WASHINGTON COUNTY. 501 



coal is of no value, but it indicates the horizon of a seam which in Bel- 

 mont county is worked. The general dip of the strata is to the south in 

 this township, but there are undulations which often vary the direction. 

 The dip is sometimes forty to fifty feet per mile. 



NEWPORT TOWNSHIP. 



This township lies upon the Ohio River, having Marietta township on 

 the west, and bordering Lawrence and Independence townships on the 

 north. It has a long distance of frontage upon the Ohio, and, conse- 

 quently, contains a large area of the rich alluvial and terrace land of the 

 immediate valley. The Little Muskingum flows for two miles and a half 

 through the extreme north-western corner, and a considerable area of 

 the western part of the. township is drained by Eight-Mile Run and Long 

 Run, both branches of that river. There are several small streams flow- 

 ing into the Ohio, of whiqh, perhaps, the more important are Bell's, New- 

 ell's, and Dana's runs. The dividing ridge between the Ohio and Little 

 Muskingum is high, and the sides are often furrowed with ravines of 

 very steep banks, and of rapidly increasing depth. The small streams 

 in these ravines are slowly eating away the ridge. 



A mile back of Newport village is an interesting depression, extending 

 like a chord across the are formed by the curve of the Ohio. During the 

 era of the high water of the Drift period the river, or a portion of it, flowed 

 through this depression, and deposited Drift sand and gravel. The hill 

 to the south once constituted an island. The river now flows on a rock 

 bed. 



The western part of the township shows little of interest in its geologi- 

 cal structure. The hills are composed largely of shales and sandstones, 

 and belong to a series above the horizon of the Pomeroy and Cumberland 

 seams of coal. The Hobson seam should be in the hills, but it is doubt- 

 less thin. The most remarkable feature in the geology of the township 

 is what is termed the NewelPs Run uplift, a continuation of the great 

 West Virginia uplift. I first called the attention of geologists and others 

 to this line of uplift in an article in the American Journal of Science, July, 

 1860, having traced on foot the line, across valleys and over ridges, from 

 Burning Spring, Wirt county, West Virginia, north into Newport town- 

 ship, Ohio. It was found to be a line of gas springs, oil springs, and of 

 the few wells at that time obtained. Since that time valuable oil wells 

 have been found at many places within, but none without, this so-called 

 "break." This anticlinal, toward the north, becomes a broad and flat- 

 tened arch, and gradually dies away. The same is true, as I have been 

 informed by General A. J. Warner, of Marietta, to the south, beyond 

 Burning Spring, on the Little Kanawha River. The center of the uplift 



