EICHLAND COUNTY. 317 



ments of _ chert, and a large quantity of iron ore. In many places it is a 

 silicious iron ore, and would be valuable if there were a local demand 

 for it. 



This Conglomerate contains in places a great profusion of calamites, 

 lepidodendra, sigillaria, etc. 



Below this is a series of shales corresponding to the Cuyahoga shales 

 of the north-eastern counties, in part argillaceous, with fragments of 

 crinoids and nodules of iron ore; and in part silicious, containing the 

 ordinary sub-carboniferous fossils. The transition is here apparent 

 through which the varied strata composing the Cuyahoga shales pass, 

 in going southward into the homogeneous, sandy, olive shales of the 

 Waverly; and this member of the series is here much more silicious 

 than it is further north. It varies much in thickness, ranging from one 

 hundred and ten to two hundred feet or over. In places the lower part 

 of it becomes massive, and not distinguishable from the Waverly Con- 

 glomerate upon which it rests. Nowhere in it have I observed minerals 

 of any economic value. 



Waverly Congloinerate. — ^This is the characteristic rock formation of the 

 county, and from its lithological character in many places might readily 

 be mistaken for the ordinary Carboniferous Conglomerate, but its horizon 

 can be definitely traced at a varying distance of from one hundred to 

 two hundred and fifty feet below the true Conglomerate, and upon care- 

 ful study can everywhere be readily distinguished from it. It is gener- 

 ally more thoroughly and evenly stratified than the Carboniferous Con- 

 glomerate, the pebbles are usually smaller; the grains of sand forming 

 the mass of the rock are mostly globular and transparent. When col- 

 ored by iron it is oftener in regular bands or layers, as the result of more 

 perfect stratification, and pebbles and grains of jasper are more abundant. 



The distinction between it and the Carboniferous Conglomerate of this 

 immediate neighborhood is still more marked. The latter is quite coarse, 

 containing large pebbles, some of them but little rounded fragments of 

 fossiliferous cherty limestone, and many coal plants, including sigillaria, 

 calamites, lepidodendra, cordaites, etc. The plants of the Waverly Con- 

 glomerate are mainly fucoids. The iron in the latter, shown only by the 

 color of the rock, is magnetic, preventing the use of the compass in the 

 vicinity of its massive outcrops. 



In Plymouth township, about three miles southwest of Plymouth vil- 

 lage, David Sissenger has a quarry in the Berea grit, showing something 

 of a transition between this quarry rock and the coarse Conglomerate. 

 About twelve feet in thickness of the rock is exposed, the upper layers 

 yellow, thin, and much broken, the lower ones more massive, blue in 



