732 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



At the mouth of Brush Creek is an isolated hill of rock, separated from 

 the adjacent highlands on one side by what is evidently an old channel 

 of Brush Creek or Big Yellow Creek, a channel long since deserted by 

 the stream which formed it. 



The sandstone above Coal No. 6, on Big Yellow Creek, contains many 

 quartz pebbles as large as peas, as it does in Columbiana on the east and 

 Tuscarawas on the west. None of the sandstones below Coal No. 6 show 

 this peculiarity. 



The limestones of this section are all inclined to be nodular, and those 

 under coals Nos. 5, 6, and 7, and the black fossiliferous limestone, thirty 

 feet above No. 7, on Tidball Run, below Salineville, often contain minute 

 coiled shells — Spirorbis carhonarius. This is supposed to be the calcareous 

 tube of an annelid somewhat like Serpula ; it is frequently found adher- 

 ent to the leaves of plants which had fallen into the water. It also covers 

 in countless numbers some of the surfaces of the cannel coal beneath the 

 "Big Vein" at Linton. 



At several places on Yellow Creek a micaceous sandstone, some twenty 

 feet below the "Roger Vein" (Coal No. 5), is saturated with limfe, form- 

 ing a "bastard limestone" — a peculiarly tough rock. It contains some 

 iron, and the exposed surfaces are frequently brown, while the rock 

 within is still blue or gray. Along its outcrop it weathers into rounded 

 angles, showing its solubility. 



Many reports are current of the discovery of galena on Big Yellow 

 Creek, and much mystery is thrown around the subject, as if it were 

 a matter of great importance. This is, however, not peculiar to that 

 locality, as nearly every county in the State has its lead man, who claims 

 to have found important deposits of this metal, and manufactures a cer- 

 tain degree of cheap notoriety by pretending to be the possessor of an 

 important secret, which he carefully guards. With sincere regret for 

 the necessity of robbing such persons of the capital which they employ 

 with so much pleasure, if not profit, I am compelled to say that all these 

 rumors of the discovery of valuable lead veins, or the allied legend of 

 the manufacture of bullets by the Indians from lead obtained in certain 

 secluded places are, for Ohio, either deliberate frauds or creations of the 

 imagination ; for not only has no valuable deposit of lead yet been found 

 in the State, but enough has been learned of its geological structure to 

 warrant the statement that no such thing exists here. 



In the country about Big Yellow Creek there are many of the works 

 of the Mound Builders. A son of Mr. James Dorrance reports having 

 opened several mounds on the upland, and from these he has obtained 

 a large number of wrought flints and other stone implements. A little 



