564 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



verlj'- group — the lowest subdivision of the Carboniferous. The Lower 

 Carboniferous limestone, which belongs above the \Vaverly, appears to 

 be wanting ; and the Conglomerate, which, in places, forms the floor of 

 the Coal Measures in massive beds, often several hundred feet thick, was 

 seen in place at only one locality, and there in a small layer not more 

 "than two or three feet thick. The almost total absence of any fragments 

 of it, where one would look for them, near the base of the Coal Measures, 

 indicates that this stratum is, also, generally wanting. The bottom of 

 the Coal Measures is marked by its lowest great bed of sandstone, com- 

 monly about a hundred feet thick ; and, in places directly under this, the 

 lowest coal bed is seen, sometimes, of workable thickness, and sometimes 

 pinched and insignificant, and separated from the well marked Waverly 

 shales by only a few feet of clayey strata. 



These beds are all so nearly horizontal, that the dip is imperceptible 

 at any locality. It is detected only by tracing them for several miles in 

 the direction of the dip, which is toward the south-east, or in the oppo- 

 site direction as they rise. Owing to this general inclination of the 

 strata, the Sub-carboniferous group is only seen in the northern and 

 western townships of the county ; and in these, only in the deep valleys, 

 where the Waverly shales form the lowest portion of the marginal hills, 

 and rise in them, sometimes, to the height of over 200 feet ; as on the 

 east side of the Mohican River, and on the upper part of the Walhond- 

 ing. The top of the group comes down to the level of the canal, near 

 the junction of the Killbuck and Walhonding, a little over twelve miles 

 in a straight line from the Mohican River. The canal, in this distance, 

 has descended, by nine locks, so that the total fall of the strata is over 

 270 feet, and may, perhaps, be 320 feet in the twelve miles ; as on the south 

 side of the Walhonding, toward the town of Newcastle, the top of the 

 Waverly is about 250 feet above the level of the canal.* 



The brown and olive-colored shales, and light-colored sandstones of the 

 Waverly, are seen in most of the branches of the Walhonding River, and 

 in all the runs in Tiverton township that discharge into the Mohican 

 River. In the bottoms of these, the group is exposed within a mile, or a 

 little more, to the town of Tiverton, toward the south. From Warsaw, it is 

 traced up Beaver Run into Monroe township ; but, the valley rising faster 

 than the strata, it is lost to view above Pfinceton. On the other side of 

 the Walhonding, the group passes under the valley of Simmons's Creek, 



* Later observations show that Coshocton is near the "bottom of a synclinal trough, 

 the dip, south-east from Tiverton to Coshocton, being about 500 feet ; while at Bridge- 

 ville, fifteen miles farther on the line south-east, the strata have risen 135 feet from the 

 bottom of the basin. 



