THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 109 



wanting. In Richland county the horizon of the Conglomerate passes 

 through all the highlands of the " Loudonville hills," but the rock itself 

 is often absent ; sandstone No. 1 of the Coal Measures cutting out both 

 the Lower Coal and Conglomerate, and resting directly on the Waverly. 

 Both the absent members of the series were perhaps, and even probably, 

 deposited here, and were subsequently swept away by the agent that 

 brought the sand that now composes sandstone No. 1. This is not cer- 

 tain, however, as the highlands of Richland county apparently form the 

 crown of one of the several arches of strata that traverse the State im- 

 perfectly parallel with the Alleghanies, and hence have always been 

 relatively highlands ; and it is quite possible that neither the Conglom- 

 erate nor Coal No. 1 was deposited over them. In Richland county the 

 Waverly contains heavy beds of Conglomerate which have much the 

 character of the Carboniferous conglomerate, and have been often mis- 

 taken for it. These are' to be seen at Richland Station, and at various 

 other points, even as far west as Mt. Gilead, in Morrow county. Prom 

 Holmes county to the Ohio the Conglomerate forms an interrupted line 

 of outcrop skirting the margin of the Coal Measures. Throughout this 

 interval it is rarely more than twenty-five feet thick when found, and in 

 many places it is scarcely perceptible. In Jackson county, however, it 

 resumes its importance, and attains a thickness of one hundred feet. 

 The exaggerated estimates which have been published of the develop- 

 ment of the Conglomerate along its southern line of outcrop are due to 

 the fact that the Waverly conglomerate attains unusual force in this re- 

 gion, and all its exposures have been credited to the overlying rock. 



In speaking of the origin of the materials of the Conglomerate, I have 

 referred to the balls of chert with Carboniferous fossils which it contains 

 in Holmes county, and have suggested that the Lower Carboniferous 

 limestone may have once existed in northern Ohio. This supposition is 

 rendered probable by the relations which we find to exist between the 

 Conglomerate and limestone in southern Ohio. There the latter rock 

 seems to lie in patches, which were without doubt formerly connected, 

 but the connections have been severed by the agencies that distributed 

 the Conglomerate. 



Though generally forming a very distinctly marked geological horizon, 

 and entirely separated from the associated rocks, the Conglomerate in 

 some places is more or less interstratified with the Coal Measures above 

 and the Waverly beneath. In the northern part of Portage and Geauga 

 counties it is difficult to draw the line between the Coal Measures and 

 the Conglomerate, as the point of junction is formed by beds of passage ; 

 thin bands of conglomerate alternating with layers of shale containing 



