KNOX COUNTY. 337 



Patches of the Sub-carboniferous Conglomerate are found in place in 

 most of the deep ravines of Butler and Jackson. The maximum thick- 

 ness observed was fifteen feet. A small |)atch of the coal rocks caps some 

 of the highest hills in the north part of Jefferson township, and extends 

 into Ashland county, where eoal is found. This coal extends into Knox 

 county, and thin coal seams are found near the tops of the hills. Some 

 of them have been explored and abandoned, as- if furnishing no valu- 

 able coal. They are probably of no value. 



Olive Shales. — The olive shales of the Waverly immediately underlie 

 the Coal Conglomerate, and reach a maximum thickness of two hundred 

 and fifty feet. They are composed of thin, evenly-bedded, silicious rock, 

 of a yellow olive color, the layers occasionally of sufficient thickness to 

 afford a fair building stone. The general homogeneous character of this 

 member of the Waverly series gives a graceful outline to the hills, leaving 

 no benches as the result of irregular erosion of alternations of hard and 

 soft rock strata ; the debris, when not covered with Drift, giving a light, 

 porous soil, and, whereof sufficient depth, quite productive. The porous 

 nature of the soil and the abundance of small rock fragments in it 

 causes it to absorb the rainfall and prevent the beauty of the slopes from 

 being marred by gullies or irregular erosion. The ordinary shells and 

 fucoids of the Waverly are disclosed here and there in these shales, but 

 nothing of special interest was discovered in the way of fossils. 



The Waverly Conglomerate — This is continued from Richland south 

 through the eastern part of Knox county, presenting the best exposure 

 along the banks of Owl Creek near the line between Butler and Union 

 townships. It apparently forms here the crest of an anticlinal, and dips 

 to the east at an angle of about 25°. Further eastward is apparently 

 another anticlinal, the rock dipping in opposite directions. The real 

 character of these disturbances is doubtful. The massive Conglomerate 

 is much broken, and borders the stream of which the old channel is 

 known to be something like one hundred feet below the present bed. It 

 is quite possible that all the displacement is covered by the partial 

 undermining of the Waverly Conglomerate, the ancient canon cutting 

 below it and eroding the softer shales beneath, so that this heavy sand- 

 rock has settled down, and this, instead of an upheaval, has curved the 

 anticlinals. If we knew that this coarse, massive rock extended west- 

 ward through the county, then we might be certain that the appearance 

 at this point was the result of deep-rooted disturbances, for the general 

 dip of the strata is eastwardly, and the rock so boldly exposed about 

 Millwood does not appear in the western parts of the county, where it 



ought to rise toward the top of the hills. But here in Richland county 

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