130 Ferruginbus Deposits. 



sues a N. E. and S. Westerly direction. The most abundant and 

 principal deposit seems to have been in that region whose parallel 

 lies between the mouth of the Big Sandy and the Scioto rivers, and 

 the foot of the Cumberland mountain in the N. E. part of Kentucky, 

 stretching over into Ohio, the outlines of wh^ch are traced on the 

 accompanying map. The S. W. portion of the deposit is in a very 

 hilly, broken region ; the hills being from three hundred to four hun- 

 dred feet high, based on a fine grained, argillaceous sandstone rock, 

 containing beds of slate, and in some portions of- it, numerous re- - 

 mains of orthocerae, encrinites, ammonites, he. The middle and 

 N. E. portions above Chihcothe, are in a less broken, but still 

 hilly country, and contain more calcareous rocks, bordering on the 

 great tertiary deposits. Coal, is occasionally found in this part of 

 its course, but much less abundantly than in the great coal region, 

 east of the iron ore. Marine fossil sheila are most abundant, both 

 in the limestone and sandstone which accompany the ferruginous de- 

 posits in its N. Eastern portion. Throughout its whole course the 

 deposits seem to have been made from water. In Ohio, the strata, 

 in the iron region, dip to the S. E., at an angle of about sev- 

 enteen feet in a mile. Although the face of the country is very 

 hilly and broken, the strata are not disturbed thereby ; but when cut 

 across by the ravines and hollows between the hills, they make their 

 appearance in the face of the opppsite hill at the same elevation, if 

 the hills are in the line of extension ; but if in the line of dip, then 

 at the point marked by the angle of that line ; thus proving that 

 these deposits were once continuous and unbroken, until they were 

 cut up, and worn away by the degradation of the superincumbent 

 strata, from the continued action of rain, frosts and streams of wa- 

 ter. The present appearance of the strata in the hills, is shown by 

 the following horizontal section. 



Fig. 18. 



The interrupted lines representing the several strata of sandstone, 

 slate, limestone, iron ore, coal, he. 



The hills in the S. W. part of the iron region, both on the Ken- 

 tucky and Ohio sides of the Ohio river, are sterile, and unproductive. 



