4()2- GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
easily burned. The quarries which have been opened in it have not 
been systematically prosecuted, a fact which has served not only to re- 
duce the derivable income, but also to discourage others from similar in- 
dustry. Where the overlying Waterlime occurs in thick beds it could 
be profitably worked, but there are no considerable openings in such 
beds within the county. The formation is chiefly wrought in its thinner, 
blue layers, owing to the evenness of the stone, and the ease with which 
it can be obtained. Much of this kind of stone is used for flagging at 
Lima, Bluffton, and Delphos. Some of the best quarries are located at 
Lima, and afford also a handsome stone for walls and foundations. The 
quicklime made from the Waterlime at Lima not only supplies the 
local demand, but is used in the surrounding country. The product of a 
single firm, Delzall and Overmeyer, amounts to about twenty thousand 
bushels per year. Other kilns would increase the annual product of 
quicklime to at least thirty-five thousand bushels. In the summer of 
1871 the retail price per bushel was twenty-five cents. In wholesale 
- amounts the price of lime delivered on the cars was twenty-two cents 
per bushel. In the eastern part of the county gravel for roads and 
sand for mortar’are not uncommon in the knolls and short ridges of the 
rolling tracts. Clay, also, suitable for red brick and pottery, is abundant 
in all parts of the county. There are, probably, but few square miles, if 
any, within the county from which good brick could not be manufac- 
tured—a statement which is equally applicable to most of the Fourth 
District of the State. Brick-yards are met with at the following points, 
the clay being taken from surface of Drift: 
S. EH. $ section 24, Marion township, Richard Evans; Beaver Dam, sec- 
‘tion 29, Richland township, Rich and Lewis; Bluffton, Dr. H. P. Haton; — 
Bluffton, Lewis and Baker; Lima, John P. Haller; Lima, Lewis Gott- 
fried; Delphos, Joseph Fetter. 
Wells and Springs.— Wells for domestic and farm-yard purposes usually 
find water in the Drift deposit. Such water most frequently springs 
from the gravel or sand reservoirs embraced within the Drift, or lying 
between the hard-pan and the rock. In the eastern portion of the 
county, in rolling or undulating areas, such gravel deposits are usually 
met before penetrating to the bottom of the Drift; but in the western 
part, where the country is flat, the only gravel bed which supplies water 
seems to be on or near the bed-rock. Wells, however, on the Van Wert 
Ridge, in the northern part of Marion township, reach good water at ten 
or twenty feet, in gravel which lies above the great mass of the Drift. 
A short distance either side of this ridge wells have to be dug much 
deeper. 
