684 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



New Jasper, Silver Creek, and Jefferson townships. Each of these divi- 

 sions will be briefly considered. 



1. The soils of the first division are principally confined to the main 

 valleys of the county, viz., to the Little Miami, Mad River, and Beaver 

 valleys, but some of the minor streams have bottom lands of limited ex- 

 tent. 



There is a notable difference in constitution between the first and sec- 

 ond bottoms, the former being strictly alluvial in character and receiv- 

 ing fresh accessions of matter with every flood, while the second bottoms 

 are gravel terraces, the surfaces of which have been transformed into 

 soils according to the processes described above. The latter areas consti- 

 tute the most attractive, but not, perhaps, the most durable, farming lands 

 of the county. The Oldtown flats may be taken as one of the very best 

 examples of this class. We know that portions of this beautiful plain 

 were the favorite corn-grounds of the Indians before the occupation of the 

 country by the whites, to say nothing of the still earlier tenure of the 

 mound-builders, whose works abound in this neighborhood. Since the 

 occupation of the country by civilized man, the whole area has been 

 constantly under the plow. There are large parts of it which have not 

 failed for at least fifty consecutive years to produce a crop either of corn 

 or wheat, without any application of manure or fertilizers. No charge 

 can be made against this particular area as lacking in durability, for the 

 average production is still very good, but other tracts of equal original 

 fertility show themselves now to be in a state of incipient exhaustion. 

 It is a disgraceful system of farming that brings lands like these to such 

 a state within fifty years of the time when they were covered with pri- 

 meval forests. 



The first bottoms are sometimes so largely calcareous as to become par- 

 tially unfitted to act as soils. Among other defects is this, that they are 

 unable to withstand ordinary summer droughts. They are generally 

 covered, however, with forest trees when in a state of nature, and when 

 cleared they furnish pasturage for the spring and early summer. 



Analyses are furnished of two soils and one subsoil belonging to this 

 division. It so happens that all of the following examples were derived 

 from Clarke county : * 



Analysis No. 1 is of the Mad River bottoms of John Snyder, Esq., of 

 Springfield. They were originally covered with the ordinary forest 



* It is a matter of regret that the work of the chemist was arrested before he had 

 completed the analysis of an equally interesting series of specimens from Greene 

 county, the want of which impairs the value of this portion of the report. 



