SURFACE GEOLOGY. 71 



terraces are cut through by small streams from the hills to the south, and in the nar- 

 row ravines the gold is obtained from the sand and clays. The terraces contain also 

 bowlders of granitoid rocks, quartzite, and small pebbles of white quartz. Bowlders 

 of limestone, containing fossils of the Niagara and Clinton group, were also found in 

 the terraces. The quantity of gold is small, but in my own experiments nearly every 

 panful of dirt showed the ' color.' Mr. Jacob Shock, jeweler, of Newark, reports 

 finding gold in small fragments of quartz." — Report of Progress, 1869. 



Prof. Orton also reports the finding of gold in the bowlder clay of 

 south-western Ohio. He says : 



"It can be gathered in flakes from the surface of the clay and panned from, the 

 gravel derived from the clay. * * The total amount cannot be insignificant, but the 

 percentage certainly runs very low. The working of beds of clay and gravel which 

 have had such a history as our Drift formations as gold-bearing deposits, is, of course, 

 preposterous, but just this has lately been attempted in Clermont county. A few 

 years since the ' Clermont County Gold Mines ' attained a short-lived, neighborhood, 

 and newspaper notoriety. One or two thousand dollars in cash, and more than this 

 in labor, were expended in ill-judged schemes, without other results than bringing 

 into circulation a few score dollars' worth of Clermont county gold, * * From 

 what has already been said, it will be seen that Clermont county has no monopoly of 

 the gold-bearing formation of Ohio. This formation should be named the 'Drift 

 gold field,' rather than the ' Clermont county gold field.' All of the counties of south- 

 western Ohio certainly share in its treasures, and without doubt one locality is as 

 good as another, where gravels are found that have been washed from the bowlder 

 clay. The best results thus far known to have been obtained in gold-mining in Ohio 

 are reported for Warren county, where in one day gold to the value of six dollars was 

 obtained by an outlay of ten dollars ; a half-dozen days' work being also thrown in." 



Prof. John Collett, in his report on the geology of Warren county, In- 

 diana (Fifth Annual Report Geological Survey of Indiana, 1873, p. 224), 

 speaks of the occurrence of gold in the Drift as follows : 



" At Gold Branch of Pine creek, north-west quarter section 23, township 22, range 8, 

 on a gravel bar formed of the debris washed from the bowlder clay, a quantity of 

 gold, reported at seventy dollars, was collected. An energetic Californian can pan 

 out from one dollar to one dollar and a quarter per day at this and several other 

 gravel bars in the county. An equal amount of labor expended at any ordinary avo- 

 cation will bring better returns." 



The occurrence of gold in the Drift of Ohio should not be a matter of 

 surprise, but it would rather be strange if it were not found here. It is 

 well known that a large part of the materials composing the Drift ,ip 

 derived from the Canadian highlands. These are mainly formed of Lau- 

 rentian rocks, which are every where traversed by auriferous quartz veins. 



