170 
E. R. Scheffel 
The Licking Rivers. Both the North and South Forks of the 
Licking river occupy in their lower ends mature valleys well filled 
with debris. In the northern part of the county the North Fork 
turns sharply to the west^ this portion formerly drainings accord- 
ing to Tight, directly to the Scioto System. At Newark the 
aggraded material reaches a maximum depth of 300 feet. This 
gives an altitude (above sea level) for the rock floor of about 500 
feet.^^ Toward the southern part of the county near Hebron the 
valley, though continuing very wide, becomes drift-choked. Drill- 
ings, one showing a drift filling of 341 feet in Liberty township, 
Fairfield county, strongly support Tight’s theory^^ that this valley 
was formerly continuous southwestward to the old Scioto drainage. 
It is noted west of Hebron also that the coarse sandstone capping 
the valley walls has been eroded much more than its equivalent 
the glass sand^® formation, constituting the walls of the east-flow- 
ing Licking of which the South Fork is a branch. The inference 
is that the present most southerly portion of the South Fork must 
represent an older active drainage than that of the present east- 
flowing Licking. At the present time the South Fork of the Lick- 
ing turns, just south of the county line, sharply north and west for 
its headwater drainage, becoming approximately parallel with the 
east-flowing streams before mentioned. The entire drainage of 
the North and South Forks and the Raccoon meets at Newark, 
passing eastward through a gorge-like valley narrower than the 
lower portion of any of these tributary valleys. This east-flowing 
stream, the Licking river, which receives nearly ail the eastern 
drainage of the county, also, after a turn southeast, empties into 
the Muskingum river at Zanesville, and thence its waters pass 
southeastward to the Ohio river. 
In the Licking System two points particularly may be noted: 
I. The long tributary streams come from the north and west. 
These are, following to the left a circle including all the more 
important, the Rocky Fork, the North Fork of the Licking, the 
Raccoon, and in general direction the South Fork of the Licking. 
Such an arrangement would result, according to Campbell’s the- 
ory, from a differential tilting toward the northwest or a difter- 
I 
A, 
\ 
1 
W. Go Tight: Bull. ScL Lab., Denison Univ., voL viii, pt. ii, p. 365 1894. 
p. 37. 
F. Carney and A. M. Brumback: Ohio Naturalist, voL viii, pp. 357-60, 1908. 
J 
