CRAWFORD COUNTY. 247 



one system, or to one greater moraine ridge. Indeed, they are not gen- 

 erally separable, but are heaped together in one ridge, that which lies 

 along the north-west side of the Broken Sword Creek. 



The color of the Drift is blue, except where it is oxidized or stained by 

 iron. The blue color may be seen in railroad cuts, as on sections 4 and 3, 

 Vernon and near New Washington, but generally it is replaced by a yel- 

 lowish-brown, or rarely by a reddish or irony-brown, as in the north- 

 eastern part of Auburn township, to the depth of about fifteen feet, de- 

 pending on its porosity or facility for absorbing water and air. No gla- 

 cial marks have been seen in the county. 



At Leesville, in the southern part of section 7, Jackson, is a long and 

 prominent ridge of gravel, popularly denominated a "hog's-back." The 

 gravel ridge has been in use for fourteen years, during which time thou- 

 sands of car loads have been taken away for the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne 

 and Chicago Railroad, but the part which still remains rises forty feet 

 above the surrounding level. A former spur from this, known as the 

 "Cleveland Hill," rose twenty feet higher, but it has been entirely removed. 

 This gravel ridge is a little over half a mile long, and runs nearly north 

 and south, or a trifle east of south. The " Cleveland Hill " tended more 

 easterly along the southern extremity. The main ridge lies on the ob- 

 served line of superposition of the Berea grit over the Bedford shale. The 

 soft shale is in outcrop along the banks of the Sandusky River, on section 12, 

 within a quarter of a mile of the ridge, and the sandstone is extensively 

 wrought about half a mile east of the ridge. This ridge is not bordered 

 on both sides by low, swampy belts, as several others have been observed 

 to be, at least it is not on the eastern side. On the west side there is 

 more low ground, but the Sandusky River and a ravine tributary to it 

 have- somewhat broken up its original surroundings in that respect. 

 The country about is fiat, or nearly so, and the drift is made up of the 

 common hard-pan clay. The gravel of the ridge embraces a great many 

 bowlders about the size of eighteen inches in diameter, some also much 

 larger. This conjunction of a gravel ridge pertaining to the Drift with 

 the line of outcrop of two formations, the one hard and the other soft, is 

 not an uncommon occurrence in north-western Ohio. They are men- 

 tioned under the head of Drift in the reports on Auglaize, Hardin, Allen, 

 Morrow, and Delaware counties, and seem to the writer to bear an inti- 

 mate relation to the cause of that deposit. They indicate that whatever 

 that cause was, it was susceptible of being influenced by the character 

 of the underlying rock. 



The skeleton of a mastodon was exhumed near Bucyrus many years 

 ago. It was nearly perfect, and was imbedded in the muck and marl of 



