4.54. | GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
On this water-shed the effect of continued washing is seen in a slight 
furrowing of the surface into broad and shallow troughs, leading toward 
the drainage of Loramie Creek. Suppose that at a time when all the 
region was densely covered with forest and protected from the sun’s rays, 
the falling of a tree, or the erection of a dam by beavers should have cut 
off the passage of the water, bogs of greater or less extent and depth 
would have been formed. In these vegetation would soon flourish suited 
to'such localities—plants which flourish in and near moisture—coarse 
grasses and vines, luxuriant ferns, and particularly the sphagnous mosses 
which are known to compose so large a proportion of peat-beds. We 
can hardly conceive of the rapidity with which the accumulation of veg- 
etable material takes place in such circumstances. The remains of bea- 
ver dams are still confidently pointed out by residents there, and the 
traditions of the county are numerous, and corroborative in regard to the 
existence of these ingenious animals at a time not long antedating the 
memory of the “oldest inhabitant.” In complete confirmation of this 
general conviction, I have in my possession teeth of the beaver found in 
the county. | 
The peat is of a uniform consistence, and of a drab color, where freshly 
exposed. On the surface, where it has been drained, it is sufficiently 
decomposed to nourish the most luxuriant vegetation which I saw in the 
county—vines, grasses, briars, bushes and ferns, and, where under culti- 
vation, the finest of corn crops. The beds are purely vegetable; neither 
on the surface, nor beneath it, could there be distinguished a particle of 
earth mixed with the peat. Being about at the Summit, there was no 
source from which earth could have been washed into the forming peat. 
When dry it burns readily with a cheerful blaze and rather strong odor, 
glowing like the embers of leaves in a draft. It is not, however, used as 
fuel, on account of the great abundance of wood in that region and its 
distance from any market, and doubtless the day is remote when it will 
be in demand as fuel on account of the abundance of coal even more con- 
venient to the great markets than these beds of peat. The great pro- 
ductiveness of the porous, friable upper crust, where the beds have been 
drained, suggests a use for this material of great interest. It is contigu- 
ous to these great beds of peat that the thin, light-colored soils, so desti- 
tute of vegetable mould, abound. Here isa supply, not easily exhausted, 
of the very material which that soil needs. If these beds average ten 
feet in thickness, there is enough vegetable matter in them to cover, to 
the depth of one-half a foot, nearly ten square miles of land. I pointed 
out to Mr. William Kettler a danger which threatens the destruction of 
those beds which are perfectly drained. He has dug large trenches 
