LOGAN COUNTY. A83 
The main body of the Central valley is drained by Mad River, flowing 
southward, while the waters of the extreme northern part flow through 
Rush Creek into the Scioto, which also receives, through Mill Creek and 
the Darby’s, the drainage of the eastern edge of the county. 
The Great Miami, rising in the southern part of Hardin county, flows 
southwardly through the western half of Logan until within two and 
one-half miles of the southern boundary, and then suddenly turning to 
the west by north flows out into Shelby county. 
Scattered over the surface of the county are numerous aie lakes, or 
ponds, as Rush Creek Lake, Silver, Black, Dokes, Twin Lakes, etc. 
Several of these ponds are valuable for their ice-crop, and some furnish 
considerable numbers of fish. One, the Indian Lake, in Stokes and Rich- 
land townships, is now included in the Lewistown Reservoir, which was 
designed to collect and hold in reserve the rainfall of that region for the 
benefit of the State canals. 
Although the center has been upheaved and split in two, and time 
and the elements have fashioned the fissure into the lovely valley of 
Mad River, heading in some rugged, rocky ravines south of Wickersham’g 
Corners, yet the general surface of the county is so level, or modulates so 
gently, and the rocks are so well covered by the gravel and clays of the 
drift that the untillable land, if all collected into a body, would scarcely 
over one section. The very summits are wheat-tields, and, though now, 
in the wet beech woods of Bokes Creek and Stokes townships, the first 
clearings are being made, and log-cabins built, it will be but a very few 
years until the whole county is brought under the plow. 
SOIL AND TIMBER. 
The soil is almost entirely derived from the drift-gravel and clays. 
Although much of it is at first wet and heavy, yet, under proper drain- 
age and tillage, it proves rich and generous. 
In the valleys of the Miami and Mad Rivers, oaks and hickories pre- 
vail, but on the higher lands sugar-maples take their place, mixed with, 
and, on the fat clay lands, overpowered and driven out by, the beech. 
Tulip, or, as it 18 often called, poplar or white wood (Lariodendron tulipi- 
fera), elm, ash, sycamore, basswood, dogwood, sassafras, and other trees are 
found in large numbers, but oaks and hickories, sugar, and beech largely 
prevail and give character to the forests. 
At no time of the year is this so apparent as in the early spring, when, 
in passing from an oak region to a maple one, as in going from West 
Liberty to Zanesfield, points of view may be chosen so that the landscape 
on one side will appear bleak and bare as midwinter, while on the other 
