ROSS ' COUNTY. 647 



dent ocean. The few square feet exposed in the bank opposite Ferneau's 

 Mill have already yielded a new crinoid belonging the genus Melocrinut 

 and described by Prof. Whitfield in Vol. II. of the Ohio Palaeontology ; a 

 t^itaculite, identified by Prof. Whitfield as Tentaculites fissurella, and 

 which is found at the east in the Marcellus slate ; and several obscure 

 and undetermined corals. Vegetable remains are also sometimes met 

 with in the same locality. A calamite, several feet in length, was found 

 at the center of a large concretion, and a prostrate tree,' the bark of 

 which had been converted into coal, was traced by Mr. Bergen, assistant 

 in the survey of the county, for thirty feet over an exposed layer of 

 shale. 



This field is commended to the attention of local geologists as well 

 worthy of careful exploration. Such an exploration is almost sure to be 

 rewarded by the discovery of new species of fossils. 



The exposures of the slates along the course of Paint Creek are unsur- 

 passed. The whole series, except fifty or sixty feet of the lowermost 

 beds, is shown in two nearly vertical sections — the first one occurring at 

 the well-known locality, Copperas Mountain, and the second at the 

 equally well-known but less accessible locality, the Alum Cliffs. Cop- 

 peras Mountain is situated three miles east of Bainbridge. The Alum 

 Cliffs are five miles due west of Chillicothe. 



Paint Creek washes with the full force of its current the foot of the 

 slate hill known as Copperas Mountain, and thus secures a constant ex- 

 posure of the formation in a nearly vertical wall one hundred and fifty 

 feet in height. The hill rises to a height of five hundred and fifty feet, 

 so that the whole thickness of the slates is contained in it, and much be- 

 sides ; but the uppermost one hundred and twenty-five feet of the forma- 

 tion are not shown as distinctly as the lower portions. 



At the Alum Gliffs section, which is the new valley of Paint Creek, to 

 which reference has already been made, the uppermost beds are shown in 

 a wall very nearly vertical to an extent at least of one hundred feet. 

 The Huron shales are here covered by the Waverly shales and the Wa- 

 verly quarries, and the section is for the most part closed by the Waverly 

 black slates. The upper beds of the division are shown with great dis- 

 tinctness within the limits of the city of Chillicothe, and upon all sides 



of it. 



The concretions by which the Huron shales are every where character- 

 ized occur mainly in the lowermost one hundred feet. Many of them 

 possess remarkable symmetry. The smaller ones frequently consist of 

 sulphuret of iron. The larger ones have either organic or crystalline 

 nuclei, and in far the larger number of instances the latter. 



