CHAPTER LXVIII. 
REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OF LICKING COUNTY. 
BY M. C. READ. 
TOPOGRAPHY. 
The same influences which shaped the topography of Knox and Rich- 
land counties have left their impress upon that of Licking, have deter- 
mined the direction of the water-courses, and have divided the county 
into several well-marked topographical areas. A deep pre-glacial channel 
from the north enters the county a little west of the Sandusky branch of 
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, extending southward to Newark, and 
is now occupied by the northern branch of Licking River. At Newark it 
divides; one branch turning directly to the east, in the valley of Licking 
River, and one branch extending north-westerly, through what was evi- 
dently at one period a broad lake, and in which now the south branch of 
the Licking flows with a reversed current to join the main stream at 
Newark. <A smaller channel, coming from near Martinsburg, Knox 
county, passes through Eden township and the valley occupied by the 
Rocky Fork of the Licking, to its junction with the main stream. This 
channel is marked by debris of the adjacent bluffs, and:has had less influ- 
ence upon the topography of the county than the others named. The 
larger channels are now filled with water-washed pebbles, resting ordinar- 
ily upon the old rocky bed, but in places upon the remains of the original 
Drift clay, covered with alluvium, and sandy ridges marked by a succes- 
sion of terraces and corresponding water-plains. South and south-west 
of Newark these water-plains expand, covering a largearea. Borings for 
wells indicate that the rock has been here excavated to a depth corre- | 
sponding with that of the old channels, and that in the latter part of the 
