152 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



become of importance as a source of fuel. As fertilizers, however, the 

 muck and shell marl, to which I have referred, will be of great practical 

 value, especially on light and open soils, such as that which covers most 

 of the county. It may be important, therefore, for the farmers who have 

 patches of swamp upon their land to test them by boring, to ascertain 

 whether they are underlain by strata of peat or marl, which may be used 

 to cheaply fertilize their fields. A post- auger, or an old three-inch car- 

 penter's auger welded to an iron rod, will serve admirably for this kind 

 of exploration. 



In most parts of Stark county the surface deposits are such as have 

 been transported to greate r or less distances from their places of origin,, 

 and it is only on the hills of the southern townships that we find the 

 soil derived from the decomposition of the underlying rocks. Numerous 

 facts indicate that the county has formerly been traversed from north to 

 south by a great line of drainage. This is now imperfectly represented 

 by the Tuscarawas River, but it is evident that this, though a noble 

 stream, is but a rivulet compared with the flood which once flowed, some- 

 what in the direction it follows, from the lake basin into the Ohio. The- 

 records of this ancient river are seen in the deeply excavated channels, 

 now filled with gravel, in the Tuscarawas valley, and between Canton 

 and Massillon. In the valley of the Tuscarawas an extensive series of 

 borings has been made for coal, and these have revealed the fact that 

 this stream is now running far above its former bed, and that it does not 

 accurately oUow the line of its ancient valley. That old Valley is in 

 many places filled with gravel, and is now so thoroughly obliterated as 

 to give to the common observer little indication of its existence. A few 

 facts will show, however, that this interesting feature in the surface 

 geology of Stark county has a real existence. " The borings made for coal 

 east of the present river,, in Lawrence and Jackson townships, have in 

 many instances been carried below the present streams without reaching 

 solid rock, and heavy beds of gravel are found to occupy a broad and 

 deep valley, which lies for the most part on the east side of the present 

 water course. From Fulton to Millport, and thence to Massillon, many 

 borings have been made, and in these, where the course of the auger was 

 not arrested by bowlders, the Drift deposits have often been found to be 

 more than one hundred feet in thickness. Fof example : two wells were 

 bored by Mr. E. Roberts, north-east of Millport. In one fthe gravel was 

 penetrated to a depth of eighty-four feet without reaching the rock ; in 

 the other it was found to be ninety-seven feet in thickness. On the 

 farm of Gen. Beatty two wells were sunk for water, within one hundred 

 yards of each other; one reached the rock at about fifty feet; the other, 



