640 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



contained renders it improbable that the use of these waters can do 

 much harm. 



There are several springs of unusual volume in this district. The most 

 notable is one well known through the whole Sunfish valley as the " Big 

 Spring," or "Campbell's Spring." It is without doubt the largest spring 

 in south-western Ohio. It is universally believed in the neighborhood, 

 and, apparently, on good grounds, that a mountain stream called "Dry- 

 bone," which disappears abruptly from its bed two miles to the westward, 

 emerges again as Campbell's Spring, its waters having been cooled, clari- 

 fied, and re-enforced by their subterranean journey. It is claimed that 

 the water has been tracked through the mountain that intervenes by 

 bran or chaff, which was thrown into the stream, and which was found 

 again in the spring. There is reason to believe that the spring has more 

 than one principal source. 



An attempt was made a year or two since to utilize this strong and 

 steady stream of water by making it turn a mill-wheel. To secure the 

 necessary "head," a heavy wall was laid in cement around the spring; 

 but the water rose only four or five feet before it burst out from the side 

 of the mountain a few rods to the northward of its old point of emerg- 

 ence, thus rendering the enterprise fruitless. 



2. No valuable springs occur in the black slate series. Indeed, there 

 is. no geological formation in the State that furnishes water of as poor 

 quality and. in as inadequate supply as this. "Seeps" rather than 

 springs occur at infrequent intervals in its outcrops, but the water is 



• mineralized to such an extent as to be unfit for use by man or beast. 

 Wells are, in like manner, impossible or unprofitable in this formation, 

 the quantity or quality of the supply, or both, being objectionable. 



3. The frequent courses of shale that occur in the Waverly series 

 prevent water from entering or passing through it to any great extent; 

 and this great division of the rocks of the county must, therefore, as a 

 whole, be set down as poor in water-supply. Where some of the sand- 

 stone strata — as, for example, the Waverly quarry courses — are exposed 

 for any considerable area, springs of pure water mark the outcrop of the 

 first underlying seam of shale; but there is no considerable line of 

 springs to be referred to this horizon, nor, indeed, to any other horizon in 

 all of the series. -What few springs occur are generally of fair quality, 

 but of light volume, and, for the most part, fail during the heat of sum- 

 mer. 



The Waverly table-lands, of which extended mention has been made, 

 are especially defective in natural water-supply. The weathered prod- 

 ucts of their rocky floor generally form a compact and fine-grained clay 



