THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 109 
wanting. In Richland county the horizon of the Conglomerate passes 
through all the highlands of the “‘ Loudonville hills,” but the rock itself 
is often absent; sandstone No. 1 of the Coal Measures cutting out both 
the Lower Coal and Conglomerate, and resting directly on the Waverly. 
Both the absent members of the series were perhaps, and even probably, 
deposited here, and were subsequently swept away by the agent that 
brought the sand that now composes sandstone No. 1. This is not cer- 
tain, however, as the highlands of Richland county apparently form the 
crown of one of the several arches of strata that traverse the State im- 
perfectly parallel with the Alleghanies, and hence have always been 
relatively highlands; and it is quite possible that neither the Conglom- 
erate nor Coal No. 1 was deposited over them. In Richland county the 
Waverly contains heavy beds of Conglomerate which have much the 
character of the Carboniferous conglomerate, and have been often mis- 
taken for it. These are to be seen at Richland Station, and at various 
other points, even as far west as Mt. Gilead, in Morrow county. From 
Holmes county to the Ohio the Conglomerate forms an interrupted line 
of outcrop skirting the margin of the Coal Measures. Throughout this 
interval it is rarely more than twenty-five feet thick when found, and in 
many places it is scarcely perceptible. In Jackson county, however, it 
resumes its importance, and attains a thickness of one hundred feet. 
The exaggerated estimates which have been published of the develop- 
ment of the Conglomerate along its southern line of outcrop are due to 
the fact that the Waverly conglomerate attains unusual force in this re- 
gion, and all its exposures have been credited to the overlying rock. 
In speaking of the origin of the materials of the Conglomerate, I have 
referred to the balls of chert with Carboniferous fossils which it contains 
in Holmes county, and have suggested that the Lower Carboniferous 
limestone may have once existed in northern Ohio. This supposition is 
rendered probable by the relations which we find to exist between the 
Conglomerate and limestone in southern Ohio. There the latter rock 
seems to lie in patches, which were without doubt formerly connected, 
but the connections have been severed by the agencies that distributed 
the Conglomerate. 
Though generally forming a very distinctly marked geological horizon, 
and entirely separated from the associated rocks, the Conglomerate in 
some places is more or less interstratified with the Coal Measures above 
and the Waverly beneath. In the northern part of Portage and Geauga 
counties it is difficult to draw the line between the Coal Measures and 
the Conglomerate, as the point of junction is formed by beds of passage ; 
thin bands of conglomerate alternating with layers of shale containing 
