766 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



The limestone (No. 5) is exposed in the roads along the hillsides. It is 

 rudely conglomerate, bluish, and yields a good lime even when roughly 

 burned. A limestone occupying this position is seen in the bank of Lit- 

 tle Short Creek, not far from the Belmont county line. There it is im- 

 beded in a mass of clay shale, not laminated, and occurs in three layers, 

 fourteen, five, and four inches thick respectively, and separated by one 

 to three feet of the shale. Below these about six feet is a thin, irregular 

 layer of nodular ferruginous limestone, extending less than one hundred 

 yards, and describing many odd curves. 



The shale immediately overlying the Crinoidal limestone are black, and 

 from seventy to eighty feet thick. Near the base they contain many im- 

 pressions of Neuroplerit and Calamites. At one locality a sandstone ten 

 feet thick is seen twelve feet above the limestone, gray to reddish brown 

 in color, of concretionary structure, and containing vast numbers of im- 

 perfect vegetable impressions. The Crinoidal limestone is occasionally 

 seen in the hillsides along Short Creek, and many fragments are seen in 

 the stream ; but the bed does not reach the creek level until near the 

 western side of the township. On Little Short Creek it is a prominent 

 feature in the hills for a mile or more above the junction of the two 

 streams, and finally passes under the creek near som^e ruined mills, be- 

 tween three and four miles from Portland. It is in three layers. The 

 lowest, two feet thick, is quite compact, and crowded with plates, stems, 

 and spines of crinoids, most of which belong to Zeacrinus mucrospinvs, or 

 to a closely allied species, together with many specimens of Spirifer cam- 

 eratus, Producltis semireticulatus, P Nibrascensis, P. longispinus, and Chonetes 

 SmMhii. This portion of the bed is very hard, and the fossils can not be 

 separated. The upper layers are coarsely granular, and yield readily to 

 the weather. They are blue, while the other is gray. On top, BMa 

 punctulfera and Hemipronites occur in fragments. The rock is too silicious 

 to yield a good lime. 



Mt. Pleasant Township. — Except in the immediate vicinity of Short 

 Creek, the surface of this township is so elevated that Coal No. 8 is barely 

 available. ' Upon the tributaries of that stream, however, it is readily 

 accessible. The coal area, which the greater portion of the town- 

 ship, will be quite valuable in case an outlet for the coal should 

 be afforded, for back from the creek to the southern line of the county 

 there is hardly a ravine of sufficient depth to reach No. 8. Large plots, 

 therefore, can be obtained almost entirely free from unsound coal, and 

 with excellent opportunity for easy working. 



In the south-eastern corner of the township, the old Wheeling plank 

 road crosses Little Short Creek not far above where Coal No. 8 disappears 



