386 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



Freeport, in Montgomery township (sections 15 and 11), growing in a 

 sandy soil. ^ 



The county is well supplied with stone of good quality for building 

 ■and for lime. One of the most valuable varieties of stone for building 

 purposes seen in the county is the thick but soft drab beds of the Water- 

 :lime, constituting what has been described as phase No. 2 of that forma- 

 tion. Opportunities for working ' it are afforded at a number of places, 

 .which have been enumerated in the description of that formation. When 

 -the facilities for transportation are improved, and the exigencies of de- 

 velopment demand a useful or ornamental cut-stone, this part of the Wa- 

 ierlime in Wood county will prove of great value. The Oriskany sand- 

 stone quarried at Grand Rapids is exported largely to neighboring coun- 

 ties. It is extensively if not exclusively used in the locks and aqueducts 

 of the Wabash and Erie Canal as far south as the city of Defiance. Blocks 

 of almost any required size can be obtained, which may be wrought into 

 ornamental forms. It answers for all purposes, except for flagging stone, 

 as well as the Waverly sandstone. The Niagara is not very much quar- 

 ried at any point within the county. Wherever it is used it is for lime- 

 burning. It seems not to afford a building stone of superior quality, 

 although it supplies the local demand in many places for foundations 

 and common walls. 



The clays of Wood county ,are well suited for the manufacture of brick. 

 The surface of the Drift is usually so free from limestone fragments, ex- 

 cept in the vicinity of the " limestone ridges," that it can be profitably 

 employed for this purpose. The location of brick-yards on the river 

 bottoms will generally prove less successful than those on the surface of 

 the Drift. The ice which lodges on the flood-plains in spring-time holds 

 numerous fragments brought down from the rapids caused by the Water- 

 lime formation. These are dropped upon the flood-plain, and when the 

 brick burned from the materials of the river bottoms are exposed to the 

 weather, the lime slacks, so as to destroy them for use in buildings. The 

 greatest difficulty met with in the use of the surface Drift at points 

 removed from the river valleys will be the lack of sand. This can be 

 supplied, however, from the sand ridges and knolls so common in the 

 county. 



