228 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



vated in the Drift to the depth of fifteen to twenty-five feet, the limestone 

 ridges and knolls constitute the only diversity of surface. These ridges 

 produce gentle upward undulations of the surface, extending sometimes 

 two or three miles, usually exposing the rock, and rising from five to fif- 

 teen feet above the general level. In traveling over the country they 

 are hardly perceptible to the eye, and are first revealed by the occurrence 

 of stones and small bowlders on the surface of the Drift, Such limestone 

 ridges are most frequent in the township of Clay, and the rock is exposed 

 on sections 4, 9, 16, 28, 27, and 34. The rock is also exposed in a similar 

 way in Benton township, sections 14, 23, and 26; also in Harris town- 

 ship, section 14. In the bed of the Portage the rock may be seen through 

 most of the township of Harris. In addition to their flood-plains, the 

 streams have one general terrace, or bench. The former consists of such 

 deposits as the freshet stage of the stream is not able to carry away. In 

 it are imbedded vegetable remains — leaves, branches, and trunks of trees. 

 The mass of the deposit is, however, a loose but homogeneous marly sand. 

 It is also liable to contain stones of considerable size, the result of stranded 

 ice in spring time. Its height along the Portage is, in Ottawa county, sel- 

 dom over six feet above the summer stage of the water, dependent some- 

 what on the obstructions to the current. The latter, or the first terrace 

 above the flood-plain, is simply the result of the erosion of the stream, and 

 shows the original condition of the Drift deposit. Its height, owing to 

 the evenness of the original surface, is not apt to vary much, and is sel- 

 dom over twenty-five feet. The changes of the stream from one side to 

 the other of its flood-plain sometimes cause the union of these two ter- 

 races in one ; in such cases the entire bluff may be thirty feet. Such 

 banks may be seen in the township of Harris, sections 8 and 9, and at 

 numerous other points. 



Character of Soil and Timber. — The soil is clay, with very few superficial 

 stones or bowlders ; at greater depths it contains some gravel and bowl- 

 ders — the residue untransportable by water — which may be seen in the 

 beds of the streams, and which are met in wells. There are also superficial 

 deposits of sand, not only along the immediate beach of Lake Erie, but at 

 points several miles from the Lake. They are far more infrequent, how- 

 ever, than in Wood and Sandusky counties. This cold and tough charac- 

 ter of the soil, together with the difficulties of local drainage arising from 

 its general flatness, has impeded the settlement of the county. By the 

 aid, however, of the recent general drainage law, the whole county is 

 being rapidly subjected to an excellent system of artificial drainage, 

 and the soil is not only sooner relieved of the surplus of standing water 

 in the spring of the year, but it is brought into an arable condition as 



