CHAPTER LXXXVI. 



REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OP JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



BY J. 8. NEWBERRY. 



SURFACE FEATURES. 



Jefferson county lies altogether outside of the Drift area, and its super- 

 ficial deposits are therefore only such as are derived from the decomposi- 

 tion of the underlying rocks. These are shales, sandstones, limestones, 

 beds of coal,' fire-clay, and iron ore — the usual components of the Coal 

 Measures — and these when disintegrated have produced a soil which is 

 somewhat varied locally, but is generally light and loamy and well 

 adapted to the cultivation of corn and the small grains. Here, as in 

 many other of the counties lying- within the coal field and beyond the 

 influence of the Drift, the great irregularities of the surface have pro- 

 duced comparatively little effect upon the fertility of the soil, the hills, 

 even though high and bold, being successfully cultivated to their sum- 

 mits ; and the narrow alluvial bottoms yielding scarcely better crops of 

 corn. 



Before the advent of the whites all portions of Jefferson county were 

 covered with a dense forest. This consisted of a mixed growth of tim- 

 ber, although oak was the predominant variety. In the tower grounds 

 hickory, ash, black walnut, butternut, and maple prevailed, while syca- 

 mores and white maples bordered the streams. 



The topography of Jefferson county is very greatly diversified. On the 

 east it is bordered by the Ohio, which flows from four hundred to five 

 hundred feet below the tops of the hills which border it, and from six 

 hundred to seven hundred feet below the highlands of the interior of the 

 county. A convenient base line for measuring altitudes in the county 

 is the River Division of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad, which 

 follows the course. of the Ohio, generally from forty to fifty feet above 



