WOOD COUNTY. 369 



Crane Creek and its branches and the Toussaint Creek, and the southern 

 supplies some of the sources of the Portage. While this plateau has a 

 general slope toward the north-east, there are occasional slopes in other 

 and almost opposite directions, and in all parts it blends with the sur- 

 rounding country by almost imperceptible descents. Its eastern border, 

 however, descends uniformly, and somewhat abruptly, into the valley of 

 the Portage in a south-easterly direction. This is noticeable in travel- 

 ing from Portage village to Bowling Green, the latter place being per- 

 haps fifty feet above the former, yet in a direction due north. The val- 

 ley of the Portage has a very slow descent, and when the waters are 

 swollen they inundate considerable land adjoining. This renders the 

 streams generally of little use for water-power. Some of the best water- 

 powers in the county are furnished by the smaller streams in the south- 

 ern part of the county, where the fall is greater than in the main valley. 

 At Grand Rapids the water-power afforded by the Maumee has been im- 

 proved by the State, although the dam was originally constructed for 

 deepening the water of the Maumee for the use of the Wabash and Erie 

 Canal. The Maumee is navigable to Perrysburg, between which place 

 and Toledo steamers make regular trips. Above Perrysburg it soon 

 becomes rapid, flowing immediately on the Waterlime formation. 



SURFACE FEATURES AND SOIL. 



In general, the whole county may properly be designated flat, and the 

 soil a heavy clay. To this general statement must be made the usual ex- 

 ceptions of the sandy alluvium along the water-courses, which, in Wood 

 county, is unusually abundant ; the black, prairie-like soil of those parts 

 of the plateau already described, which are destitute of trees, and require 

 artificial drainage to become arable, consisting of a large proportion of 

 vegetable matter, and the sandy deposits which are scattered abundantly 

 over the whole country. These last are not infrequently spread over ex- 

 tensive areas of several thousand acres. They are, also, in the form of 

 "sand ridges," which intersect the county in different directions, and of 

 isdlated knolls. With the exception of those broad undulations caused 

 by the underlying rock — which, however, in Wood county are not suffi- 

 ciently manifest to change the character of the surface from that of a 

 broad plain — and these sandy knolls and ridges, the county presents no 

 diversity of surface ; and were it not for the dense forest with which the 

 most of it is still coven d, it would be comparable to the vast prairies of 

 the states further west. Indeed, it seems to differ from them in no re- 

 spect except in the presence of an abundant forest. 



The river valleys are excavated in the Drift, although the Maumee 

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