418 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



The Drift. — The general character of the Drift in this county is the 

 same as in Defiance, and the reader is referred to the report on that 

 county for a full description. The following details, relating to the Bel- 

 more and Blanchard Ridges that cross the county, will be of interest to the 

 student of the phenomena of the Post-Tertiary. At Lake Ridge village, in 

 Michigan, as well as at other points further north, numerous bowlders are 

 piled on the ridge. They have been gathered from the fields. Toward 

 the Lake there is uniformly a descent from the summit of the ridge, but 

 not always in the opposite direction. Similar bowlders are seen strewn 

 variously over the easterly slope of the ridge. This is particularly the 

 case soon after passing the Macon, going south. They are also very 

 numerous in the fields beyond, on the easterly side of the ridge, where 

 the soil is black, some being three or four feet across. The people de- 

 nominate them " field stones." This ridge can be traced and located by 

 the road to about four miles south of Ridgeway, when the road leaves it. 

 Here the ridge also becomes less marked, but at about three miles south 

 of Ridgeway a series of sandy knolls and ridges branch off more westerly 

 than the real ridge, and at a distance, looking from the east, this promi- 

 nent, almost continuous, series of short ridges has more the aspect of the 

 real ridge than that on which the real ridge is said to be located. The 

 road, however, follows the real ridge, but at last leaves it, running in a 

 direction to pass a little east of or near Palmyra. The ridge here be- 

 comes obscured by lake sand, and different opinions are held by the peo- 

 ple as to its true location, some maintaining that it runs to the east of 

 Palmyra, others to the west. The country south and east of Adrian is 

 all rolling and sandy as far as two or three miles south of Fairfield, when 

 the road enters the low, black land of the swamp. This low, black land 

 is strongly defined along here. The "oak openings" border it on the 

 north-west. They are sandy. The swamp is known as timbered land, 

 in distinction from the "openings." North and west of the openings 

 we come upon the old, gravelly drift surface, which is rough and rolling, 

 with many bowlders. The location of the ridge at Fairfield is unknown. 

 The country is sandy. At a number of places in Lenawee county may be 

 seen a gradual passage from lake sand into gravelly sand, then to a clayey 

 sand, and finally into a typical hard-pan. On some of the sandy knolls 

 bowlders are seen scattered. Indeed, this occurs more frequently than 

 will admit of the sand and its contents being derived entirely from the 

 agency of lake currents and waves. These bowlders may be due to float- 

 ing ice when the Lake covered this part of the country, according to the 

 theory of Dr. Newberry. If they were deposited when the sand was, 

 they must have been put there by some other and separate force. This 



