HOLMES COUNTY. 541 



rather than a disadvantage. They insure a forest reserve for the future, 

 and if the worthless undergrowth, and the poorer varieties of trees are 

 cut out, and the forests protected from the intrusion of cattle, the per- 

 manent return from these hills will fully equal in value that from the 

 more inviting lands. On much of the arable land, continuous cultiva- 

 tion has had its usual results in a largely diminished productiveness, 

 but the means of restoring the fertility of the Soil are easily obtained in 

 the limestones which crop out in every township, and by a proper use of 

 them, and of clover for soiling, the lands can readily be made to equal 

 or exceed their original productiveness in the great staple of the county. 



THE DRIFT. 



In the central and western parts of the county, evidences of Drift- 

 action are marked and abundant, but no where in the county have I 

 seen any deposits of unstratified bowlder-clay or " till," the typical, un- 

 modified Drift — it is the debris of the Drift that remains. Granite bowl- 

 ders are scattered over the surface, and along the valley of the Killbuck 

 are high hills of coarse, water-washed gravel, which, in places, is being 

 converted into a hard conglomerate through the action of lime-water, 

 constantly percolating through it. The valley in which the Cleveland, 

 Mount Vernon and Columbus Eailroad is located, from Akron, in Sum- 

 mit county, to Millersburgh, and of which the Killbuck Valley forms a 

 part, is distinguished from the country on each side of it by the abund- 

 ance and coarseness of its Drift-material, indicating that near the close 

 of the Drift-period this was one of the channels by which the waters of 

 the lake-basin, when at a much higher elevation than now, found their 

 -way into the valley of the Ohio. Any remains of unstratified Drift, 

 which once covered the county, must be sought for in the material filling 

 the bottom of the Killbuck Valley. A high divide, running irregularly 

 from Berlin through Weinsburgh to Dundee, appears to mark the limit 

 -of the Drift-action in the eastern part of the county. On the north, and 

 to almost the top of this ridge, on its northern slope, scattered granite 

 bowlders are to be seen, but I have found none upon its summit, nor to 

 the south-east of it within the limits of the county. This evidence is 

 not conclusive, for the torrents which poured over the divide, carrying 

 away the surface-drift, and washing out the valleys, may have removed, 

 also, those evidences of the Drift. Outside of the Killbuck Valley these 

 bowlders are the only remains of the Drift, and the soil is composed en- 

 tirely of the debris of the local rocks. 



