Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 14

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

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GLACIAL MAN IN OHIO.

as is derived from the rocks of the immediate vicinity. In a limestone region the soil will have all come from the dissolution of limestone, in a sandstone re- gion from the disintegration of sandstone, and in a slatestone region from the weathering of that rock. But over a glaciated region the soil will be found to be composed of a variety of elements derived from various places in the direction from which the ice movement came. Thus in Stark, Holmes, Knox, Licking and Fairfield counties the soil will be found to be composed of a mixture of granitic fragments which have been brought all the way from Canada, limestone dug out from the bed of Lake Erie, shale gathered from the counties to the north and west, and sandstone ground up from the immediate vicinity. And these materials are not in separate layers, as when deposited by water, but are as thoroughly mixed as mortar in a hod.

Loveland

Mill Creek

Madisonville

Miam

CINCINNATI

Little

MAP OF THE EASTERN PORTION OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.

The space covered by horizontal lines is occupied by preglacial valleys, filled to a height of 100 to 200 feet above the Ohio river with modified drift. The unlined portion consists of the tableland from 200 to 500 feet above the river.

The only way in which materials could be thus collected in such situa- tions and thus thor- oughly mixed is by ice action. The ice of the glacial period as it moved over the rough surfaces to the north ground off the prominences and filled up the gorges and hollows, and we have in this unstratified mix- ture, denominated " till," what Professor Newbery called the grist of the glacier. The extent of this deposit in Ohio is enormous. In St. Paris, Champaign county, the till was penetrated more than 500 feet without finding the bed rock. This was doubtless in the filled-up gorge of a pre-glacial watercourse, of which there are a great many in the State. But the average depth of the till over the gla- ciated part of the State, as shown by the facts Professor Orton has gathered from the wells recently bored for gas, is nearly 100 feet.

(3.) The boulders, most characteristic of the gla-

ciated region of Ohio, are granitic. These are variously known in different locali- ties as boulders, hard heads and " nigger heads," and have all been brought from a great distance, and so are common, not only to the glaciated region of Ohio, but to the whole glaciated region of the States east and west of it. The granitic mountains from which these boulders must have been derived run from the northern part of New York, where they constitute the Adirondacks, through Canada to the northern shore of Lake Huron and extend westward along the south shore of Lake Superior, containing the celebrated mining districts of that region. Boulders from this range of mountains are scattered all over the re- gion which was glaciated. They are found in great abundance in the hills of Northwestern Pennsylvania, and everywhere down to the glacial line as marked

GLACIAL MAN IN OKIO.

in the accompanying map of Ohio. One near Lancaster is eighteen feet long, and about twelve feet wide and six feet out of ground. This must have been brought 500 miles. Many boulders from the northern region were also found in Boone county, Kentucky. One of these was of a well-known variety of rock containing pebbles of red jasper, found in place only to the north of Lake Huron and about the outlet of Lake Superior, and must have been carried on the ice six hundred miles to be left in its present position. Boulders also con- taining copper from the Lake Superior region have been found in Central and Southern Ohio.

If the reader doubts the possibility of such an extensive ice movement and asks, How can these things be ? it will be profitable for him to take a trip to some region where glaciers are now in operation. The Alps in Europe have heretofore furnished the favorite field for glacial study. But it was my privilege, in the summer of 1886, to spend a month beside the Muir glacier in Alaska, which comes down to the sea-level and is as large as all the glaciers of the Alps put together. Here was an ice stream two miles wide and more than a thousand feet deep, moving into the head of the inlet somewhat as cooled lava or cold mo- lasses would move and sending off great fragments to float away as icebergs. This ice originates in the snows that fall over the mountainous region to the north, and which, being too abundant to melt away, from year to year would pile up to inconceivable heights were it not for the capacity of movement which we find ice to possess. On and about this Muir glacier I have seen in operation all the processes by which a glacier makes those tracks which we have found to exist so abundantly in our own State. Miles back from the front, and miles away from any land, I have seen boulders on the surface of the ice as large as a fron- tiersman's cabin surrounded by innumerable boulders of smaller dimensions, all slowly travelling towards the front, there to be left upon the surface of the ground as the ice gradually melted away from underneath them. From the mountain peaks I could see more than a thousand square miles of territory which was completely covered by this single glacier. Were we to go to Greenland we should find a continent of more than 400,000 square miles almost completely covered by a similar moving mass of ice.

One of the necessary accompaniments of the ice age was the production of great floods at its close. As there are spring freshets now on the breaking up of winter, when the accumulated snow melts away and the ice forms gorges in thie swollen streams, so there must have been gigantic floods and ice gorges when the glacial period drew to a close. All the streams flowing out from the front of it towards the south must have had an enormous volume of water, far beyond any- thing now witnessed. Nor is this mere speculation. I am familiar with all the streams flowing south from the glacial limit between the Atlantic ocean and the Mississippi river, and can testify that without exception such streams still bear the marks of that glacial flood. What are called the terraces of the terrace epoch in geology are the results of them. These streams have, in addition to the present flood-plains, a line of terraces on each side which are from fifty to one hundred feet higher than the water now ever rises. The material of these terraces consists of coarse gravel-stones and pebbles of considerable size, showing by their size the strength of the current which rolled them along. A noticeable thing about these gravel-stones and pebbles is that many granitic fragments are found among them, showing that they must have been deposited during the glacial period, for the streams have no access to granitic rock except as the ice of the glacial period has brought it within reach. The connection of these terraces with the glacial period is further proved by the fact that those streams which rise outside. of the glaciated region,-such, for example, as the Schuylkill in Pennsylvania and the various small streams in Southeastern Ohio, do not have these terraces, and others which barely rise in the glaciated region, but do not have much of their drainage basin there,-have correspondingly small terraces and fewer granitic fragments. Such are the Hocking river and Salt creek in Hocking county and Brush creek in Adams county.

Any one living in the vicinity of any of the following streams can see for him- self the terraces of which we are speaking, especially if he observes the valleys near where they emerge from the glaciated region ; for the material which the

GLACIAL MAN IN OHIO.

water could push along was most abundant there. As one gets farther and farther away'from the old ice margin the material composing the terraces becomes smaller, because more waterworn, and the terraces diminish in size. Favor- able places in which to observe these glacial terraces are as follows : Little Beaver creek, Big Sandy creek, near Bayard, in Columbiana county ; the Nimi- shillen, below Canton, and the Tuscarawas below Navarre, in Stark county; Sugar creek, near Deardoff's Mills, in Tuscarawas county ; the Killbuck, below Millers- burg, in Holmes county ; the Mohican, near Gann, and Vernon river, near Mill- wood, in Knox county; the Licking river, below Newark, in Licking county; Rush creek, near Rushville, and the Hocking river, near Lancaster, in Fairfield county; Salt creek, near Adelphi,in Hocking county; the Sciotoriver, throughout its course, and Paint creek, near Bainbridge, in Ross county; and both the Miami rivers throughout their course. The Ohio river is also lined by these glacial terraces, which are from fifty to a hundred feet above present high-water mark. On the Ohio there are special enlargements of these terraces, where the tributaries enter it from the north, which come from the glaciated region as laid down on the map. This en- largement is noticeable be- low the mouth of the Mus- kingum in the angles of the river valley below Parkers- burg, and in the vicinity of Portsmouth near the mouth of the Scioto, and at Cincinnati below the mouth of the Little Miami, and at 3032 Lawrenceburg, Indiana, below the mouth of the Great Miami. Below the mouth of the Muskingum the terrace is 100 feet above the flood plain of the river, The palæolith here shown is natural size and is No. 3,034 of the Mortillet collection, from Abbeville, France. The geological conditions under which this was found are very similar to those of tho palæolith from Trenton N. J., and to those at Madisonville and Loveland, Ohio. and the highest part of the terrace on which old Cin- cinnati is built about the same height. Nearly all the cities along the Ohio are built on this glacial terrace.

The most interesting thing about these terraces, and what makes it proper for me in this connection to write thus fully about them, is that the earliest traces of man in the world are found in them. The accompanying cuts show two im- plements which were found in terraces such as I have been describing. The first was found at Abbeville, France, in such a terrace on the river Somme as those which occur in the valleys of Ohio. It was found in gravel that had never been disturbed, and so must have lain there ever since the glacial period, by whose floods it was buried, closed.

The second implement was found a few years ago,by Dr. Abbott in a similar gravel terrace, on which the city of Trenton, New Jersey, is built. This terrace was deposited by the Delaware river when it was swollen by glacial floods.

GLACIAL MAN IN OHIO.

In my original "Report upon the Glacial Boundary of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky," I remarked that since man was in New Jersey before the close of the glacial period, it is also probable that he was on the banks of the Ohio at the same early period ; and I asked that the extensive gravel terraces in the southern part of the State be carefully scanned by archaeologists, adding that when observers became familiar with the forms of these rude implements they would doubtless find them in abundance. As to the abundance, this prophecy has not been altogether fulfilled. But enough has been already discovered in Ohio to show that man was here at that early time when the ice of the glacial period lingered on the south side of the water partings between the lake and the Ohio river. Both at Loveland and at Madisonville, in the valley of the Little Miami, Dr. C. L. Metz, of the latter place, has found this ancient type of implements sev- eral feet below the surface of the glacial terraces bordering that stream. The one at Madisonville was found about eight feet below the surface, where the soil had not been disturbed, and it was in shape and appearance almost ex- actly like one of those found by Dr. Abbott in Trenton, N. J. These are enough to establish the fact that men, whose habits of life were much like the Eskimos, al- ready followed up the retreating ice of the great glacial period when its front was in the latitude of Trenton and Cincinnati, as they now do when it has retreated to Greenland. Very likely the Eskimos are the descendants of that early race in Ohio.

In addition to the other con- ditions which were similar, it is found that the animals which roamed over this region were much like those which now are found in the far north. Bones of the walrus and the musk ox and the mastodon have been found in the vicinity of these implements of early man in New Jersey, and those of the mastodon were dug from the same gravel-pit in Love- land from which the imple- ment found in that place was taken.

This palæolith is shortened one inch in the cut and is proportionately narrow, the original being 5 6-8 inches long and 8 1-8 wide. This is No. 19,723, in Dr. Abbott's collection from Trenton, N. J. The Mortillet and Trenton collections are both in the Archaeological Museum, in Cam- bridge, Mass., where these specimens can at any time be seen.

Having been able thus tc associate our ancestors with the closing scenes of the glacial period, new interest at once attaches itself to glacial studies, and especially to glacial chronology. For if we can tell how long it is since the ice of the glacial period withdrew from the northern slope of the Ohio basin, we have done much towards settling the date of man's appearance here. How then shall we determine the date of the close of the glacial period? This we cannot hope to do with great accuracy, but we can do something even here in Ohio towards the solution of that most interesting problem of man's antiquity.

GLACIAL MAN IN OHIO.

(1.) In the first place many streams are so situated that we can measure the work they have done since the glacial period, and also can form some idea of the rate at which they are at work. The gorge in Niagara river below the falls has long been a favorite place from which to get these measurements. This gorge is only about seven miles long-that being the distance from Queenston to the Falls. The gorge is throughout in limestone strata of pretty uniform hardness, and represents the work done by the river at that point since the glacial period. This we know from several signs. Before the glacial period Lake Erie did not exist. In the long geological periods which had elapsed before the glacial age, a channel had been worn clear back from Lake On- ATEDIREGIO tario to Lake Erie, as will RAINE TERMINAL MO be the case with the pres- ent river if only time enough is given it. In short, Lake Erie is only a glacial mill-pond. The old outlet was filled up by the glacial deposits which we have described HEASTON so that the water had to seek a new outlet, which happened to be along the course of the present Niagara river. Confirma- PENN. TRENTON PHILA, NEW JER tory evidence of this is found at Cleveland and . for many miles up the valley of the Cuyahoga river, as well as in many other streams of Northern Ohio. In boring for oil in the bed of the Cuyahoga a few years ago, it was found that the old rocky bottom is 200 feet below the present bottom of the river. This means that at one time Lake Erie was DEL. Scale of Miles. 200 feet lower than now. But the lake is for the most part less than 200 20 30 feet deep, so that if there were an outlet, as there 40 must have been, at that lower level, the lake itself must have disappeared, and there was only a This plate (taken from "Studies in Science and Religion ") shows, in addition to the glaciated area of New Jersey, the glacial terraces of gravel along the Lehigh and Delaware rivers, and also the delta-terrace at Trenton, from which Dr. C. C. Abbott has taken palæolithic implements. stream with a broad, fer- tile valley where the lake is now. Thus we prove that the Niagara gorge represents the work of erosion done by the river since the glacial period. The next problem is to ascertain how fast the river is wearing back the gorge.

That the gorge is receding is evident from the occasional reports heard of por- tions of the shelving rocks falling beneath the weight of water constantly pour- ing over them. If a continual dropping wear a stone, what must not such a torrent of water do? From measurements made between forty and fifty years ago and others repeated within the last few years, it has been ascertained that the falls are receding. The recent surveys of the government show that during the last forty-five years very nearly six acres of rock surface have broken off from

GLACIAL MAN IN OHIO.

the verge of the falls, making an average annual recession of about two and a half feet per year for the last forty-five years. Making allowances for portions of the work which had been done before the glacial period by smaller stream in the same channel, and for some other facts which there is not time here to men- tion, Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the United States Geological Survey, concludes that the falls of Niagara cannot be more than 7,000 years old. This brings the glacial period much nearer than was formerly supposed.

But there are many things in our own State which go to confirm this calcula- tion. The citizens of Ohio have not to go out of their own boundaries to find facts helping to solve the question of man's antiquity. Nearly all the rivers emptying into Lake Erie have somewhere in their courses cataracts which can serve as chronometers of the glacial period. In the most of these cases it is pos- sible to ascertain what part of the channel is pre-glacial and what post-glacial, and to form some estimate of the rate of recession. This can be done on the Chagrin, the Cuyahoga, Rocky, and Black rivers, and probably on some others. Let the young students of the State attack these problems before going abroad for great fields of discovery.

LAKE ONTARIO

ø St. David:

Queenston

Falls.

gara River, from.Lake. Onturia to the

Section of the strata along the Nia.

PRE-GLACIAL CHANNEL

Queenston

WHIRLPOOL

Whirlpool

FALLS OF NIAGARA

In the central and southern part of the State the problems are equally inter- esting. Since the glacial period the streams have been constantly at work enlarging their channels. How much have they enlarged them, and what is the rate of enlargement ? These are definite problems appealing for solution on nearly all the tributaries of Ohio. Professor Hicks, of Granville College, set a good example in this line of investigation a few years ago. Raccoon creek, in Licking county, is bordered by terraces throughout its course. These are what we have described as glacial terraces, and are about fifty feet above the present flood plain of the stream. It is evident that at the close of the glacial period the valley was filled up to that level with pebbles and gravel, and that since that period the stream has been at work enlarging its channel until now it has removed gravel to the amount that would fill the valley up to the level of these terraces and across the whole space. Multiply this height, fifty feet, by the breadth from which the material has been removed, and that by the length of the stream, and make allowance for the diminution of the valley as the head- waters are approached, and you will have the cubical contents of the material

GLACIAL MAN IN OHIO.

removed by the stream since it began its work at the close of the glacial period. This is the dividend. Then find out how much mud and sand the stream is car- rying out : this will be your divisor. It cannot be far from 10,000 years old. The result in the case of Raccoon Creek was not materially different from the calculations concerning Niagara Falls. I have made a similar calculation con- cerning the age of Plum Creek in Oberlin, and the result is likewise to show that the glacial period cannot have been so long ago as was formerly supposed. If the glacial period closed much more than 8,000 or 10,000 years ago in Northern Ohio, the valleys of the post-glacial streams would be much larger than they really are. Again I say let the young investigators of the State attack the chro- nological problems offered by the streams in their own vicinity before sighing for other realms of science to conquer.

In conclusion, then, we may say it is not so startling a statement as it once was to speak of man as belonging to the glacial period. And with the recent discoveries of Dr. Metz, we may begin to speak of our own State as one of the earliest por- tions of the globe to become inhabited. Ages before the mound builders erected their complicated and stately structures in the valleys of the Licking, the Scioto, the Miami and the Ohio, man in a more primitive state had hunted and fished with rude implements in some portions at least of the southern part of the State.

To have lived in such a time, and to have successfully overcome the hardships of that climate and the fierceness of the animal life, must have called for an amount of physical energy and practical skill which few of this generation possess.

Let us not therefore speak of such a people as inferior. They must, therefore, have had all the native powers of humanity fully developed, and are worthy ancestors of succeeding races.

The recent discoveries of Dr. Metz, above alluded to by Prof. Wright, are described in full by an article communicated to me which will be found on page 20, Vol. II., of this work ; also on page 18, Vol. II., some valuable facts from Wright's " Ice Age in North America," with a map of Lake Ohio, formed by a glacial dam at Cincinnati. This lake extended up the valley to beyond Pittsburgh, and occupied an area of 20,000 square miles, equal to half that of Ohio.

Under the head of " Paleolithic Man in Ohio," Vol. III., page 365, is an article detailing a discovery of Mr. W. C. Mills, made in October, 1889, in the Tuscarawas Valley, identical with those of Dr. Metz in the Little Miami Valley. --- H. H.

HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE IN OHIO.

By NORTON S. TOWNSHEND, M. D.,

Professor of Agriculture and Veterinary Science in the Ohio State University

NORTON STRANGE TOWNSHEND was born at Clay Coaton, Northamptonshire, England, December 25, 1815. His parents came to Ohio and settled upon a farm in Avon, Lorain county, in 1830. Busy with farm work, he found no time to attend school, but in leisure hours made good use of his father's small library.

He early took an active part in the temper- ance and anti-slavery reforms, and for some time was superintendent of a Sunday-school in his neighborhood. In 1836 he taught the district school, and in 1837 commenced the study of medicine with Dr. R. L. Howard, of Elyria. The winter of the same year was spent in attending medical lectures at Cincin- nati Medical College. Returning to Elyria he applied himself to medical studies with Dr. Howard and to Latin, Greek and French with other teachers. In the winter of 1839 he was a student at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, spending what time he could command as voluntary assistant in the chemical laboratory of Professor John Torry. In March, 1840, he received the de- gree of M. D. from the University of the State of New York, of which the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons was then a department. Proposing to spend a year or more in a visit to MUSSENA SONY European hospitals, the Temperance Society of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, requested him to carry the greeting NORTON S. TOWNSHEND. of that hody to similar societies on the other side of the Atlantic. This afforded him an opportunity to make the acquaintance of many well-known temperance men.

The Anti-slavery Society of the State of Ohio also made him their delegate to the World's Anti- slavery Convention of June, 1840, in London, Eng. This enabled him to see and hear distinguished anti- slavery men from different countries. He then visited Paris and remained through the summer and autumn, seeing practice in the hospitals and taking private lessons in operative surgery, auscultation, etc. The next winter was passed in Edinburgh and the spring in Dublin.

In 1841 he returned to Ohio and commenced the practice of medicine, first in Avon and afterwards in Elyria. In 1848 he was elected to the Legislature by the anti-slavery men of Lorain county and took an active part in securing the repeal of the Black Laws of Ohio and in the election of S. P. Chase to the United States Senate.

The Black Laws of Ohio covered three points. 1. The settlement of black or mulatto persons in Ohio was prohibited unless they could show a certificate of their freedom and obtain two freeholders to give security for their good behavior and maintenance in the event of their becoming a public charge. Unless this certificate of freedom was duly recorded and produced it was a penal offence to give employment to a black or mulatto.

2. They were excluded from the common schools.

3. No black or mulatto could be sworn or allowed to testify in any court in any case where a white person was concerned.

In 1850 Dr. Townshend was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention and in the same year to the Thirty-second Congress.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 14

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006