340 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



des, have been planed down to the level of third-rate moun- 

 tains, and the dust and rubbish scraped from their worn 

 heads has been deposited in the troughs between the ridges, 

 or strewn along the coast to form the foundations of the 

 Atlantic States. 



The city of Cincinnati stands upon the exposed core of 

 the broadest and most westerly of these Appalachian folds. 

 The rocky wrappings of this axis have been planed down 

 from the summit till the Carboniferous, Devonian, Upper 

 Silurian, and Lower Silurian strata have been successively 

 reached, and these superincumbent layers tilt in all direc- 

 tions from the summit of the arch. The graves of encri- 

 nites and brachiopods, that had lain undisturbed for untold 

 geological cycles, buried a thousand feet beneath ocean- 

 slime and careering waves, and, at a later period, beneath 

 the roots of Carboniferous tree-ferns and the mire of steam- 

 ing jungles — graves of populous nations of the olden time 

 — were uncovered and plowed from their locations, and 

 crumbling skeletons were strewn over the area of three 

 states. So the spirit of modern improvement sometimes 

 lays its remorseless hand on the cemeteries of man, and 

 sunlight falls again upon relics that had once been laid 

 away with sacred care. What veneration fills the mind 

 of the geologist as he walks over this waste of the Silurian 

 burial-vaults. The Ohio has plowed its way through the 

 buried city, and a city of the living has been reared upon 

 the bones of the dead. The native ramparts which wall 

 in the Queen City upon every side are but the broken tiers 

 of vaults in this ancient cemetery. The area of this dese- 

 cration extends to Madison and Richmond in Indiana, and 

 to Danville and Richmond in Kentucky. Throughout this 

 entire extent of country the once superincumbent forma- 

 tions have been swept away, and the material wrought into 

 the structure of formations of later date. 



