WASHINGTON COUNTY. 501 
coal is of no value, but it indicates the horizon of a seam which in Bel- 
mont county is worked. The general dip of the strata is to the south in 
this township, but there are undulations which often vary the direction. 
The dip is sometimes forty to fifty feet per mile. 
NEWPORT TOWNSHIP. 
This township lies upon the Ohio River, having Marietta township on 
the west, and bordering Lawrence and Independence townships on the 
north. It has a long distance of frontage upon the Ohio, and, conse- 
quently, contains a large area of the rich alluvial and terrace land of the 
immediate valley. The Little Muskingum flows for two miles and a half 
through the extreme north-western corner, and a considerable area of 
the western part of the township is drained by Hight-Mile Run and Long 
Run, both branches of that river. There are several small streams flow- 
ing into the Ohio, of which, perhaps, the more important are Bell’s, New- 
ell’s, and Dana’s runs. The dividing ridge between the Ohio and Little 
Muskingum is high, and the sides are often furrowed with ravines of 
very steep banks, and of rapidly increasing depth. The small streams 
in these ravines are slowly eating away the ridge. 
A mile back of Newport village is an interesting depression, extending 
like a chord across the arc formed by the curve of the Ohio. During the 
era of the high water of the Drift period the river, or a portion of it, flowed 
through this depression, and deposited Drift sand and gravel. The hill 
to the south once constituted an island. The river now flows on a rock 
bed. 
The western part of the township shows little of interest in its geologi- 
cal structure. The hills are composed largely of shales and sandstones, 
and belong to a series above the horizon of the Pomeroy and Cumberland 
seams of coal. The Hobson seam should be in the hills, but it is doubt- 
less thin. The most remarkable feature in the geology of the township 
is what is termed the Newell’s Run uplift, a continuation of the great 
West Virginia uplift. I first called the attention of geologists and others 
to this line of uplift in an article in the American Journal of Science, July, 
1860, having traced on foot the line, across valleys and over ridges, from 
Burning Spring, Wirt county, West Virginia, north into Newport town- 
ship, Ohio. It was found to be a line of gas springs, oil springs, and of 
the few wells at that time obtained. Since that time valuable oil wells 
have been found at many places within, but none without, this so-called 
*“‘break.” This anticlinal, toward the north, becomes a broad and flat- 
tened arch, and gradually dies away. The same is true, as I have been 
informed by General A. J. Warner, of Marietta, to the south, beyond 
Burning Spring, on the Little Kanawha River. The center of the uplift 
