FRANKLIN COUNTY. 639 
The line of junction between the Huron and Waverly formations is 
shown with equal distinctness at several other points. On the land 
of K. Compton, adjoining the farm ofS. R. Armstrong, in Jefferson town- 
ship, in the valley of Black Lick, the contact of the two formations is 
plainly to be seen. Another of these points of contact is shown in 
Mifflin township, on the eastern bank of Big Walnut, extending through 
several miles. Still another point, at which these facts can be studied, 
is found in the bank of Rocky Fork, one mile east of Gahanna, and 
thence northward for a mile. 
More than ordinary interest attaches to this boundary. It is the di- 
viding line between two great divisions of geological time—the Devon- 
ian and the Carboniferous. The Devonian formations were mainly deep 
sea deposits, or, if great depth was not required for their origin, still 
there are but few traces of shores, or of the life of the land; but in the 
Carboniferous, all is changed. Vast regions of the old sea floor are lifted : 
up to the level, and even above the level of the sea. We see this fact in 
the first layers that were deposited. They are ripple marked. It is the 
life of the land that gives interest and value to this great division. 
A brief description of the Waverly series, as shown in Franklin county 
will now be given. It contains three well-marked element, viz., the 
Waverly shales, ten to twenty feet in thickness, the Waverly quarry 
system, certainly sixty feet and probably more, in thickness, and the 
Cleveland shale of Dr. Newberry, or the Waverly black shale of Prof- 
fessor Andrews. This last division is exposed at but one point in the 
county, so far as known, and does not attain there a thickness of more 
than fifteen feet. These can be shown in tabular form: 
FERT. 
Cleveland shales....... 15 
Waverly group of the Sub-carboniferous period.. { Waverly quarry system. 60 
Waverly shales -.... 10-20 
(a) The Waverly shales have been already briefly characterized in 
the description of the Taylor’s Station section. They consist of light 
blue or drab, non-fossiliferous clay shales. They lack the fine lamina- 
tion of the Huron. They weather more easily, so that the outcrop is 
always covered with muddy waste. This division in the counties south 
has 4 much ‘greater thickness than we find here. In Ross county, it is 
never less than sixty feet thick, and in Pike it measures ninety feet. 
As stated above, in Franklin county, it does not exceed twenty feet, and 
in one of the sections already named, it measures only eight feet. 
(0) The Waverly quarry courses can be seen to the best advantage 
on the land of §. R. Armstrong, Esq., just where the Central Ohio Rail- 
