l~he Ohio ^ACatiiralist, 
PUBLISHED BY 
The Biological Club of ihe Ohio State University. 
Volume IV. FEBRUARY, 1904. No. 4. 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Wells— The Topography mid Geology of Clifton Gorge 75 
IvEi.LEioi.iN — Index to Uredineou.s Culture Experiments with List of Specie.s and 
Hosts for North America 78 
SciiAFFNER— Some Morphological Peculiarities of the Nympliaeaccao and Hcliohae.. 83 
OsiioKX — Note on Alate Form of ITiylioscclis 93 
Sanders— Tlirec New Scale Insects from Oliio 04 
ColiF.RLV— Meeting of tlie Biological Club 08 
THE TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF 
CLIFTON GORGE. 
W. E. Wells. 
This gorge is located in Greene count}", Ohio, about two miles 
from the town of Yellow Springs. It is made b}- the headwaters 
of the Little Aliami river. 
The beauty of the gorge is not surpas.sed by anything of a like 
nature in the State. It has been visited by thousands of plea.sure- 
.seekers from all the surrounding country, especially from the 
near-by cities of Dayton, Springfield and Xenia. Neither is this 
remarkable gorge unknown to the scientists of this and other 
states. In the gorge are found two quite rare plant-s — Ground 
Hemlock (Taxus canadensis), found nowhere else in the county, 
and xAsplenium ruta-muraria, found nowhere else in the State. 
The origin of the gorge seems to be as follows : The head- 
waters of the Little Miami flow with an apparently gentle slope 
over the glacial drift, for some distance. At the town of Clifton, 
however, the drift thins out and the Niagara limestone comes to 
the surface. At the same time the slope increases, with the 
natural result that the river has hewn for itself a deep bed in the 
.solid rock. This deep bed is the gorge. 
At its beginning the gorge is very narrow, having an average 
width of about 40 feet. The average depth here is 34 feet. 
But as the stream proceeds the valley gradually widens. This 
is due to the fact that the Springfield division of the Niagara 
has been more easily eroded than the Cedarville division just 
above it ; so that from time to time the latter has broken off. 
In proof of this we find the valley floor strewn with rock 
masses, most of them moss-covered, some of the largest with 
