THE ISLANDS. 201 



many years ; and these quarries have been the chief sources of the sup- 

 ply of lime to all the cities on the eastern shore of the Lake. Hardly 

 any lime is manufactured here, but the stone is exported and burned in 

 the immediate proximity of the markets, and where fuel is more abund- 

 ant. The quarries of Messrs. Kelly, Huntington, Carpenter, and G. W. 

 Calkins are quite largely worked, and have formed the basis of the prin- 

 cipal business on the island. The greater part of the stone produced is 

 used for lime and flux in the furnaces of northern Ohio. It is usually 

 sold by the cord, and varies in price from three to five dollars per cord. 



The most elevated portion of the island is on the northern side, where 

 a local summit rises to sixty feet above the Lake. Here is a magnificent 

 display of glacial markings, such as deserve especial notice, from the 

 fact that they are inscribed on the vertical as well as on the horizontal 

 surfaces. 



Still more interesting glacial grooves have recently been uncovered 

 at the quarry of Mr. Calkins. Mr. J. W. Dunn, foreman of the quarries, 

 has had them photographed, so that though the originals will be soon 

 destroyed, the copies will remain. 



The limestone on Kelly's Island furnishes a large number of the char- 

 acteristic fossils of the Corniferous group, of which examples may be 

 found in most of the collections in the country. Many remarkably fine 

 specimens obtained in the quarries of Mr. Norman Kelly have been care- 

 fully preserved by him ; and we owe to his intelligence and courtesy a 

 number of those of which figures adorn the plates of the paleeontological 

 portion of this report. 



Middle Island, as has been mentioned, lies within Canadian territory. 

 It is of limited area (seventy acres), and rises but little above the sur- 

 face of the Lake. It is, however, a locality of much interest to the geolo- 

 gist, as, in addition to the fine exhibition which it affords of glacial 

 marking, it is, perhaps, the richest in fossils of all the group of islands. 

 The Corniferous limestone here resembles, in its lithological characters 

 and the abundance of its fossils, the exposure at the falls of the Ohio ; 

 and here, as there, we seem to be standing on an ancient coral reef. The 

 corals of Middle Island include a large number of species, many of which 

 were of gigantic dimensions. Some of these grew in dome-shaped masses, 

 like the Astreas and Meandrinas of our present tropical seas. I have seen 

 on Middle Island specimens of Cyathophyllum rugosum, Eridophyllum, and 

 Strombodes ten and even twelve feet in diameter. 



All the islands of Lake Erie west of the two I have mentioned are 

 composed of the Waterlime group, and on Put-in-Bay, North and Middle 

 Bass, Kattlesnake, and Green Islands, we have some of the best exposures 



