Septembek 18, 1885.] 



SCIENCE 



257 



and its execution, we can have nothing but 

 praise. Dr. Bolton has laid the scientific men 

 of the whole world under a deep debt of grati- 

 tude ; while those who really know the severity 

 of the task he has so faithfully accomplished, 

 will be forced to acknowledge that painstaking 

 is not confined to German}-. 



THE FIFTH VOLUME OF OHIO GEOL- 

 OGY. 



The fifth volume of the Ohio state geologi- 

 cal report, crammed almost to bursting with 

 extremely valuable information, up to more 

 than eleven hundred pages of wretchedly thin 

 paper, poor printing, and coarse illustrations 

 and maps, puts us in doubt which to wonder 

 at most, — the unenlightened niggardliness of 

 the great wealthy pork-raising state of Ohio, 

 or the intelligent, generous zeal of its few 

 geologists. The}-, indeed, have evidently been 

 urged on by self-sacrificing devotion to learn- 

 ing, and, far beyond what could have been 

 expected from the petty means given them, 

 have filled their measure to overflowing with 

 knowledge that is either immediately and ob- 

 viously useful, or of less direct, but wider, 

 more manifold, and of more lasting utilit3^ 



About seven hundred pages of the report, 

 themselves enough for a bulky tome, are the 

 work of the able state geologist. Professor Ed- 

 ward Orton, done "in conjunction with the 

 duties of his professorship at the state univer- 

 sity ; " for, of course, the state could not afford 

 even to employ the chief of so important a sur- 

 vey on full time. He discusses in a hundred 

 and twent3--eight pages the stratigraphical or- 

 der of the lower coal-measures in Ohio ; in forty 

 pages, their coal-beds ; in three hundred and 

 fifty-two pages, the mines upon them, county 

 by county ; in sixty-five pages, the iron ores 

 of the state, geologically and geographically 

 considered ; and in sixty-five pages (collabo- 

 rating with Dr. G. W. Hawes), its building- 

 stones, especially the celebrated Berea grit. 

 He wisely avoids attempting to assign num- 

 bers to the different coal-beds, — an impracti- 

 cable or impossible task, since they thicken up 

 in so many places, or thin out and disappear, 

 — and adopts the local names already in use in 

 western Pennsylvania, where steeper valleys, 

 with less drift and more frequent exposures, 

 have earlier enabled the order and identifica- 

 tion of the beds to be correctly made out. He 

 maintains that the coal-beds never extended 

 much, if at all, beyond their present northern 

 boundary, and that the great basin gradually 



contracted by general elevation, and argues 

 that their thickest portions are confined to 

 their borders. He has to point out that more 

 careful survey's reduce the formerl}' supposed 

 extent of the workable coals. Rarely are there 

 more than one or two workable coal-beds at 

 any one spot ; and there is great loss of coal 

 from tenderness, impurity, or a poor roof or 

 floor, as well as from lack of proper care. He 

 shows (p. 263) that a considerable disturb- 

 ance occurred near the end of the lower coal- 

 measure period in Tuscarawas county. 



The state chemist, Prof. N. W. Lord, be- 

 sides twenty-eight pages on the chemical work 

 of the survey, including fifteen pages of tables 

 of analyses, contributes an admirable chapter 

 (a hundred and seventeen pages) on the iron 

 manufacture of the state, noticeable for the 

 extent to which raw bituminous coal is used, 

 and in the hanging-rock region for the amount 

 of charcoal-iron still made. In spite of some 

 deficiency in rhetoric (so apt, with language, 

 grammar, and logic generall}^, to be neglected 

 by scientific men, to their own immense disad- 

 vantage in respect of easy mental work as well 

 as to the discomfort of their readers) , he cer- 

 tainly has the root of the matter in him ; and 

 his thorough comprehension of the subject re- 

 sults in sound practical advice. Good sam- 

 pling gives much greater value to the analyses 

 than any in the previous volumes have. 



The state geologist's son, Mr. E. Orton, 

 jun., gives an excellent chapter (seventj^-nine 

 pages) on the clays and all their manufactures, 

 from common brick up to terra-cotta ; and one 

 (twenty-five pages) on the coals of Coshocton 

 county. The former state inspector of mines, 

 Hon. Andrew Roy, contributes a ver}- good 

 treatise (seventy pages) on the coal-mining of 

 the state, including some notice of the coal- 

 cutting machinery that is gradually coming 

 into use. He has, too, a dozen pages on the 

 coals of Jackson and Wellston. There are 

 also a very good chapter (twenty-two pages) 

 by Mr. H. Newton on coke-making ; one 

 (twentj^-eight pages) by Mr. E. McMilliu on 

 the gas-coals ; one by Prof. G. F. Wright 

 (twenty-three pages) on the glacial boundary-, 

 pointing out that it separates better soils on 

 the north from poorer ones on the south ; one 

 by Prof. A. A. Wright (twenty-seven pages) 

 on the coals of Holmes count}-, with the scales 

 of its numerous columnar sections, each care- 

 fully marked, — a convenience wanting to man}- 

 sections and maps in the other coal chapters ; 

 and one (twenty-nine pages) by Mr. C. N. 

 Brown on the Meigs-Creek coal of the upper 

 coal-measures, very full in local details. 



