KNOX COUNTY. 337 
Patches of the Sub-carboniferous Conglomerate are found in place in 
most of the deep ravines of Butler and Jackson. The maximum thick- 
ness observed was fifteen feet. A small patch ef the coal rocks caps some 
of the highest hills in the north part of Jefferson township, and extends 
into Ashland county, where coal is found. This coal extends into Knox 
county, and thin coal seams are found near the tops of the hills. Some 
of them have been explored and abandoned, as if furnishing no valu- 
able coal. They are probably of no value. 
Olive Shales.—The olive shales of the Waverly immediately underlie 
the Coal Conglomerate, and reach a maximum thickness of two hundred 
and fifty feet. They are composed of thin, evenly-bedded, silicious rock, 
of a yellow olive color, the layers occasionally of sufficient thickness to 
afford a fair building stone. The general homogeneous character of this 
member of the Waverly series gives a graceful outline to the hills, leaving 
no benches as the result of irregular erosion of alternations of hard and 
soft rock strata; the debris, when not covered with Drift, giving a light, 
porous soil, and, where of sufficient depth, quite productive. The porous 
mature of the soil and the abundance of small rock fragments in it 
causes it to absorb the rainfall and prevent the beauty of the slopes from, 
being marred by gullies or irregular erosion. The ordinary shelis and 
fucoids of the Waverly are disclosed here and there in these shales, but 
nothing of special interest was discovered in the way of fossils. | 
The Waverly Conglomerate —'This is continued from Richland south 
threugh the eastern part of Knox county, presenting the best exposure 
along the banks of Owl Creek near the line between Butler and Union 
townships. It apparently forms here the crest of an anticlinal, and dips 
to the east at an angle of about 25°. Further eastward is apparently 
another anticlinal, the rock dipping in opposite directions. The real 
character of these disturbances is doubtful. The massive Conglomerate 
is much broken, and borders the stream of which the old channel is 
known to be something like one hundred feet below the present bed. It 
is quite possible that all the displacement is covered by the partial 
undermining of the Waverly Conglomerate, the ancient cafion cutting 
below it and eroding the softer shales beneath, so that this heavy sand- 
rock has settled down, and this, instead of an upheaval, has curved the 
anticlinals. If we knew that this coarse, massive rock extended west- 
ward through the county, then we might be certain that the appearance 
at this point was the result of deep-rooted disturbances, for the general 
dip of the strata is eastwardly, and the rock so boldly exposed about 
Millwood does not appear in the western parts of the county, where it 
ought ie rise toward the top of the hills. But here in Richland county 
