OTTAWA COUNTY. 229 
early -as the farmer requires. Elm, cottonwood, sycamore, oak, ash, 
beech, hickory, and maple, with some black walnut, are the principal 
forest trees. The whole county was originally densely wooded. 
2 
GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. 
Owing to the uniform spreading of Drift deposits, the boundaries of 
the different formations can be certainly located in but few places. 
There are sufficient outcrops of rock to determine the sequence of the 
formations, and furnish a basis for a geological map, but the location of 
their boundaries throughout the most of the county is somewhat conject- 
ural. 
The Niagara limestone occupies a narrow belt of country north and south 
through the western part of the county, widening toward the east in the 
township of Harris, its eastern boundary crossing the Portage about a 
mile east of Elmore, and leaving the county in section 22 (Harris). Its 
western boundary runs nearly north and south within about two miles 
of the western county line, bending to the east at Genoa so as almost to 
join the eastern boundary line. It leaves the county 8. W. 4, section 4 
(Clay). The Niagara also forms an anticlinal axis by outcropping in 
the south-eastern part of the township of Benton. It probably occupies 
most of the area in the townships of Carroll, Salem, Erie, and Bay, 
although no outcrops have been seen in that part of the county. The 
principal exposures of the Niagara are at Genoa, in Clay township. In 
addition to the natural ridges from which the Drift deposits have been 
denuded so as to show the rock over considerable areas, it has been opened 
in several quarries. William Habbeler has opened the Niagara to the 
* depth of about six feet. An opening, known as Woodbury’s quarry, half 
a mile north of the village, also shows six feet of the Niagara limestone. 
Besides these, the quarries of Mr. Frank Holt, one mile north of Genoa, 
those in the Jackson Ridge, N. W. 4, section 28, and of Charles Sawyer 
& Co., §. H. 4, section 16, Clay township, are in the Niagara. Those 
of Messrs. Newman and Ford, and of Wyman and Gregg, less than a 
quarter of a mile east of the village, are in the Waterlime which over- 
lies the Niagara. These quarries are all for the purpose of the manufac- 
ture of quicklime, the stone not being adapted to any other use. The 
Niagara here has that phase which, by the geologists of Canada, has been 
named the Guelph, and is believed to constitute its highest member. 
Observations made in counties further south go to show that this litho- 
logical aspect of the Niagara is not horizontally continuous, but is liable 
to occur at other altitudes in the formation. The rock here is loose- 
