PORTAGE COUNTY. 135 



of vegetation, and now exist as swamps underlain by peat. One of the 

 best known of these is near Ravenna, where considerable peat has been 

 cut and manufactured. There is another and still more extensive peat 

 marsh in Brimfield, and small ones occur in nearly every township. 

 Usually these peat bogs are occupied with Sphagnum (the peat-producing 

 moss), cranberry vines, huckleberry bushes, and larches, and they are 

 often known as tamarack or huckleberry swamps. The peat in these 

 swamps is not unfrequently underlain by shell marl, and both these are 

 capable of being used with profit by the farmers as fertilizers. It is also 

 probable that the canberry may be successfully cultivated on the swamp 

 surfaces. In the Eastern States the cultivation of cranberries has proved 

 to be highly remunerative to those engaged in it, and there seems no 

 good reason why the same success should not be attained by the inhab- 

 itants of those portions of Ohio where the cranberry grows spontane- 

 ously, and where there are marshes which are well adapted to its culti- 

 vation. 



Striking and typical examples of the glacial furrows which have been 

 referred to above may be seen on the hill near the house of Mr. Theodore 

 Clark, in the township of Edinburgh. ' The direction of the striae is here 

 N. 60° E. The rock is a sandstone, overlying the lower seam of coal. 

 Near the center of Palmyra is a still better exhibition of glacial marks. 

 On the hill, three quarters of a mile west of the center, the bearing of 

 the furrows is N. 30° E. In the town of Palmyra, on a surface of sand- 

 stone exposed in front of Mr. Wilson's store, the traces of glacial action 

 are very conspicuous ; the rock surface being planed down very smooth, 

 and marked with scratches and furrows, of which the direction is N. 

 26° E. In many other parts of the county similar ice inscriptions may 

 be observed, chiefly on the surfaces of the beds of sandstone, as they are 

 better retained on this indestructible material than on the softer or more 

 soluble rocks. 



The bowlder clay which overlies the glaciated surface varies consider- 

 ably in appearance in different localities, according to the exposure and 

 drainage to which it has been subjected, anJ the local circumstances 

 which controlled its formation. In the valleys it will be found to be of a 

 bluish color throughout. On the higher lands the upper portion is fre- 

 quently yellow, sometimes down to the depth of ten or twelve feet, while 

 the lower portion is blue or gray. This difference I attribute to the oxi- 

 dation of the iron contained in the clay, where it has been exposed to 

 the air and to surface drainage. The number and character of the peb- 

 bles and bowlders contained in the clay also varies much in different 



