CHAPTER LI. 

 REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OP WASHINGTON COUNTY. 



This county is situated upon the Ohio River, the river constituting its 

 southern and eastern boundary. It is bounded on the north by the coun- 

 ties of Monroe, Noble, and Morgan, and on the west by Morgan and 

 Athens. It is divided into two proximately equal parts by the Mus- 

 kingum River, which, entering the county in the north-west corner, 

 flows, with many windings, in a general south-east direction, and enters 

 the Ohio at Marietta. 



The length of the Ohio River along the southern and eastern border of 

 Washington county is very nearly fifty-four miles. In this distance the 

 stream falls thirty-two feet, giving an average fall of about seven inches 

 per mile. But this fall is not evenly distributed through the whole dis- 

 tance, for the river consists of a series of alternating pools and shallows, 

 and in the latter the chief fall is found. According to the Government 

 surveys, there are in the aggregate about twenty-four miles of pools, in 

 which the water is seven feet or more deep. The remaining thirty miles 

 are made up of comparative shallows and ripples. 



It appears to be the law of all streams of much length to form for 

 themselves an uneven bed. This would be so if flowing upon rock beds, 

 if the strata were of unequal hardness; and this is always the case when 

 flowing in alluvial beds. To change the natural character of the cur- 

 rent of the Ohio so as to give a proximate uniformity of depth in low- 

 water seasons, is a problem of the highest importance to the commercial 

 interests of the West. 



The elevation of the Ohio above tide-water at the upper end of the 

 county, one and one-fourth miles above Matamoras, is 588.3 feet, and the 

 elevation where the river leaves the county at the lowest point of Belpre 

 is 556.3 feet. If we take the survey for the New York and Erie Canal, 

 the elevation of Lake Erie is 565 feet above tide-water. This determina- 

 tion may properly be preferred over railroad surveys, since, generally, 

 surveys for canals are made with more minute accuracy than railroad 

 surveys. 



The point on the Ohio where the elevation is 565 feet above tide- 



