DEFIANCE COUNTY. 431 



and sometimes appears stratified. At Brunersburg it is confined to the 

 west side of the creek, the east bank being high, and made up, near the 

 top, of fine, laminated clay, but on the town line between Noble and 

 Tiffin it extends about a mile east of the river, and is not distinguish- 

 able from the lacustrine sand. West from Evansport the country is 

 sandy for about two miles, when it begins to assume, and finally acquires 

 entirely, the features of the Black Swamp. • Continuing westward, there 

 is no noticeable change till within about a mile and a half of Lick 

 Creek, when a yellow color in the soil appears in occasional little mounds. 

 These are followed by a slowly rising surface to Lick Creek. For a mile 

 east of the creek the surface is quite gravelly and sandy, making, some- 

 times, a fine loam, and sometimes a gravelly loam. This is, for the most 

 part, black, but occasionally of a yellow color in spots of a few rods, such 

 spots also being gravelly and loose, although a little elevated above the 

 rest ©f the surface. They appear not of the hard-pan type. Sometimes 

 Stones of a considerable size lie on the surface, but the most conspicuous 

 element of the surface soil at this point is the gravel stones, although 

 it also contains much sand. Wells pass through blue hard-pan below. 

 The surface features present apparently the effect of a retiring beach 

 line on the previously deposited hard-pan, the gravel resulting from the 

 consequent washing out of the fine clay. In other places there seems 

 to have been a tendency to accumulation ; there the lacustrine sand is 

 heaped up or spread out evenly. Here there seems to have been a ten- 

 dency to carry away, due to currents setting one way or the other. A 

 great many such places may be seen along the shores of Lake Huron, or 

 any of the great lakes, where the beach consists of aacumulating sand, 

 and where the bottom is sandy and soft for half a mile or more from the 

 shore, while in other places, perhaps at no great distance, the beach i's 

 gravelly and stony with materials of northern origin. This all depends 

 upon the slope of the coast line, and the direction of the prevailing winds 

 and currents. In the banks of Lick Creek the thickness of this loose 

 deposit is seen to be about three feet. It passes below into typical hard- 

 pan Drift. About half a mile west of Lick Creek is a little eminence, 

 having some of the aspects of a shoulder or bench, running north and 

 south. The soil also becomes less gravelly, having more the characters of 

 a hard-pan soil. A great deal of this lacustrine sand lies on the gravel 

 ridges in Highland and Richland townships. 



The ridges that cross Defiance county have been elsewhere named by 

 the writer (see The Drift in North-western Ohio) in the following way : That 

 which crosses Milford township, deflecting the St. Joseph River to Fort 

 Wayne, has been called the St. Mary's Ridge. It consists of a vast accu- 



