le 
MORROW COUNTY. 271 
and gas for which it is noted both in Ohio and Virginia, as well as in 
Pennsylvania. There are no productive oil or gas wells in Morrow 
county, but there is much reason to suppose the formation which supplies 
them in other places is equally charged with these mineral products in 
this county. Many copious gas jets have been struck in the area of the 
slate in digging common wells. In one case, near West Liberty, the dis- 
charge was so sudden and so great that the laborers were greatly in 
danger of suffocation. An associate who descended thoughtlessly to aid 
those overpowered lost his lite. A passing stranger being summoned, he 
in like manner was overcome, and died before he could be rescued. 
Those who were in the well in the first place were finally raised and 
resuscitated. Other similar gas streams have been encountered in other 
parts of the slate area. Sometimes the water in wells shows a constant 
slow escape through it of gas in the form of bubbles, indicating a con- 
tinuous discharge of this substance from the black slate throughout the 
Drift. This subject has been fully discussed by Dr. Newberry in the first 
volume of the final report. 
The chief material resource of Morrow county les in the rich and 
varied soil with which it is furnished. It is necessarily an agricultural 
county, rather than a mining or manufacturing county. It partakes 
largely of the prominent features that are common to the most of north- 
western and northern Ohio, yet it has not that flatness of surface and 
sameness of agricultural capacity witnessed in the counties included in 
the “lacustrine area,” or even in those of the extensive tract in north- 
western Ohio known as the Black Swamp. It is just south of the great 
watershed, or rather lies on its broad summit, just far enough south to 
have a slow drainage into the Ohio river. Its soil depends almost en- 
tirely on the northern Drift, and not on the character of the underlying 
rock. 
