Silicious Deposit. 143 



terminating in Scioto ; although there are many reasons for believ- 

 ing that the same deposit is continued into Kentucky. It spreads 

 out to its greatest width, being only four or five miles, in Musking- 

 um and Jackson counties, and is usually found on the highest, or 

 dividing ridges. It assumes various appearances in different places, 

 as to texture, composition and color. At certain points of the de- 

 posit, it is compact and splits into conchoidal or splintery fragments. 

 At others, it is cellular, or rather filled with small winding passages, 

 as if made by a worm while in a soft or plastic state. Portions pos- 

 sessing this character, are usually selected for manufacture, as they 

 make the best millstones. At the S. W. extremity of the deposit, 

 there is less of this vermicular appearance ; and the rock abounds 

 more in cells, like the french stones, and also in numerous fragments 

 of fossil shells. Near the spot where it crosses the Hocking river, 

 it seerns to have been deposited in the state of a fine powder, as if 

 precipitated from a fluid which held it in solution. It is also here 

 mixed with a portion of lime, and oxide of iron, disposed in veins 

 of yellow and white ; parts of which are as white as chalk. This 

 variety, when first taken from the earth, is cut with an iron hoop, or 

 other bit of soft iron, into whet stones and hones. In Muskingum 

 county, and north part of Perry county, the upper portions of the 

 rock, are partially crystalline, and must have been deposited in a 

 fluid state ; or it has been subjected to a heat sufficient to melt it, 

 after it was deposited, for it abounds in different colored veins, pass- 

 ing through the stone in various directions. The most predominant 

 colors, are red, blue, yellow, black and brown. These high color- 

 ed portions generally split with freedom, and were much sought by 

 the aborigines for arrow heads, knives, &;c. In Jackson and Musk- 

 ingum counties, the earth over these flint deposits, is full of cavities, 

 dug to the depth of six or eight feet, in search of the fresh quartz, 

 as that just taken from the earth splits much more easily and 

 smoothly, than the blocks which lie on the surface. 



In favorite spots, these cavities occupy the ground for miles in 

 extent, and are many thousands in number. It was supposed by 

 the neighboring inhabitants, that these cavities were made in search 

 of copper or silver ores ; and some years since, a company united 

 and sunk a shaft to the depth of fifty feet. Nothing was discovered 

 but flint rocks and earth. Metals could have been of no use to the 

 aborigines, for they had no knowledge of the art of smelting them, 

 or working them when smelted into useful articles. But the quartz 



