296 Remains of Megatherium, Mastodon, fyc. 



eral points, which after having been used some time, wear off be- 

 low the branches and leave but a single transverse cutting edge. 

 This tooth is four inches longer than those described by Dr. Buck- 

 land.* This and a part of a tusk, the fragment of a molar tooth, 

 with a few pieces of bones, referable to the Mastodon, are all the 

 fossils of this kind, which to my knowledge, have been found in 

 this part of the country. 



It may not be amiss to say a few words in relation to our posi- 

 tion in a geological point of view. This and several of the ad- 

 joining counties, and indeed a considerable portion of the eastern 

 side of this state, and the western part of the state of Ohio, belong 

 to that formation or group, called by some geologists the Silurian. 

 From the nature of the country, which in its general features is 

 almost a level plain, it is impossible to examine the rocks to a 

 greater depth than four hundred and fifty or five hundred feet. 

 The valleys and ravines seem to have been wholly formed by 

 the streams which pass through them, for the various strata upon 

 either side of all of them, are opposite to each other and nearly 

 horizontal, showing that they were deposited in the situation 

 which they now occupy in seas or oceans comparatively calm, 

 and that they have never been disturbed, except by the gradual 

 wearing of these streams, since their deposition upon each other. 

 The sides of the hills, or more properly the sides of the valleys, 

 are composed of thin strata of limestone varying from half an inch 

 to two feet, and in some rare instances, many feet in thickness, 

 alternating with clay and clay slates of various thickness, and 

 each of these strata throughout the whole group abound, indis- 

 criminately, with innumerable organic remains. Amongst the 

 most numerous may be reckoned the Terebratula, Producta, Cy- 

 athophyllum, Orthoceratite, Paradoxoides Tessini. Spirifer, trilo- 

 bites, (rare,) corals and corallines without number, moniliform 

 encrinites, pentacrinites, &c. &c, and a single species of spiral 

 univalve shell, but so imperfect that I have not been able to de- 

 termine its name or place. 



Spread all over the country, we have erratic blocks or boulders, 

 consisting of almost every species of primary rocks, but princi- 

 pally granite and granitic gneiss. These are the principal evi- 

 dences of drift which we have in this neighborhood, having dis- 

 covered no moraines which are so common in your section of the 

 Union, according to Dr. Hitchcock. 



* Bridgewater Treatise, Vol. I, p. 119. 



