112 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



As a general rule, the stone which it furnishes is coarse, and though 

 easily worked and durable, has little to commend it so far as regards its 

 beauty. In certain localities, however, it presents very different char- 

 acters. At Cuyahoga Falls some of the layers of the Conglomerate con- 

 sist of a compact, homogeneous, rather fine-grained sandstone, largely 

 impregnated with iron, and of a pleasing dark-brown color. At Akron 

 apparently the same beds are still finer in texture, contain a larger per- 

 centage of peroxide of iron, and have a beautiful purplish red tint. 

 These characters combined render this the most beautiful building stone 

 with which I am acquainted. 



The Conglomerate is also largely used for the production of glass, and 

 its pebbles are employed by Mr. Alexander, at Akron, as an element in 

 one of the varieties of fire-brick manufactured by him. Various locali- 

 ties might be cited where inexhaustible quantities of pure quartz may 

 be obtained from this source, and this is a material sure to be in demand 

 in the future for the manufacture of porcelain, glass, fire-brick, gan- 

 nister, etc. 



In a number of places in Knox and Licking counties gold has been 

 found in the superficial gravel. This may have come from the Drift 

 deposits only, but it is probable that in some cases it has come from the 

 Conglomerate. Nearly all crystalline quartz, such as forms the pebbles 

 and sand both of the Drift and Conglomerate, is auriferous, and we have 

 every reason to believe that the materials which compose both these for- 

 mations were in large part derived from the Eozoic highlands of Canada 

 and the Alleghany belt. Nearly all the Laurentian rocks are traversed 

 by segregated veins of quartz, which always contain more or less gold. 

 Hence we could hardly fail to find traces of gold in the debris of these 

 quartz veins ; and so I venture to say that careful search will detect gold 

 in all the quartzose materials of the Drift and Conglomerate. As, how- 

 ever, the quartz veins of the area of crystalline rocks in the north-east 

 are perhaps never rich enough in gold to pay for working, and as from 

 its gravity much of the gold must necessarily be left_behind in transpor- 

 tation, I think we may be quite certain that our gold mines will never 

 be remunerative, and that gold can hardly be reckoned as one of the 

 mineral staples of Ohio. 



I may mention, in this connection, that Mr. Glass, of Dayton, claims to 

 have found gold in the Drift in various localities in Clermont county, and 

 he is disposed to regard the deposits as pecuniarily important. Though 

 fully satisfied that this placer gold of Ohio has no economic value, I re- 

 gard its discovery as of great geological interest, as it affords an easy 

 answer to the much discussed question, Where does gold occur in the 



