CHAPTER XLVIII. 



REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OF HENRY COUNTY. 



BY N. H. WINCHBLL. 



SITUATION AND AREA. 



This county belongs to the celebrated Black Swamp area, in which it 

 lies very near the center, the Maumee River crossing it so as to divide it 

 into two parts nearly equal. Its area aggregates 262,106 acres, the aver- 

 age value per acre being, in 1870, $10.35. It contains 204,297 acres of 

 uncultivated or wood land. Meadow or pasture land comprises 11,993 

 acres. It has 45,816 acres of arable or plow land, of which the township 

 of Liberty contains 7,046, a greater cultivated area than that of any 

 other township. Napoleon and Flatrock rank next to Liberty. The 

 southern portion of the county is almost an unbroken, dense forest. 



NATURAL DRAINAGE. 



The Maumee crosses the county in a north-easterly direction. It has 

 a number of unimportant tributaries which join it in Henry county 

 from the north in a south-easterly direction. Those that join it from the 

 south-west run in a direction at right angles to those from the north- 

 west. But one important stream joins the Maumee from the south 

 within the limits of the county, viz., the Turkey Foot ; but the Beaver 

 and the Portage cross the south-eastern portion of the county in the 

 same general direction, the former uniting with it in Wood county, and 

 the latter reaching Lake Erie at Port Clinton, in Ottawa county. The 

 streams are all sluggish. 



SURFACE FEATURES. 



The whole county is flat. There is a little diversity of surface, 

 occasioned by the Belmore Ridge, in the townships of Pleasant and 

 Marion, and also in the north-western corner of the county, for the same 

 reason. The inner margin of the Blanchard moraine is not prominent 

 in Henry county, but it is in Putnam, lying immediately south. 



Soil and Timber. — The soil is generally a black, rich, swampy loam. It 

 occasionally becomes clayey. This is the case along the bluffs of the 



