618 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



where it was found, either by accident or design, and that it was in no- 

 wise a product of the rocks of Pike county. 



Occasional seams of clay are to be seen in the series, but they do not 

 seem to be of great horizontal extent, as they constitute but weak water- 

 bearers for the localities where they are found. The shales weather 

 quite rapidly, when exposed to atmospheric agencies, into clays similar 

 to the bedded clay already mentioned. 



No fossils besides the obscure ones already noticed in connection with 

 the concretions have been found in the Huron shales within the limits 

 of Pike county. 



The soils derived from the shales are thin and comparatively unpro- 

 ductive. The water-supply will be treated in a subsequent part of this 

 report, in connection with the same line of facts as derived from the 

 other formations of the county. 



The bituminous matter, to which the color of the shales is due, varies 

 in propoition between eight and fifteen per cent. There is enough of it, 

 however, to render the shales liable to take fire under favorable condi- 

 tions. Seldom a summer goes by without some case of this sort occur- 

 ring. These fires last for days, weeks, or even months; and in Camp 

 Creek 'township, half a mile above the mouth of the stream from which 

 the township is named, a slate hill was on fire for more than three years. 



The products of the combustion of the shales are red clays, which 

 served in early times as pigments for the aborigines. The red banks, 

 from which Paint Creek derived its name, probably owe their origin to 

 such agencies, though it must be added that the oxidation of the sul- 

 phuxet of iron with which the shales are heavily charged often imparts 

 to the outcrop this same red color. 



3. We come now to the great system of Sub-Carboniferous shales and 

 sandstones, which has its typical exposures in Pike county. It derives 

 its name, indeed, from Waverly, the county seat. It appears that the 

 town itself was so named by a land surveyor. of the Scioto valley, about 

 the time that the remarkable series of novels known as the Waverley 

 Novels were in course of publication. It is unfortunate that, in its ap- 

 plication to the village, the spelling of the name should have been 

 changed, an e having been omitted from the final syllable. As it is, the 

 name marks one of the few points of connection between geology and 

 literature. This designation was first attached to the series under con- 

 sideration by the geologists of the former Survey, the stone quarries of this 

 group of locks being even at that time very well known through the State. 

 The use of Waverly stone for the construction of the Ohio Penitentiary 

 .at Columbus, and for many other buildings in this city, and its distri- 



