DEFIANCE COUNTY. A31 
and sometimes appears stratified. At Brunersburg it is confined to the 
west side of the creek, the east bank being high, and made up, near the 
top, of fine, laminated clay, but on the town line between Noble and 
Tiffin it extends about a mile east of the river, and is not distinguish- 
able from the lacustrine sand. West from Evansport the country is 
sandy for about two miles, when it begins to assume, and finally acquires 
entirely, the features of the Black Swamp. Continuing westward, there 
is no noticeable change till within about a mile and a half of Lick 
Creek, when a yellow color in the soil appears in occasional little mounds. 
These are followed by a slowly rising surface to Lick Creek. For a mile 
east of the creek the surface is quite gravelly and sandy, making, some- 
times, a fine loam, and sometimes a gravellyloam. This is, for the most 
part, black, but occasionally of a yellow color in spots of a few rods, such 
spots also being gravelly and loose, although a little elevated above the 
rest of the surface. They appear not of the hard-pan type. Sometimes 
stones of a considerable size lie on the surface, but the most conspicuous — 
element of the surface soil at this point is the gravel stones, although 
it also contains much sand. Wells pass through blue hard-pan below. 
The surface features present apparently the effect of a retiring beach 
line on the previously deposited hard-pan, the gravel resulting from the 
consequent washing out of the fine clay. In other places there seems 
to have been a tendency to accumulation ; there the lacustrine sand is 
heaped up or spread out evenly. Here there seems to have been a ten- 
dency to carry away, due to currents setting one way or the other. A 
great many such places may be seen along the shores of Lake Huron, or 
any of the great lakes, where the beach consists of aacumulating sand, 
and where the bottom is sandy and soft for half a mile or more from the 
shore, while in other places, perhaps at no great distance, the beach is 
gravelly and stony with materials of northern origin. This all depends 
upon the slope of the coast line, and the direction of the prevailing winds 
and currents. In the banks of Lick Creek the thickness of this loose 
deposit is seen to be about three feet. It passes below into typical hard- 
pan Drift.. About half a mile west of Lick Creek is a little eminence, 
having some of the aspects of a shoulder or bench, running north and > 
south. The soil also becomes less gravelly, having more the characters of 
a hard-pan soil. A great deal of this lacustrine sand lies on the gravel 
ridges in Highland and Richland townships. i 
The ridges that cross Defiance county have been elsewhere named by 
the writer (see The Drift in North-western Ohio) in the following way: That 
which crosses Milford township, deflecting the St. Joseph River to Fort 
Wayne, has been called the St. Mary’s Ridge. It consists of a vast accu- 
