SURFACE GEOLOGY. 71 
terraces are cut through by small streams from the hills to the south, and in the nar- 
row ravines the gold is obtained from the sand and clays. The terraces contain also 
bowlders of granitoid rocks, quartzite, and small pebbles of white quartz. Bowlders 
of limestone, containing fossils of the Niagara and Clinton group, were also found in 
the terraces. The quantity of gold is small, but in my own experiments nearly every 
panful of dirt showed the ‘color.’ Mr. Jacob Shock, jeweler, of Newark, reports 
finding gold in small fragments of quartz.”—Report of Progress, 1869. 
Prof. Orton also reports the finding of gold in the bowlder clay of 
south-western Ohio. He says: 
“Tt can be gathered in flakes from the surface of the clay and panned from the 
gravel derived from the clay. * * The total amount cannot be insignificant, but the 
percentage certainly runs very low. The working of beds of clay and gravel which 
have had such a history as our Drift formations as gold-bearing deposits, is, of course, 
preposterous, but just this has lately been attempted in Clermont county. <A few 
years since the ‘Clermont County Gold Mines’ attained a short-lived, neighborhood, 
and newspaper notoriety. One or two thousand dollars in cash, and more than this 
in labor, were expended in ill-judged schemes, without other results than bringing 
into circulation a few score dollars’ worth of Clermont county gold. * * From 
what has already been said, it will be seen that Clermont county has no monopoly of 
the gold-bearing formation of Ohio. This formation should be named the ‘Drift 
gold field,’ rather than the ‘Clermont county gold field.’ All of the counties of south- 
western Ohio certainly share in its treasures, and without doubt one locality is as 
good as another, where gravels are found that have been washed from the bowlder 
clay. The best results thus far known to have been obtained in gold-mining in Ohio 
are reported for Warren county, where in one day gold to the value of six dollars was’ 
obtained by an outlay of ten dollars; a half-dozen days’ work being also thrown in.” 
Prof. John Collett, in his report on the geology of Warren county, In- 
diana (Fifth Annual Report Geological Survey of Indiana, 1873, p. 224), 
speaks of the occurrence of gold in the Drift as follows: 
‘* At Gold Branch of Pine creek, north-west quarter section 23, township 22, range 8, 
on a gravel bar formed of the debris washed from the bowlder clay, a quantity of 
gold, reported at seventy dollars, was collected. An energetic Californian can pan 
out from one dollar to one dollar and a quarter per day at this and several other 
gravel bars in the county. An equal amount of labor expended at any ordinary ayo- 
cation will bring better returns.” 
The occurrence of gold in the Drift of Ohio should not be a matter of 
surprise, but it would rather be strange if it were not found here. It is 
well known that a large part of the materials composing the Drift is 
derived from the Canadian highlands. These are mainly formed of Lau- 
rentian rocks, which are every where traversed by auriferous quartz veins. 
