WASHINGTON COUNTY. 455 
The northern tributaries of the Muskingum within the county are all 
small. Bear Creek, Cat’s Creek, and Big Run are the chief, and drain 
Adams and the western part of Salem township. On the western and 
southern side of the Muskingum its principal tributaries are two—Rain- 
bow Creek and Wolf Creek; the former flowing eastward, and entering 
the Muskingum in Muskingum township, and the latter, with its several 
branches, flowing northward, and draining Watertown, Palmer, Wesley, 
and the northern portions of Fairfield, Barlow, and Warren, and small 
parts of some other adjacent townships. The slope drained by the 
waters of Wolf Creek, in this county, is proximately a north-western one, 
and directly opposite the general slope of southern Ohio. 
In the south-western part of the county is the Little Hocking River, 
the east branch of which rises in the southern part of Warren, just back 
of the Ohio River hills, and flows south-westerly through Dunham and 
Belpre, to unite with the west branch in the extreme western part of 
the latter township. The west branch drains the southern part of Fair- 
field and Decatur, flowing in a general south-easterly direction toward 
the Ohio River. 
Thus it will be seen that the county presents a great variety of surface 
slopes. In the eastern half of the county the slope is south-western and 
southern, while in the western, 7. e., west of the Muskingum, it is chiefly 
northern and south-western. While the general drainage of south-east- 
ern Ohio is to the south-east, the large streams, like the Muskingum and 
Hocking, flowing ina direction proximately at right angles to the direc- 
tion of the Ohio, yet in Washington county we have almost every va- 
riety of direction. 
What originally determined the flow of streams in these different ce 
rections it is impossible now to determine. In some parts of the State 
the dip of the strata determines the direction of drainage, but this can 
not be the case to any large extent in Washington connty. 
- Hast of the Muskingum River the rocks show many undulations of 
dip, with some well-marked uplifts, such as those on Newell’s Run and 
Cow Run; but these original elevations have not served to deflect the di- | 
rection of streams. Cow Run has cut its valley directly through the 
Cow Run uplift from east to west, and Newell’s Run has singularly 
enough eroded its valley longitudinally in the very axis of the Newell’s 
Run uplift. Similar facts appear in West Virginia, where, in the south- 
ern continuation of the Newell’s Run uplift, the erosion has removed 
many hundreds of feet from the top of the anticlinal, and the present 
streams cut through it in all direetions. 
If it is remembered that the area now constituting Washington county 
