CHAPTER XLIX. 



THE GEOLOGY OP DEFIANCE COUNTY. 



BY N. H. WINCHELL. 



SITUATION AND AEEA. 



Defiance county is in the north-west corner of the State. It touches 

 Indiana on the west, and Williams county intervenes between it and 

 Michigan on the north. On the east it is bounded by Henry county, and 

 on the south by Paulding. Its area is 257,492 acres. Of this, 58,912 

 acres are arable or plow land, 27,297 acres are meadow or pasture land, 

 and 173,238 acres are uncultivated or woodland. The average value per 

 acre is $11.16. 



NATURAL DRAINAGE. 



The Maumee River crosses the south-eastern portion of the county in 

 a direction a little north of east. At Defiance it is joined by the Auglaize 

 from the south and by the Tiffin from the north. The St. Joseph River, 

 flowing in a south-westerly direction, crosses the town of Milford, in the 

 north-western corner of the county. The small tributaries of the Mau- 

 mee from the north, and of the Tiffin, with Powell Creek, from the south, 

 constitute the only important streams of the county. These streams are 

 generally sluggish, and do not furnish good water-power. For power for 

 milling and manufacturing the locks of the canal are generally depended 

 on, not only in this county, but in most of those through which the State 

 canals pass in the north-western quarter of the State. 



SURFACE FEATURES. 



The whole of this county, except a small portion in the north-western 

 corner, which is rolling, is embraced in what is well known as the Black 

 Swamp of Ohio, and exhibits the surface characters that prevail in most 

 of the Fourth Geological District. The surface is Sat and unvaried, and 

 the roads generally very muddy in the wet season of the year. The 

 drainage is slow. The valleys dug by the streams are wholly within the 

 Drift, and rarely disclose the rock. They are sometimes fifty or sixty 

 feet in depth below the general level of the country, and along the flood- 



