CHAPTER LXXXII. 



REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OF HOLMES COUNTY, 



BT M. C. READ. 



TOPOGEAPHY. 



Holmes county is divided into two nearly equal parts by the valley of 

 the Killbuck, an alluvial water-plain, above the buried channel of an 

 ancient river, now filled with from one hundred to two hundred feet of 

 Drift material. On each side of the valley the hills rise gradually to a 

 height of from four hundred to five hundred feet, and then descend as 

 gradually on the east, toward the valley of the Tuscarawas, and rather 

 abruptly on the west to the valley of the Mohican. Innumerable creeks, 

 and rivulets emptj-ing into these streams, interlocked in the most irregu- 

 lar manner, cover the face of the count}', and uniting into larger streams- 

 flow through the narrow, alluvial valleys or deep, rocky gorges, which 

 separate the high hills that compose the greater part of the surface. The 

 same contrast between the members of the ancient and modern river- 

 systems is observed here as in the counties heretofore described. The 

 first flowing in moderately wide valleys on a muddj' or gravelly bottom — 

 the gravel composed largely of foreign material — and resting on a thick 

 deposit of Drift, the latter flowing in narrow, rock gorges, generally, with 

 a rocky bottom, and containing, almost exclusively, the debris of the 

 local rocks. The constant succession of hills and ravines exhibits con- 

 tinuous exposures of all the rocks of the Lower Coal Measures, and in no 

 part of the State can their character and relations be more satisfactorily 

 studied. 



SOIL. 



The soil is generally a light, friable, calcareous loam, in the valleys, 

 rich in vegetable matter, and everywhere well adapted to the growth of 

 wheat. On some of the hills the surface is so thickly covered with rock 

 fragments, the debris of the coal sandstone, as to be entirely unfitted for 

 cultivatioii, but a dense forest covers these rocky slopes, and the soil was 

 originally everywhere rich. When the growth of the best varieties of 

 timber is properly encouraged, these rock-covered hills are an advantage 



