WASHINGTON COUNTY. 455 



The northern tributaries of the Muskingum within the county are all 

 small. Bear Creek, Cat's Creek, and Big Run are the chief, and drain 

 Adams and the western part of Salem township. On the western and 

 southern side of the Muskingum its principal tributaries are two — Rain- 

 bow Creek and Wolf Creek ; the former flowing eastward, and entering 

 the Muskingum in Muskingum township, and the latter, with its several 

 branches, flowing northward, and draining Watertown, Palmer, Wesley, 

 and the northern portions of Fairfield, Barlow, and Warren, and small 

 parts of some other adjacent townships. The slope drained by the 

 waters of Wolf Creek, in this county, is proximately a north-western one, 

 and directly opposite the general slope of southern Ohio. 



In the south-western part of the county is the Little Hocking River, 

 the east branch of which rises in the southern part of Warren, just back 

 of the Ohio River hills, and flows south-westerly through Dunham and 

 Belpre, to unite with the west branch in the extreme western part of 

 the latter township. The west branch drains the southern part of Fair- 

 field and Decatur, flowing in a general south-easterly direction toward 

 the Ohio River. 



Thus it will be seen that the county presents a great variety of surface 

 slopes. In the eastern half of the county the slope is south-western and 

 southern, while in the western, i. e., west of the Muskingum, it is chiefly 

 northern and south-western. While the general drainage of south-east- 

 ern Ohio is to the south-east, the large streams, like the Muskingum and 

 Hocking, flowing in a direction proximately at right angles to the direc- 

 tion of, the Ohio, yet in Washington county we have almost every va- 

 riety of direction. 



What originally determined the flow of streams in these different di- 

 rections it is impossible now to determine. In some parts of the State 

 the dip of the strata determines the direction of drainage, but this can 

 not be the case to any. large extent in Washington county. 



East of the Muskingum River the rocks show many undulations of 

 dip, with some well-marked uplifts, such as those on Newell's Run and 

 Cow Run ; but these original elevations have not served to deflect the di- 

 rection of streams. Cow Run has cut its valley directly through the 

 Cow Run uplift from east to west, and Newell's Run has singularly 

 enough eroded its valley longitudinally in the very axis of the Newell's 

 Run uplift. Similar facts appear in West Virginia, where, in the south- 

 ern continuation of the Newell's Run uplift, the erosion has removed 

 many hundreds of feet from the top of the anticlinal, and the present 

 streams cut through it in all direetions. 



If it is remembered that the area now constituting Washington county 



