CHAPTER XXXVIIL. 
{ 
REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OF VAN WERT COUNTY. 
BY N. H. WINCHELL. 
SITUATION AND AREA. 
This county lies.on the Indiana border, three other counties interven- 
ing between it and the State of Michigan. Allen and Putnam counties 
he east, and Mercer south. Paulding county joins it on the north. It 
contains 258,592 acres, of which 51,142 are denominated arable or plow 
land, 21,042 meadow or pasture land, and 186,408 uncultivated or wood 
land. The average value per acre is $11.15, or, including buildings, 
$11.87. The county forms nearly a square. It has a projection in the 
middle of the east side including half a town. | 
NATURAL DRAINAGE. 
The surface drainage consists in a number of gentle, small streams 
that flow north-easterly, joining the Auglaize River in Putnam and 
Paulding counties. There are several large, uncultivated prairies, or 
marshes, which are subject to inundation in spring time. These give 
rise to some of these small drainage streams. 
SURFACE FEATURES. 
By saying the county is flat the general character of the surface is ex- 
pressed. It lies in the Black Swamp, the features of which have been 
already described in reports on other counties, and in a former chapter , 
devoted to the Drift in north-western Ohio. In the south-west corner 
this county is crossed by the St. Mary’s River, which brings into that 
part of the county a few miles of the more undulating surface charac- 
terizing the St. Mary’s ridge. Through the center of the county, in a 
north-west and south-east course, runs the gravelly Van Wert ridge. 
North of this ridge there is no variety of surface whatever. There isa 
gentle, very regular descent, sometimes hardly enough to sufficiently 
drain the land for easy agriculture, from this ridge to the north line of 
the county, and beyond to the Auglaize River. 
