508 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



belt of rock just described was formerly, before removed for building pur- 

 poses, very conspicuous on the commons just east of Greenville. 



Another prominent moraine or belt of these large surface bowlders is 

 delineated upon the map of Darke -county. It is full three or four hun- 

 dred yards in width, and is first noticed in the north-western or rather 

 northern part of Van Buren township, just a little south of Bierley's 

 quarries, passing in a south-westerly direction across the northern part 

 of the township, crossing the Dayton and Union Railroad a few miles 

 south of Jaysville, and then passing, with an almost uniform south-east- 

 ern bend, I am told, through Twin township, near Ithaca, into Preble 

 county; the same belt continues near Eaton and West Alexandria, in 

 that county. This instead of being, as would at first appear, a separate 

 and distinct belt, is undoubtedly but a continuation of the same line 

 described above,as traceable down the valley of Greenville Creek to Bier- 

 ley's quarries, and in my mind would plainly show that the great floating 

 icebergs, finding the outcropping limestone at Bierley's a formidable im- 

 pediment to their further progress in that direction, after disposing of 

 many of their ballasts, swung around and took a southerly course, as 

 indicated by the moraine last described. 



Some of the bowlders constituting this belt in Van Buren township 

 measure eight and ten feet in diameter, and one or two probably as much 

 as twelve feet. For a long time the region embraced by this moraine 

 was thought incapabfe of being cultivated or traversed by roads, but to- 

 day finds it producing as excellent crops as almost any other portion of 

 the county, and has roads, though exceedingly rough and stony, never- 

 theless dry and very durable. 



Outside of the two prominent belts described above, many bowlders 

 are scattered here and there over the whole surface of the county. These 

 were dropped probably during the more general submergence, when the 

 water was everywhere of sufficient depth to float bodies of almost any 

 size. 



Mdstodtm.— At about the close of the quarternary period, and during 

 the formation of peat alluvium, this region, as well as other portions of 

 ti^e State, was inhabited by the huge mastodon and mammoth. The 

 thickets and marshy banks of the lakelets, which now constitute the 

 peat bogs, seem to have been their most frequent haunts. These truths 

 are attested by the remains which are almost yearly discovered in differ- 

 ent parts of the county. These huge animals must likewise have been 

 undisputed lords of the forests, as but few other representatives of 

 a fauna have been found. Dr. G. Miesse, of Greenville, has in his 

 collection an almost perfect skeleton of a mammoth, as well as portions 



