FAYETTE COUNTY. 437 



tbis limited area, may admit of doubt; but there are reasons for believ- 

 ing that the surface was once covered with a heavy Drift deposit. In some 

 places the soft material has been washed away, leaving large accumula- 

 tions of sand and gravel; in other places, as in the level region between 

 the East Fork of Todd's Fork and Blanchester, the material of the Drift 

 was a finer sediment than is found in other places, aad has not been re- 

 moved or disturbed to such a degree as in other portions of the county, 

 and, consequently, even if sand and gravel exist in it, such extensive 

 beds of these substances as are found where the sediment had a different 

 character or was subsequently washed in currents of water. 



The «lays of the Drift are both blue and yellow, the former apparently 

 prevailing in both counties, as shown in the excavations for wells. 

 There was considerable variation in reports of the strata penetrated in 

 sinking wells, but blue clay, or, as it is frequently called, blue mud, from 

 its appearance, was uniformly found, but there was no uniformity in the 

 thickness of it. Sometimes it is but a few feet in thickness, and in 

 another place, not a mile distant, it is no less than forty feet thick. It 

 is generally interstratified with sand and fine gravel, but sometimes n» 

 such stratification is seen. Water is found nearly everywhere within a 

 very few feet of the surface of the earth, so that it is seldom excavations 

 were carried further than from ten t<s twenty feet below the surface, and our 

 knowledge is limited of the material underlying to this slight extent. 

 Near Washington, on the farm of Mr. D. Waters, the blue clay is inter- 

 etratified with sand, while «n that of Mr. Noah Evans, adjoining, there 

 is a continuous deposit of the same material of forty feet in thickness, 

 with gravel. This blue clay being impermeable to water, it is when 

 beds of sand in it are reached that water is obtained, and usually in 

 abundance. In some parts of our district, particularly those which are 

 flat, there does not occur, within the usual range of the wells, m.uch, if 

 any, yellow clay. Iff it is found, it is just below the soil for from three 

 to ten feet, where fine-grained blue clay invariably occurs, interstratified 

 with sand. 



B0WLKER3. 



These are found scattered over the surface of both counties, and seem to 

 belong above the blue clay deposit, rather than in it. The largest bowlder, 

 perhaps, which is found so far south in this State, is found in Clinton 

 <!ounty, on the county infirmary farm, near Wilmington, and this lies on 

 the fine-grained blue clay, upon which it would seem to have fallen by 

 the washing away of the clay in which it was formerly imbedded, and 

 which, at a higher level, lies near it on all sides. This bowlder contains 

 about twelve hundred cubic feet, and weighs upwards of ninety tons. 



