It is accessible four weeks earlier in the spring, and 

 two weeks later in autumn, than the route by Lake Erie, or the 

 northern route, which will be of vast importance to the farmer and 

 merchant. It is subject to no dangers or delays from storms or head 

 winds, and calls for no expense of insurance on goods. It will also 

 be a feasible route for merchandise going below the mouth of the 

 Scioto, at those periods when the water in the Ohio is too low for 

 safe steam navigation, as it almost invariably is for several weeks in 

 the summer and autumn. With all these advantages, the opening 

 of the Mahoning Canal will be the commencement of a new era, in 

 the agricultural and commercial history of " the Reserve." 



Semi-tertiary deposits. — After leaving Ravenna, our course was 

 directly west, and we soon came on to a region whose geological 

 appearance was quite different from that of the country we had left. 

 East of this line, the soil and surface of the ground are argillaceous. 

 A mile west of Ravenna, the superstratum is a mixture of sand and 

 gravel, with a more numerous distribution of bowlders, although they 

 are seen every few rods over the clayey portions of the country. 

 From Ravenna to the Cuyahoga Falls, the surface is more hilly, but 

 never so much so as to occasion any impediment to tillage. Beauti- 

 ful sheets.of water, or small lakes, are scattered over this formation, at 

 intervals of a few miles, through its whole extent, being a space not 

 less than twelve or fifteen miles in width, by forty or fifty in length, 

 stretching in a N. E. and S. W. direction, from Geauga County, 

 across Portage, into Stark County, and terminating at the sandstone 

 and coal formations. These lakes seem to have been placed here, 

 in this elevated portion of Ohio, as reservoirs for canals and other 

 useful purposes, by him who originally created the earth, and, by 

 the operation of his physical laws, gradually formed it for the resi- 

 dence of man. 



Brady^s Pond. — In the course of this afternoon, we passed near 

 several small l^es, from half to three fourths of a mile long, and 



