152 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
become of importance as a source of fuel. As fertilizers, however, the 
muck and shell marl, to which I have referred, will be of great practical 
value, especially on light and open soils, such as that which covers most 
of the county. It may be important, therefore, for the farmers who have 
patches of swamp upon their land to test them by boring, to ascertain 
whether they are underlain by strata of peat or marl, which may be used 
to cheaply fertilize their fields. A post-auger, or an old three-inch car- 
penter’s auger welded to an iron rod, will serve admirably for this kind 
of exploration. 
In most parts of Stark county the surface deposits are such as have 
been transported to greater or less distances from their places of origin, 
and it is only on the hills of the southern townships. that we find the 
soil derived from the decomposition of the underlying rocks. Numerous 
facts indicate that the county has formerly been traversed from north to 
south by a great line of drainage. This is now imperfectly represented 
by the Tuscarawas River, but it is evident that this, though a noble 
stream, is but a rivulet compared with the flood which once flowed, some- 
what in the direction it follows, from the lake basin into the Ohio. The 
records of this ancient river are seen in the deeply excavated channels, 
now filled with gravel, in the Tuscarawas valley, and between Canton 
and Massillon. In the valley of the Tuscarawas an extensive series of 
borings has been made for coal, and these have revealed the fact that 
this stream is now running far above its former bed, and that it does not 
accurately ollow the line of its ancient valley. That old valley is in 
many places filled with gravel, and is now so thoroughly obliterated as 
to give to the common observer little indication of itsexistence. A few 
facts will show, however, that this interesting feature in the surface 
geology of Stark county has a reai existence.’ The borings made for coal 
east of the present river, in Lawrence and Jackson townships, have in 
many instances been carried below the present streams without reaching 
solid rock, and heavy beds of gravel are found to occupy a broad and 
deep valley, which lies for the most part on the east side of the present 
water course. From Fulton to Millport, and thence to Massillon, many 
borings have been made, and in these, where the course of the auger was 
not arrested by bowlders, the Drift deposits have often been found to be 
more than one hundred feet in thickness. For example: two wells were 
bored by Mr. KE. Roberts, north-east of Millport. In one ‘the gravel was 
penetrated to a depth of eighty-four feet without reaching the rock; in 
the other it was found to be ninety-seven feet in thickness. On the 
farm of Gen. Beatty two wells were sunk for water, within one hundred 
yards of each other; one reached the rock at about fifty feet; the other, 
